Chief
~ Shmalpha ~
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Last week I found my brother's 1st edition AD&D books (from 1978) and gave them to my 10 year old son to read.
He started copying out tables, making up a character and generally getting into it. I left him to it.
Earlier this week he asked me to come and play Lego with him, and like any good Dad I was like "jeez all right I suppose you're due some attention just let me finish this Candy Crush level".
Then he brought out 5 D&D characters he'd created in Lego figures - Gnome rogue, Dwarven fighter, human ranger (with pet dog), Elven mage and halfling druid - and I thought "ah crap I need to work out what we're doing here".
A few boring minutes trying to work out what their armour should be and what the AC actually means in AD&D 1st edition, plus the weapons and money they had, and then when I realised it was getting boring I just chucked a Lego snake at the group and said "ah! snake!" and just made it up from there mainly. 130 odd Harmontown podcasts and 3 nights of D&D came in handy.
My 4 year old joined in with his characters Frosto Super and Bat of Life (names he made up for Lego Superman wielding a staff and Lego Batman with a crossbow) and I ended up just making up the rolls we needed to make. So, a 6 was definitely a fail and a 14 might be success if it felt like that character would have enough smarts or skills to succeed. Sometimes I just rolled a d6 because my back hurt too much to reach for the d20.
Tons of rolls were just 50/50 or I pretended that roll was for the group and this roll was for the monsters when it worked out better/I could not be bothered with the sad face after lost hit points.
Frosto Super and Bat of Life are peripheral so far as 4y/o was forced to brush his teeth or decided to sit in the middle of the playing area to make a cool base for the group. It was actually a pretty good base, with barrels and boxes full of weapons, and a Christmas tree.
With a random name generator web page on my phone we had an adventure to the town of Moonbright leading to a quest to the Temple of Shadows to find out where the townspeople were disappearing to and why all these zombies dressed like missing townspeople kept showing up. Pretty deep stuff. (The snakes are scared of the zombies, so a wave of snakes preceeds a zombie attack. Such intricate story telling!)
I was really dreading trudging through tables and working out rolls but it is much easier when you just make up whatever feels like it might be right. But we were still drawn to the tables and descriptions in the books because nice tables and matrices are hard to resist. Junior looked bored a few times while I Rain Manned over things like how I should work out if a thrown dagger would hit a snake. Hint: 50/50 dice rolls do for anything!
Plus we are hazy on which spells the magic guys have available - should they gain new spells or have all the level 1 spells at once? Magic missiles are a firm favourite.
Also XP doesn't seem to have come into it, and I am not sure how many HP they all have but we strictly followed the rules on how much starting money each character should have. It's alternately bodgey and overly officious depending on which tables we find in the books.
Other highlights include a cameo from Lego Hagrid as Boris the hermit who accosts the group on the road to the Temple (by this point we had moved to the lounge as the 4y/o had chucked a spack over eating his dinner and had been sent to bed so we had to get out of the bedroom) angrily waving a zombie fish he pulled out of the river, a miserly tavern owner, a drunken farmer/illicit whiskey maker (which involved a brief explanation of how you can make alcohol from corn and stuff), a town sheriff who commissioned the group to save the town (like, do your own job you git!), a mystical crossroads, and a few made up magical objects.
With 6 characters in the group they haven't really been pushed at all, its mainly been me just making up crap for a laugh.
The game broke up when Mrs was unhappy with progress in brushing teeth etc and roused on us for ignoring her. Women, hey? Always trying to destroy the gaming culture we guys try to build. Someone should start a sub-Reddit.
Just have to get in more imaginative creatures than snakes and Zombies. So I torrented the 4e Monster Manual (IP THEFT!) for the following sessions.
The group has since met a couple of bands of goblins and hobgoblins, a giant eagle gave them a magic sword, they've cracked the puzzle of the gates to the temple (they had to slot in the pendants they picked up from corpses along the way) and is now poking around the Temple of Shadows, so far surviving an attack by giant rats. We've worked out hit points and XP.
Question: Is 10 years old too young to introduce the idea of a sacrificing a virgin in offering to an evil demon?
Fast forward:
Word has spread. Tomorrow morning there will be 4 of his mates here to play. I have just gotten the 5e starter set for them. As long as there is killing, magic, treasure and more treasure they will be happy with whatever.
He started copying out tables, making up a character and generally getting into it. I left him to it.
Earlier this week he asked me to come and play Lego with him, and like any good Dad I was like "jeez all right I suppose you're due some attention just let me finish this Candy Crush level".
Then he brought out 5 D&D characters he'd created in Lego figures - Gnome rogue, Dwarven fighter, human ranger (with pet dog), Elven mage and halfling druid - and I thought "ah crap I need to work out what we're doing here".
A few boring minutes trying to work out what their armour should be and what the AC actually means in AD&D 1st edition, plus the weapons and money they had, and then when I realised it was getting boring I just chucked a Lego snake at the group and said "ah! snake!" and just made it up from there mainly. 130 odd Harmontown podcasts and 3 nights of D&D came in handy.
My 4 year old joined in with his characters Frosto Super and Bat of Life (names he made up for Lego Superman wielding a staff and Lego Batman with a crossbow) and I ended up just making up the rolls we needed to make. So, a 6 was definitely a fail and a 14 might be success if it felt like that character would have enough smarts or skills to succeed. Sometimes I just rolled a d6 because my back hurt too much to reach for the d20.
Tons of rolls were just 50/50 or I pretended that roll was for the group and this roll was for the monsters when it worked out better/I could not be bothered with the sad face after lost hit points.
Frosto Super and Bat of Life are peripheral so far as 4y/o was forced to brush his teeth or decided to sit in the middle of the playing area to make a cool base for the group. It was actually a pretty good base, with barrels and boxes full of weapons, and a Christmas tree.
With a random name generator web page on my phone we had an adventure to the town of Moonbright leading to a quest to the Temple of Shadows to find out where the townspeople were disappearing to and why all these zombies dressed like missing townspeople kept showing up. Pretty deep stuff. (The snakes are scared of the zombies, so a wave of snakes preceeds a zombie attack. Such intricate story telling!)
I was really dreading trudging through tables and working out rolls but it is much easier when you just make up whatever feels like it might be right. But we were still drawn to the tables and descriptions in the books because nice tables and matrices are hard to resist. Junior looked bored a few times while I Rain Manned over things like how I should work out if a thrown dagger would hit a snake. Hint: 50/50 dice rolls do for anything!
Plus we are hazy on which spells the magic guys have available - should they gain new spells or have all the level 1 spells at once? Magic missiles are a firm favourite.
Also XP doesn't seem to have come into it, and I am not sure how many HP they all have but we strictly followed the rules on how much starting money each character should have. It's alternately bodgey and overly officious depending on which tables we find in the books.
Other highlights include a cameo from Lego Hagrid as Boris the hermit who accosts the group on the road to the Temple (by this point we had moved to the lounge as the 4y/o had chucked a spack over eating his dinner and had been sent to bed so we had to get out of the bedroom) angrily waving a zombie fish he pulled out of the river, a miserly tavern owner, a drunken farmer/illicit whiskey maker (which involved a brief explanation of how you can make alcohol from corn and stuff), a town sheriff who commissioned the group to save the town (like, do your own job you git!), a mystical crossroads, and a few made up magical objects.
With 6 characters in the group they haven't really been pushed at all, its mainly been me just making up crap for a laugh.
The game broke up when Mrs was unhappy with progress in brushing teeth etc and roused on us for ignoring her. Women, hey? Always trying to destroy the gaming culture we guys try to build. Someone should start a sub-Reddit.
Just have to get in more imaginative creatures than snakes and Zombies. So I torrented the 4e Monster Manual (IP THEFT!) for the following sessions.
The group has since met a couple of bands of goblins and hobgoblins, a giant eagle gave them a magic sword, they've cracked the puzzle of the gates to the temple (they had to slot in the pendants they picked up from corpses along the way) and is now poking around the Temple of Shadows, so far surviving an attack by giant rats. We've worked out hit points and XP.
Question: Is 10 years old too young to introduce the idea of a sacrificing a virgin in offering to an evil demon?
Fast forward:
Word has spread. Tomorrow morning there will be 4 of his mates here to play. I have just gotten the 5e starter set for them. As long as there is killing, magic, treasure and more treasure they will be happy with whatever.
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