Last summer, I ran some D&D for my 12-year old son and his friends. They had so much fun at my Tuesday games, that by the end of summer, my son was running his own 3.5 game, another boy was running a 4.0 game, and a third set up a Star Wars d20 game. That's 3 games each week, I was envious. About the time I announced that I had to hang it up (work-related), the youngest (10), asked if I could run something with pirates next. "Sure," I said, already thinking of <u>Warriors of White Light.</u> <br /><br />Over the school year, my son tried a little bit to keep the group together, but herding 12-year-olds isn't easy, and most have fallen away. My wife has been off & on running more 3.5 D&D for them on Sundays. That succeeded in bringing in a younger sister from down the street, I hope that she stays with gaming. {I was worried when the 11-year-old younger brother of one player gave her a lot of verbal static about being a girl, but she slapped him down before I intervened.}<br /><br />Tonight, I introduced my son to character generation in <u>Savage Worlds</u>, and he's got a Vrusk soldier all ready to go. We talked about inviting up to 6 more players, but I doubt we'll see them all each game.<br /><br />I'm enjoying both reading old SF and watching them play as an exercise in nostalgia. I've tried a lot to encourage gaming on their own, as well as with the grown-ups. I feel in my bones that they need to make a lot of their own mistakes, even if many might be mistakes that I have already learned from. {Encouraging female players, though, is something I think I'd like to encourage actively, having found years of bliss from marrying a fellow dice-geek.} <br /><br />I'm going to use <u>Savage Worlds</u> for rules, largely because that's what I've been running for an adult group, and because I think a simpler rules set will help them keep up their enthusiasm. I know, I know, back in the day we deciphered Star Frontiers and Gary Gygax's AD&D and many other games without adult involvement, but I really do think D&D 3.5 or 4e are a lot more to digest, and if they don't have the same amount of fire in the belly to read the rules, why, they'll just fall back on the Nintendo stuff, and I'm back to playing with only my adult friends.<br /><br />Anyway, I'm tarting up <u>WoWL</u>, hopefully with a little more plot between the boarding encounters, and a few things on the side. I'd like to encourage the "storytelling" aspect of RPG'ing a little bit. If we play once a week all summer, I am confident we might get through <u>WoWL</u>, and on to either <u>Dramune Run</u> or <u>Volturnus</u>, depending on how they take to the game and the Frontier.<br /><br />Summer break is in 3 weeks, I'll keep you posted.
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