Gaming before lunch? Check. Gaming again after lunch? Check. Roaring fire? Check. Surrounded by wintery wilderness? Check. Still managed to get 17K+ steps and more than two hours of active minutes? Check! Can a day get better than this?
After the success of our venture with the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game last spring, my colleague and I decided to offer the activity again this fall. We had enough student interest to justify buying two more boxed sets. The photo below shows all the material organized and laid out before students arrived.
Earlier this week, Griffin and Maggie created a four-level dungeon on my dry erase hex tiles. They were so excited about it that they wanted me to play in it, so Griffin volunteered to be the game master. It was his first time running a game and his first original adventure. When I asked what it was called, he replied, “The Dungeon of Doom.”
It was remarkably fun playing this game with the kids. Griffin was creative and clever, and I found myself not just playing with my children, but getting into the game. See below for a few pictures of the wild map. Beneath the pictures are some highlights from the session, written mostly for other tabletop gamers.
Two of my passions—teaching and roleplaying games—came together in this short piece. After running a gaming activity at school this year, the fine folks at Steve Jackson Games asked me to write up a blurb about the experience. It went live this morning.
The target audience is definitely gamers (who else ends up on the SJGames homepage?), but it shouldn’t cause Muggle eyes to glaze over too much.
(See also a PDF version in case the site goes down.)
We enjoyed a few days with away from the end-of-school rush at the cabin over Memorial Day weekend. Our friends Jess, Murray, and Olive joined us. (Sadly, Kevin couldn’t make it this year.)
The trip included a number of notable events:
Maggie: “I don’t want to play any games. I only want to read D&D books!” At which point she heads upstairs and does just that.
(Note that she can’t quite read these books yet, but she loves looking at the pictures, especially the gruesome monsters.)
While flipping through the Monster Manual recently,
Maggie came across this handsome fellow:
Upon which she giggled and exclaimed,
“Daddy, he’s almost as big as you!”
Sarah was out of town for a wedding. The kids had been asking for another D&D game. We hadn’t played in ages, not since last summer. So, yes, totally, let’s play D&D! But let’s do it properly. We needed more players. I invited over some friends of theirs so that we could potentially have five players, but if the youngest two—Maggie and her friend, Olive—lost interest, they could entertain each other. Five kids while solo parenting… I was asking for it.
We had a great time. Maggie and Olive only played for a bit, but Griffin, Murray, and Miles invested a couple of hours into it. In the year and a half since our first game, the kids have developed quite a bit. Some observations and highlights:
WARNING!
Plant monsters and zombies
KEEP OUT!
Just told Griffin that friends are coming this weekend to play D&D and he got REALLY excited. Then he tried to “get” me as a goblin, so I cast a spell on him. Then he said, “well, I have 100 hit points and you have only 5, so I won.”
— Text message from Sarah this morningÂ
A week before heading up to the cabin, Griffin and I walked to our local comic shop to pick up a new graphic novel (he chose Journey to the Center of the Earth). While browsing, I noticed that the latest (fifth) edition of Dungeons and Dragons was out. I couldn’t resist picking up the Player’s Handbook and the introductory boxed set. I wanted to read over the new rules, and I rationalized that I’d use them when the D&D activity gets going again at my school this winter. (Also, the fourth edition was garbage, so I hoped the fifth would do better.) Of course I didn’t have time to read them during the week, so I tossed them into my reading bag for the cabin. It wasn’t until we got there that it occurred to me that Griffin might be old enough to get into it. Sarah was game, so after our hike on Saturday, I opened the boxed set and had them choose from the five pre-generated characters. For posterity, here’s the group for our first ever family D&D game:
A bunch of goblins, some wolves, and a bugbear later and everyone gained a level. Griffin’s first request when we got home was, “Can we play some more D&D today?” (The answer was no, but the request warmed my heart.)
It was neat seeing how Griffin’s five-year-old mind grappled with the complexities of the game. His favorite part was definitely rolling the dice: at one point the group rescued a kidnapped knight and he offered to tell the story of his capture; Griffin responded with, “Can I roll the 20-sided die?” But he definitely followed the story, and has a remarkable memory for detail. He instantly grasped some fairly complicated mechanics around how often he can cast his spells, and a week later he can explain the overall quest and the names of the characters and places in the story. (Including a number of details that I had forgotten!)
Maggie, naturally, had only a loose grasp of things, but also enjoyed rolling the dice and paging through the rulebooks to see the pictures.
With Sarah gone this weekend, we haven’t had a chance for a followup game, but this adds a great new activity to our family menu, especially when the snows blow in. (I always hear Ned Stark… “Winter is coming…”)
Oh, and in case any gamers stumble on this post, my first impression of 5th edition is overwhelmingly positive. The core rules are elegant with an emphasis on flexibility, role-playing, and imaginative fun. The writers captured the spirit of what made the original AD&D so compelling, while streamlining the rules and updating them for the current generation.
