Newbie with Kids

[Mojomage]

*Stumbles into room. Clears his throat and scratches his rear.*

I'm certain you all are a nice bunch so I'll extend a nice greeting and get on with my tale.

As a preface, however, I would like to say that crashdiets involving Neverwinter Nights and Evercrack and mucking about on a few old-school Goldbox games and FRUA and other computer rpgs I have no experience with pen-and-paper roleplaying. I do however own a copy of the Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook, Dungeon Master Guide and Monster Manual for 1st, 2nd, and 3.0 editions - I bought them off ebay a few years ago when I tried to start up a local group that never formed and wanted to have access to any various editions.

Long story short, I am now married and my 10 year old stepson is interested in playing, but doesn't want to have to read any rulebooks or put a lot of effort into the creation process - he mainly just likes to get out some battle maps out and hack'n'slash through a dungeon.

I was more interested in running 1st or 2nd edition games because those just seem to have a more vibrant flavor to me, but the rules may be a bit much for us noobs to parse without some expert's guidance.

I recently went on a crusade to find a simpler way to introduce us to tabletop gaming and uncovered two things.

The first is the board game Wrath of Ashardalon. Strangely, it was my wife who spotted this game at Barnes and Nobles and suggested we buy it as a quicker way to get familiar with Dungeons and Dragons - she surprised me further when she expressed interest in playing the game herself. My wife is a board and card game lover, but has never shown the slightest interest in tabletop roleplaying.

Billy, the 10 year old, is currently spending the summer with his grandparents and won't return for another month. My wife and I actually started playing Wrath of Ashardalon, and now we play it every evening. We've played it enough now that my wife has even claimed the Dragonborn Wizard as her preferred character.

I think this game may serve as an excellent gateway into talking my wife into joining Billy and me for a game session when he returns home.


Secondly, I discovered the Microlite20 system that appears to be a rules lite alternative to the regular d20 system. I've read every document I can find related to the M20 system and have even been sketching out a simple fetch-relic dungeon crawl adventure that I hope my wife and Billy will enjoy and hopefully give us all a deeper roleplaying experience.

I really think with the combination of Wrath of Ashardalon and being able to explain the M20 rules and character creation in ten minutes should be the perfect introduction for me and my family into this awesome hobby.

Here lies the part where I ask for some advice from you veterans of the game:



1. What is the most essential advice you can give to an entire group of noobs, players and DM? I own The Sunless Citadel adventure and thought about running it, but I honestly think my wife and Billy may want to start off with something a lot more basic - hence why I was developing a straightforward dungeon crawl.

2. My wife seems to like Wrath of Ashardalon because the adventures have end goals - find this, save this, kill this, clear and tangible victory objectives - and she will bypass half a dozen monsters just to open up a new tile in hopes of getting closer to the goal. Whereas Billy tends to like buying equipment and fighting monsters.

How can I broaden their experience an encourage them to roleplay, interact with the environment and not look at the game as end goals and mechanics and see rpgs as more than a board game?

Those are my two biggest concerns at the moment, so we begin with them.

Much obliged to anyone who who offers up any pearls of wisdom!

[Knaight]

1. What is the most essential advice you can give to an entire group of noobs, players and DM? I own The Sunless Citadel adventure and thought about running it, but I honestly think my wife and Billy may want to start off with something a lot more basic - hence why I was developing a straightforward dungeon crawl.

2. My wife seems to like Wrath of Ashardalon because the adventures have end goals - find this, save this, kill this, clear and tangible victory objectives - and she will bypass half a dozen monsters just to open up a new tile in hopes of getting closer to the goal. Whereas Billy tends to like buying equipment and fighting monsters.

How can I broaden their experience an encourage them to roleplay, interact with the environment and not look at the game as end goals and mechanics and see rpgs as more than a board game?

Those are my two biggest concerns at the moment, so we begin with them.

Much obliged to anyone who who offers up any pearls of wisdom!

1. Things can and will go wrong. Be willing to backtrack, to redo things, and also to just move on past an error instead of fixing it, and just accept that the first few games really won't be all that great. Playing an RPG is a skill (or a number of skills), particularly in the GM role. Also, find a method of play that works for the group.

2. If nobody wants to role play, pushing it forward won't really work. That said, I'm not seeing a problem here - some level of NPC interaction is basically necessary for a goal oriented player unless the game is specifically designed to be a dungeon crawl, and role playing can emerge from that well enough.

There's also a point beyond these that I want to highlight: Different games encourage different behavior. D&D and most D&D spinoffs encourage action, monster killing, and goal seeking. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's where the system shines and what it pushes players towards. However, systems are tools, and people can use them as they will - which is where the idea of training systems come in. There are a handful of systems that really, really push particular behavior, and playing one or two games in them can expand players' ideas about what role playing is, and alter how they play in more standard systems. A brief list, sticking to stuff close to the Microlite 20 level of complexity:

Fiasco - Role playing and looking at narratives.
Wushu Open - Detailed descriptions of actions.
Microscope - Creating and interacting with settings.

[Mojomage]

1. Things can and will go wrong. Be willing to backtrack, to redo things, and also to just move on past an error instead of fixing it, and just accept that the first few games really won't be all that great. Playing an RPG is a skill (or a number of skills), particularly in the GM role. Also, find a method of play that works for the group.

That is excellent to know. So it's safe to say that the DM and each group learn and grow to play within their own realms of comfort? I am generally not a By-The-Books kind of guy, so it's typical of me to ignore or modify things as I see fit. I am concerned about consistency when doing this during a game session, but that may be one of those skills I have to improve.

My real goal is to create an experience between lots of action, mystery and payoff. At my core I am a storyteller, so even when I designed the dungeon crawl scenario I added a couple dramatic twist to make the narrative side of the game more appealing.


2. If nobody wants to role play, pushing it forward won't really work. That said, I'm not seeing a problem here - some level of NPC interaction is basically necessary for a goal oriented player unless the game is specifically designed to be a dungeon crawl, and role playing can emerge from that well enough.

Of course I am not expecting the family to sit around the table acting our their characters in the tavern, but the few sessions we have played the PCs exit the town their first turn and head for the dungeon without even a second thought about the people or setting. Again, I'll file this under the category of Growing and Learning the Skills (players and DM).

At the risk of sounding self-praising, I do have an NPC dwarf in my dungeon crawl who travels with the PCs to a cursed ancestral fortress and the PCs do not discover until the end of the dungeon that the dwarf is actually possessed by an evil spirit that releases itself from the dwarf (killing him) and becomes the final encounter in the dungeon. What I am hoping is that this adds a nice and unexpected conclusion to the otherwise hack'n'slash session.





However, systems are tools, and people can use them as they will - which is where the idea of training systems come in. There are a handful of systems that really, really push particular behavior, and playing one or two games in them can expand players' ideas about what role playing is, and alter how they play in more standard systems. A brief list, sticking to stuff close to the Microlite 20 level of complexity:

Fiasco - Role playing and looking at narratives.
Wushu Open - Detailed descriptions of actions.
Microscope - Creating and interacting with settings.


I was not aware of 'training systems' like these. Thanks for those suggestions.

I was actually considering doing a 'practice' scene the next time we play where we put the dice away and just have the PCs interact with an inn/tavern full of NPCs and a quick scavenger hunt for a few hidden items in the location.

[Alejandro]

Try and get your hands on the board games Hero Quest and Dragonstrike. Both are excellent, D&D Lite-ish and teach many of the basic ideas very well.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Old School Hack (http://www.oldschoolhack.net/) is probably something you can get a lot of mileage out of. It's about on the same level as Wrath, if not a little simpler (maybe), and it's a very flexible system designed for heavy-action stuff. The best part is that it includes an "awesome points" system. Players award one another "awesome points" (which can be spent to get bonuses) when their characters do awesome stuff. Which is a great way to encourage snappy, fun roleplaying. (And teamwork! You can't level up until everyone in the party has spent 10 awesome points.)

[Twilight Jack]

I introduced my son to D&D when he was eight. He's twelve now, and we still play with his mom once or twice every week. He's actually writing a game to run for us starting next weekend.

For a 10-year old, allow me to recommend Basic Dungeons & Dragons, in either its 1981 or 1983 incarnation. The game is pretty easy to learn, especially from a player's perspective, and character creation can take less than 5 minutes. Despite being "Basic," the chassis is remarkably solid. Once you and your family have a solid grasp of the rules, you can convert or borrow additional material from either 1st or 2nd edition AD&D to expand your options.

If you're interested in checking it out but have trouble finding a copy, you can look up Labyrinth Lord, which is a rewrite of the Basic and Expert rules that's available online for free.

Good luck!

[CarpeGuitarrem]

For a 10-year old, allow me to recommend Basic Dungeons & Dragons, in either its 1981 or 1983 incarnation. The game is pretty easy to learn, especially from a player's perspective, and character creation can take less than 5 minutes. Despite being "Basic," the chassis is remarkably solid. Once you and your family have a solid grasp of the rules, you can convert or borrow additional material from either 1st or 2nd edition AD&D to expand your options.

B/X is also awesome. You can get it for $5 (PDF form) from DTR, too! (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/110274/D%26D-Basic-Set-Rulebook-%28Basic%29)

[Twilight Jack]

B/X is also awesome. You can get it for $5 (PDF form) from DTR, too! (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/110274/D%26D-Basic-Set-Rulebook-%28Basic%29)

Yeah, B/X is the 1981 Basic/eXpert edition. The 1983-85 version is generally referred to as BECMI. I restricted my recommendation to Basic, since the OP already owns the AD&D core books. When he's ready to add more complexity/depth to the game, it might make more sense for him to incorporate the Advanced material rather than the Expert set.

EDIT: That link is perfect, by the way. It's the 1981 Basic Set; exactly what you need. Great find, Carpe!

[CarpeGuitarrem]

EDIT: That link is perfect, by the way. It's the 1981 Basic Set; exactly what you need. Great find, Carpe!
About a month or two ago, Wizards put a heap-load of D&D PDFs back onto DTR. So, goodies for all!!

[Mutazoia]

About a month or two ago, Wizards put a heap-load of D&D PDFs back onto DTR. So, goodies for all!!

You can also buy copy's of the out of print stuff on Scribd.com