Solo Adventures

I've seen this a lot in my cousins and my friend's stepson and nephew as they all grew up. Overall, besides just direct talks explaining things and how games work and character development and player interaction, etc. I really don't think there's much use in penalizing or punishing kids for not "playing correctly", is my ultimate conclusion I've reached over a fifteen year observation period.

LoL. Yeah. I won't give him any negatives to play. Heck, he's already stuck with playing solo, no use making him worse off by penalizing him for being what he is. Doesn't mean I'm not tempted though. :P

I've seen it range from intimidating them, when it feels like they're being attacked, to shamed into "trying to do better", to frustrated at not being able to do better, or be smart enough to do better, or cornered and bossed around and not being able to play like they want to, because they just want to play something and not do "homework".

I personally think a lot or at least some of the problem, is the computer and console point-and-click/shoot/WoW mindset, that removes the concept of roleplaying, except creative writing, which isn't the same as actually describing and playing things at the table.

I know because I'm the same way - I can write and even GM halfway decent and always liked Zork and used to want to do creative writing, but I'm not all that good or want to do RPing proper, myself, because I'm just not that good at it, I can't "think on my feet" very well, especially for interaction, know what to ask, what I'm looking for, etc. so I work on character development in sort of a vacuum, I play in a group and cooperate but don't really interact WITH the other PCs significantly, don't do in-character stuff much, only rarely play characters that do a lot of interaction.

My friend loved to use RPGs to examine the players' psychologies, to see who played what - you can tell where everybody's heads are at, what stage of a teen's development they're at, by how they play - I thought there was a possibly vaguely valid truth to it at first, but now seeing his family play, fifteen years after my cousin, it is like I'm watching the EXACT same characters - they're almost mirror images of my cousins' characters, at almost the exact same ages.