Age Differentials in Gaming
It has been six days since my last post but I have been busy. Hmm, I just don't know where to start! I did play about four or five games this week so it was a decent week, but certainly not my best gaming week ever. This did include a few new games that I found to be very interesting as well as one that was interesting on a whole different level. Now, within this week I played with a number of people of varying ages and reasoning abilities. Each of these people provides a unique challenge presented by their age (And with age comes reasoning ability. Well, most of the time anyway!) and I plan to dive into that this time around.
While my regular group consists of members all at age 19-21, there are numerous occasions during which I play with people up to 40 years my senior and 13 years my junior. All of these people provide unique experiences and situations in which to play games. And the experience that they provide is what makes gaming with them worthwhile!
So, in what situations do I play with these people? Well, many different situations actually, but let me start with the mentoring that I do. Every Friday during the school year for the past year (this year is my second year) I have mentored two children at a local elementary school. I mentor a seven year old first grader named KC and an eleven year old fourth grader named Shay. I play games with them if the weather outside isn't good or if they just want to play games that week (which ends up being a lot). So last week when I met with them (I do so individually), I brought a beginner war game titled Target Arnhem: Across 6 Bridges for Shay, and KC and I played a game called Bob the Builder: Scoop's Construction Site.
Shay has been interested in trying out a war game for quite some time now and so I figured I would find one that would be both cheap and playable in the thirty minute time frame that we have on Friday's. Target Arnhem: Across 6 Bridges was the perfect fit. It is a free game from MMP (Multi Man Publishing) and all you pay is the five dollar shipping cost. Anyway the game only has two pages of rules and uses ratios to determine the outcome of attacks, so it is a good game to play with him as we get some math lessons in there too. However, when teaching a fourth grader how to play a war game there is a lot of hand holding. This is to be expected though. I would be very surprised to play a war game with a fourth grader that understood how to play this game every bit as well as me! It seemed tough for him to pick up the concept of ratios, but he has some trouble with math (as do I) and I think that he is starting to get the hang of it now. Other than that he really had most of the strategy down. To me, just being able to play the game with someone else was great, and he had a blast learning to play a war game. He was even reminding me of some rules that we had neglected during the first turn. Overall, he was a good sport and I was quite surprised at how quickly he picked up the strategy to the game.
After I met with Shay, I met my first grade student KC. He decided on a game from the school library called Bob the Builder: Scoop's Construction Site. At first I was really dreading it. The game is made with young children in mind, and involves a motorized bulldozer pushing I beams off of the board and building towers with those beams. KC has little fits of joy or frustration depending on what is happening in the game. But most of the time he tries to change the rules on you. So, we have been working on playing fairly and using good sportsmanship (which he has been doing very well at). This game proved it. During the first game we both had two story towers that were taken down by the other player using the bulldozer. This proved frustrating for him at first, but soon he was reveling in the destruction and chaos that he was wreaking upon my tower. He won that game and promptly asked to play again so I obliged. During the second game his tower was knocked down a lot and he didn't seem to mind. His tower would go down, I would take his pieces, and he would spin the spinner and go. It was the best display of sportsmanship he has shown yet. What makes it better is that even though he lost, he kept a smile on his face and didn't pout. It actually didn't turn out to be that bad of a game and we had a lot of fun taunting each other with the bulldozer. He has come a long way from trying to switch sides with you when he was losing! And that is really great to see.
Ok, so over the next two posts I will finish outlining who I play with and have played with that span pretty much every age you can think of. Then I will compile it all in order for you to be able to make sense of all this seemingly useless information! You will finally see how the age rift effects gaming groups and dynamics.
Next episode: Age Differentials in Gaming Continued
While my regular group consists of members all at age 19-21, there are numerous occasions during which I play with people up to 40 years my senior and 13 years my junior. All of these people provide unique experiences and situations in which to play games. And the experience that they provide is what makes gaming with them worthwhile!
So, in what situations do I play with these people? Well, many different situations actually, but let me start with the mentoring that I do. Every Friday during the school year for the past year (this year is my second year) I have mentored two children at a local elementary school. I mentor a seven year old first grader named KC and an eleven year old fourth grader named Shay. I play games with them if the weather outside isn't good or if they just want to play games that week (which ends up being a lot). So last week when I met with them (I do so individually), I brought a beginner war game titled Target Arnhem: Across 6 Bridges for Shay, and KC and I played a game called Bob the Builder: Scoop's Construction Site.
Shay has been interested in trying out a war game for quite some time now and so I figured I would find one that would be both cheap and playable in the thirty minute time frame that we have on Friday's. Target Arnhem: Across 6 Bridges was the perfect fit. It is a free game from MMP (Multi Man Publishing) and all you pay is the five dollar shipping cost. Anyway the game only has two pages of rules and uses ratios to determine the outcome of attacks, so it is a good game to play with him as we get some math lessons in there too. However, when teaching a fourth grader how to play a war game there is a lot of hand holding. This is to be expected though. I would be very surprised to play a war game with a fourth grader that understood how to play this game every bit as well as me! It seemed tough for him to pick up the concept of ratios, but he has some trouble with math (as do I) and I think that he is starting to get the hang of it now. Other than that he really had most of the strategy down. To me, just being able to play the game with someone else was great, and he had a blast learning to play a war game. He was even reminding me of some rules that we had neglected during the first turn. Overall, he was a good sport and I was quite surprised at how quickly he picked up the strategy to the game.
After I met with Shay, I met my first grade student KC. He decided on a game from the school library called Bob the Builder: Scoop's Construction Site. At first I was really dreading it. The game is made with young children in mind, and involves a motorized bulldozer pushing I beams off of the board and building towers with those beams. KC has little fits of joy or frustration depending on what is happening in the game. But most of the time he tries to change the rules on you. So, we have been working on playing fairly and using good sportsmanship (which he has been doing very well at). This game proved it. During the first game we both had two story towers that were taken down by the other player using the bulldozer. This proved frustrating for him at first, but soon he was reveling in the destruction and chaos that he was wreaking upon my tower. He won that game and promptly asked to play again so I obliged. During the second game his tower was knocked down a lot and he didn't seem to mind. His tower would go down, I would take his pieces, and he would spin the spinner and go. It was the best display of sportsmanship he has shown yet. What makes it better is that even though he lost, he kept a smile on his face and didn't pout. It actually didn't turn out to be that bad of a game and we had a lot of fun taunting each other with the bulldozer. He has come a long way from trying to switch sides with you when he was losing! And that is really great to see.
Ok, so over the next two posts I will finish outlining who I play with and have played with that span pretty much every age you can think of. Then I will compile it all in order for you to be able to make sense of all this seemingly useless information! You will finally see how the age rift effects gaming groups and dynamics.
Next episode: Age Differentials in Gaming Continued
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