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Some of you may (or most likely, may not) have read my previous thread regarding my goal of starting a D&D campaign with my wife and 2 kids (10 & 7). But it occurred to me that I should probably break them in a little bit first rather than jump straight in the deep end. After all, D&D requires quite a healthy imagination and the mind's eye and it is no good asking kids to envisage a dwarf, an elf or indeed, a dungeon if they don't really have a good grasp on what one is.

My weakness: I am much more of a collector than a gamer; or rather, I am a frustrated gamer - I have a bunch of games that I want to play but often little time, inclination or warm bodies to play with. So I have accrued quite a stack of board games to play, notwithstanding the tabletop miniatures games that I also want to play. I figured I should start making one night a week, a dedicated time for us to sit down and play a game together rather than gawping at ipads or drinking wine in my case. After all, what's the purpose of having kids if you can't indoctrinate them into becoming mini-geeks too?

So having gone through the gaming den this afternoon, I have come up with a list of available games. Obviously, some of these won't be suitable immediately.

The games

Gloomhaven

Blackstone Fortress

Dungeon Saga & expansions

Heroquest + some expansions

Space Crusade

Advanced Heroquest

Catan

Ticket To Ride

Carcassonne

Game of Thrones Board Game

Fallout: The Board Game

Relic

Talisman

Incursion

Terraforming Mars

Mage Knight

Devil's Run: Route 666

Space Hulk

Game of Thrones Risk

They have already played some of these - we have played Heroquest once, Carcassonne a few times and Ticket to Ride once so some traction has been made. I just wondered if the elder brain here had any thoughts or opinions about where to start, any tips/tricks? I am looking for that gateway game drug to really get them hooked, to get the imaginative juices flowing and so forth so that the first foray into D&D isn't a complete, cold water shock if you get my meaning.

Instead of games to get them warmed up for DnD I would recommend movies.

Do movie nights and watch Willow, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Krull, Labyrinth, Clash of the Titans, etc etc...

Instead of trying to get them used to the idea of the mechanics of DnD, you should be getting them invested in the IDEA of DnD by telling them they can be these people and go on these adventures. The rules for how they do it is just a tool to for players to put their imaginations down on the table together. The movies will get them in the actual head space to prime their imaginations.

Also, after watching a few of them you can ask them what they liked or didn't like about the different movies and get an idea of what kinds of adventures they would be most invested in.

Don't forget Dark Crystal, Legend and Black Cauldron! And that better be the magical original Clash of the Titans - not the new one

Indeed, the *ideas* of playing an RPG are usually inspired by stories. I started reading Terry Brooks’ Shanara series when I was... 10-ish? Then came Hero Quest and the rest is history.

I think a strong motivating factor is the, “What would I do if...” and the spark, for me, was reading / watching fantasy novels / movies. Once they’re hooked, you won’t be able to stop them from wanting to play.

All good points so far, thank you. I do concede the value of films as motivation to act out fantasy although I do seem to recall the kids squirming through all 3 or so hours of each LoTR films

My current thinking so far is to begin with Heroquest as that seems a natural gateway and starting point and mix it up with some of the other, simpler to play games for each gaming night.

My family played a story telling game to get us into it. My daughter was between 5 and 7 at the time. Everyone basically drew a stick figure, gave them three drawn characteristics (i.e. eyes, hair, and big hands) to represent inbuilt abilities, and three props. I set the scene, and they started to tell the story as their "characters". If their action had something to do with their props or abilities, they typically got to do it, unless it was really hard. If it didn't we played paper-rock-scissors to determine outcome, winner gets to narrate.

Super simple, and got them into the idea of telling stories and role-playing. We then graduated eventually to a Shadowrun -lite style system, Star Wars 2nd Edition, and now they play D&D 5E. My daughter actually DMs for her own friends, as well as being a player with a second group. There is some talk about joining a third group.

I guess all the improve training was fun enough for her to keep wanting to do RPG type stuff. Next step is to get them to play RPGs that aren't always generic Fantasy based!


RE: Heroquest helped me suck in so many people to RPGs and Gaming..... great idea!

Game night Saturday has been going well so far. Two games of HeroQuest and Space Crusade last night was warmly received.

Already onto planning next week's game. I have had to rule out Terraforming Mars and Mage Knight for the time being as I think they are potentially a little too complicated.

I am thinking of Devil's Run - that is fairly straightforward I believe. Either that or a change of pace and maybe play Dark Deeds, which is a card game.

Good to hear.

We just played Monster of the Week as an RPG. It was good fun and very easy to wrap your head around as it is much more narrative based than mechanics based. I would call it rules-lite, to use a buzzword.

We had three new gamers, and they took to it very quickly.

I've been thinking of the RPG Hero Kids to break in my two children.

If the kids are very young i have seen the game No Thank You, Evil!

AegisGrimm wrote:I've been thinking of the RPG Hero Kids to break in my two children.

Lance845 wrote:If the kids are very young i have seen the game No Thank You, Evil!

Yes, I will look into some introductory RPGs to ease them into the process a little rather than jumping full-bore into D&D. It's not so much that I think they will struggle with the mechanics (as 5e D&D seems fairly 'easy' to learn rules-wise, IMO from what I have seen) but rather that they have never played an RPG before and so may need a gentle break-in session to get to grips with role playing and exercising their imaginations in general.

One of the things this has flagged thus far is the fact that a lot of the games I have are perhaps slightly too complicated or advanced. My kids are not quite old enough to jump straight into complicated mechanics like Talisman or Relic just yet, i don't think.

I've got No Thank You Evil, but we haven't got round to playing it. My kids may have slightly outgrown it now, to be honest.

It's very simple, but can scale slightly per player with how complex you want it to be, and also encourages working together.

Decided to forgo complication and make a speedy Amazon delivery.

Tomorrow's game night will be Munchkin.

Do your people understand that the point of Munchkin isn’t to win, but to make everyone else lose?

My family did not appreciate the nuance.

I have at least 3 friends I can’t play Munchkin with unless I want drama.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I have at least 3 friends I can’t play Munchkin with unless I want drama.

I once played Munchkin with my sister and her husband and it ended really nasty, my sister was so pissed she left the room yelling at us

Yeah, you gotta have to accept that other people are gak, and be the same

I once had a game were I wanted to have some footwear another player owned, very badly, I haggled with him for rounds and he was just never willing to give them to me.

Finally, we had come to an agreement, we exchanged items, I put on my new footwear happily, when with a smeary grin he played "Curse! Lose your footwear"

Munchkin - building character in people as they try to build characters since 2000or something.

Munchkin - destroying peoples' character, while they try to build up their character... to destroy other peoples' characters... since whenev's.

Munchkin would be the end of my family much less family gaming.

Hey, Filbert! I assume you were murdered by your kin?

 greatbigtree wrote:
Hey, Filbert! I assume you were murdered by your kin?

Not yet, the Munchkin delivery from Amazon arrived late in the day and with little time to read and digest the rules, we put off playing it until this Saturday. I managed to find a website with a printable Munchkin flowchart that should help with absorbing the rules as well.

Update on this long ago thread, just got a game called Kohaku - a;; about fashioning a Koi pond from acrylic tiles. Really nice, slow paced, almost zen-like game plus the components are superb too. I really like it - one of those games that is simple to play, yet difficult to master. The kids enjoyed it too and found it easy to pick up. Will definitely play again!