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The Weekender XLBS: Gaming With The Little ‘Uns!
August 4, 2013 by dignity
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Great Vid guys. I am going to share my gaming experiences with my daughter, its a bit long winded but bear with me.
In the video Warren mentioned by the time kids get to 5 they can get a better grasp on things, sadly for me its a little difficult. May daughter has just turned 5 and she has autism, so she acts more like a 2-3 year old. When she was born I couldnt wait til she was a toddler so I could start her into daddys geek hobby, but as more time moved on it became more apparent it would be an uphill struggle.
However I have found different ways to get her interested. She loves doing anything that involves crafting, and when she is building things she gets hyper focused. With this in mind she helped me glue my mantic orcs onto their bases, referring them as my ‘wee mens’. She has helped me in the garden spray painting those same models, and with a lot of supervision she did a very good job, with a very even coat. We have got out empty yoghurt pots and margarine tubs to make houses which she says are for the ‘wee mans’.
She loves maths (one of the ‘good’ points of her autism) so we take out my dice box and she picks 2 dice (she calls them jewels) and we add up the numbers.
At bedtime I tell her ‘family friendy’ versions of warmachine stories, as she loves robots and wizards it seemed like a safe bet. She once told me ‘Gaspy and Denny are best friends’.
Its been a long road with quite a few bumps along the way but eventually I intend to put this all together and play a wargame with her.
We/I have a small amount of experience with Autism, and it can be immensely challenging for all involved.
I wonder if building mazes (dungeons) out of blocks, and have warmachine characters in the maze that pose little math tasks along the way would be fun for you both?
Autism is incredibly difficult to grasp for us all, and the scale of autism is so wide that at times it can feel that every situation is totally unique. So with that in mind its always difficult to know what might work and what won’t, as a shared game or pastime.
Thanks for posting about your experiences on this though as I know your not alone in this.
My 13 year old nephew is autistic and I’ve just recently introduced him to war hammer and he is like a different person when he plays in terms of confidence, social integration and getting involved in narrative. He struggles with story’s and imagination but since he has been getting involved in playing at my house he is really starting to enjoy the hobby. He has a great head for maths and tactics and he’s even one a couple of games.
Cool idea of storytelling with your child. Have t try it out with my 3 year old.
I have already got him into painting minis with me 🙂
Harris Potter and the prisoner of P-9
The first rule of Call of Cthulhu is never ever go into a library. That way lies sanity loss.
A friend of mine (the creator of the award-winning Duty & Honour rpg) has been rp-ing with his two daughters for many years with great success.
Not had any experience in young kids (no sniggering please) but I was lucky my step daughter was 8 when she asked for models and paint just in time for dark vengeance so bought that and now she has more models than me. I just buy her different stuff to keep her interested . Not to rub it in to warren but my girls love everything starwars why not try the clonewars cartoons to get her into it ? and great show as always
Mmmmm, tanks 🙂
I remember going to the local Odeon in 1984 to see a triple bill of the Star Wars movies. I was 9 years old at the time and loved them movies. Within a few years I had lost interest completely. I never made it out of Tattooine when trying to watch the re-mastered releases. I’ve still never seen the second and third prequel as The Phantom Menace was terrible. I wish I’d had Andrea’s good sense to get out after 20 minutes. The original three films were definitely of their era and if you were the right age at the time I can understand their enduring appeal, even if it wore off on me. In the cold light of day, however, they haven’t stood the test of time well and they’re nothing special.
See I find the origonal three films really enjoyable to watch still, I also find the three prequals watchable but not bad. The thing that has kept me interested in them throughtout has been the amount of things in the Star Wars universe other than the 6 movies; games, books, cartoons and so much more!
Heh, reminds me of the baby monitor we used to have when my first son as born. We would sometimes hear the sound of a different baby crying and the sound of a cot mobile playing although because it was bleed over from a similar radio channel it was always a bit distorted.
Three years later my second son was born and the baby monitor was hooked up again. Funny thing was, we’d still hear exactly the same baby crying and the same cot mobile playing..
Anyway, on to gaming!
Both of my boys are currently old enough that they enjoy playing Super Dungeon Explore and I’m going to start my oldest on Mobile Frame Zero which is, for those of you who don’t remember the kickstarter, a relatively simple mecha game (like Heavy Gear) that you play with lego. It’s also free: http://mobileframezero.com/mfz/
My son is coming up to a year old and i have tried in vein to get my missus into the hobby, even took her to TTN and showed her all the simple games, loverly mini’s and pick up and play games that are on the shelfes in there and walked out with munchkin, an infinity starter crew and X-Wing. Started watching Tabletop with her and she seemed intereseted and then she went back to candy crush!!
Soon as seth is old enough i will be introducing him to the hobby and going from there!
Urgh! I hear you. Worse – when I met my wife back at university, we were both in the gaming club. She was a huge fan of Cyberpunk 2020 and Kult and we continued to game together even after we moved away from our old gaming buddies to get jobs. But as soon as my first son was born she totally lost interest in it. Now she sits on the sofa playing Candy Crush for hours and insists she doesn’t have time for games anymore. Doh!
Great vid reg gaming with your little ones! Also good luck with the creepy thirsty devil kid…
There is only one logical thing to do in a situation like this. Set infrared cameras up all through the house….
the problem is we saw the first 3 films when we were kids and everything has a rose tint to them but if you talked to kids that had only seen the new ones its what they grew up with my nephew thought the old ones were too slow till the big end fights and the new ones are better its all perspective give a few years and they’ll be complaining about the new Disney ones
I’ve no idea what you’re talking about here. There are three Star Wars movies. Three.
What is this talk of prequels?
I bought a child friendly role-playing game called Faery’s Tale to play with my kids, available in PDF format. Kids loved it, but now they are slightly older I tend to play the D&D board games with them.
38 minutes of hilarity! Another fun show!
Great food for thought too, my daughter is 2 and 4 months, and I have been thinking of ways to introduce her to the hobby (much to my wife’s dismay) and this has given me inspiration to try it. I was holding back till she was a little older but I think Warren and some of the commenters have made me see there is no need to wait!
Thanks much appreciated!
Hey there, great show. Thought you were a little harsh on the Star Wars toy. I had had boxes full of them and 2 or 3 Millennium Falcons and an X-Wing and an AT-AT and a AT-ST. And yes they weren’t the best in the world but i have seen worse getting released today. And you have to remember it was between 30 and 40 years ago these were released. And if I remember correctly Star Wars was the first franchise to really do merchandising on such a large scale so I doubt so much money was put into it. But still great Show 🙂 Gotta love the randomness lol!!
I don’t have kids myself (yet) but back in my hometown every summer there is a live action role playing camp for kids that has been massively popular. I never had the chance myself to participate but several of my good friends did and have even started working there. I think it is fantastic because it is interactive both physically and mentally and allows an easy way into the hobby. I loved this XLBS because it brought back some great memories of watching Star Wars and time bandits with my dad and how those shaped my love of wargaming. Long live the randomness that brings forth the goodness!
Really looking forward to hearing more about hte Firefly game, hopeully it will live up to my expectations.
Guy in the local club did get the whole family playing – including 3 teenage daughters – I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when they did go into the local GW store
As for my own daughter who is 5 we have made and played a few games based on My Little Pony, I might try the rewards and use the tiles form Dwarf Kings Hold
A wonderful show and for the record its been very very cold down here in Australia, I used to live in Tasmania and that showed occasionally, not like it does up in the UK though.
Today ranged from 8 to 14 degrees…lol
Justin, as someone thats new to 40k I would love to see your first games and the impressions of it as you learn how to play it, hope you get to talk more about that in upcoming episodes.
As for playing with kids I am not a father but do have 2 nieces that live in another state, I wish Id have been that inventive when looking after them before I moved away
I’ve never really tried to push my kids to wargaming and rpgs to be honest, but what we have always done is get them both together and play boardgames, even when the youngest was 3 ish we had snakes and ladders and the like for everyone.
I dont know if they are still available, but once your daughter gets to 4/5 years old, there used to be a really, really nice line of simplified what I would call ‘proper’ board games to get kids involved, we Have kids of Catan and Kids of Carcassonne , both are based loosely on the games of the same names, but with big wooden pieces and rules suited to both simpler and shorter play , my two loved them both.
Don’t have any kids so I felt very disconnected from that video. 🙁
Mice & Mystics is a great boardgame for children and is effectively roleplaying with mice miniatures but you follow a storybook and each chapter is an adventure you play out. It will be a bit too advanced for a toddler but would provide a fantastic toolkit to simplify it down like Warren’s Scooby Doo game. And then when your children are a bit older you can play the full game.
On the subject of Star Wars, I don’t like them anymore. I sit down to watch them now and I just have to switch off after a little bit. Even the prequels now aren’t interesting to me. This has been much to the ire of my close geek friends but I just find them sooooo boring now lol.
For a time I tried to get my son into WFB or 40K. Right about the time I started playing FoW, he shows an interest in WFB, heh. (Who says an old dog can’t teach a young dog to play with plastic dolls.. or something like that?) He really likes the Tomb Kings, but of course I only have a Lizardmen army.
I think the star wars films still hold up fairly well, despite being tampered with endlessley by Lucas (mostly for the worst). But my love of star wars is largely satisified by roleplaying games now, it’s such a deep setting with plenty of background material to use, you can run any kind of adventure from more adult and brutal criminal underworld type adventures, to high fantasy force power slinging battles.
Fantasy flight have also done a fairly good job with the new rpg game, and theres still some hope that the new films might be half decent, so heres hoping the franchise will have some life injected into it.
Generation 1 Ratchet had the worst build quality of any of the transformers I had
Wait until they bring out Star Wars Episodes 7-9 …. then we’ll really see how well the series will be remembered 😉
Great video guys, I think it’s a very important topic Warren.
I used to do a simular thing with my son when he was about 3 years old. Harry potter and Lord of the rings were in the cinemas and their was a lot of hype about them.
I found out my very old Red book edition of D&D and created a much more simple system for an adventure which me, my son and my wife could all get involved with. We started out just like you Warren by just telling stories and rolling a big spongey dice, then I had the idea of using his Duplo and stickle bricks to build a dungeon.
I had a great chat with my son one evening when he was going to bed, instead of reading a story I asked him to imagine what some of the dungeons would look like from the stories we had been telling. The next day I asked him to draw a picture of what he thought about. It’s great to see childrens imaginations wander and the ideas he came up with was good. We then sat about building a dungeon out of his toys and while doing it he would relate things from his drawing.
We did things like this for a few years unitl he started wanting to get his own figures and terrain after seeing my collections. Now he is nearly 13 we have some great battles and if the wife plays my son would say “right dad it’s time for us to team up and attack mum”, which always make me laugh.
Mind you I wouldn’t want to play against him too much as his dice rolling is far better than mine…”Where did you get that 6 from again?” lol
Hey Warren, the Lego dungeon sets are really good for this. You can play the base game or you can add any of your own rules. Really good stuff.
I try to get my 4year old daughter into gaming, i play Dora memorie and such.
When she was 3 we watched finding nemo, she said ‘dad, i’ll watch this when im older, its a little bit scary for me. So i have to be gentle with her 🙂
You’re such a cool dad Warren, these are going to be memories to treasure for ever mate! 🙂
Generation 1 formers really looked tacky :p atleast in robot mode
The bloke that did the telegraph article is in serious denial 😛
Play x-wing with my daughters, everyone loves Star Wars
My sister bought my parent’s old home. One day her 3 year old told me he liked playing with Rex. Rex was our old dog who passed away 5 years ago….
Star Wars when it was first released was great, the opening sequence with the star destroyer as it came into view growing bigger and bigger as it was shooting the rebel ship.
Show that opening sequence to a later generation when they have seen a lot of modern scifi space TV programmes, it don’t have the same effect. When most movie goers where use to westerns, war films, etc, Star Wars was really different and why is so remembered.
I’m glad the Weekender and XLBS are back… I feel empty without them!! 😛
Thanks for thinking my name is cool, I actually got it from taking the end of ‘Carnifex’ and slapping Dapper on the front. And thanks for the X Board, you guys rock!
I tried to brainwash my fist boy into gaming early but to no avail……(although my collection has grown by default). However, number two son is more interested perhaps due to a more laid back approach. Playing games like heroscape and space hulk on family hols etc. I guess from my own experience it seems its the things you discover yourself around pre/early teens that stay with you.
I think a family venture into roleplaying may be a great way to present mini and fluff sparks to the team. See if they grab onto any of it…..we all ove the LotR and hobbit so I may have to dig my old MERP rules out.
Love the ideas on getting your kids into games.Unfortunately I don’t have the imagination required to come up with my own concepts.
My son is 6 nearly 7 so I have been looking at things to get him interested in gaming in general, not just tabletop games.
I have been on the search for games that he would be able to engage in and understand.
So far I have bought Hero quest and the main reason for this is that it is the game that I first played and got me interested in gaming.
Hero quest is fairly easy for a son of my age to get involved with due to basic rules and pace of the game is fairly quick.
After him showing a health interest in hero quest I then bought the second edition of blood bowl. Again fairly simple rules when played with second edition starter rules.
Moving on from this I then introduced him to Warmachine/hordes. Obviously not implementing the full rules but to encourage more fun. We have only played with a few battle box sets and nothing beyond that as yet.
I wouldn’t expect him to remember the rules so obviously a helping hand is needed. But he does understand the focus mechanic and how it works with boosts etc.
Since then I have also added munchkin quest, again he knows the general concept of the game but I feel it is too long winded for his attention span.
I would love BoW to do a few videos on ideas/games for children/family to get involve with. To me it is important as due to my job I tend to have long exhaustive weeks and I enjoy the time at the weekend to spend with my son/family doing what I enjoy and relaxing.
Have you thought about getting Space Hulk, again it’s very simple rules and it has some very good missions to play. Also when I play it with my son he comes up with all sorts of interesting ideas.
Another game I game up with was a very simple jousting tournament. I bought some 54mm plastic pre painted knights, made a tilt and came up with some simple rules for it. This also has gone down a storm at my local gaming club, with people coming up with all sorts of back stories for their knights.
I did look at space hulk but completely forgot about it. I might have to make another investment!
Please share the jousting rules etc.
I watched hellraiser 1 and 2 when I was ten. I couldn’t sleep on my mattress for a week. I’m ok now though….ish
I scarred my kids for life they are as mad as me. Seriously the more you put in the more you get out and you can never put too much in.
It’s bloody freezing in Australia right now. It’s not snowing, but it’s kind of like you guys complaining about the hot weather – Hot in Australia, is 40 – 45 C!
The main annoyance is the constant rain here in Melbourne!
@warzan was really interesting to hear about you introducing your daughter to “gaming”. Sounds like you’ve handled it really well!
Stu ah maybe all of you – if you’re such a big Transformers fan you will probably love this, if you not already seen it: http://www.the-waaagh.com/forums/?showtopic=46693
Over here in Germany, Kids around 5-8 go crazy with the whole Lego Star Wars stuff. I have to admit they did a great job transferring it into the world of tiny little plastic bricks.
Warren – I think making up your own Fantasy Adventure game, is the best way to do. Cause all games I know, are made for older children starting at an age of 6. This is also the age, the Forest Knigths Organisation (http://www.waldritter.de) starts to get children into live roleplay adventures, which I think is great fun. But as you – also in the comments – mentioned, you have to protect your kids from stuff thats too scary for them, which individually depends on your child.
A really interesting topic – great weekender. Thanks a lot!
@ 20mins in for the verry first time EVER Ive stopped a video because of Crossbows and Catapults. Thank you verry much Stew. Me and my brother used to play Crossbows and Catapults all over our house. Shiny surfaces were better for the Crossbows and when I think about all the engineering that went into building those walls. We never did get our hands on the Minatour and Cyclops add on but the crack we had with it was great. Thanks for that Stew. I had to comment straight away. And it had to be a week before I got to watch this BS.
Oh man… Crossbows and Catapults… you know, that probably explains how I got started with this silly toy soldiers stuff!
I really enjoyed the kids and gaming discussion, but starting a nostalgic Star Wars talk was brilliant. I loved Star Wars until the prequels came along and ruined everything, but the X-Wing Miniatures game has led me back into reading the books again and podcasts and other random internet Star Wars stuff.
The greatest thing I’ve discovered so far is the Star Wars: Revisited fan remake/edit of Episode IV – it made that film exciting again, maybe it actually will withstand another 30 years of time, who knows?
I use warhammer quest floor plans and jake and the neverland pirate figures with my 3 yr pod daughter. Works every time!
I can sum up this episode in one word: Awesome!