Why you should teach your children to role-play

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

I thought this post about roleplaying and its application to writing later on in life by author Darin Bradley was interesting, and of course it made me think of you guys!

[Kev]

Nice article!

[Philip]

Good food for thought Jenny.

[aldenoneil]

I was a much better writer as a child. I was a much better everything, in fact.

[Beth]

Good article. I keep meaning to get together a group for role playing but now I might just wait until we have kids. This adds just one more reason to the list of why I am glad we are going to adopt older children. They will be able to play RPGs.

[Tim]

Fun article. While I never finished Scouts or achieved such heights of academia, I feel a kindred soul to the author in this experience.

If any of you are interested in role-playing for younger kids, there is a brilliant designer named Daniel Solis that has put together two for kids: "Happy Birthday Robot" and "Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple". Solis refers to the games as Story-Telling as opposed to Role-Playing, but that's a matter of focus I think.

http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2...

http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2...

"Do" is just coming out now and is set for kids 12+, while "Happy Birthday, Robot" is set for a little bit younger, 9 or so, if I recall correctly.

[Beth]

Tim, thanks for those links. Those games looks awesome.

[Alex]

Your kids could wind up hating you forever though if they do something stupid that results in a TPK.

[Tim]

Alex wrote: "Your kids could wind up hating you forever though if they do something stupid that results in a TPK."

Nah, everyone needs to have their own Kobayashi Maru :)

Besides, one of the core principles of Do is that the characters can't die. The game should never be run with life and limb as a stake.

[Danielle]

What a great article. I can't wait until my kids are old enough to role play. Hell I'm excited that we're starting to read Choose your own adventure books and comics with our oldest (he's 5).

[Keith]

Nice article. My son is due to be born this week...is that too early to start d'ya think? lol!

[Mary]

@Keith: Here are some places to start...

http://www.cafepress.ca/+level_1_huma...

http://www.cafepress.ca/+role-playing...

[AndrewP]

Mary wrote: "@Keith: Here are some places to start...

http://www.cafepress.ca/+level_1_huma...


I am not so sure about the 20 Charisma for a first level human.. A lot of the ones I see seem to suffer from 3d6 charisma loss by puking over themselves :)

[Mary]

Even when they do, most of the grownups around them are going to coo over them & coddle them, no? LOL