Start 'em young

Let me tell you something. When I became a father a little over thirteen years ago, I said to my self, "Self, you are going to pass down your gamer genes to a new generation of humanity. How will you handle that?" Well, I'll tell you.

I started with the basics like Candyland and Connect-4. We gradually moved up to Monopoly and Life. When my oldest son turned 10, I decided it was time: I pulled out my Red Box D&D set from my 11th year, dusted it off and introduced my son to the world of Orcs, Goblins, Elves and Dwarves. We sat in his room late one Friday night after making his first level-one wizard and I faced him with his first solo challenge: The random wilderness encounter.
I figured that a solo wizard may want to venture into the forest to gather wild herbs an seek out places of power where he could find ancient inscriptions and perhaps learn new spells. When I posed this line of thought to my son, he agreed and provisioning his mage, he set out for the hinterlands.As the wizard camped for the night, I rolled on an old wild animal table I found and got the result:Wolf. Adding a little flavor text, I described this mangy old wolf who'd been kicked out of his pack for being old and weak. The young mage looked like a fine meal and the wolf was moving in for the kill. My son then did what any good RPG player does and consulted his equipment list. Nothing. No weapon or tool to use against the wolf. He then consulted his spell list. He had memorized two spells: Magic Missile and Light. My son the asked a question that frankly shocked me; "Dad, how many hit points does the wolf have?" Well, I'd figured he'd go for the attack power first, but he reasoned that he could max out the damage on M. Missile, and still not outright kill the wolf, so he read the spell descriptions and proceeded to cast Light on the wolf, or more specifically, his eyes. This so surprised me that I frankly had say the wolf would be frightened and run away. We spent the rest of the evening exploring the world of our imagination, and a gamer was born. In the three years since, my son has played in four different game systems, and ten or more settings in dozens of individual adventures. We both introduced his younger brother to RPG's and they both get together with some friends from school occasionally and play a GURPS setting that we came up with together. The older wants to design his own game and is very interested in the mechanics while the younger is more into making up settings. To say the least, I am very proud of them both.