Re: Age and Complexity

On Thu, 22 Jan 1998, Andy Skinner wrote:

I'm 27, single with no kids.  However there is such a spread between
myself and my 2 siblings (who are 10 and 13) that I can give a few hints
about wargaming with kids.  My little brother is easy -- he has an
analytical and curious mind like I was at his age and dives right in to
just about any wargame I put in front of him.  In fact he tends to know
the rules better than I do within a week. ;)  My sister's more
difficult,
though she does play Warhammer fantasy and is starting an interest in
Battletech.  No interest in Full Thrust, though.

BTW, both Full Thrust and Battletech are great intro wargames for kids.
The base rules are simple (Battletech gets complex in the special case
situations) and can be played with control over only a couple of units.
I've noticed that my siblings tend to get frustrated when there are too
many units to think about.  I've also noticed that the kids tend to like
what they know -- the Star Wars and Star Trek backgrounds get alot of
interest.  In fact I could probably get my sister to play Full Thrust if
I
deal with cleaning up the pile of FASA Star Trek minis I've accumulated.

> I do wonder if there will be an end to this hobby, when I can't find
> anyone my age to play.  Most of the people I know are from work
> (I don't know any gamers there) or church (don't think many would

Actually church may not be such a bad place to find wargamers -- gamers
can be reverant too (contrary to what the media at times and certain
radicals might want us to believe).  Two of the people in my saturday
group are regular chuch goers.	You may just have to find the sci-fi
fans
there to gather interest in a wargame.

> But when I'm older and my kids are gone, and I have more time on my
> hands, will I be able to find an opponent?  I can't see playing

I doubt it would be a problem.	Game clubs are the best source for
finding
opponents.  There will probably always be historical wargaming and there
are some really fun systems out there (I'm starting my first foray into
historicals with Tactica, an ancients miniatures system).

A temporally displaced		Bill Nitsche (bnitsche@u.washington.edu)
	hobbit			Oceanography, University of Washington