Which RPG should I introduce my son to?

[Kaivokz]

Books will teach those lessons much more effectively than games ever will, and without the problems of addiction.

In things make believe, games are the half way point between boys taking sticks outside and playing that they’re rescuing a princess from an evil dragon or warlock, and reading about knights saving a princess from an evil dragon or warlock.

Besides, have you never met a person who would rather spend their time in a book than with real people? Who stay up late and feel sick the next day because they had to read one more chapter? Forming unhealthy habits can occur with almost anything—yes even studying physics or playing football or lifting weights.

Well. I don't think playing video games is a good way to have such lessons imparted onto you. It's up to the parent to teach these things. Real life experience through meeting people, making choices, having those "talks" with the old man about life, is far more rewarding than experiencing it through an electronic display.

Most young boys don’t have the opportunity to actually fight evil or protect the weak. The wisdom of elders is valuable, yes—but rarely does a human act right and properly merely because a wise man told him so. Games can be a way of forming good moral habits, good reasoning skills, patience, etc.

Of course it depends on the game—but then it also depends on the book, and the old man giving advice, and on.

 

[Pink Eye]

but rarely does a human act right and properly merely because a wise man told him so

That is true. Then again. Failing is also part of the learning process.

 

[almondblight]

Violence isn’t intrinsically bad—the important lessons to teach are the ends to which you should employ violence and the state of mind you should be in when you decide to be violent.

Martial arts would be a lot more useful then. Since they actually teach you to, you know, fight.

 

[Tyranicon]

Violence isn’t intrinsically bad—the important lessons to teach are the ends to which you should employ violence and the state of mind you should be in when you decide to be violent.

Martial arts would be a lot more useful then. Since they actually teach you to, you know, fight.

Teach them BJJ or boxing at a young age for a lifelong advantage.

 

[Boleskine]

Go with an old blobber. Eye of the Beholder is fairly accessible.

 

[Kaivokz]

Violence isn’t intrinsically bad—the important lessons to teach are the ends to which you should employ violence and the state of mind you should be in when you decide to be violent.

Martial arts would be a lot more useful then. Since they actually teach you to, you know, fight.

Again, you’re talking like it’s one or the other… and learning TO fight is not the make of a man (though I still encourage practicing martial arts for multiple reasons).

For example: https://www.police1.com/investigati...er-in-ex-girlfriend-beating-ORCFcF2aioJ0F1uq/

This guy could probably 1v1 most adult men in the world, and what does he do? Beats his tiny female ex nearly to death and gets life in prison for it.

A robust upbringing helps kids grow into balanced people.

 

[Bastardchops]

To be completely serious, Rusty's right and you'll probably have a hard time convincing your zoomer son to play old-skool isometric games that has (OMG) lots of reading in it.

He's probably part of the next generation. Seems too young to be a zoomer.

 

[Bastardchops]

Cant believe it took 3 pages for someone to show up and point that out. At that age, you take your kid to parks, introduce him to animals, read a book to them, help them socialize with his peers as much as possible etc. Society will turn him into yet another cell-phone staring kids soon enough (as early as kindergartens these days), show him as much of real life fun as you can while you can.

This. Ffs, don't allow your kid to get used to staring at electronic displays that early in his life.

People can end up short-sighted if their eyes aren't exposed to enough sunlight growing up.

https://www.webmd.com/eye-health/ne...thors suspect,distance, also known as myopia.

 

[jackofshadows]

Violence isn’t intrinsically bad—the important lessons to teach are the ends to which you should employ violence and the state of mind you should be in when you decide to be violent.

Young boys especially should learn the appropriate time and way to fight, as most young men have naturally violent inclinations (again, neither bad nor good in itself).

Simplistic stories about good vs evil, about heroic sacrifice, about defending your family and neighbors, and so on will all teach young boys good lessons. For the same reasons that reading Tolkien stoked the fires of goodness and virtue in many young men.

No shit. Except RPGs are probably the worst games (and vid games as a whole too, in turn) to do that. RPGs are for adults - because most of them allow to make you choose. Maybe you want to be a selflish prick, maybe you want to just kill entire family instead of dealing with their problems and so on. You're creating your own story (c) Todd, right? That's their point. If anything, those are for checking your kid's morale stances, not for teaching them. Unless you're talking about some old blobbers where you just slaughter things over and over. No, for 2 y.o. kid you read him some fairytales. Or watch them at least.

Then again, it's not my kid to raise or break - introduce him to horror games to play the whole day for all I care.

 

[Pink Eye]

Could just let the kid play Tetris instead. Studies have shown that game actually makes your brain big:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090901082851.htm

Researchers from Mind Research Network in Albuquerque used brain imaging and Tetris to investigate whether practice makes the brain efficient because it increases gray matter. For 30 minutes a day over a three-month period, 26 adolescent girls played Tetris, a computer game requiring a combination of cognitive skills. The girls completed both structural and functional MRI scans before and after the three-month practice period, as did girls in the control group who did not play Tetris. A structural MRI was used to assess cortical thickness, and a functional MRI was used to assess efficient activity.

“We were excited to see cortical thickness differences between the girls that practiced Tetris and those that did not,” said Dr. Richard Haier, a co-investigator in the study and lead author of a 1992 study that found practicing Tetris led to greater brain efficiency. “But, it was surprising that these changes were not where we saw more efficiency. How a thicker cortex and increased brain efficiency are related remains a mystery.

I gots big brains because I play tetris, wowzers.

 

[Reinhardt]

Skyrim+LL.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

MAN THE KID IS GONNA OPEN UP HIS CHRISTMAS GIFTS THIS MORNING AND SEE SOME BULLSHIT LIKE FALLOUT 1 (best RPG of all time remember to brofist below) INSTEAD OF MARIO KART 8 OR 9 OR WHATEVER.

YOU REALLY GONNA FUCK UP THE KID'S DEVELOPMENT LIKE THAT?

C'MON MAN.

 

[Kaivokz]

No shit. Except RPGs are probably the worst games (and vid games as a whole too, in turn) to do that. RPGs are for adults - because most of them allow to make you choose. Maybe you want to be a selflish prick, maybe you want to just kill entire family instead of dealing with their problems and so on. You're creating your own story (c) Todd, right? That's their point. If anything, those are for checking your kid's morale stances, not for teaching them.

(1) pick games with simple heroic themes, like Shining Force or something in that vein.
(2) you’re talking again like you’re sticking your kid in front of a screen and treating it like a babysitter, not playing the game with him—open ended scenarios are an opportunity to teach, to have a dialogue about what you should do and why, to ask him questions and make him think.

I guess if you play fallout with your child as a vicious psychopath… you have other parenting problems.

 

[jackofshadows]

(1) pick games with simple heroic themes, like Shining Force or something in that vein.
(2) you’re talking again like you’re sticking your kid in front of a screen and treating it like a babysitter, not playing the game with him—open ended scenarios are an opportunity to teach, to have a dialogue about what you should do and why, to ask him questions and make him think.

That's fair and I don't know the first thing about games like Shining Force - maybe there's actually appropriate ones for small children but sure as fuck not the stuff people here been suggesting. Like Fallout/Arcanum, really? There're many concepts in there that are simply incomprehensible for a small child so what's the point? That's regarding story. Regarding combat and death animation - that's just again, not meant for small kids, plain and simple.

I get that half the people here are messing around, possibly OP included but you seem geniunely up for the idea guess due your own experience? But there's so many better options to spend time with your kid, unless one doesn't really have them, similiarly to how some adults don't have better hobby options available other than video games.

 

[KateMicucci]

Could just let the kid play Tetris instead. Studies have shown that game actually makes your brain big:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090901082851.htm

Researchers from Mind Research Network in Albuquerque used brain imaging and Tetris to investigate whether practice makes the brain efficient because it increases gray matter. For 30 minutes a day over a three-month period, 26 adolescent girls played Tetris, a computer game requiring a combination of cognitive skills. The girls completed both structural and functional MRI scans before and after the three-month practice period, as did girls in the control group who did not play Tetris. A structural MRI was used to assess cortical thickness, and a functional MRI was used to assess efficient activity.

“We were excited to see cortical thickness differences between the girls that practiced Tetris and those that did not,” said Dr. Richard Haier, a co-investigator in the study and lead author of a 1992 study that found practicing Tetris led to greater brain efficiency. “But, it was surprising that these changes were not where we saw more efficiency. How a thicker cortex and increased brain efficiency are related remains a mystery.

I gots big brains because I play tetris, wowzers.

Tetris is apperantly owned by Ghislane Maxwell.

 

[Kaivokz]

I get that half the people here are messing around, possibly OP included but you seem geniunely up for the idea guess due your own experience? But there's so many better options to spend time with your kid, unless one doesn't really have them, similiarly to how some adults don't have better hobby options available other than video games.

There are lots of good ways to spend time with your kids—I’m just not seeing the reasoning behind the anti-games stance here.

Take the gold box games suggestion—teaching a kid to make good tactical decisions and plan for long term character development translates to generally useful skills outside of games. It’s similar to playing chess with your kid. Besides, casting fireballs and slaying dragons is just good ole fun for a kid with a ripe imagination. Playing through an RPG isn’t going to make you automatically successful at life (as you can observe here), but neither is reading books or playing sports or anything else the “key” to success—probably the most important aspect of all those when done well is simply having the father in their life.

I just don’t see the difference between playing an RPG with your kid or reading Lord of the Rings to him or playing chess with him.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I’m just not seeing the reasoning behind the anti-games stance here.

Most of them are losers and blame videogames for it.

 

[Divine Blessing]

either troll or sry for this kids unresponsible parent.

neither r kids alphabetized at this age (a requirement for even child-friendly RP/games like Zelda or Secret of Mana with low violence and overall complexity) nor is their visual sense (eyesight) sufficiently developed for complex and detailed structures.
also the hand-eye coordination still has 2-3 years to improve for a gameboy/controller, even mouseclicks and esp. the screen-info r overkill to kids <5: do not expose toddlers to TV (or worse a Video Game) for too long, the sensory overload is pure stress, close to torture. even if they stay calm, they r overwhelmed.


kids should exclusively be introduced to any media (or activity) self-initiated, when they delelop interest and curiosity on their own impulse. at this age senses, speech and esp. physical education r the primary educative tasks. let them grow into their own, not force them into any format (of activity), as it will happen anyway, sooner or later, but more "naturally", when they feel ready for it.

 

[Thac0]

I just don’t see the difference between playing an RPG with your kid or reading Lord of the Rings to him or playing chess with him.

The kid is two. That's too early.
Also while bonding time per se is important there definitly is a hierarchy to these things.
I would say I benefitted the most from the times my dad read to me (there is genuinly noone who regrets having reading as a hobby, contrast that with video games) and when we built Lego or furniture or other physical stuff. That made me decently crafty with tools and tinkering.
Watching your kid play a game and helping him from time to time is like giving him a book full of chess puzzles and helping him from time to time. Probably not the worst way to spend time with your son, but not the best aswell.

Still giving a proper child friendly video game is much better than giving the kid a tablet or a phone too early or some other brain frying modern technomagix, I think thats where a lot of the backlash comes from.

 

[Fargus]

How old is he? My nephew played Morrowind since he was a kid. I suggested him a lot of the games since early teens and introduced him into Gothic series, he loves it and finished both games and playing Archolos now as a mage. He also loves Arcanum and Bloodlines a lot and played them throughout his teen years multiple times. He liked Fallout 2 and loves New Vegas. Finished KCD, Enderal, Arx Fatalis and some witcher games.

He couldn't get into Baldurs Gate and Battle Brothers.

 

[Goldschmidt]

I am not biased or anything but I say Path of Exile. You can even coop with your son.

 

[Cromwell]

The kid is two. That's too early.

mines three and we play dragon quest 11. By play I mean he watches me and he probably doesnt understand much other than beating up monsters, he also notices when something funny or sad happens. From time to time he wants to play himself so I drop him somewhere and he runs around and autofights enemies which makes him happy if "he beats them". He also loves to ride around on slimes and absolutely insists I get him one if they are on screen. He also loves some of the areas we walked through, he was amazed by the mermaid town. He also like monster hunter stries because he can ride around with his monster and fight dinosaurs. hes way to young for anything more complicated

he played genshin impact for half an hour and to my suprise it was the only game he really could do more or less alone, tells you a lot about the game.

 

[Devastator]

Besides, have you never met a person who would rather spend their time in a book than with real people? Who stay up late and feel sick the next day because they had to read one more chapter? Forming unhealthy habits can occur with almost anything—yes even studying physics or playing football or lifting weights.

Excuse me, but are you telling me that you never stayed up late to read one more chapter? Are you even literate?

 

[Darth Canoli]

Ask fantadomat which "RPG" he played first.
Make sure your son never plays it.

You'll thank me later...

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

None, keep your son away from videogames.

Don't be autistic and turn things that are only harmful in excess like video games or alcohol into forbidden fruit. Your kids will resent you and go crazy the moment they leave for college/work. They will end up as drug addicts, feminists, or other societal rejects out of spite.

https://www.webmd.com/eye-health/news/20161201/can-extra-time-outdoors-when-young-reduce-nearsightedness#:~:text=The European study authors suspect,distance, also known as myopia.

Also, the study wasn't designed to prove a cause-and-effect link, it only showed an association.

Here's a better hypothesis: People who are nearsighted don't want to spend time outside, because they can't see things that are far away. This is almost as bad as that paper on "5G causes COVID-19".