Perhaps I've simply been to too many cons, but unaccompanied minors? Especially girls?  Nope.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;923663After having been screwed by fickle GMs, I have sort of a hard line on this: run the fvcking game.

Yeah. If I was a player at that table and the the GM refused to run for them, I'd organize a walk out with the rest of the players, seek out a convention rep to complain to, and then run a game for the kids.

If the game is going to be played at a public event like a convention, then I automatically set the game up to be PG-13 because of the exact scenario that the OP has described. The great thing about public play is that your game and gamemastering style gets some exposure. The bad thing about public play is that you cannot easily control who comes to play in your game, so you have to be ready to roll with whoever comes in.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;923714Yeah. If I was a player at that table and the the GM refused to run for them, I'd organize a walk out with the rest of the players, seek out a convention rep to complain to, and then run a game for the kids.

That sounds nice, but I suspect in reality I would just walk out and go look for another game, leaving the sad children to fend for themselves.

I run the game as appropriate to the players, just like I would at my house.  My point isn't the grand unfolding of some arthouse project, it's a cool game experience for everyone present. If that includes children (and I have two young kids myself who come to cons with me), I run a game appropriate to children.

If I absolutely don't want to run a game appropriate for children, I would list it as "Mature" and let folks know when they show up...but I don't run that game, especially not for strangers.

I have personal rules about playing with people under the age of 18, sometimes 21.  Not that I'm usually dealing with mature themes or adult material, I just don't want to play with children.  Nothing against kids, of course.  It's just that I'm not equipped to deal with teenagers, and it's bad enough the hobby is populated with too many grown adults that behave like kids.

Interesting thread, and thoughtful, non-kneejerk responses.  Good on everyone.

It may just be my age talking, but I grew up in a day and age where children weren't routinely encased in body armor, they weren't supervised by adults 24-7, and people didn't call the cops or child protective services if the darling cherubs were seen on a street corner alone.  I was born and raised in Boston's immediate southern suburb, a city of 90,000 people, and at the age of 8 I got to wander about on my own: the only inflexible rule was that I wasn't allowed to cross Hancock Street, the city's main drag and which wasn't (then as now) all that safe for a kid.  Not only were my parents not arrested for neglect, my agemates had the same freedom.

If you compare FBI statistics of the late 1960s with today, the percentage of child abductions or murders hasn't budged.

A twelve-year-old girl isn't any more naive than she'd have been in 1968.  I wouldn't want a child that young at my table full-time, because I do run a lot of mature themes, but a four-hour convention run?  So you tell the other players to keep it relatively clean (and it's not that I appreciate raunch at my table), and you don't have NPCs skullfucking corpses.  It's good.

I think convention games should be run for a general audience since you never know who you are going to get.  If the convention allows minors then you should expect that you might get some and every game convention I have ever heard of allows minors.  There are also a fair number of adults who don't like R-rated content in games too.

Quote from: Pyromancer;923531You have announced to run a gritty hard scifi game at a local gaming convention.

I've been reading this thread and I confess that I am a bit baffled. Like part of the conversation is in a foreign language or something.

• What part of gritty, hard scifi is inappropriate for 12 year olds? i.e. is it the hard scifi or the gritty or somehow the combination of the two?

• And how exactly does the 12 year old's gender matter one itsy, bitsy bit to the appropriateness of hard scifi or grittiness?

The Long Island Role Players meetup (now defuncted) that used to run events and Ravenblood (now closed) effectively had a standing rule that even the most benign games had an 18+ requirement simply because they didn't want to deal with children. I argued that gaming at that age was an important aspect of my life and that they should really rethink things. I think some of them thought I was some sort of pedophile.

Regardless, there are major legal issues involved with running a game for minors in a public venue without affirmative parental consent. And for many kids RPGs are their secret clubhouse away from parental supervision. You think all those tweens who post hard core pornography on Tumblr got permission from their parent's first?

Speaking of which.

Quote from: DavetheLost;923564Be aware that the girls may be the worst offenders.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;923568Keep an eye on them and make sure they don't get out of hand with the rape jokes and over the top violence.

Quote from: Simlasa;923571Yeah, at 12 my sister was quite in the know about a lot of things. I remember her writing stories about an Indiana Jones-esque gynecologist named Smiling Gilbert Goldfinger and his nurse, Miss Moist.

Yeah, I think the desire to believe kids (especially one's own) are these pure and fragile things you must hide things from and talk down to runs smack dab into the reality that they're often more savvy and comfortable about the realities of sex and violence than adults. There's a lot of denial that comes with age.

Quote from: Pyromancer;923641just told the other players to behave like there were two 12 year olds present

You mean behave like a 12 year old and treat them as an equal unless they give me reason to treat them like a child? Because if there's one thing kids (and adults come to think of it) hate, it's being treated like a child.

They're 12.  You don't need to handle them with kid gloves, you just need to...
1. Not go to jail.  As along you're not actually a pedophile that one won't be a problem.
2. Not get sued.  That one's the big fucking problem if you don't have affirmative parental consent, or an actual signature.
3. Not be a dick.
4. Record the session and CYA.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;923809You mean behave like a 12 year old and treat them as an equal unless they give me reason to treat them like a child? Because if there's one thing kids (and adults come to think of it) hate, it's being treated like a child.

I had the feeling the other players were more lenient and non-confrontational than they would have been with adults, but I think that was ok. They weren't patronizing and let them play their characters.

Quote from: Ravenswing;923781It may just be my age talking, but I grew up in a day and age where children weren't routinely encased in body armor, they weren't supervised by adults 24-7, and people didn't call the cops or child protective services if the darling cherubs were seen on a street corner alone.

It's precisely because of this cultural shift that I wouldn't game with unaccompanied minors.  It's not for their safety; it's for mine.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;923809Yeah, I think the desire to believe kids (especially one's own) are these pure and fragile things you must hide things from and talk down to runs smack dab into the reality that they're often more savvy and comfortable about the realities of sex and violence than adults. There's a lot of denial that comes with age.

Twelve-year-olds are not adults, and assuming they have the emotional maturity and mental tools to contextualize and process "the realities of sex and violence" is irresponsible.

Quote from: AsenRG;923623Google the SF they mentioned on my smartphone, read the plots. If that doesn't tell me anything, I'd check with the parents, but I suspect they've left to rest a bit and wouldn't be easy to find;).

Then I'm going to run the game anyway, and damn those torpedoes:D!

Oh, and just in order to be honest, I must specify. I've never been in this situation and strongly suspect never will be, my youngest player was 14 at the time and it wasn't anything she hasn't already read in Stormbringer.
That's just because people around hre tend to start playing RPGs in their late teens or in their twenties, though.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;923809Regardless, there are major legal issues involved with running a game for minors in a public venue without affirmative parental consent. And for many kids RPGs are their secret clubhouse away from parental supervision. You think all those tweens who post hard core pornography on Tumblr got permission from their parent's first?

No, there really isn't; that's a fiction peddled by the "OMG Something Might HAAAAAAAPPEN!!!" helicopter types who really do think, over the last couple days, that behind every bush and in every alley in America there's an Evil Clown out to violently sodomize their cherubs.

In particular, your average SF/gaming convention doesn't sell general admission.  It peddles memberships, and by virtue of purchasing a membership, those 12 year olds get to participate in all lawful activities at the con.  I rather doubt that either your state or the OP's has an explicit law on the books forbidding minors, beyond adult supervision, from being in a room where RPGs are being played.  Mine certainly doesn't -- for one thing, it'd be a surprise to the local FLGS if it had.