Playing with the kids

[Nuadha]

I brought Heroquest out to play with my 10-year old nephew and a friend of his last night.     It really reminded me of why I have kept this stuff over the years.    When I play with jaded old board gamers, they pick it apart and call it too simple.    (At least when I run the regular quests.    If I still had all the quests I used to write and ran people through them, I think it would be a different story.)    However, the kids "get it" instantly.    You need the right crowd to play this game which is generally people who can get behind the "RPG-lite" feel of the game and who will ham it up and talk in barbarian voices, etc..    Adults seem afraid to do that more often.   Since it is a board game, they seem to feel like they need to plot out the next turns and sit there with a serious voice.     The kids instantly understood that it was fun to talk like they are the barbarian, wizard or dwarf.    This seems more rare with adults I play board games with these days.

I think it also helps that since it was kids, I also hammed it up as the Zargon player the way I did in the old days.   With the serious adults, I don't ham it up like I used to.      I need to remember that I should ham it up full-tilt when running the game with adults too.   Maybe it will get more of them to get in to the game in what I feel is the "right way."

I got a text from my nephew (using his dad's phone) this morning asking if I will bring HQ over again tonight.   He can't wait to rescue Sir Ragnar!    :D

[hydrosqueegee]

I've kept my copy around for the past 21 years for the sole purpose of playing with my kids. (talk about planning ahead).  last week I was home with my sick 6 year old and he asked if we could play one of my games.  I told him sure and he came strutting out with heroquest in his arms.
we layed out the board, I gave him a quick rundown of the rules and let him pick his hero.
so George, the mighty Dwarf, was off on adventure with only the whims of Zargon (me) to worry about.  he's to young to really grasp the game yet, so I just made it us as we went.  find the emperors treasure and slay the evil wizard.  he stated the first quest was to easy, so the second was more challenging.  he won both fair and square, with only 1 body point left both times.  he had fun but two adventures were enough for one day.

[Sjeng]

That's so cool! I hope if I get kids I can play it with them someday :)
For now I'll keep on playing with my fiancee, she's a very evil Morcar, always attacking the weakest of my party haha, so I have to use strategy in placing my figures.
Perhaps when my nephews get a bit older I might bring HQ along.

[MarkRG]

Well done mate and great gaming, I saving all my technical lego for when I have kids, i still buy the odd box accaisonally.

[hydrosqueegee]

I had two big bins of legos.  one of them vanished over the years.  :(  but I still have the bucket with all the old castle legos!
my oldest may be a lost cause because he likes the city and space legos.  but my 3 year old seems to like the castle ones.  :D