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A really nice testimonial on the Beginner Box: my nephew Cory is 15 years old and was diagnosed many years as "mostly normal but with autistic tendencies". Over the years, he has mostly retreated into his own world and has become obsessed with video games. He is also very socially withdrawn.
Despite this, I decided to give him the Pathfinder Beginner Box for Christmas. My family believed I had made a poor choice for a gift; he never expressed any interest in any game if it wasn’t a video game.
But I had faith, along with the desire to try. I reasoned that even if he showed a glimmer of interest (which was all I realistically expected) it was a start in a new direction. All I wanted to do was plant the seed and hope for growth.
So on Christmas day he opened my gift, along with the many others he received that morning. At first, he really didn’t respond to it either one way or another; he looked at it briefly, then put it aside and continued to open his remaining gifts. And for the rest of Christmas day, it remained where he had left it, untouched and with the shrink wrap securely in place.
With a gentle nudge, I tried to steer him towards it and at least open the box and look at the contents, without success. His video game/Ipod related stuff took precedent. I was disappointed to be sure, but decided to let him be and hopefully he would discover it on his own. But honestly, after this reaction I didn’t hold out much hope.
Fast forward 10 days later, and I’m now down south on vacation. I hear my phone ring in the other room, and go to see who called. It was quite a monumental surprise to me when I played back my voicemail and listened as my nephew asked me “when are you coming home? I want to play this game with the monsters”.
So this past Sunday morning my nephew and I played thru a basic scenario I created for him, a simple one-on-one adventure, and he experienced role playing for the first time and really enjoyed it! Better still…he wants to play again!
Thank you Paizo…it is really a dream come true to be able to roleplay with him…something that I truly believed would never happen considering how introverted he had become; I’m simply amazed and thrilled and I have the Beginner Box to thank for it!
That is great news! I hope gaming helps him. :)
Awesome!