Family Traditions?

I thought I'd get things started with my first email on this topic:

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All:

Please forgive the mass email format -- though it's not really very mass, at only ~10 recipients. I wanted to write down an experience that occurred (is occurring?) over the vacation we just finished, and sharing it with this group seemed as good a motivation as any to write it down.

As a parent, I'm not really one to "get my kids into" things. If you've been about me during my parenting years, you know I'm one of those worried parents who's more concerned with keeping their kids OUT of things: no TV, though videos aplenty, affording lots of opportunities for parental differences of opinion over which ones are appropriate; no video games, because even the non-violent ones are hideously addictive and we wouldn't want them to grow up like me; etc. (Those of you who do let your kids watch TV and play video games please do not feel judged: my hangups are my own :->).

So anyway.

My kids are masters of imaginative play. Each of them can go off and spin long narratives about this or that, in which they act many of the parts and leap about the room (what the school teachers apparently now call "kinesthetic learning"). Their play tends more animals and fantastic creatures, with E's creatures generally fighting and being fierce, and R's creature engaging in complex interactions (this is a gross generalization, but onward).

Most of you probably also know that I was a big RPGer in my earlier days, starting in 6th-7th grade with the original D&D boxed set, Judges Guild materials, EPT, C&S and others, continuing more or less through college with increasingly home-brewed systems. But mainly 1977-1987. And since 1996, I've played far too many computer games, including, at present, World of Warcraft, which, though extremely addictive and immersing, is in many ways a pale shadow of a well-run RPG.

But again, I have generally been oriented on keeping the kids out of my current hobbies, rather than involving them in my older ones. Though E recently became aware of my old figure-painting hobby and periodically demands that I bring out my collection of painted figures to pore over. But this never led to a discussion of D&D or the like, and had it done so I probably would have indulged in the usual "nah, he's too young."

Yeah, right.

So here we are, on vacation at my sister-in-law's house in South Carolina. I am sitting in the guest bedroom noodling about on the computer, and E is scouring the bookshelf for interesting books. Suddenly he cries out

"Hey Dad! I found a book called ... Dungeons and Dragons, Monster Manual!"

Well hmmm.

On goes the parental radar. Is he ready for this? Will it scare him? Will it somehow lead to the discovery of computer games? Drugs, herpes?

Nah. My brain did all the work in some small piece of a second and said "let's just see what happens."

"Monster Manual? You don't say."

"It's full of monsters!"

"Hmm, pretty neat."

"What's this book about, Dad?"

"Well, it's actually for a game."

"Well how do you play?"

Hmm. Well, I have let this email sit about a week wondering how best to describe what happened thereafter. Suffice to say that within a day he had started two different characters, and a day or so after that he designed his own dungeon and ran me through it (though the many 20th level NPCs he had accompany me did most of the work).

I'm considering starting a blog devoted to the ins and outs of being a gaming dad. Given how long it took me to get out this email, though, I don't know.

Anyway, thought you all would get a chuckle out of this.