My parents like to tell the story of when I got my first Lego set--the first thing I did was pull out the instruction booklet (with all the diagrams of 'models you can make') and put it in the trash, with the explanation "I don't need instructions." Most of what I wound up building with them was 'world of the Future' models, which demonstrated some vision of an ideal society. For example, I had a model street with some storefronts, and overhead wiring to support small single-person electric scooters which would run on the sidewalk alongside the pedestrians, and would be docked at special stations for the next person who needed them. (I struggled with designing an automated system to automatically redistribute them as necessary, using only relay logic which is what I understood at the time.) Another model was what I now recognize as a 'smart home', which featured occupancy detection, a (wired) telephone remarkably similar to Apple's 1983 concept phone[1] based on the Macs we had in our house at the time and an Apple Newton I had seen, and various other concepts (again, all based on relay logic and desktop computers!)

Bear in mind that I was doing all of this when I was 10. Clearly this was not normal play amongst my peers, and I would not expect Lego to provoke this sort of thing in most people. However, it was for me a valuable tool in building a worldview which I still strive for today.

My point in mentioning all this is that the great virtue of Lego is that it can be used for pretty much anything. Even if you get a set which is intended for "conflict play," it can be repurposed by the recipient to match whatever it is they're most interested in. (It's sort of like an inverse of the short story The Toys of Peace[2] in that regard.)

[1]: http://www.mactrast.com/2011/12/apples-was-working-on-a-touc...

[2]: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/ToysPeac.sh...