Daughter wants to RPG it up

Peter Principle

My daughter wants to see what the tabletop RPG thing is all about. She wants me to do this with her.

The facts:

I'm 39, she's 14.

She lives with her mom, she comes down to see me on weekends. Sometimes it's weekends in a row, sometimes it's every other weekend.

I played a host of RPGs when I was in high school and the military. Haven't done much more than skim books in the store since then. She has no experience in this that I'm aware of.

I live in Burien, WA.

Potential complication: Her sister and brother, 11 and 8. I can't exactly leave them at home to go out gaming, but they might get bored if they were to tag along.

Looking for suggestions and recommendations!

Esh

Mouse Guard RPG maybe? Might be able to get the younger ones into that as well.

You could probably find it cheaper than that elsewhere.

Peter Principle

That game looks cool.

I should specify that I think she was looking for a more social experience, like join an already existing group.

Hahnsoo1

I was playing Tabletop RPGs when I was 11. We were playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness when I started, which isn't exactly the easiest system to wrangle around, but it allowed us to play MUTANT ANIMALS which were so cool (back then). I have friends who started RPGs by playing GURPS, of all things. Honestly, the complexity of the system probably won't matter much. Among the games I was playing in Middle School were Traveler and Rolemaster.

I'd suggest a system that captures their imagination. At 14, I thought mutant animals were stupid, and I was playing Shadowrun at that point (still playing Shadowrun now, although the game has changed remarkably since then). Find something that your prospective players will like. If Mouse Guard works for all of them, then more power to you, but the key is figuring out what sort of character they want to play. A superhero system would work if they are into superheroes and comic books (I suggest Wild Talents/One Roll Engine, personally, but that's just me). Sword and sorcery is a common theme, obviously, but if they aren't into magic and medieval combat, then they probably won't like playing that sort of game.

You could ease their way into roleplaying games by using Card and Board games with RPG themes. Munchkin is a simple card game that hits all the right notes, even if they don't get all the jokes, and has the advantage of being very silly. Castle Ravenloft is a board game that is described as DnD-lite (might be a bit mature).

I guess what I'm saying is "Find out what they like" and then we can make better RPG suggestions.

EDIT: Hrm, joining an existing group. That's tricky. Does she have any friends who are already playing RPGs? If so, maybe she's actually trying to suggest, in a roundabout way, that you start funding her new hobby. *grin*

soxbox

You might want to have a look at http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4dnd/monsterslayers as a gateway drug to d&d.

Ah: Missed the joining an existing group. I would still go through something like the above at home - get a basic feel of the way things work and then branching out from there.

pacbowl

Does she want to play with miniatures and graph-paper dungeons or just dice and character sheets? I would introduce her to the basics at home, maybe buy an RPG with a simple ruleset and DM for her at home. That way you can watch her siblings.

Look for an existing group in your area that you can join, but make it clear that your daughter has never played an RPG before and you want to bring her into the fold. You wouldn't want her to join an existing group then find out she doesn't really like it, or slow down the group as she's asking questions and catching up on the learning curve. Having never played a certain RPG before is one thing, but having never played any RPG before is quite different.

ihmmy

My intro to the world of nerdity (from my father) was Hero Quest, which is horribly overpriced on amazon but semi-reasonable on ebay apparently. Anyway, it's like a super newbie version of D&D, and I still have my game set because it was just way too much darned fun

soxbox

The WOTC d&d boardgames (Wrath of Asharldon and Castle Ravenloft) are also pretty good introductions to a roleplaying game system.

I feel like a WOTC shill in here.

Librarian

I started playing D6D(or the German equivalent of that) at age 11, so I think it all depends on how willing and able the 8 year old kid is to play, 11 should be fine.

I'd say the regular D&D out now is pretty accessible and I think they got a starter kit or somthing like that.
It's classic fantasy and I would chose that setting for a first entry into pen and paper RPGs before you move on to something different, unless for example all the kids love Star Wars, in which case you might check something like that.

Starting with an rpgeque boardgame like Heroquest first might not be a bad idea, but might also give the wrong impression, since you don't really play a character and different personality in these games, but if you do want to try it for the dungeon crawling experience I've heard some good stuff about Descent.

And I also second that you should try to teach the kids the basics before you try to find a group you can join. It might be tough finding a group willing to let young children join, it will be even harder if they have no grasp of what they are doing and what the game is about.

FafnerMorell

soxbox wrote: »

You might want to have a look at http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4dnd/monsterslayers as a gateway drug to d&d.

Ah: Missed the joining an existing group. I would still go through something like the above at home - get a basic feel of the way things work and then branching out from there.

Just as a comment, my preschool daughters often pester about playing D&D (since they know I play it every two weeks at a friends house). I printed out the MonsterSlayers stuff and played a slightly simplified version with them. They had a lot of just coloring the various drawings and rolling the dice.

Spawnbroker

Defenders of the Realm is a very good board game made by the same guy who did Arkham Horror, and is very similar to both D&D and Pandemic. All of the players are cooperatively playing against the board, there are four evil forces attacking the realm and the players control fantasy heroes to go destroy each of them. When you kill a general, the game gets harder. It's very fun, if a bit pricey, but if you're thinking about D&D, then price shouldnt matter that much.