Gaming Psych Eval

[qos]

Last night I had the pleasure of eavesdropping while _storyteller_ and uncrowned_king helped my daughter create a character for the Prometheus Shadow game. She is quite attached to all but one of the grown-ups playing/running the game and has a strong, active imagination, so Lee has offered her a small ongoing part to play.

I was working on my own projects and listening to the guys talk to her about what kind of character she wanted to play, explain the system of character creation, and how the different attributes worked together.

She ended up creating a xenobiologist who loves animals and has the eyes, teeth and ears of a wolf. She has a Dire Wolf companion who is as smart as she is, as well as being slightly stronger and faster. And her two strongest attributes are Stamina and Void -- Void being the measure of her connection to the universe, her spiritual strength.

I expected that she would go for a character who had a strong connection to animals. That's a big part of her. I have to admit that I was a bit surprised by the emphasis she put on spirituality. (Of course, it's the Void points which will enable her to shapeshift and become more animal-like.)

I've known for a long time that my daughter is likely to become a vet (or a zoo habitat designer). I may also have a budding shaman on my hands. . .

Comments

[neversremedy.livejournal.com]

Wow! She's already roleplaying? And what a character creation! Remind me, how old is she? Maybe Ana is starting to get to an age where she could play a small role in a game sometime soon. :)

[qos.livejournal.com]

She turned 11 at the end of December.

She's had some experience with a kid game of D&D, and has been playing Neverwinter Nights on the computer, so she has some idea of how attributes and gaming mechanics work.

We'll see how she does with maintaning focus through a long day, and staying in character.

[neversremedy.livejournal.com]

I'd love to hear how her adventures go in rpg! Ana's only 6, so she's not quite ready for a full day's game, or even one that takes more than about 30 minutes of attention, unless it's online. She wants to play NWN, but as you probably already know, that game requires the skills to read a small novel to maintain game playability, and I'm not willing to sit there reading conversational option after another. I told her she could play NWN as soon as she can read one of my easier fantasy or sci-fi novels. Suddenly, in three months she's gone from getting some of the sounds in words to reading Seuss and the like on her own and completing simple word finds on her own. Nothing like a little motivation to prod them along. ;)

[qos.livejournal.com]

Indeed! And sometimes those motivators aren't quite what we parents might have expected.

[a-belletrist.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you how glad I am that she's joining us. It makes my heart truly happy.

[qos.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm glad to hear this.
I'm a bit nervous myself. Gaming has always been "me" time, not "mom" time.
It will be interesting to approach this as interacting with her more as another player, not so much as my daughter.

Feel free to give me a gentle kick under the table if you think I should tone down any mom-control behaviors.

[a-belletrist.livejournal.com]

I completely understand the "Gaming is Me Time" thing. It is for me as well. When I first took stickxkeyblade to ACNW, I was sort of bummed because that had been my mini-vacation for just me. Adult time. But it's turned out that I have even more fun because she's there to share the excitement with. I don't even have to Mom her anymore. The first year, I was all over the "Protective Mom" routine, and we both set our boundaries. Last year I just cut her loose and we were both perfectly happy. Granted, she's almost 17 now, so ... gah.

You can always just have Captain Tavia be "mom" for the afternoon. :) She'll even rein in her tendency to be insensitive for that time ... at least to the new xenobiologist. Heheheee.

I'm really looking forward to playing.