Gaming With Relatives

[svensson]

You know, one of the hardest things about gaming with relatives is....

-- the 'sex' part.

My grand-niece is 13 and it's pretty clear that she's going to be a lovely young woman in just a few years. But the LAST thing I want to do as her great uncle is come across as the 'pervert uncle' or as a 'dirty old man'. That makes it hard to compliment her on her hair or outfit even when with the best of intentions. I keep it to a simple 'that looks nice on you' and leave it at that.

But this also intrudes into the 'faux Atlantis' game I'm running. It's rather difficult to show my niece 'Troy' or the 'Spartacus' HBO series when somebody is getting naked every 15 minutes. It also makes it tough to discuss sexuality or gender roles in a factual way as I'm making up multiple societies as I go.

And I also don't want to lecture during a movie like I'm some junior high social studies teacher either.

I didn't realize the awkwardness of all this when I started this project, though I probably should have. I don't regret for a minute the work I'm doing on the game or the mental struggles I'm going through, mind you. I probably need to do it as a part of the getting older process anyway. But it helps to talk about it a bit.

[Squaredeal Sten]

Concern understood - but my only advice is that you may be worrying too much about it.

The amount of sex in a campaign is, of course, up to the GM as well as to other participants -  plenty of FRP campaigns are pretty sexless.

As the only child of two only children, I don't have any nieces to worry about.  I do have two daughters, both grown now - but was not playing FRP games as they grew up.  That required taking off from family every week and I already had hobbies that led me to do that a night or two.

However I suspect that at age 13 your niece is in or post- puberty and already thinking about sexual topics.  Already discussing with other girls at school.  Maybe in a sex ed class, if not this year then next year.    Statistically there is a  chance, still <50%, that she is doing more than discussing - and no, she wouldn't be talking to her great uncle about it.  Yeah, our little babies grow up.  I don't watch those HBO series but I do know sex is a topic in our society, and that little girl hasn't been totally insulated from it unless she was raised in a bubble without electronics. 

So, as I said, you may be worrying too much about it unless your GM'ing includes graphic descriptions of sex.  (No, you don't want to be the sex ed class.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[soltakss]

On 7/29/2021 at 4:19 AM, svensson said:

I didn't realize the awkwardness of all this when I started this project, though I probably should have. I don't regret for a minute the work I'm doing on the game or the mental struggles I'm going through, mind you. I probably need to do it as a part of the getting older process anyway. But it helps to talk about it a bit.

Didn't you say before that her Mum was in the game? Or maybe it was her aunt.

Check with the other adults in the game, to see what they think is appropriate.

Use examples from Young Adult fiction, they seem to love the idea of love triangles, confusion and sideways glances rather than actual romance and sex.

Of course, if you go by the Ancient Greek Legends, they were all about sex and its results. If you introduce the minotaur and she asks where they come from, don't be surprised to get an "Ewww".

[svensson]

37 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Didn't you say before that her Mum was in the game? Or maybe it was her aunt.

Check with the other adults in the game, to see what they think is appropriate.

Use examples from Young Adult fiction, they seem to love the idea of love triangles, confusion and sideways glances rather than actual romance and sex.

Of course, if you go by the Ancient Greek Legends, they were all about sex and its results. If you introduce the minotaur and she asks where they come from, don't be surprised to get an "Ewww".

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, her mom [my niece] is in the game and I checked with her about complimenting the grand-niece. I'm good there. What I said at the time was 'So-and-so, I'm going to give you a compliment but don't take it wrong. You look nice in a tee-shirt and jeans.' That seemed to work.

As for love triangles etc. we're not doing 'relationship gaming' per se. That's a little advanced for a girl who's still having trouble with first person roleplaying. She's very introverted and has to be coaxed out of her shell, so throwing the 'Twilight' nonsense at her would be counterproductive, I think.

Another thing I probably should have mentioned... in the course of becoming reenactors, my wife and I have gotten into the habit of 'raising each other's kids'. There's a lot of dangerous stuff laying about in an 1860s camp, from gunpowder to axes, tent lines, horses, fires, cast iron cookware, etc. and so on. So pretty much every adult reenactor watches every child reenactor to make sure they're not about to hurt themselves. The same goes with what you might call 'deportment' or 'conduct'. We all make sure that boys treat girls with the proper respect, how to tip one's hat, that young girls behave as ladies and so on.

So one time my grand-niece was wearing a skirt and leggins. The leggings were on that edge of being girlishly cute or young woman provocative. Anyway, she was sitting inappropriately and I cautioned her about that. I still wonder if that was a 'geezer moment', but I honestly think it's something that she's of an age where she needs to start paying attention to that kind of thing.

Edited July 30, 2021 by svensson

[Baron Wulfraed]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Of course, if you go by the Ancient Greek Legends, they were all about sex and its results. If you introduce the minotaur and she asks where they come from, don't be surprised to get an "Ewww".

At least it was a pair of mammals... Consider the mess of "Leda and the Swan"

 

[simonh]

I've had to deal with this a bit as I have two daughters. They're in their late teens now. As a father it's not something I can dodge.

The way I've tried to approach it is to be honest and treat my girls with respect, while being somewhat mindful of age appropriateness. Having said that, they were telling me when they were back in primary school how the boys in their class had all watched Game of Thrones. If the boys are all watching it, and talking about it in the playground, why not the girls? The cat's already out of the bag anyway. My attitude on that was to leave it to them, if they wanted to fine, if they didn't fine. Show them enough respect to let them make their own choices up to a point. Just Ideally try and make sure they're informed and considered choices.

As an uncle I can see that's maybe a trickier situation, so talk to the parents. I'd suggest just doing the due diligence to make sure what you're saying or recommending is in line with parental guidelines. Best to just avoid the topic though, it's not your problem. Us parents don't get to dodge it, but you do quite legitimately.

Edited July 30, 2021 by simonh

[Squaredeal Sten]

7 hours ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

At least it was a pair of mammals... Consider the mess of "Leda and the Swan"

 

"If you consider the ancient Greek legends..."

Actually if you just consider the Real World history and the archaeology.  For example in at least one city, displaying phallic symbols (sculptures) outside your house!  That's definitely farther than any of us would go in the Real world today.

https://www.mykonosgreece.com/the-phallus-phallos-in-ancient-greece/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259468154_Penile_representations_in_ancient_Greek_art

So no, an unvarnished display of ancient Greek legend OR reality would not be acceptable for a juvenile audience today.

 

Edited July 30, 2021 by Squaredeal Sten
in parens

[Baron Wulfraed]

3 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

https://www.mykonosgreece.com/the-phallus-phallos-in-ancient-greece

 

Who needs ancient Greece.

Just look at some of the border artwork on the Bayeaux Tapestry.

Or Bolsover Castle; https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jul/03/maevkennedy

The water wasn't running July 2002 when I took these (Hope the links work for you all -- the server is a mere Raspberry-Pi and my uplink isn't that fast; I don't really know if others can see the web-server even given that dynamic DNS service. The router firewall should be routing port 80 to the server; I don't have a certificate for HTTPS).

Main Fountain

"Rude Beasts" (there are four in total, I'm only linking to two)

Rude Beast #1 Rude Beast #2

 

 

 

Edited July 31, 2021 by Baron Wulfraed

[Joerg]

It's a weird world where pupils can name every bone but not a boner...