Family Gaming

I got really excited about playing Forgotten Waters with Carrie and Shane. It was a pirate game, but it was cooperative, story-telling, and fully narrated! The narrator was none other than All-Might from My Hero Academia, too! Carrie recognized him right away and couldn't believe it. She rushed to the computer to look it up and confirm.

This is going to be awesome, I thought. 

We pulled out sheets to make our characters. Carrie was a Thespian Pirate. I chose the Seasick Pirate. Shane wanted to the the Gunpowder Guy. Shane's sheet asked him to pick a number between 2 and 8. Shane said, "7" and that was the number of fingers he'd already lost playing with explosives! 

We started the adventure, our three pirates (and Shane's pirate's three fingers!) and I thought it was a neat system.

This is my type of game.

I looked up at Carrie's and her face told a different story. She stuck it out for a while, but eventually excused herself from the table. 

Shane was a big factor. He fidgeted constantly with items on the table, made sound effects, and dragged out making a decisions on his turn to make everything as dramatic as he could. 

And once Carrie left, Shane lost interest quickly. I cheered him on and got him to finish with me, but I doubt we'll play together again.

Such is the problem I have getting the family together to play games. Carrie likes a degree of calm and for things to move snappy. Shane only wants to play if everyone plays, but then proceeds to (unintentionally) do everything that drives Carrie up a wall! 

I cleaned the game up quietly later on.

A week later, Shane agreed to play The Crew with me. I was thrilled. I didn't care if we won or lost. Shane wanted to practice shuffling, so I let him manhandle the cards for a while before dealing out. 

Carrie decided to join us. She wanted to participate, but it was clear she was worn-out. I didn't want to discourage family gaming, but it ended predictably. You're not supposed to say what cards you have and Shane kept calling out his. He misunderstood another rule and Carrie realized he was picking up the tricks he took back into his hand, too. 

Carrie was cross and snapped at him for it. Shane left the table and went to his room.

Carrie and I talked for a little bit after and I insisted she needed to be the one to go check in on him. She felt terrible about it later on and resolved to hug him extra tightly. 

Shane had a rough day at school the next day. Kids at recess were mad at him for not throwing the ball quick enough in kickball and yelled at him. Carrie saw a parallel and felt even more awful for snapping at him herself when she heard. I think it made for a good discussion point with Shane later on. 

So for the moment, family gaming is on pause unless it's a quick, small game. Maybe once every couple of weeks we'll play three person Gin or Shane will pull out Don't Break the Ice. I hope as Shane gets older, he'll be a little calmer, and Carrie will be a little more patient with his antics and we can play other sorts of games. I'd love to GM an RPG for Shane at some point, but we're not there yet.