How young have your players been?

[nexus]

What's the youngest players your ever run for? I once ran a one shot game for a group 7-8 year olds.

[CrosshairCollie]

Well, when I technically started gaming when I was, like, ten (not that I would call it gaming compared to what I do now ...), so back then, about the same. Nowadays, I have discovered that I simply can*not* relate to anybody significantly younger (or older) than myself for any length of time ... when I was in college, youngest was 16 (high school kids), most recently, nobody under 25.

[paigeoliver]

Hmm, had several 11 year old players in junior high school. More recently had a 12 year old player control the Dread Pirate Heather for part of a run.

[travellerne]

One group has players 15-50. For younger than that, I want to make sure it is a "youth" game.

TNE

[arcady]

As an adult I don't game with children because I will not censor the topics and discussion around the table and do not desire to incur legal responsibility for someone else's children.

I prefer gamers in their late 20s on - people below that haven't really formed the ability to analyze their actions well. I'll accept younger gamers though, provided they are adults.

[Vondy]

I was 7.5 when I started gaming and was 10 when I ran my first adventure. I'll assume you mean "as an adult."

The youngest player I've run for in a very long time was a highschool senior (18). The rest of the group was between 27 and 36, though we had a few early 20's types come through on occassion.

I prefer to play with adults because they have more life experience and (usually) more maturity to bring to the table, but there is little in my games that would be objectionable for a teenager.

[Mark Taylor]

Well I run games (in addition to my regular gaming group) at a local university gaming club, so each year a new batch of first year students aged 17-19 arrives. It's (quite rightly) considered the responsibility of us older GMs to run games for the fresh blood. I haven't run games for anybody younger than 17, since that's the minimum age at which it's usually possible to attain the qualifications necessary for university enterance.

[OddHat]

Like Von, I started gaming at 7. These days, the youngest player in the group is 18, and I prefer players 25 and older. The oldest player in my recently ended online game was in her 50s.

[teh bunneh]

I started gaming when I was about 9, and played with others of the same age. I've had players of up to 10 years younger than me, and up to about 25 years older.

Bill.

[JMcL63]

The youngest player I have ever had was 10, in a Fantasy HERO game years back. I was visiting a pal, and ran a game for his group. The player in question was my host's kid sister, and she played a very creditable bard. There were one or two moments when I had to rein in certain aspects of the game to suit her young mind, but otherwise she was 'just' another of the group. ;)

[Lord Mhoram]

The youngest player I've gmed is abou 10, but he was the son of one of my best friends and was just sort of along for the ride. The youngest that was there because he wanted to play was 13.

The 13 year old was a great roleplayer too.

[JmOz]

What's the youngest players your ever run for? I once ran a one shot game for a group 7-8 year olds.

same, I used Hero to help my son learn his math and reading

[Ghost Archer]

I have a player that joined my group when she was 12, she's now 18 and just started college. I am very proud of her. Back in the beginning on my Champions days, I had a group of 12 year olds playing with me for some months. Five of them.

[Barton]

I have run 3 games (at Rock-Con, and GenCon) for all comers that included as young as 7 year olds. This was a combat module, with some roleplaying (minitures and a map). The kids had a good time. The one thing you have to do is get them involved by explaining the rules, letting them try things. The only down side is when it seems like they are losing, you have to urge them to keep trying. Within 4 phases they were winning (they finally realized some of thier attacks just would not work and changed tactics).
Kids are fun for one shots and for more combat related play. The ability for roleplaying is more limited BUT not zero. I had fun teaching the system to them.
For a continuing game I prefer post college ages because role playing is what most (most in my experience) older players are interested in.
For those going to Rock-Con 2004 ( www.rock-con.com ) I will be judging "Chicago Rumble" and all are welcome!

[Chuk]

I game with my son who's now 11, but we started when he was probably six or seven. I've also done some gaming with my four and seven year old daughters -- the youngest one is not really into it yet, and sometimes cries when she misses dice rolls. The kids seem to like Fudge best, although the girls also quite like the Pokemon Junior Adventure Game, which is not quite exactly like an RPG.

[Sketchpad]

I started gaming when I was 10 ... and now I game with my kids who are 8 and 10 and they seem to love it ;)

[That Masked Man]

I started gaming at 12 and at that time had players as young as 10. Even now, in the past few years I have had players as young as 15 in games I have run and have played in games with another player who was 14 - the son of one of the other players. He was unusually mature for his age and was in fact going to GM a game for the group, but outside influences forced him to cancel. I don't normally make a habit of having players under 20, but these have been some fairly successful exceptions.

[WhammeWhamme]

Uhm. Although I have GM'd a fair few times, everyone has always been older than ME. :)