All Good Roleplaying Games Start with Conan

 

Just kidding. But seriously….

So, my boys, 9 and 11, finally got the spark of roleplaying games. I have been playing off and on with them for a few years but they evinced little interest in gaming until last week. For some inexplicable reason (that I will forcibly explicate) they got the bug last week. We had a fun few games and they are now wanting to play all day.

I am not sure exactly how it happened or what changed. I have been reading them Conan stories every couple of nights. The swift sword, fast action, and terse storytelling might be having an impact. Combine that with some Minecraft and character building in video games, I think we have a winning combination.

Of course, the games started with adolescent humor. But once the real action began and the boy’s characters suffered the consequences of their humorous actions, things started to shape up. Add in some treasure, the threat of a character dying and, like magic the game changed and now both are very interested.

One is going to be a rule’s lawyer. I can already tell that. He is very keen on knowing which rules apply to what and how this or that can be done etc. The other is more interested in the story telling aspect of the game, its actions, and flow. So, I now have one that wants to run the game and one that wants to play. One that wants to learn the rules and one that wants to create dungeons. Perfect set-up.

Conan to the rescue again. Nothing better than a Conan story to get kids in the game. Maybe Tarzan.