 October 22, 2010 - 3:50pm | Aside from the propensity to throw the dice too strongly, move figures
and terrain around, and scribble on character sheets when I wasn't
watching the kids surprised me with how well they took to the RPG format
of gaming. I was fudging the old Basic D&D rules for the game but
will mix in some elements from 4.0 elements when I have time (namely
detailing movement in squares instead of feet- easier for a child to
count our their squares). The 8 year old chose to be a warrior princess named Suzana and the 4 year old chose to be a magician princess named Miana Mia. The choosing equipment had a funny moment when I suggested that the magician princess could carry a knife (didn't want to explain what a dagger was so I said knife) or a staff. She promptly told me that she couldn't have a knife as knives were dangerous and she wasn't suppose to play with them. That made the decision simple; staff it was. Since she was a magician princess she got to have a spell so I limited the choice to offensive 1st level spells but not wanting to try to explain "Charm Person" I offered "Magic Missile" and "Sleep" but since magic missile was sort of difficult to explain she sort of settled on sleep and spent most the game threatening to put everyone to sleep. They made their way to the tavern and ate cheese, apple juice and stew before the bartender asked if they were looking for work. Promptly one said yes and the other said no. It turned out the merchant in the tavern had been robbed by the lizard men and was offering reward for recovering his goods. The princesses traveled to the swamp and searched for the lizard men till they found the lizard men's mound. One challenged them and told them to go, they demand the stolen stuff back or the lizard men would be put to sleep. The lizard man said no and they he was going to steal all the princesses' stuff. Suzana the warrior princess decided talk was done and charge the lizard man but four others jumped out of hiding. Miana cast her sleep spell and put 3 of them to sleep. Suzana fought with the leader and the other last lizard man charged Miana and hit her with a spear. The last round of combat saw Miana drop another sleep spell and take out 1 more lizard man and Suzana knocked the last lizard man down with a mighty blow, causing him to surrender. The princesses made the lizard men return the stolen goods and promise to stop doing bad things before letting them go. However, the game master wouldn't let them move the wagon without horses. So one stayed with the wagon while the other went back to the castle for horses. Then they got their reward and we ended the session and played Candy Land. NOTE: I'm letting magician princesses cast their spells multiple times in violation of the rules then again being a magician princess has its perks. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 22, 2010 - 6:08pm | Those lizard men should have known better then to take on such adorable princesses! I love this tale, thanks for sharing! The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
October 22, 2010 - 6:20pm | @The bit I loved the most was the knife- apparently I've indoctrinated her enough to not play with knives. Also the 4 year old took the lead in the role play with demanding the lizard men to return the stolen goods- she really started to wax grandious. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 23, 2010 - 2:50am | Cute response about the knife. I wonder though...if she knew that a staff causes more damage than a dagger would she have still picked it? "Yes, knives are dangerous. But staves are more dangerous!" LOL I could play/DM KotB every day and never get bored of it. My entire B/X (Moldvay sets) D&D campaign is centered around it. Back in high school, I actually had a KotB stronghold set up on Volturnus for the UPF to use to keep an eye on the mechanons. Same basic floorplan, I merely extended the Inner Bailey walls to accomodate a landing pad and added guns to the towers in lieu of ballistae/catapults. NOTE: I'm letting magician princesses cast their spells multiple times in violation of the rules I have a house rule for MU characters (MUs only, not elves mind you)...additional first level spells depending on their intelligence score (along with the automatic Read Magic spell): 13-15 they get one spell (in addition to RM), 16-17 two spells, and 18 gets them 3 spells. Typically I'd enforce the types for multiple spells: first spell is offensive (charm person, sleep, magic missile), second would be defensive (shield, protection from evil) and the third would have to be a utility spell (light, floating disc, read languages, detect magic, hold portal, or ventriloquism). I just felt that there needed to be something alluring to playing a first level MU over a first level elf...low hit points/no armor/one spell makes them pretty useless once they cast their only spell for the day  This gives them a little more diversity and certainly tempts a player to shy away from the fighter/MU elf by having additional spells to make up for the weaknesses of a straight MU. |
October 23, 2010 - 4:40am | @ shadow for hit points I had them roll their respective hit dice and added that to 6 which resulted in both having 9 hit points :) for spell casting I was leaning toward allowing her to cast a spell a number of times/day extra equal to her INT modifier, so that the default is 1 time per day but she also gets extra castings equal to the INT modifier. Its sort of like 4.0's daily, encounter, and at will powers. In 4.0 a wizard can get magic missile as an at will power so that he always has something he can do in combat for a little bit of damage. I'm tempted to make 1st level spells pretty much at will powers, 2nd level spells 1/encounter powers and 3rd level 1/day powers However to ballance that I'd need to work in some martial "powers" for the warrior princess otherwise it will be the magician princess show I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 23, 2010 - 3:02pm | 4.0 --- you're speaking in a foreign language now LOL I'm but a humble B/X boxed set gamer, I like my D&D like I like my SF... I let my starter/LVL:1 players dice their hit points, if they roll the max they get the max, if they roll anything else then it's max -1 hit points. LVL:2 and on, they roll normally. |
 October 24, 2010 - 4:39am | You teach kids things but it is always a joy when they throw it back in your face. Glad to hear she won't be picking up knives. Are you going to be posting any other encounters on the gaming table? Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
October 26, 2010 - 8:14pm | You teach kids things but it is always a joy when they throw it back in your face. Glad to hear she won't be picking up knives. Are you going to be posting any other encounters on the gaming table? Yeah but I'm scratching my head as to how to tone down the violence for them- if it had been SF I would have used lots of malfunctioning robots and cast them in the role of police- not much harm in shooting up toaters (unless your name is w00t). Could use undead but that might push my wifes religious sensibilites too far. Though it seems that things like giant spiders wont be a problem as they dont even remotely resemble a human. I have a feeling I'll need to be creative- though the sleep spell will likely do long duty in our games. Though if we have evil bad guys that are arrested and put in jail they can always make another appearence latter "after they just happen to escape" - the normal D&D game doesn't usually allow for a confrontation with the foil who then returns latter to cause more trouble as the average party likes to play "wack-a-mole" with their weapons. I may just have to craft a recurring bad guy. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 27, 2010 - 1:10pm | I wrote a Kids Guide to FrontierSpace which removes death altogether. Basically when you reach 0 body points you are out of the fight, subdued. There are always lawmen, police stations and sheriff's to help keep bad guys. Kinda like G.I. Joe, bad guys parachute from exploding vehicles, in space they all have spacesuits and escape pods. Still needs a lot of work. |
October 27, 2010 - 9:21pm | I may just have to craft a recurring bad guy. Well, that premise has worked in comic books for seven decades now Except for Punisher comic books (or any other "adult" themed comic book), when the Punisher kicks a bad guy's azz, it stays kicked. But seriously, core comic books are geared to younger audiences and that forumla has worked for a long time. Of course there's also a pending "use it or lose it" copyright clause, if a character is not used within a certain time frame they lose the rights to it. IIRC that's how there ended up being two Captain Marvels - DC's Golden to modern age Shazam and Marvel's post silver age CM. Two completely different characters mind you, but the name was permitted as DC hadn't used the character in a long time when Marvel invoked it. It's also why Superman died in the 90s but never really died...a year or so later Metropolis' skies were treated to familiar red and blue blurs. But in the end they're kids' stories (written at adult levels in many cases, but kids' stories all and all), and recycling defeated villains is very common. |
 October 28, 2010 - 7:54am | Hey Jedion, Sounds like a great game! I have been keepin it PG with my son for years. Just don't have the bad guys fight to the death. If they take a few hits have them get knocked out or run away. I find that this makes combat faster and more fun for the kids. Nothing is more boring than wittling down D&D hit points. At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
October 28, 2010 - 2:17pm | Another thought --- B2 is expressly designed to illustrate how monsters communicate with each other. Key on that one, not every encounter has to be a fight. Convince the Goblin King that there are better living conditions elsewhere - and even offer to lead a scouting party to verify (check your Moldvay Expert rulebook, there's a cave marked "goblins" on the Karameikos wilderness map), or convince them that if they don't move a hundred armed soldiers from the Keep might force them out, or something to that effect. Maybe the Goblin King has a riddle the party can solve for a reward in coinage. |
