Raising two kids as a nerd is definitely a special experience. Of course I could barely wait to introduce them to all my hobbies and obsessions and favourite stories and books. Now, they are two very different kids, so they responded very differently to what was offered. The older one played his first tabletop games at six years old, and has since lost most of his interest in it. The younger one never bothered to play, but loves to kitbash / toybash and paint his creations. The older one found his main obsession in Pokémon, despite me never ever collecting Pokémon in my life and being a die-hard MtG player. I read them The Hobbit, we listened to a lot of audiobooks of various fantasy works, but in the end massive corporate franchises won the battle for their hearts (cough Star Wars cough).

All these choices somewhat reflect the temperament of each child, their unique skill set and the way their brain is wired – if there is any takeaway from parenting the past decade: you have little say in or influence over how and what a kid is – they come basically finished with the majority of their traits baked into their genetic code, and all you do is protect and preserve them, while they grow.

But there is one thing they have always had in common, ever since they were able to speak and tell stories, the one nerdy thing they both love returning to – and I was reminded of it recently, while playing HeroQuest with them for the first time.

Kids are natural-born role-players.

In the worst case, growing up buries this skill and spark; in the best case, it gets rediscovered as an adult. But kids just naturally play roles.

So much so, that when I unpacked my HeroQuest board during the summer holidays, they immediately defaulted to thinking about special names for their characters (they played two each), and what their back stories might be. If you’ve ever played HeroQuest, you know that the RPG aspect of things is very “board-gamey-fied”, and that you can play the game entirely without that narrative dimension. In true power-gamer fashion you can care all about miniature-positioning, who enters the door which way or how fast you can upgrade to a longsword to attack diagonally.

And don’t get me wrong, the kids are old enough to understand these mechanics after the third or fourth quest, and started saving very deliberately for specific upgrades, planning the use of spells and potions, and so on.

But there was always a completely natural aspect to exploring the life of Denga the Dwarf and Lily the Elven warrior.

And that reminded me of the very, very first RPG we played, somewhere around 2022, to pass the time. We used to play Mausritter , since it has so much appeal for young kids. I mean, cute little mice, exploring a fantastic world of bugs and birds and – if you prefer it a bit more spooky – some underground tunnels.

Their eyes would absolutely light up, and they would hang on every word that I would utter about the Tower of Soot and the raging fire within the chimney, and ecstatically celebrate making friends with the centipede. Every single dice roll in this even more simplified, house-ruled Mausritter game (neither of them could read back then) was just a pretext for intense role-playing, showcasing all the moves and maneuvers their mice would do, and each door opened was accompanied by squeals of excitement.

The intensity was such that we sometimes had to find a quick and happy resolution to an adventure that would otherwise still last several encounters, just to relieve the tension. It was such a fun experience, and one I will never forget.

And funnily enough, they haven’t forgotten either. While we can play these days without full-body performance acts of all the rodent encounters with bugs and hornets, and our RPGs happen while sitting at the kitchen table, the sweaty excitement and wholehearted role-playing have never left, and the stories have just become more elaborate.

I truly hope this never leaves them.