Thursday, December 15, 2011

D&D&Kids - First in a series

OK, I'm a nerd. I think you may get that by now - especially if you check my Facebook profile. To clarify, I am a Star Wars watching, Lord of the Rings reading, D&D playing, computer programming, high school band marching nerd.


Anyway, I am now raising a pair of kids who are congenitally resigned to be nerds as well. My (almost) 7-year-old lives, eats, and breathes Star Wars, Harry Potter, and anything having to do with dragons. The great thing is that he not only wants to watch the movies and shows, he wants me to read them to him. So far, we are through Harry Potter to Goblet of Fire (waiting for him to get older til we read more). We are in the middle of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain (one of my favorites from my youth). We are now safely in the realm of reading "grown-up books." He still likes looking at picture books, but he is definitely able to deal with the big books.


He has also been playing a few different Kids MMOs - Legos Universe (clunky and shutting down in January 2012), Free Realms (Sony Online, slick, but aimed at tweens), and Wizard 101. Wizard 101 is our overall favorite - especially since all of the NPC text is spoken to you and there are directional arrows for your quest objectives. 


So, one day when he was browsing through my old Monstrous Manual (he loves all of the art and reciting the monster names and alignments... I have NO idea), we started talking about D&D. We talked about me playing. We talked about his mom and I playing (and how our first big fight was because her character died while I was DMing...). One thing led to another and we decided we would play over Christmas break. Immediately, I started yearning for those halcyon days of my youth, hanging out at a certain Junior High teacher's home with about 15-20 other gamers while we beat up spiders, met gods, and made mischief with paper, pencil, and dice. My folks SO did not know what to make of me.


So, I start pulling out my old 2nd Edition books. I am going with 2nd Ed. simply because I don't have any later books except for the 3rd Edition Players Handbook. Besides, from everything I know of 3rd Edition and have heard of 4th Ed., they are all a bit too much for his age - "crunchy," if you will.


If nothing else, there is a HUGE volume of resource material for cheap online, if not on your bookshelf. I happen to have collected a pile (a couple of shelf feet) of 2nd Ed. stuff way back when, so I am set for background - not that a 7-year-old needs much more than to be given a simple hook and to be asked what he wants to do. I figured that much even before I began looking online for ideas from others.


If you are looking at doing something like this, I would recommend reading through the following: 

I'll let this go for now. As you can guess, I have much more to talk about - and I hope to get more in as I prep and we play!

Cheers!

4 comments:

Mike Stone said...

Dude, I had started to think that I might be the only person in the world that actually read Chronicles of Prydain. Loved those books! Loved them, but every time I mentioned them to anybody, I always got a confused look. Wild.

Oh, btw, congenitally isn't a word. :)

Liberal Gun Guy said...

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/congenitally - Adverb form of the adjective congenital.

so there. :P

Anonymous said...

This sound like a wonderful time. I remember my high school group and one of my friend's dad played in our group. Not only did it allow my friend, and his brother, time with their dad it gave their dad a chance to meet and get to know all their friends on an informal level that helped increase the trust all around.

Hope you guy have lots of fun with this.

Liberal Gun Guy said...

It's worked out well, Thanks!

I am writing a post describing the first adventure. Look back within a couple days!