How Can I Teach Young Gamers It's Not About Winning? - Ask the Prof
Caveat: Not a real professor. I just play one on TV….if your TV is looking at my YouTube videos. Also my grandfather used to call me that when I was in college.
Now that I am back to blogging more often, its time to revisit this column. Got a question about board games, roleplaying games, comics or pop culture? Send me an email Chris@ocdcast.com or tweet me @ChrisTheProf on twitter with the #asktheprof hashtag and I may answer it in a future column.
Pulling from my archives, @BKfishen4Games asked on Twitter:
"How can I teach young gamers that it’s not all about winning?"
Are we sure that it's not all about winning? Pretty sure Conan would agree with that.
But I think I understand the sentiment. But first, since I'm assuming we are talking about children, I should probably caveat this discussion. A) Every kid is different and so just because I've seen something work doesn't mean that it would work for your child. B) I got into hobby gaming with Chloe being 7 years old and jumping straight into Magic the Gathering, and now she wants nothing to do with gaming, so take that for what you will.
Suggestion #1: Don’t Teach Them
Ok, with all of that out of the way, let's talk about the easiest solution: don’t play competitive games! If your child is not at the point where they can fully handle competitive games, have them stick to cooperative games for the time being. Being able to work together with others is a far better social skill to develop than learning how to win/lose well. If you search for "kids games" online, you'll get a TON of lists from people who are more qualified than me, so for the purposes of this post, I'm going to assume you are wanting to ease kids into more "adult" (No not *that* kind of adult) games. Stuffed Fables comes to mind quickly as a neat coop game with a theme that kids might find interesting. Players are various stuffed animals that have to save a child from evil doers. I haven’t personally played the game, so I can’t offer too much about it, but there are plenty of reviews out there if you want more information. Of the coop games I have played, I would suggest Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert. My preference is towards Forbidden Desert, but Desert is a tad bit more complicated so it would ultimately depend on the children’s ages. These games have you race to gather items before the Island/Desert disappears, and they give a good backbone of what coop games are all about. In fact, you could easily graduate the kids from Forbidden Island to Pandemic with little effort, as many of the mechanics are identical.
Suggestion #2: Don’t Play Board Games
Skirting around your question in a similar vein to suggestion 1, you could try introducing them to Roleplaying Games (RPGs). There are plenty of RPGs out there that kids could try their hands at. This way, they are working together with their “party” to defeat obstacles and “win” the scenario, giving them a sense of accomplishment. No Thank You Evil is usually my recommendation of choice when trying to get kids to play RPGs, as the mechanics are really simple. As long as the child can read the character sheet, they are old enough to play. The game also allows you to scale the complexity for different characters, so even if there are a couple of older kids there is still enough to keep them engaged as well. However, our local store has shown me that kids are more than capable of picking up Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). You might scoff at that, but our store had so many elementary/early middle school kids interested in D&D that they had to move those ages to Sunday afternoons as the kid groups were filling up the entire store. Granted, it is not the same running D&D for kids as it is for adults. The DM needs to have a lot of patience and willing to work with the children. Also, having a good structured environment to help get them back on track when things get wild is a must.
Suggestion #3: Distract them
Finally getting around to your actual question, if you have competitive games that you want younger gamers to play without worrying so much about winning, then find a game that makes them laugh. If you can make the game less “serious”, then the game becomes less about winning and more about having fun. Personally, I find dexterity games to be great for this, as they can have all kinds of chaos. Ice Cool would be my first recommendation, as if kids bump the table, you don’t have to worry about the game falling apart. Plus it has cute artwork and the kids will love flicking the pieces around the board. Also, I’ll throw another suggestion in there for free (call it suggestion 3a): play in teams. Having someone else around to “help” them might make it seem less like adults overpowering them (even if you are “going easy on them”). In fact, if you want a great silly dexterity game that is good to play in teams, I recommend HOP! It kind of reminds me of the “Physical Challenges” in Family Double Dare, where someone draws a card and has to toss a ring to another player in all sorts of different ways (under your leg, various people trying to block, using only a finger, etc.).
Hopefully, one of those ideas will help the young gamers focus not on winning, but having a good time. Feel free to suggest other ideas in the comments below, or let me know how bad my advice is if you try it out for yourself. You can also talk to me on Twitter and Facebook! See you next time!