RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
That's cool. I've had teens, and younger at my tables, and they've been great.
A couple of notes:
1) Are you going to be sitting at the table next to him, or is he going to be playing on his own? If the latter, he's going to want to be as independent as possible -- knowing his character, having his Chronicle sheets in order, all that.
2) There are a couple of scenarios that I think are inappropriate for teens. Not many, but I wouldn't recommend, say, "In Wrath's Shadow" or "Severing Ties" to kids. See if you can get a veteran player to make some recommendations.
Good luck.
-- Chris
There is no age limit in PFS.
As long as the individual is mature enough to play and not disrupt the table, most are fine with young players.
My daughters play PFS, and they started when they were 6 and 9 - playing at tables without me at the table, as I am often GMing at another table - no one had any problems with them (my youngest, when a bit bored, colored quietly at the table - still contributing when she had something to say or do).
Good behavior - no problem.
Bad behavior - a problem, regardless of the age of the player.
|
Cdecle
There are no age restrictions and I did even run for a while the local 'junior league' which was a group of 10 and 11 year olds.
There are even some GMs who are younger as your brother.
I wholeheartedly support any younger players - and so does Paizo.
My main point off advice
not everyone likes to GM for / play with younger players. Check with the GM / players ahead of time, especially before the first game. This should be a great experience for both your brother as well as everyone at the table.
Don't risk ruining it by having someone at the table who dislikes playing with your brother.
Good luck !!
|
|
I have to chime in here and say - I've been running for a group of young ladies ages 9 to 13.Snip
. There are apt to be some major "flavor" changes all thru the scenario, but esp. in the brothel,.
Nosig
Thanks for GMing for the young generation - and kudos not to shy away from more difficult scenarios. I'm sure it can be done.
|
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
Well, Severing Ties is problematic in a number of ways.
1) the Caisen Calean sequence is okay, if you just equate drinking beer with being silly.
2) The Silven Veil scequence has prostitutes making offers and [redacted] if they comply. (Whoops. I guess that's a spoiler.)
3) The temple of Besmara has a mother who abandoned her husband and children after going to a tattoo parlor and tattooing a map to her daughter's bare back.
4) The temple of Lissala is probably the most difficult sequence for kids. It's nightmarish, with a doctor's office where some people are surgically flaying other people's skins off, etc. etc.
All in all, Riddleport isn't for kids.
|
|
Played Severing Ties alongside my (then) 14 & 10 year old sons last summer. GM played down theSilven Veil, but as far as I can tell left everything else as it was. (She did a damn good job.) The, er, detail of the 'Veil went over the younger one's head, but in general the rest of it was with their ability to handle. As 'Wolf says, kids these days get exposed to things very early compared to 20 years ago.
|
Please get your brother involved. 14 is a great age to get into pfs, it is when I got into pfs. Now, 2 years later, I am getting other people from my High School into it and am halfway to my first gm star. Always get teenagers involved, because we are the next generation of gamers. We shall carry the torch once you all are gone. XD
|
|
And honestly, BNW has it right. There is really no such thing too inappropriate for a teen. Even without internet access, dirty jokes in school and just talking to people will get you a pretty good grasp on what is out there. Temples to Calistra? Today we have another name for those. Temple of Cayden Cailean? Yeah, lets get wasted! Looking for an interesting character concept? I recommend making a pesh addict. Will a teen know exactly what all of these things are and be able to handle it. Of course. It is nothing new, it is life nowadays.
|
|
I started gaming at 12 and loved it. I spent all my extra loot on 2nd ed stuff and magic cards...good times:) I usually would end up GMing (pretty terribly I imagine), though I did get to play some. I actually got to play a lot of RIFTS back then, because thats not a terribly complicated system to learn at 12....
At FLGS we have three different parents.
One has a daughter whose 12. She does a pretty good job. She plays a cleric (she may have other pcs too) and usually knows what her spells do and has a basic understanding of action economy. She can even role play once in a while, though not too often.
We also have two boys, ones 9 and the other is probably 8. The 9 year old seems alright for the most part. He only does anything during combat.
The 8 year old is a menace, has no attention span and flings dice across the board throwing minis everywhere. As long as he's not like that its a great time to start.
|
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
ARGH, there is a difference between what a teen-ager honestly knows, and what we want to present to him or her. Yes, of course they know about drugs and strumpets. And yeah, they're probably okay with Lissala torture porn. (The reason movies like SAW are rated 'R' is because teenagers want to go see them.)
But I'm never going to seat anybody under 18 at some of those scenarios, not at a convention or other public venue where I'm responsible for maintaining the Paizo brand name, unless a parent is also sitting there, and I'll waarn the parent.
Maybe that's the school-teacher sensibilities talking.
|
|
Keep in mind, if the parent isn't at the table, you as GM have unwittingly taken responsibility for that teen. You need to think about what happens if the teen then goes home and tells mom and dad what the nice man at the game store told him about, and they flip out.
I do not seat teens without their parents if I can help it, and I run a different tone of game when there are under-agers present. But then, I work in the informal education system, and have seen what happens when well-meaning-but-uninformed adults get into trouble with kids they thought were mature enough to handle [insert subject here].
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Chris has the right of it.
The burden of contextualizing adult themes, situations, etc rests with the parents (or guardians) of a minor and no one else (at least no one else in the PFS universe). I don't expect my PFS GMs to sit down and explain [redacted] to teenagers, nor should my GMs have to.
If, however, a teen is mature enough to play the game with those themes, I wouldn't have any problem with them sitting at the table. For some scenarios, like the ones Chris mentioned, it's definitely prudent to run it by the teens parent/guardian and make sure they're OK with it as well.
Yes, yes, I know that kids these days are already exposed to far worse and are often mature enough to handle the content of an "adult" scenario; I too started playing RPGs as a kid. But my logic is this. The headache a GM could run into if a parent or guardian chose to complain about the content present at their table far outweighs the slight inconvenience of running it by them first.
Just utilize sound judgement when it comes to kid gamers and you won't run into trouble.
TLDR: If you're running a scenario with questionable content in it for teenagers, check with their parent or guardian first.
---------------------------------------
Also, here is some advice for the OP's brother, things I learned from being a teen gamer.
|
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yah, cdecle, you and your brother can share books, as long as you're at the same table. Once he starts getting enthusiastic all on his own, and the two of you are playing different scenarios, the campaign doesn't want the two of you calling out over the convention floor, "Could you throw me the Ultimate Magic book? I need to look up the range of a spell!!"
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I used to play at a store where we had a number of pre-teens play with us. As long as everyone is comfortable with it, it's fine. We did have some parents thinking they could use us as free babysitting. We told them we were here playing games all day, they were welcome to join us, but if their kid wandered off we weren't going to stop them.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I used to play at a store where we had a number of pre-teens play with us. As long as everyone is comfortable with it, it's fine. We did have some parents thinking they could use us as free babysitting. We told them we were here playing games all day, they were welcome to join us, but if their kid wandered off we weren't going to stop them.
Free range children will be mistaken for halflings and shipped to cheliax.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I used to play at a store where we had a number of pre-teens play with us. As long as everyone is comfortable with it, it's fine. We did have some parents thinking they could use us as free babysitting. We told them we were here playing games all day, they were welcome to join us, but if their kid wandered off we weren't going to stop them.Free range children will be mistaken for halflings and shipped to cheliax.
Shouldn't that be Slipped to Cheliax?