DwD Studios

What sort of characters did they roll up?

Any stand out moments?

Please let us know how the adventure pans out! :D

My 8 year old made a Dwarf Thief/warrior.
The 6 year old made a human spellcaster/warrior (using Firey offensive strikes, and transformation).
The wife made a halfling cleric/scout.

Stand out moments? My wife's character critically fumbling a tracking roll and getting the party lost for hours in a dark, swampy forest. Also when my 6 year old used his fire to blast away a bunch of the rats. He was really excited about that :)

Awesome, fried rat!
I'm curious how your children handled the descriptors of chargen.

They handled them all right when we explained them a bit and gave them some examples. The dwarf is Giving and Dirty.
The Human spellcaster is Generous, has a Phobia of Spiders, and Keeps cool under pressure (he just wrote cool, but he basically said that is what he wanted).

And yes, they got a kick out of Fried Rat!

Here's my long and involved story: I used to play AD&D 1st Edition when I was in high school and university (back in the late 80s and early 90s) - I used to DM for one group, and be a player in another group at the local library. It was great.

Now I'm 40 with kids of my own. Last year my son went to a friend's birthday party where they played Dungeons and Dragons. He seemed to enjoy it, so I went to the local game shop to pick up a Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual so that we (my son Master Nine, my two daughters Miss Twelve and Miss Six and I) could play the game together on a regular basis.

Gone was the game that I remember, but in its place was D&D 4th Edition (at sometime I guess there had been a 2nd and 3rd edition that I had missed). I bought a red box (which brought a smile to my face as I had first played Dungeons and Dragons using the same box, before switching to AD&D), but it was pretty complex and seemed to rely overly on tokens and cards, and it also seemed that combat was a bit too tactical for my little guys. The kids had fun, but it was a bit too difficult for them (and me as DM).

Instead of buying the books that made up D&D 4th edition, I cobbled together something using Fighting Fantasy (Skill, Stamina and Luck) which had simpler rules, but it was a little too simple and I had no idea how I was going to handle player experience and progression, let alone armour, etc. Kids enjoyed it a little more, though.

Then I read a review of Bare Bones, and then another review, and another. All so positive. So I bought the game (what a great price) and read through it. Then I bought the setting, the modules, everything.

For character generation we collected all our lego minifigures together (must be about 30), together with all their accessories. Then the kids made a lego figure to represent them. Character generation went very well, but they were a little confused about skills. I just told them to think about what kind of character they want - Master Nine had made a warrior with a shield and a ninjago sword (sadly our only sword), so he chose warrior and put that as his primary skill and put a level in it. Miss Twelve had made a wizardy character so she put spellcaster as her primary and put a level in it. Miss Six had chosen a lego dog.

I explained that in addition to having that skill, during childhood the characters had done other things. Master Nine declared that his character had some thieving skills as he had been a pickpocket, so that was his secondary skill. Mistress Twelve chose warrior. They would be accompanied by an NPC cleric.

After that, character generation went well. The game went really, really well with the minifigs showing position during combat, marching order, etc. We only got to the pottery room in the first session but we had lots of fun. Stand out moments include: Master Nine crying when he realised the ghoul in the wagon was the guy's wife and that they would have to "take care of her" while the guy walked away so he couldn't see; Miss Twelve casting a charm spell on the rats so that they wouldn't attack - the rats rubbed against their legs like cats and licked their hands, when they realised the spell was going to wear off they tied the rats up so that they wouldn't have to kill them.

We had to stop there because it was getting late and we'd been playing for hours. We distributed DP (I wasn't sure if I was supposed to do this at the end of each session or the end of each adventure) and Miss Twelve got a bit annoyed when Master Nine decided to put a level into Spellcaster (she thought that this was her special skill). Diplomatically he chose instead to put an extra level into Warrior instead.

Tomorrow night we'll play through the rest of the module. I contact bricklink.com and ordered $50 worth of lego minifig accessories - helmets, axes, swords, four horses, etc. This is cheap when you consider what you'd get for $50 in miniatures. Can't wait til that arrives!

So thanks very much Bare Bones!

So awesome steever!
Got me so excited I just re-posted this on G+ :-)

Is there any way to share what you bought from bricklink? I too have been collecting minifig's but have not bought online, just locally at Goodwill and getting a few fig's from Toys-R-Us.

Parenting, you're doing it right!

Here

This was my order. How do I see the post on G+?

Really, thanks so much for this game.

Here is the link but it's limited to my RPG circle, not publicly available.

Thanks for posting that, I want to make a resource PDF for moms/dads that run games with their kids.

You could check out http://www.wired.com/geekdad/tag/games/

Awesome post of a cool experience, steever. Thanks for doing so.

I am also 40, and started playing games when I was a kid. My brother bought a copy of D&D on his way home from a toy store when I was about 8 or 9 and I've been playing RPG's ever since. Fast forward to today, and now, I have a 16 year old step-son, though no kids of my own yet (The wife and I are trying) who I've had since he was 12. He invites his best friend over about once a month on the weekends to play games with us and we play all day. Reading over your story brought a tear to my eye. You're a helluva Dad. Thank you for sharing your story. God bless you.

Well, I made them watch Star Wars Episode IV first. That's good parenting.

No, it's so much fun. I'm not good at sport and it's been so hot this summer (I live in the southern hemisphere), but I can make up a game and have some fun with it. You're very kind, Neolithic Wolf.

Does any one else have any actual plays to post? I would love to read them. The area I am in has no gamers I can find at the moment.

Ten-ten, do you have a decent internet connection?
I played BBF (as a player) twice today via Google Hangouts.

I'm not a good blogger/types so I don't usually do reports. However a few of my friends are interested in recording play videos.

I wish I did. I only have internet access @the library and my graveyard shift job. But looking to changethat within the next 2-3 monthes.

Ten Ten: which area/country are you in?