There has been much talk on certain online Swine forums about "gaming with children" and "what system would be right for a group of kids" and "what kind of RPG could we design that would appeal to kids".
The level of general ignorance and stupidity shown on these threads astounds me, it really does. I mean, it goes far above and beyond the call of Swine Duty, treading into whole new realms, undiscovered countries of total lackwit moronic idiocy.
First of all: What the fuck?! NOW you fuckers care about the children? Now?
After it was you who singlehandedly pushed kids away from the roleplaying hobby with your asinine selfish insistence on hardcover high-production overpriced RPG books so that they'd suit your "collector" mentality, and absurd pseudo-intellectual themes that no self-respecting kid would give a shit about, and politically correct nonsense and other such sophomoric college-idiocy that convinced younger teens that they were neither wanted nor needed in this hobby?
NOW?
Now that you stupid fuckwits almost put the hobby on death's door, you start thinking of the children?
You gang of cunts.
Second: Hello?? Hello?? There are ALREADY systems "for kids", very successful ones, systems like Fighting Fantasy, the Palladium system, D&D Basic, stuff that MADE this hobby, and that you guys despise because it isn't sufficiently "narrativist" or isn't about transgendered cowboys eating pudding, or man's struggle with teatime, or whatever other absolutely imbecilic piece of claptrap is the fashion of the day with you goons.
Those are the sorts of RPGs a kid will like: RPGs where you go around having adventures, killing things, fighting, getting powerful; with lots of magic items, meaningless but cool monsters, and the occasional fart joke.
You know, like Palladium? The system you guys laugh at? Or D&D, the system you despise because in your heart of hearts you know its more entertaining than anything you intellectually bankrupt gang of vermin could come up with?
Palladium's games (which I guess these days are mostly just RIFTS) can barely be called a "system", their worlds make no sense. They are overpowered, off-balance, and the total opposite of deep.
Which tells us that none of that matters one fucking bit when it comes to getting kids interested in RPGs. The kids couldn't give a flying fuck about "system"; they don't want "a narrativist open-ended system with mechanics from The Window and Risus"; they want a fucking GAME. They don't give a shit about setting either, at least not in the sense that you do, or even the sense that I do. They don't want something profound or even consistent, they want something cool to them.
Palladium, while producing games that I personally wouldn't ever play these days, is responsible for making more roleplayers than all the Lard on RPGnet put together. And why is that? Because despite all the personal flaws of the people who make up the company, they know exactly what they're selling and for whom: softcover books that rarely get over $25, with lots of awesome robots and explosions and monsters and occasional boobies. They're actually making books that kids can afford, and games that are FUN with the thematics that the kids enjoy.
You know the only other game more responsible for making new gamers? D&D. Because it has monsters and power-ups and rules that are complicated enough to be interesting but not so complicated as to be unplayable and you can be a Dwarf with a fucking big axe that kills the orc chief. That's what the kids want you fucks, not "cinematic unisystem narrativist harry potter where harry explores the social consequences of muggles/wizard class warfare", not "politically correct fairytales using My Life With Master as an engine"!
I piss on you all.
So I am issuing the Swine a missive: For the Magic Deer's sake, stay the fuck away from the children! If you give a shit about the roleplaying hobby and its future (and I have long since given up any hope that you do, given the atrocities you have commited against that future, with friends like you who needs enemies?) you will under no circumstances try to force your kids or anyone else's into roleplaying your sad pretentious bullshit with you, just because you can't find a real gaming group to do so. Violate this and I swear to Jeebus I will sooner or later come after you with the Burning Hot Poker of Justice!
Its not that I in any way fear that you'll make them into little Swine; kids are usually too smart to be Swine, and won't be in any real danger of that until their mid-teens when they hit the bad-poetry-writing phase; its that I'm quite sure that there would be no better way of insuring that kids hate RPGs than for an adult to thrust some demented game out of the Forge or RPGnet on them. It will cement forever in their little heads the idea that RPGs are for boring losers with nothing better to do than to harass preteens with "games" that aren't really games and where nothing really interesting happens.
This is especially true if you're the parent. Even if you're not a Swine, even if you play a game that's cool to them, you will almost certainly be making sure that even if they like it as kids, they will reject it as teens along with anything else you think is cool.
Even if you're an older sibling; the absolute best thing you can do is what I did with my younger brother: I told him that there was no way he'd be allowed to game with me until he was at least 16, no matter how much he begged (and he begged and begged). By the time he was 13, he was playing RPGs with his own friends, just to "show me", and in the process getting himself and all his buddies hooked. By the time he finally gained the vaunted spot in my gaming group, he was already totally hooked, and games to this day.
So leave the kids alone, you dumb fucks!
Unless you're Wizards of the Coast: in that case, for the Magic Deer's sake get off your fucking asses and start making gamebooks like the old Fighting Fantasy books; and a simpler RPG set for 10-14 year olds that are all about running around the dungeon killing stuff and fighting with robots, and occasional boobies. I know you guys can do this, surely you must see the importance of getting these little snots hooked while they're young! Sell your fucking miniatures if you must, but segway it into the roleplaying hobby as a whole. I know that somewhere inside those robotic corporate shells there are still gamers, who give a shit about the hobby as a whole, and understand that this is fucking critical! So go, do it, pull whatever strings you must, but get it done, or you too shall suffer from the Flaming Keystrokes of Truth and the Burning Hot Poker of Justice! Mike Mearls, I'm looking at you!
RPGPundit + occasional boobies
October 10th, 2005