Wow has it been 4 months already
, time goes fast for sure.
It is time for an update for those who are wondering how it went.
The first game we tried was a starter box with D&D 3.5 complete with an adventure, miniatures and tiles and ready made characters. (i have had it around unused for years)
I got my son and daughter to choose the ones they liked the most, my son wanted the fighter and my daughter a female ranger, i myself took a cleric to give them some backup.
I tried to read the adventure as a story using emotes and changing my voice etc, and they were both listening pretty good and seemed very interested.
My 6.5 year son was patient and did not move his toon until i said he could, but i had to constantly hold back my daughter, she was too eager to see what was in the next room etc. Another problem i had was to try and teach them that when they approached a door or entered a room, they could listen, search, look for traps or hidden stuff, but mostly they were just too eager to move on and see what was behind the next door or around the corner, so i had to give them hints all the time like, why don’t you go and look over at the table there, or check the books on the shelves, and stuff like that, but that seemed to bore them really.
When they encountered a monster, my daughter immidiatly screamed, took her toon, and ran away! (and when combat was over, she stood there knocking on the next door)
While my boy grinned and declared that he was going to smash it to pieces....
At the second encounter my boy must have realised that it was too hard to fend off the enemies alone, when the Ranger started screaming and running, he was begging her to stay and help him, my daughter still kept running….
It was not until the third encounter when he called her a chicken, that she started helping.
So you could say, with my daughter mostly on the run, and my boy heading straight into the fight without fear, and me as a 3.5 cleric, things got bad pretty quick, and after the 3rd encounter, we were in such a bad shape we had to go back to town and rest.
When we decided to go back and rest, my daughter got impatient, and didn’t want to play anymore.
Anyway, my son went back tried once again, but even if i twisted the rules a bit and made mobs easier, we were so beaten up when we reached the final dragon, that we died in the first round.
Conclusion:
One thing was clear though, they really loved using the minis, and the tiles, even though they did not pay much attention to the pictures on the tiles, such as chests, shelves etc, (i guess they just didn’t picture it as treasure chests and things they could interact with), so next time i might use some stuff to represent treasure chests, and other objects of interest in the room, at least until they get a few years older.
My Daughter is still a bit young, maybe give her another year, at least until she stops running away from the monsters :-)
I need to make simpler character sheets, my son understands what a D6 and D20 etc is now, but trying to figure out what he is supposed to add on to a roll, is too hard for him, so i got to figure a way to make it more easy for him. My daughter got no clue, she just like the character picture on her sheet and everything else is gibberish to her :-)
But in the end it was all good fun, we had some laughs together and I am going to try out 4th ED when I get home this time.
(Me and my son tried to solo the beginning of red box, but he did not like any of the options of the characters and wanted to play something else, and it didn’t work with the solo mission that is built on creating your character, so I needed to adjust the main adventure for only two characters but never got to that point as we started playing Everquest instead
)
Cheers folk!
