Conan and Kids

[Old Bear]

My boy's 11. He's just getting to grip with the fact girls are potentially interesting, although clearly inferior to rugby. Sex however for us is the last taboo subject, and doesn't need to be crossed yet, so Conan can wait a while. Alex Ryder is just fine for him, because there's just death and murder in that.

In my experience every kid is a little different. You know your own better than anybody else does. I've never once taken advice in my life on parenthood, because nobody is more qualified to bring up our kid than we are. The same will go for you, so do what you feel is right. It won't always pan out but nothing you do will be terminal.

 

[Style]

BTW does your wife also has a problem with books about ancient greek art (or history) in the hands of your kids?

Yup.

Apparently your wife is a paladin too.

For children's first contact with RPGs, I'd suggest something more visual and less complex like the good old Hero Quest tabletop game. I got that one at age 9 or 10 or so and we had a blast. From there, you can move on to real p&p rpgs a while later.

I play Descent with some friends occasionally. Is it like that?

Descent is all about killing, so I would want to wait a few years, but it is very visual and relatively simple.

I think Conan stories would be okay for teens. I must have been 12 or 13 when I read first time REH yarns and loved every single page.

Right, I think 12 or 13 will be fine. Every kid is different, but by that age I should be able to explain the racism, sexism, and the like, and she will be able to follow and fully comprehend. My god son is 13, and granted, he is very mature for his age, but it's like talking to an adult when I talk to him.

As a kid I loved the sense of adventure and combat - at older age, I began to appreciate the way Howard weaves together a world of cunning political plots and ancient mysteries while still writing action-filled pulp adventures. I think far too many people underestimate Howard, seeing only the flying gore & naked women side of his stories. I kind of think that those two elements are something he was required to use to sell his stories, while his true skill in writing, knowledge of history and flight of imagination are best visible in the other elements.

I agree. Howard is a literary master, and Conan is a master piece. In time, I plan on reading every Howard story I can find.

For playing Conan? Yes. D&D? Maybe, depending on the game and maturity of the child. RPGs in general? Hell no. Children love to pretend. RPGs are just a set of rules to slap onto your pretending. I've been sending her on adventures for months now, in the style of Dora the Explorer episodes, using a handful of props. It's basically playing house, but instead of pretending to be mommy and daddy and having babies, we go treasure hunting. All I'd have to do is start using a couple rules, and it could be a larp.

I meant comercial RPGs. I know only one (failed) RPG ("DSA Junior") that was made for children. It was nothing more than a board game with RPG elements (similiar to Hero Quest), but it was a good start for young roleplaying gamers.
Then were was a RPG in which you play stuffed toys. It was fun and also a good start into the world of RPGs (even for older children or adults). The way you play with your daughter is similiar to that RPG (called PP&P ("Plüsch, Power & Plunder").

Even commercial rpgs, but you can't play a rules heavy game. Kids are going to want fast fun action, or they will lose interest. There was a funny thread on another forum about people playing Savage Worlds with their kids. I'll pull out a couple choice excerpts:

One valuable lesson I've learned (and I think I mentioned this before): if your five year old daughter's animal character gets "killed," it doesn't die, it just got scared and ran away (or even better, use the variation my older son came up with that it just had to go to the bathroom).

This is an abridged game with my 8 year old son...
Me: "You're riding along on your horse."
Him: "ZzzzzzZzzzz"
Me: "All of a sudden zombies attack!!"
Him, hurling every die he has onto the table: "What happened?"
Me: "You chop the zombies in half!!"
Him: "Yes!!"

At this point, he leaps from the chair, dances about the room, and
mock-battles imaginary zombies for 5 minutes before leaping back into
his chair, breathless.

Him: "Now what happens?"
Me: "You get back on your horse and ride towards the city again."
Him: "ZzzzzzZzzzz"

There's also the danger of actually following the rules TOO well.

In the middle of a battle in an adjacent room...
"I want to look for something"
"Make a Notice roll"
"OK" rolls a 12 "Cool!"
Not wanting to disappoint, "You find a blaster power pack"
"Cool!"
Card comes up again in initiative.
"I want to look for something else"
"O--K--. Your friends are fighting in the next room. You can hear them."
"I know. I found something really useful last time so I'm going to keep looking"
...two or three rounds later...
"I keep looking."
"You've pretty much found everything there is to find."
"Yeah, but there might be something else, I keep looking."

Talk about one-track minds!

And in response to the above:

...and that's different from many adult gamers how?

There were many other posts of people playing Savage Worlds, what I use to run Conan adventures for my adult friends, with kids 6 and 7 years old.

Here's a thread from a guy LARPs with his 3 year old daughter: http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=106634

 

[Hervé]

Paladin wrote:

No idea. At this point I've not introduced it to my sons that have played other games. Primarily because they can't even look at the rulebooks due to nudity.

Wow. :shock: I bet people in America are...well, different.
If you think your kids can be shocked by the drawing of a woman's breast, don't ever come with them on a beach in Southern France in the summertime !
Come on, this has nothing to do with pornography! Violence in games (especially in video games) looks far more important (and dangerous for my kids) to my eyes than any pair of tits! I'd rather let my kid look a naked woman than let him look at the CNN war news!

 

[Spongly]

Paladin wrote:

No idea. At this point I've not introduced it to my sons that have played other games. Primarily because they can't even look at the rulebooks due to nudity.

Wow. :shock: I bet people in America are...well, different.
If you think your kids can be shocked by the drawing of a woman's breast, don't ever come with them on a beach in Southern France in the summertime !
Come on, this has nothing to do with pornography! Violence in games (especially in video games) looks far more important (and dangerous for my kids) to my eyes than any pair of tits! I'd rather let my kid look a naked woman than let him look at the CNN war news!

America is just different from Europe in that way. Nudity is a much bigger taboo than violence as I understand it. Even in Britain we seem more forwards about sex and nudity than people in America seemed to be when I visited, and that's saying something!

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

America is just different from Europe in that way. Nudity is a much bigger taboo than violence as I understand it. Even in Britain we seem more forwards about sex and nudity than people in America seemed to be when I visited, and that's saying something!

Not all parts of the US are so ... different. New York is different too, but of another kind: according to Wikipedia public nudity is allowed there...

Back to the topic:
Heroquest (with some tweaks) and both animated series could be used as an introduction into the Hyborian Age.

Some tips for a "Conan Junior RPG":
- keep it rules light
- use the images from both animated series
- decrease the violence level
- no sex
- no racism, sexism or xenophobia
- decrease the nudity (and explain that nudity was not always a taboo) and paraphrase nudity (e.g. barefoot to the neck).

 

[tneva82]

This is an abridged game with my 8 year old son...
Me: "You're riding along on your horse."
Him: "ZzzzzzZzzzz"
Me: "All of a sudden zombies attack!!"
Him, hurling every die he has onto the table: "What happened?"
Me: "You chop the zombies in half!!"
Him: "Yes!!"

At this point, he leaps from the chair, dances about the room, and
mock-battles imaginary zombies for 5 minutes before leaping back into
his chair, breathless.

Him: "Now what happens?"
Me: "You get back on your horse and ride towards the city again."
Him: "ZzzzzzZzzzz"

Mwahaha. I can imagine RPG's with my little brother(now about 6) would be atleast initially very much like this ;-)

Hum. Too bad there isn't Sly Cooper RPG's. That would be sure way to introduce him to RPG's. He just can't stop playing those games. Hmm. Have to think about making up simple rules for them. If for nothing else than to get some change from constant playstation playing(HOW often that kid wants to play those games over??? :lol.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

All you need are simple rules (like those used in the old "Fighting Fantasy" gamebooks) and some miniatures (I suggest LEGO or Playmobil).

 

[Paladin]

BTW does your wife also has a problem with books about ancient greek art (or history) in the hands of your kids?

Yup.

Apparently your wife is a paladin too.

Yup. And she has a few levels on me.

 

[Ranzadule]

I think people should back off of Paladin's parental ideas on nudity. My 13 year old plays Conan, but I would not expect everyone to be cool with the content. More than that, I think the setting is somewhat wasted on young players. He's playing with my friend and his kid and his friends, but none of them "get it" and could just as well be playing 4E D&D.

American society is a bit uptight aobut boobies and not worried enough aobut gore for sure, but I think some of us are crossing a line telling Paladin that he and his wife are wrong in their choices for their kids.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

Two things:
1.: It's his wife.
2.: None of us is saying that what Paladin and his wife are doing is wrong.

We just want to help him to find the perfect way of playing Conan with his children.

 

[Ranzadule]

I think he is being polite. Telling him that his wife is wrong is not really that cool either. And if you look back through the posts, you may be able to spot some that border on telling him that his parental choices are not the best. Some may substitute "America" for "Paladin" but either way, it seems inappropriate to me. I don't want to derail the thread with this.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

:roll: If it is really so then you have to replace "America" with "Paladin's wife" and not with "Paladin".
Some of us are just Europeans who use this topic to tell the world what we think about (a very loud minority of the) Americans and their view of violence and nudity.

But we also really want to help Paladin.

 

[Style]

The first American colonists were Puritans fleeing religious persecution. Modern America is a melting pot, but you can still see the Puritan roots. Not saying it isn't silly, just that it is what it is.

Some tips for a "Conan Junior RPG":
- keep it rules light
- use the images from both animated series
- decrease the violence level
- no sex
- no racism, sexism or xenophobia
- decrease the nudity (and explain that nudity was not always a taboo) and paraphrase nudity (e.g. barefoot to the neck).

That's not Conan though. I've all but decided that if my daughter is into playing RPGs with dad come teen years, then I can bust out a Conan game and do it proper (not pulling punches). Until then, there are a number of family friendly games we can play together.

Speaking of rules light RPGs that are good for breaking in kids, I'm a big fan of Dragon Warriors. I used it to break in my god son a few years back: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Warriors

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

Some tips for a "Conan Junior RPG":
- keep it rules light
- use the images from both animated series
- decrease the violence level
- no sex
- no racism, sexism or xenophobia
- decrease the nudity (and explain that nudity was not always a taboo) and paraphrase nudity (e.g. barefoot to the neck).

That's not Conan though. I've all but decided that if my daughter is into playing RPGs with dad come teen years, then I can bust out a Conan game and do it proper (not pulling punches). Until then, there are a number of family friendly games we can play together.

It was just a suggestion for those who think that they must play in the Hyborian Age.

 

[Paladin]

lol. this is almost comical.

Style started the thread asking for ideas to introduce kids to the game and now it's about help me do it (which I've personally chosen not to for the reasons many have mentioned above and will stick with a variant of D&D). meh. whatever works. If we do switch over it will be a severely watered down variant of the game akin to Barbarossa Rotbart's suggestion. Which to me still works and is fun.

My wife and I have our own convictions on the game. Yes, it's stricter than others, and yes her's is tougher then mine. But such is the blessing of freedom will.

p.s. Thanks for the assist Ranzadule. I appreciate the gesture. I've got fairly thick skin and know I'm a bit more "radical" than most folks (aka...paladin...moral code) so it didn't bother me.

 

[Paladin]

So back to the topic at hand. Ultimately, Conan is about about having fun will playing out the struggles of good vs. evil in life and playing heroes that try to better others... even if the tend occassionally embrace evil to do good and ride along the rumble strips on the road of morality.

To add to Barbarossa Rotbart list I would:
-start in one nation and stick to it for a while so that they get used to playing in one "sandbox" rather than overwhelming them.
-don't necessarily remove the violence level, but reduce the depth of gore/descriptiveness
-Use the game as more than a way to spend time with your kids. Use it as a teachable moment to instill the values you appreciate and esteem, all while having fun at the same time.
-Show them the errors of their ways and present semi-real world consequences to their actions so they will be better prepared for real situations.
-Present the racism in a manner that they can understand and learn from it's flaws and use it as a character building tool. Have them be the victim of bias or unfair treatment so they know what it's like and why they want to avoid it.
-Draw them into positions where their characters or friendly NPCs become victims of slavery. Show them why it's wrong and lead them in a heroic quest to liberate the slaves.
-Above all else have FUN and enjoy the blessing of your children while they are still kids.

 

[Krushnak]

Honestly plenty of the Conan stories are fine for the kids to read, listen to or play as an adventure in an rpg. Heres a few off the top of my head : Tower of the elephant, rogues in the house, god in the bowl, black stranger.

 

[Hervé]

I didn't mean to offence Paladin and his wife or criticize the way they raise their children (as I'm not sure to be the perfect father myself!). I was just amazed that some people are more shocked by nudity (generally nothing more than a drawing of a bare breasted woman) than by the violence inherent to the game. There are many pictures of severed heads and limbs, of ripped hearts and sacrifices, and so on. I simply find them more shocking than a pair of nipples, but again, that's my frenchie point of view and I don't intend to give lessons on education to anyone.

Now back to the subject. One thing wasn't mentioned in the thread: most kids I know (even my own son!) don't care about Conan. Most Conan fans I know are adults. There are no "kid's license" for Conan, no Conan toys (at least not for kids) and no cartoon (the Conan animated series is long way back). Kids crave generally for more mainstream heroes (Marvel, Star Wars or even LotR...) and are generally very sensitive to what they see on TV or to what their schoolmates like. Conan is mostly unknown among kids, although some might be ready for a "light" RPG as soon as 7 or 8 years old. Easy boardgames like the old Heroquest or the D&D BG are perfectly suitable, mostly because tiles and miniatures make the game more visual.

The hyborian world is a pretty adult universe and most kids don't have any references about it. On the other hand most of them have seen the Lord of the Rings which might actually be a better introduction to RPGs for our youngsters (even though Tolkien is not exactly my cup of tea).

As for the system, there’s a need to keep it very simple and basic, so D20 is totally unsuitable here. Actually any very simple homemade system might do the trick (just a couple of base abilities and classes would be enough. No need for skills and endless lists of feats and modifiers.). Book keeping and rules should be kept to the minimum, and character death should be handled very carefully (if there’s any!)

 

[Ranzadule]

I find it a little shocking on the surface that my society has no problem with violence but a huge problem with boobies. If it is about shielding our children from images that may influence them into behaviours, I would suggest that my sons are far more liklely to knock a gal up than to kill someone who did not deserve it. Maybe both types of images are bad or maybe neither but the early sexualization of our kids is far more likely to have real-life consequences than the early violence desensitivity, though not so likely to make the news broadcasts.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

But there is a big difference. There is no culture in the world where violence is a social norm, but there are many cultures in the world in which nudity is no taboo (but many of those cultures were altered and/or destroyed by western missionaries). And you cannot prevent that your children will come in contact with nudity and sex (except they are taught that babies are brought by the stork).

Maybe both types of images are bad or maybe neither but the early sexualization of our kids is far more likely to have real-life consequences than the early violence desensitivity, though not so likely to make the news broadcasts.

Wrong, because the sexualisation comes naturally in the teens (you cannot prevent it), but an early contact with violence may most likely make children violent. They learn that violence is the only way to solve problems.