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 Smacks wrote:
Of course, it's a wonderful thing for kids. I don't know why people feel the need to rob their children of amazing and magical stories, all in the name of "protecting" them from some imagined harm. It really does make me sad when I read about parents stopping their kids from watching things like Star Wars and Goonies, and restrict them to patronizing tosh.

When I was a kid, no one really paid too much attention to what I was watching. My grandmother would rent me whatever I handed her in the video store (as she didn't know any better). I used to love hyper violent films like Robocop and Conan, and they never did me a bit of harm. If I'm honest, the 'adult-themed' parts weren't really of interest to me, so I barely even noticed them.

I actually wish I could go back and watch more stuff as a child. Horror movies, and low budget fantasy films are completely wasted on adults. All I can see now is crappy rubber masks and wooden acting. But as a kid it was all real, I miss that.

I don't think there is anything especially harmful in 40k, and kids will probably enjoy the fluff much more than discerning adults.

I agree one hundred percent! The Game itself is absolutely fine. The people who play it are what makes it horrible on occasion.

I researched quite hard and in depth before I allowed my daughter to enter into this journey with me. she picked Tau, which is what I wanted her to pick (Thank you reverse psychology) The greater good is the way to go. I picked CSM and it actually works out perfect. Lore wise, if you have kids read it first. Its called being a parent. Thats a parental responsibility. As for Conan, I have seen it probably 100 times since it came out and I tell you, nothing is more awesome than swinging a sword around as a kid yelling "Kromb". I have a career, 3 Daughters and a wife. I don't think I turned out horribly minus the 3 years deployed. Thats a whole different story that cant be blamed on WH40K.

In short, let them play. When in doubt read it first. Know your kid. You are a leader, and thats what leaders do. Codex fluff of current is usually ok enough for 12+.


Now on to the sexist issues: I have 3 daughters. I love them more than anything in this world. A stripper land raider in a store where children come in is not in any way appropriate. Do I talk bad about women in front of them, absolutely not. I have a moral responsibility to show them that they are equals.

I am also a man. I like women and I didn't get 3 daughters because I stared real hard at thier mother and wished them into existance. If I was single tomorrow I would be out hounding around, and possibily frequenting the type of places that have real poles for dancing in them. does that make me bad? Does that make me a bad father? I would argue no. My oldest is well balanced, makes straight As in honors classes and will probably live a better life than I have(I hope). What I know is I appreciate a good joke and the female form as much as any man. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT, NO MATTER WHAT ANY CRAZY LIBERAL IDIOT SAYS! There is something wrong with defacing women and debasing them to make them less than equal. No woman around me in a Game Shop would be treated horribly. But she would get hit on. After she says now, leave me alone, that is when the line starts to get crossed. Not before. Just my 2 cents as a father of 3 daughters.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
After lurking in another thread about tasteless models, a thought occurred to me: is 40k really a kids game? The models and lore, while occasionally silly, read more like a version of Heavy Metal or Akira. There are kids who come to play at my LGS, but most of them are fourteen or older. What do you guys think? Should there be an age limit on games like this, or do you think everyone should be welcome?

I bet you're talking about the stripper landraider.

Tasteless, vulgar, and discouraging for anyone not a complete pervert that wants to enter this hobby.

Most of the lore and books are easily PG-13. It's a bit sexist as an understatement. Fans just take it too far.

I think that's a bit much. Sure, tasteless, crass, and a bit sexist I could see, but I would HARDLY call people who think its cool looking perverts.

I think its because he is a bit of a hypocrite because if if he thinks that is perverted then this http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2014/8/14/638641_md-.jpg hits pretty close to what he calls perverted, which is one of his models.

 Ustrello wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
After lurking in another thread about tasteless models, a thought occurred to me: is 40k really a kids game? The models and lore, while occasionally silly, read more like a version of Heavy Metal or Akira. There are kids who come to play at my LGS, but most of them are fourteen or older. What do you guys think? Should there be an age limit on games like this, or do you think everyone should be welcome?

I bet you're talking about the stripper landraider.

Tasteless, vulgar, and discouraging for anyone not a complete pervert that wants to enter this hobby.

Most of the lore and books are easily PG-13. It's a bit sexist as an understatement. Fans just take it too far.

I think that's a bit much. Sure, tasteless, crass, and a bit sexist I could see, but I would HARDLY call people who think its cool looking perverts.

I think its because he is a bit of a hypocrite because if if he thinks that is perverted then this http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2014/8/14/638641_md-.jpg hits pretty close to what he calls perverted, which is one of his models.

wow, oh snap.

Kids aren't innocent blameless unicorns, and unless you homeschool yours and keep them locked up in the basement the rest of the time they're gonna absorb most of the basics just from friends and tv. Like penises and vaginas and skulls exploding when they get shot and people dying when they're dead. Watching the evening news is more horrific than all the goofy robot men and bikini elves and miniature skulls you can heap up.

Actually playing this game with weirdos at a gaming store? I'd be a little leery about that. There's plenty of people in the hobby that should have a big 21+ sticker on their forehead with surgeon general warnings of excessive odor and terrible opinions.

Plus, I think this whole thing can sort of be seen as similar to other kinds of issues, like sex ed or drugs. If your strategy is to shield your kids from "bad" things, they are doing to wind up getting fethed up when they come across them in the real world. It's why abstinance-only sex education has, on repeated empirical study, been shown to lead to HIGHER rates of teen pregnancy, not lower.

Likewise, not showing up to the game store with one's daughter because there was a miniature slutmobile is not going to have any negative correlation with the girl becoming a stripper.

It's those people who have a messed up understanding of sexuality or violence or drug use that wind up causing problems with those things. The kind of messed up understanding that can come from many places, including parents trying to pretend like the truth doesn't exist.

Badablack wrote:Actually playing this game with weirdos at a gaming store? I'd be a little leery about that. There's plenty of people in the hobby that should have a big 21+ sticker on their forehead with surgeon general warnings of excessive odor and terrible opinions.

lol



I wish I could say that none of that has ever applied to any of the players at my FLGS, but I have definitely seen at least a few shirts doffed in my day. Thankfully a vast majority of adult humor would just sail over the kids' heads.

Guess they have to find out sometime why it's funny, though.

 Pyeatt wrote:
...daemonculaba... shudder


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ustrello wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:
You're entitled to your opinion.

http://space-wolves-grey.blogspot.com/2012/12/why-girls-dont-play-40k.html
http://www.3plusplus.net/2012/12/why-are-there-no-girl-wargamers/
http://www.chickhammer.com/2012/06/experiences-as-lady-in-wargaming.html?m=1

Granted these posts are focused on women, and that's a bit out of topic. But a hostile environment is a hostile environment.

Ah yes ignore the fact that you called everyone who thought the model was cool was a pervert and nothing more than that.

I stand by my statement that the image of that particular model was vulgar, cheap, and discouraging to any adult who wants to bring their kids to the store, and that people who really liked the model likely are perverted with low regard for women.

To say that that painter is talented is similar to complimenting a skillful animated porn artist.

YES! Feed the hate! The chaos god are happy with this one.

I personally hate seeing snot nosed brats running around hobby shops... I like kids, but around delicate miniatures, young kids are a hazard. I remember this one kid just reached up to a table of RC cars and picked up a $300 Kyosho RC. After a moment of mock playing with it and dragging it across the floor, the parent tried to stop him and the kid bolted, tripped and landed on top of the RC crushing it... A sad day, glad it wasn't me.

Side Note: Anime artists, in general, are talented. I animated some flash videos and it is difficult time consuming work. Re-asses your way of thinking pal.

Tau are good. Read Tau. Now.

That is all.

 Pyeatt wrote:
...daemonculaba... shudder


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ustrello wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:
You're entitled to your opinion.

http://space-wolves-grey.blogspot.com/2012/12/why-girls-dont-play-40k.html
http://www.3plusplus.net/2012/12/why-are-there-no-girl-wargamers/
http://www.chickhammer.com/2012/06/experiences-as-lady-in-wargaming.html?m=1

Granted these posts are focused on women, and that's a bit out of topic. But a hostile environment is a hostile environment.

Ah yes ignore the fact that you called everyone who thought the model was cool was a pervert and nothing more than that.

I stand by my statement that the image of that particular model was vulgar, cheap, and discouraging to any adult who wants to bring their kids to the store, and that people who really liked the model likely are perverted with low regard for women.

To say that that painter is talented is similar to complimenting a skillful animated porn artist.

A skillful animated porn artist is still a skillful artist. You might not like the content, and that's your right, but don't act like there's anything that separates the talents and skill of an erotic artist from those of a non-erotic artist. Milo Manara has a longer-running career, and is a truer artist, than Thomas Kinkade. Straight, Gay, Lesbian, Transsexual... there's porn for everyone (except snuff films. Those don't actually exist. Believe me, the FBI has been trying to find one for 60 years, and have been unable to.). It is the true reason for the commercial development of the internet, and is what continues to drive faster internet speeds, better video compression rates, and improvements in graphic card technology. MMOs? Distant runners to the juggernaut of Business that is Pornography... to the tune of $8bn annually against $14+bn a year. Blizzard ain't got nothin' on Playboy.

In fact, fantasy gaming and fiction, and by extension 40K, is pretty well defined by decades of cheesecake and beefcake art.... and pornography is just basically another kind of fantasy fiction. Fantasy fiction has long depicted human sexuality in a variety of guises, some rather overt, and in ways and manners that often fall outside societal norms. That is, basically, one of the functions of the genre, to question what society values, and why, and to explore societies that live differently than we do. While 40K has moved away from this concept in recent years, it's still very much there, in its form of dystopian satire, where there's a god, specifically, of "Pleasure, Vice and Perversion"... and also a satirization of the Catholic Church at its Dark Ages power-level, and hints of sexual shenanigans going on behind the scenes, as if ripped from today's headlines (and, historically with 40K, not even hidden... the Sisters of Battle were known as the Brides of the Emperor under Vandire, and he used them, and loaned them out as, his sex slaves).

Do I think you should expose children to porn? Of course not. They'll find it on their own easily enough when they get old enough to be interested in watching other people doin' it. Of course, there's nothing pornographic about that tank... two naked women in cages is not porn (might be exploitative, perhaps, but that's a much bigger grey area, and requires much more than a static image to decide).

 Paradigm wrote:
With most of 40k, there's enough vagueness t background and setting that you can make of it what you will. You can look at or as utterly grim dark, emotionally futile and rather horrific, or you can take it as written which is no more unpleasant than most kids/teen fiction these days.

well if you are cool with opening your kids to blood,war,violence,torture,mayhem, then sure its friendly...me i'm not biased nor will i shelter my kids, the whole idea that "sheltering kids from bad things" is pure crap..i grew up unsheltered, my parents let me learn what and see what i wanted(obviously to some limits) and i'm perfectly fine, i'm just like everybody else in the world, i go to work,pay bills, cook, clean and so fourth...but i think the open childhood has left me open minded and more tolerent to many things

The only way to teach tolerance is to teach openness.

Some people are strongly opposed to teaching tolerance.

After all, only evil people tolerate sexual differences.

No, I'm not personally open/polyamorous. I have my closed family unit and that is it. But I am tolerant!

Superficially, it is (codex, rulebook and such).

When the kid start to grown up, its up to him to search for additional fluff, and start to go into the real grim darkness of 40k.

Particularly,im not a kid, and im just now goying into the novels, and only now i understand what make 40k so grimdark after all.

Not sure its sheltering when you stop them from viewing violence as "fine". Recent events have accelerated our society wide intolerance for it.

But this ias the land of make beleive and as we grow older and can more easily discern things, i think it's easier to introduce the ideas. I was a jaded youth, grew up in a house of totally morally corrupt people and hated every second of my life until IO was able to get away from it. But I had parents who "wouldnt shelter me" also and I have not thanked them for it one day in my life.

So like i said: I tell him they are the bad guys and leave it at that.

It is clearly not intended for kids. The universe, even nowadays, isn't in "Black and White". There are many grey areas everywhere, even in what you would like to call "the good guys". Many things are quite deep if you think a bit about it.

The game itself isn't so simple as well. Rules are heavy and not so intuitive for a new player. Playing a game takes a lot of time as well (comparing to other games in general, I mean). It is also very specific - kids who play usually play against older people. It's not so common to see them play with people with the same age.

It is more about the people who have "the plastic soldier gene". There is no true age, but it is more about teens at the very least. Younger children can play, of course, depending of the education, the maturity and if they like to play with "plastic soldiers"...but it's more an exception than the main rule and they tend not to really use the game rules (it's more about actually playing with toy soldiers or rolling dices without caring about what it means in the rules). Usually, kids don't have the needed focus for such a "time eater" hobby like Warhammer Battle or 40k.

Jancoran wrote:Not sure its sheltering when you stop them from viewing violence as "fine". Recent events have accelerated our society wide intolerance for it.

There's a difference between exposure and endorsement.

It's the people who have had no experience, no training, no prior understanding of something that have problems with it. They have no choice but to brute-force their way through it manually. If you know literally nothing about sex, you're going to have to learn everything by trial and error. You're going to learn everything the hard way. And by hard, I mean stupid.

Same thing for everything else. If you want to avoid the prohibition paradox, you've got to expose and educate, not pretend that something is always bad and you should never even know about it or think about it ever la la la.

Plus, there is a great deal of philosophy with regards to exactly the conditions in which violence is "fine". Not everybody agrees that violence is never justified ever on any occasion.

The game mechanics itself are fine and easy to learn for children. The level of violence in the game is very low compared to computer-games.

The fluff consists mainly of teen and young adult pulp: empowerment fantasies dipped in a horror sauce. Not suited for the very youngest readers but fine for everyone else.

If you turned 40 into a movie and did it right, it would be rated R.

The space marine game was rated M after all.

Saying it's for kids is sugar coating it.

 Lockark wrote:
If you turned 40 into a movie and did it right, it would be rated R.

The space marine game was rated M after all.

Saying it's for kids is sugar coating it.

Funny because half the "gore" was just giant red blobs. Seriously, they could have gone a lot farther with the gore in my eyes. Manhunt had the same level of gore, yet felt WAY more adult due to the tone of the game, compared to the rambo-esque Space Marine

 Ailaros wrote:

Jancoran wrote:Not sure its sheltering when you stop them from viewing violence as "fine". Recent events have accelerated our society wide intolerance for it.

There's a difference between exposure and endorsement.

It's the people who have had no experience, no training, no prior understanding of something that have problems with it. They have no choice but to brute-force their way through it manually. If you know literally nothing about sex, you're going to have to learn everything by trial and error. You're going to learn everything the hard way. And by hard, I mean stupid.

Same thing for everything else. If you want to avoid the prohibition paradox, you've got to expose and educate, not pretend that something is always bad and you should never even know about it or think about it ever la la la.

Plus, there is a great deal of philosophy with regards to exactly the conditions in which violence is "fine". Not everybody agrees that violence is never justified ever on any occasion.

I wont tell anyone else how to handle their kids i guess but EXPOSURE is endorsement. At certain ages, ignorance is absolutely bliss and where that line is will differ.

for me, I dont think a 10 year old really is going to make good enough distinctions to be trusted with all the knowledge on the games fluff. they are already active, impetuous and they like to cling to things that sound good instead of good sound reasons. and in a couple years, once he has a little more stable moral foundation and is more intentional in his choices, I'll say "sure, cant coddle em forever". But for now i can and being the bad guys is all he's being told. He's watched enough cartoons to know what bad guys are without having to get into the intimate and disturbing things that the Grimdark features in places.

The game is absolutely fine for the 10+ crowd. The fluff? Depends on what faction and what era.

Like anything else, though, what the fans bring to it can run the gamut from G-rated to triple-X. Much like MMOs and fan-made mods in that respect, I suppose.

I remember being 11 years old and reading the fluff excerpts from the 2nd edition rulebooks over and over. In particular, I remember one about a Chaos Lord entering some kind of meditative trance to preserve a particularly tasty memory (which I'm pretty sure was crushing someone's throat with his tentacle-arms).

The fluff was all very dark, but I don't remember being particularly disturbed by it. I feel like the 40k Universe is very "cartoony"- yes there's a lot of violence, but it feels very far removed from reality, and all the participants kind of have an equal share. A game involves two factions of brave warriors duking it out.

A lot of video games, in contrast, deal a lot with the killing of unarmed civilians. Heck, that's most of the FUN in some games. I'd much rather have my kid playing Chaos than Grand Theft Auto.

It appears to me that the 40k Hobby has 3 aspects to consider when exposing children to it. First there is the modelling aspect, the assembly and painting of the models themselves. Secondly, there is the tabletop wargaming aspect, taking care of handling the models and knowing the rules to play the game. And Thirdly, there is the accompanying fiction that goes along with the 40K universe.

The modelling aspect is roughly 12+ age wise. But exceptions will be made concerning the child's natural aptitude and maturity levels while handling the tools/materials used for assembly and painting models. As has been pointed out in another thread, if fully grown adults can injure themselves while working on their model of choice. It should be up to the parent to decide how much guidance their child should receive when assembling and painting models.

As to the actual wargamming aspect of the game. This comes down to maturity and intellect of the child. No one wants to play with a spastic 6 year old who tosses the models around. Not when we put in all the hours to paint and assemble them in the first place. The actual gaming side of knowing the rules, can be spoon-fed as the child can handle the material in question. As the kid gets more used to the rules and starts to memorize them, he gains better comprehension from the more exposure to the rules.

In regards towards the fiction/art of the hobby, that is up to the parent to preview before deciding whether or not to expose their child to it. But that goes for any form of literature or artwork. It is to the parent to decide what is acceptable and what is not for their child/children.

 Ustrello wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
After lurking in another thread about tasteless models, a thought occurred to me: is 40k really a kids game? The models and lore, while occasionally silly, read more like a version of Heavy Metal or Akira. There are kids who come to play at my LGS, but most of them are fourteen or older. What do you guys think? Should there be an age limit on games like this, or do you think everyone should be welcome?

I bet you're talking about the stripper landraider.

Tasteless, vulgar, and discouraging for anyone not a complete pervert that wants to enter this hobby.

Most of the lore and books are easily PG-13. It's a bit sexist as an understatement. Fans just take it too far.

I think that's a bit much. Sure, tasteless, crass, and a bit sexist I could see, but I would HARDLY call people who think its cool looking perverts.

I think its because he is a bit of a hypocrite because if if he thinks that is perverted then this http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2014/8/14/638641_md-.jpg hits pretty close to what he calls perverted, which is one of his models.

Funny that it has been deleted and he's gone strangely silent.

Like any game, without going deep in the narrative fiction weeds, the game is fine for kids of stable maturity with good role models to give them guidance. Putting an age limit on it is like putting a universal beer threshold on drunk; the results are ill fitting and do not reflect reality.

 gunslingerpro wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
After lurking in another thread about tasteless models, a thought occurred to me: is 40k really a kids game? The models and lore, while occasionally silly, read more like a version of Heavy Metal or Akira. There are kids who come to play at my LGS, but most of them are fourteen or older. What do you guys think? Should there be an age limit on games like this, or do you think everyone should be welcome?

I bet you're talking about the stripper landraider.

Tasteless, vulgar, and discouraging for anyone not a complete pervert that wants to enter this hobby.

Most of the lore and books are easily PG-13. It's a bit sexist as an understatement. Fans just take it too far.

I think that's a bit much. Sure, tasteless, crass, and a bit sexist I could see, but I would HARDLY call people who think its cool looking perverts.

I think its because he is a bit of a hypocrite because if if he thinks that is perverted then this http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2014/8/14/638641_md-.jpg hits pretty close to what he calls perverted, which is one of his models.

Funny that it has been deleted and he's gone strangely silent.

Like any game, without going deep in the narrative fiction weeds, the game is fine for kids of stable maturity with good role models to give them guidance. Putting an age limit on it is like putting a universal beer threshold on drunk; the results are ill fitting and do not reflect reality.

Either he is a troll or a coward. But it basically was a woman with two strips of cloth for clothes, badly painted, but still exactly what he was calling perverted.

Compared to a lot of classic Sci Fi and fantasy, 40K is pretty tame overall, yes there are parts of it that need warning labels but the majority is pretty safe, in my opinion*.

*This is coming from a guy who read illustrated books on the Aztec empire before he got 8 candles on his birthday cake.

All about the age group. At some ages its fine and other ages its not. Be in no hurry to have murder on the mind of your neighbors kids. Lol.

Well, I'd say that, so long as they (as in the kids) don't get to some of the darker, more brutal parts of the lore, it's fairly child-friendly. The gameplay has nothing really violent at all.

That and many children don't seem to fully comprehend the truly massive scale of the brutality and just, sort of move on to get to more interesting stuff.

While this may be my limited experience around younger 40k players many know that it is just fiction and not to be taken seriously. After all this is a game where Ninja Space Elves in Spandex and plastic suits are throwing mono-molecular thin discs at OP 8 foot super-humans in armour made of a fictional metal with guns that fire rounds larger than grenades and actually hurting them (and occasionally winning)....

When I started this hobby back in 1986, I think it was for ages 16 and up but I think that had as much to do with the fact that the models were lead and modelling knives and superglue were a prerequisite in figure construction.

As for the fluff- I saw one of the most disturbing images of my life in the book Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned. An illustration of a Greater Unclean One by John Blanche (I think) and that has sat with me ever since.

If we're talking modern models I suppose it'd okay for 10 year olds, but if we're talking fluff- I would say older

This reminds me of a time in my LGS a while ago when a little kid asked who was playing the good buy in a 40k game. They all just sat there looking at each other awkwardly and said there weren't really any good guys. Since there were Tau in the battle they ended up saying the Tau were the good guys after the kid kept asking.

I think (and this is without actually playing the game, just watching batreps and stuff on youtube cuz I like the minis and fluff) that the tabletop game is kid friendly, with the exception of maybe some demon minis or I hear that there were topless dark eldar slaves, which would obviously be a bit much to use against a little kid. I'd say if the kid can comprehend the rules and they enjoy then it's fine. Sure they'll need an adult for some of the modeling and painting, but eventually they'd understand and do it themselves.

The fluff on the other hand, isn't at all kid friendly. (I've only just started reading it, currently starting book 7 of the HH) There were definitely parts of Fulgrim in particular that weren't for kids, from the artist cutting herself to . That definitely isn't for kids, and maybe the violence is bad too. There was stuff in the HH that my parents would ground me if they knew I read, and I just turned 16.

Kid friendly? Not so much, small bits, self assembly, painting etc

Kid's parents wallet friendly? Nope

 zombiekila707 wrote:
You read the HH books!! "Fear to Tread" has some dark parts where it talks about mutilated corpses of children....

kids really dont care about whether the corpses are kids or not.Never in my life has a book ever scared me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smacks wrote:
. It really does make me sad when I read about parents stopping their kids from watching things like Star Wars

No. I refuse to believe that any parent would be cruel enough to stop their kid from seeing star wars.As a matter of fact my 6 year old sister loves star wars(altough I am hesitant to show her the prequels in case she grows up not hating jar jar)