Why D&D Raven?

[Mike Holmes]

I asked Raven why it was that he plays D&D, considering that he's well aware of other games that would seem, to me at least, like they would better satisfy his gaming needs (including even some designs of his own). Further, he's started playing with his children, and has started them with D&D as well, albeit a streamlined version of OD&D or BD&D. I've often said that D&D is mistakenly considered a good game for children probably because many of us started on it. That is, while I don't think that it's impossible for kids to learn, or that they can't have fun playing it, there are better systems for children. Zak Arneston's game Shadows, for instance.

I'm starting my children on RPGs, and, I dunno, maybe I'm missing something here?

This is split off the original query here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=20029.0

Mike

[Clay]

The obvious candidate for me would be The Shadows of Yesterday, partially because I already own it, and partially because the mechanics are exceptionally simple.  Of course, I actually started my step-son with Call of Cthulhu.  It did have the advantage that it uses percentile dice, and percentile systems are fundamentally easy to understand.

[Ron Edwards]

I'm calling it, guys. This topic has too many pitfalls in it, most specifically, a public challenge of another person's parenting decisions. Whether that's intended or not is irrelevant.

I realize Raven said he was "happy to deal with it" in a new thread. That is also irrelevant.

The moderator word is, drop it as a public topic. If you guys can really have a decent conversation about it, and want to, then you can discover that through private communication.

Best, Ron