by QorDaq » January 19th, 2023, 6:41 pm
ajjohnsen wrote:I am very excited/hopeful that my kids will love Heroquest as well...but who knows. My daughters are 4 and almost 3 and my son is just about 1, so I've got some more time until they're the age where they can actually enjoy and understand the game. At the risk of sounding a way Im not trying to come off, does anyone have any experience with their daughters taking an interest in the game? I know it's a "typically boys" type of game but now with the female counterparts for each Hero I dont see why girls cant be more interested in the fantasy genre as having both my daughters play with me would be a dream come true
I have one of each, and both played HQ (and other games) to some degree when they were young. My biggest take away as a parent, was to not worry too much about enforcing the "Rules" too early. Both of my children mostly wanted to play for the toy factor when they were little. I had the 1990s' Frozen Horror and The Mage of the Mirror. My daughter did like playing the female versions of the characters, but it didn't stop her from playing the Wizard or the Dwarf, though we had a lot of minis around so she could swap out proxies if she liked.
My daughter (mostly) lost interest in board gaming by the time she started hanging out with her peers more. I don't know that-that was a gender thing so much as a cultural one, her female friends were not into table top gaming-- she still plays video games as an adult. With my son, he still loves board games, enjoys HQ, and also plays video games. So do his peers, my daughter's peers do not. If I am honest with myself though, by the time my son came along, I was older and more patient with him about letting him decide how he wanted to play games when he was very young, and we'd often make up our own rules in the moment, but we'd talk about what the purpose of a given rule was. Over time he developed an interest in understanding the underlying mechanisms behind the rules of a game. These days he actually enjoys reading rulebooks.
Take from that what you will, but in my case, I really think it had as much to do with the approach to learning to game, in concert with the personalities of my children, as much or more so than gender on its own. Granting that my data set was really tiny of course.
My best suggestion would be to let your kids guide you, and enjoy the time you're spending with them for what it is. Understanding the ideas of fair play and "Balance" in a rule set takes time, but just setting up a quest and seeing where it goes doesn't in the big picture. Sappy I know, but they really do "grow up" much more quickly you're likely prepared for. They'll let you know what they like doing, and how they want to do it.
Success to you and your family in figuring out your gaming stride.
[quote="ajjohnsen"]I am very excited/hopeful that my kids will love Heroquest as well...but who knows. My daughters are 4 and almost 3 and my son is just about 1, so I've got some more time until they're the age where they can actually enjoy and understand the game. At the risk of sounding a way Im not trying to come off, does anyone have any experience with their daughters taking an interest in the game? I know it's a "typically boys" type of game but now with the female counterparts for each Hero I dont see why girls cant be more interested in the fantasy genre as having both my daughters play with me would be a dream come true[/quote]
I have one of each, and both played HQ (and other games) to some degree when they were young. My biggest take away as a parent, was to not worry too much about enforcing the "Rules" too early. Both of my children mostly wanted to play for the toy factor when they were little. I had the 1990s' Frozen Horror and The Mage of the Mirror. My daughter did like playing the female versions of the characters, but it didn't stop her from playing the Wizard or the Dwarf, though we had a lot of minis around so she could swap out proxies if she liked.
My daughter (mostly) lost interest in board gaming by the time she started hanging out with her peers more. I don't know that-that was a gender thing so much as a cultural one, her female friends were not into table top gaming-- she still plays video games as an adult. With my son, he still loves board games, enjoys HQ, and also plays video games. So do his peers, my daughter's peers do not. If I am honest with myself though, by the time my son came along, I was older and more patient with him about letting him decide how he wanted to play games when he was very young, and we'd often make up our own rules in the moment, but we'd talk about what the purpose of a given rule was. Over time he developed an interest in understanding the underlying mechanisms behind the rules of a game. These days he actually enjoys reading rulebooks.
Take from that what you will, but in my case, I really think it had as much to do with the approach to learning to game, in concert with the personalities of my children, as much or more so than gender on its own. Granting that my data set was really tiny of course.
My best suggestion would be to let your kids guide you, and enjoy the time you're spending with them for what it is. Understanding the ideas of fair play and "Balance" in a rule set takes time, but just setting up a quest and seeing where it goes doesn't in the big picture. Sappy I know, but they really do "grow up" much more quickly you're likely prepared for. They'll let you know what they like doing, and how they want to do it.
Success to you and your family in figuring out your gaming stride.
