You know... for kids!

[pyat]

Yesterday we went to a family Christmas party for my mother's side of the family. The girls had a lot of fun (as did we), and there was an excess of good food. One of my cousins and his wife have been watching my Youtube videos, and were very flattering about them.

***

Elizabeth has been wanting to play a roleplaying game for some time now. She's been drawing characters - usually princesses with swords - rescuing people from prisons and fighting wizards. She insisted she wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons, though she's also talked about Star Wars and Mouse Guard. I was fretting about systems, and appropriate content for a little girl, etc., but after the Christmas party I decided to just go ahead with it.


_{Complete with homemade bracers.}

I dug out a 1999 fast-play adventure for AD&D. Maybe not the best system to start on, but the fast-play adventures had the advantage of having a range of pre-generated characters. In addition, AD&D really doesn't require much comprehension of rules on the part of the player. They just have to know how to read a die. Everything else can be managed by the DM. Elizabeth did a good job. The game lasted about an hour, and she wanted it to go longer. She realized very quickly that she was helping to tell the story from the perspective of her character.


_{Chrissy finds a door. Theodora regards a dead rat warily.}

Elizabeth took the part of Chrissy, a 2nd level fighter/catperson princess. velvetpage was Theodora, a 2nd level human Magic User. They were friends, walking through the woods to find a wicked goblin who'd stolen a magic ring from a friend of Theodora's. They stumbled across a ruined tower in the woods, and fought a pair of Rodents of Unusual Size in the rubble. Chrissy got bitten in the leg, but fought on. Theodora was bitten twice, but managed to take out the second rat with a magic missile.

They crept down a semi-secret tunnel in the side of the hill. Theodora spotted writing on a door inside the tunnel, and led the way. Foolish mage! She fell down a hole, and had to be fished out by Chrissy. The door was inscribed with the words, "Scriptorium: DO NOT DISTURB THE MONKS." The duo ventured through, and saw a dry, dusty room tracked with footprints. In a dim corner, a cloaked figure hunched over a writing desk. Ignoring the injunction on the door, Theodora wandered over to question the monk, only to find an animated skeleton who attacked her. They were able to smash it into pieces without much effort.

They were now faced with a locked iron door, which Theodora opened with a scroll of "Knock". Inside, they found a water damaged library, and a pair of goblins arguing over a golden ring and a stack of coins. Chrissy asked Theodora to put a magical whammy on them, and Theodora did so, casting a Sleep spell on the thieves.


All in all, a very successful little venture, and Elizabeth has been asking for another game tonight.

(Also, for those wondering, Elizabeth is six years old.)

Comments

[dhstein.livejournal.com]

sweet. I have been thinking of inviting Sabrina to come play. She's old enough and probably understands most of what goes on. I can see I should.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I started running RPGs when I was 13. Elizabeth's only 6, so she's obviously too young to play with our grownup groups, but she's more than ready for this sort of basic dungeon crawl.

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

That's so cute! Especially the minis, like I told you earlier.

Spence has been asking about Star Wars after he found my character sheet the last time I was around. I explained to him what was going on (well, a CLEAN version) and how the numbers worked and all that. He's only 13 and innocent for his age, so there's no way in hell I'd let him near the Ygraine group. I'd rather con mbehemoth into running a more baseline adventure and I'd probably run a more standard character.

Or we could always just play D&D, since he loves the Warcraft universe and Slayers. ::wanders off to PM Mike about this idea...::

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Or we could always just play D&D, since he loves the Warcraft universe and Slayers. ::wanders off to PM Mike about this idea...::

That is an excellent idea! And you know Mike would be into it. :)

[paka.livejournal.com]

1. I'm really glad that you're playing with her as a separate little parental group. I've gamed with kids in an adult group and it's emotionally really tough, so having game time set aside as kid time sounds like a good response.

2. The big impression I get out of old basic D&D material is that it's very kid friendly - almost like it's written assuming that the players are 8-11 and the DM isn't much older. Do you actually think Basic would be a good kid game?

[pyat.livejournal.com]

1. Oh, definitely. Our grown up groups are alternately all about death and glory, spend hours in planning and plotting, or are rather ribald, or all three.

2. It was certain a good one, historically. A lot of my friends started with it around age 9 or 10. I'm sure one could write a better one, but it might not have the benefit of being expandable in complexity as you got older.

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Those bracers are the best thing ever.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

That is ridiculously adorable. Also, I love the bracers.

[relee.livejournal.com]

I remember I was, like, nine or ten when I first cracked open my Dad's old Basic D&D books. They said "For ages 11 and up" on them so I was too young but HEY LOOK IT'S BABAR KING OF THE ELEPHANTS! *flee*

[catsarah.livejournal.com]

Awesome! :D

And the next generation of gamer nerd girls is begun!

[pvenables.livejournal.com]

This is awesome. I too have been wondering when I could safely begin playing RPGs with the girls. I think my eldest could do it, she's 6 as well, but I doubt the younger (5) has the patience to sit through it.

I'll have to think again how we could give this a try too.

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

I bet using the Marva figurine made Elisabeth happy. n_n

I'm surprised there isn't more of a market for this.

[pxtl.livejournal.com]

I mean, lots of folks who grew up in the booms of tabletop gaming have kids now, and even when I was young and looked up to my older brother gamer, I got into games way, way before I was ready to. I ran my first Toon adventures in grade 5.

I wonder if anybody has tapped this market.

I wonder if there even _is_ a market for tabletop-gaming that includes kindergartners? I suppose it would require a companion-book with lots of pictures of monsters and gear that you could show the players so they can see "ooh, we're fighting 5 snotsters!"

Of course, the violence component in that kind of childrens' material... awkward.

But yeah, when little Jules is old enough, I'd love to run a game for him and his buddies. Maybe some kind of fluffy and non-lethal variant of Paranoia.