Dad & Daughter Gaming Night

Jarund and Ogion

Star and Twig transported Twig’s injured father to the city to receive help from Star’s uncle, Jarund. Arriving at the Temple of Sif late at night, the young travelers where welcomed in by Esmerelda and soon after the lady tended to the badly burned father. Star met her uncle, Jarund, but left most of the talk for the next morning.

Upon waking and finding that Twig’s father was stable, but still needing care for at least a few weeks, Star and Twig now learned more about the Temple and her uncle. First things first, the two would have to face opponents in non-lethal combat before they would be heard by the clergy. Each one took their turn and fought admirably before being knocked out by the more experienced followers of Sif. Star would have her say before the temple, led by Esmerelda, but immediate help against the orcs would not be garnered.

Jarund offered his assistance and then escorted Star and Twig to the local Inn to gather information and possibly mercenaries. The day was too young to find many at the Inn, but posters for hiring were offered up there and later that night they returned to find a bustling room of possible adventurers. Jarund’s friend, Ogion, was sought out there and he proved most helpful in capturing the rooms attention with a bardic tale. Ogion offered up his aid for the cause, but no others would join the party this night.

And Then There Was Garrett

I got to work and started talking with my friend, Garrett, about how Lauren and I started gaming and she was excited about him joining us. He loved the recounting of our character development and first night sessions and was eager to throw his dice into the mix.

I told him a little about the background for Starbuster and Twig, the uncle (Jarund) in the city, and the Orc invasion. He is experienced enough to help out with a backstory of his own to integrate a character into the fold when needed. He decided to play a Bard as he felt that was the well-rounded support character needed to help the party.

I could tell he got that familiar excitement in hitting the books again to role up the character and get started. He told me he would write up a backstory and have a character ready upon his return from a 2 week trip to Georgia. So, in that time, Lauren and I will finish out her transition from home to the city and on to the adventuring world ahead. I imagine she will meet up with Garrett’s Bard somewhere in the city where Jarund lives. From that point, the party will be complete and ready to track down their loved ones in captivity of the Orcs.

First Night - Finding a Hero

Now that Lauren had her character created, and her backstory somewhat defined, we were ready for our first night. With the promise of gaming looming, Lauren was remarkably focused on finishing her homework that weekend. I had to tell myself not to let this fringe benefit get abused to the point where she associated homework with playing :) … but again, for you parents out there, gaming is good for kids!

I setup a space for us to play and decided to play some background music for ambiance. I had a soundtrack CD from Diablo II that was perfect for the task. I’ve never cared much about that kind of thing before, but I figured this was a special occassion since it was her first night of gaming.

In preparation for the night, I found one of those leather-bound journals with a stamped compass print (bought it at Barnes and Nobel or Borders) and it seemed to have the right look and feel for the genre. I tore out a few of the pages (more on that in a bit) and I wrote a short “thought” in the front. Then I put in the spells by level that Starbuster’s father would have known. Following that was a three page letter from her father to her in the event of his death. It explained how proud he was of her, his wishes for her continued goal setting, his desire for her to keep the family together, and in case she ever was without both parents to seek the aid of her young uncle who lives in the city. I provided a bit of mystery for the uncle and his relationship with Starbuster’s father and mother — something for her to discover when meeting him.

When we started playing, I reminded her of her family, her parents’ names and brief background, her brother’s love for her, and her basic environment. Providing a map of Merrybrook, her community, I told her she was off in the forest to the north, hunting with her best friend Trig. Trig is a halfling from the neighboring farm and the two have grown up together. The event was set as the two woke early in the morning and saw smoke in the sky above the area of Merrybrook. The two quickly packed and headed for home.

Heading over the forest ridge and looking down into the valley of Merrybrook, the two could see their world in turmoil as houses and barnes were flattened, animals were running free, and crops smoldered. Reaching their homes, Starbuster and Twig were met by Twig’s father who informed them of the Orc onslaught and the battle that was fought throughout the night. The Orcs captured many of the villagers (Twig’s mother and brother and Starbuster’s mother and brother among them) and killed Starbuster’s father as he tried to save his fellow farmers. I wondered if the story would be a bit too dark for Lauren, but I figured I would be there to deal with the topic of loss and starting adulthood. Through roleplay, Lauren found her father, laid his body to rest through funeral pyre, and discovered his last words for her in the spellbook (journal). She also talked with the fellow Merrybrook villagers that still remained and tended to the animals left behind.

Overall, I was amazed at how well she roleplayed through encounters, asked questions, set goals for what to do next, and really took in the experience. After assessing the main part of town and surrounding farms, we left off for the night with her next task to pursue the Orcs in the direction last seen so that she and Twig would know where their family was taken.

Starbuster — by Lauren

Good things about her are that since she has always been reading books she is extremely intelligent. She also loves Zeus a lot and she is one of the most religious ones in the whole family. Some bad or weird things about Starbuster (some people just call her Star) are that since she never makes the smallest effort to excersize she has terribly bad strength but it doesn’t really bug her because if she had good strength she wouldn’t have a good use for it anyway so she says “I can live without strength for as long as I live unless I have a major emergency involving climbing or something but I have always been one of the smarter kids rather than a jock” also her eye will just randomly twitch whenever she smells carne asada or El Pollo Loco I think she just doesn’t like spicy or Mexican foods in the first place so she just can’t stand it at all. Her favorite food is sweet potato fries and freshly baked pesto tilapia. She is chaotic good because although she wants to be nice to people she doesn’t want to be ruled by anybody at all and likes to be an independent soul. No matter what it takes, Starbuster will always go out of her way to help cure or save others as long as they are not evil or mean to her personally. Her god is Zeus, god of all of the gods and controller or ruler of all gods that exist in the Greek Gods system. She is a beautiful half elf, sorcerous who loves to play with her cat, Stargazer.

Stargazer has long gray hair with a beautiful hot pink collar and giant yellow eyes the size of oversized marbles. So back to Starbuster… she has long blond hair and moonlight violet eyes and she is at the age of 20 years old which is a lot younger than you think… that is in half elven years I guess. That is all that I would like to share about Starbuster and her lovely but loyal companion, Stargazer and I hope that you have enjoyed my information that I just gave you. BYE!

Learning the Ropes

Now that the important details, a character sketch, were out of the way, I asked Lauren if she wanted to ease into the game or if she wanted to learn the actual (adult) rules and game play. She said she wanted to learn the real way, “Of course!” So I figured we’d see how it goes and I gave her the first book anyone starts with … The Players Handbook.

I could see her eyes light up as she cracked the spine and thumbed through the pages — stopping on the pictures that were already an indication that this would be a different kind of game than she was used to. I pointed out some of the sections she would need to review for the initial character creation. Things like the races and class types (she already picked one, but I would of cousre let her change her mind with some more information at hand) and finally religion.

She read through her sections and was still looking for more. Ok, I thought, perhaps she is up for learning the actual rules of game play. When we started discussing religion, I introduced her to the Deities & Demigods book. She immediately gravitated to the Greek gods as she was recently studying them in school. What a great connection of entertainment and education! We discussed alignment choices as well, and she read the methods of roleplaying the various types. This, coupled with her choice of Zeus, led her to pick Chaotic Good for her Sorceress.

Now it was time for her to roll her first dice set, and I thought it fitting to giver her a set to use until she got to pick out and purchase her own. She chose a complete set from my collection and I could remember my excitement as a boy when I was first aware of non-cubed dice. I explained my allowed method of ability score rolls (4d6 - drop the lowest, write the scores, arrange them into the ability areas as she sees fit). I was happy with the blend of some abilities with bonuses, some with no bonus, and one with a negative. I told her how it gives her character more of a real feel to have strengths and weaknesses just like we all have. It will be up to her to decide why they are as such and what affect it has on her roleplaying.

After dropping in her ability scores, picking some skills, completing her saving throw adjustments, and rolling for things like height and weight, her character was pretty much ready to go for the actual gaming. I wanted to roleplay in her spells and equipment so we left those for the first game night. I did give her a brief background for her character so she could start thinking about how she wanted to play Starbuster. I only told her about her parents and brother and that she lived in a simple rural area. Her parents used to be adventurers well before she was born, but now they live a life as honorable farmers raising her and her younger brother. Beyond that, I wanted to let Lauren fill in the blanks and make this character her own.

I left the game table to relax while she continued to read a bit and then started typing. I didn’t even realize that she was writing up a whole backstory for Starbuster to answer questions I just through out there in passing. She had been collecting all of those questions and merging them with her own ideas to form a real story around her character. I must say, she made me proud and excited for the gaming to come. My next post will be the backstory she wrote for herself that night.

Priorities

After telling Lauren that we could start gaming soon, we started to talk about the game in general terms during our rides to and from her school. I told her some of the different class and race types and she decided to be a caster type. I didn’t want to start right in on handing her a book to start studying.

Immediately she started telling me what her character would look like, how she would be dressed, and so on. I believe she cared more about identifying with the character, which she promptly named Starbuster, than she did about class capabilities. Considering that I was interested in sharing a more creative and story-based campaign with her, I felt this was a great start.

When we got home, Lauren started sketching out Starbuster. I told her she would also be getting a familiar and there was little doubt she would pick anything other than a cat. She took to sketching out her cat, Stargazer, as well and soon had something to share with her mom.

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising

A long-time friend, Garrett, was over for a reoccuring dinner and movie with my family and for one reason or another we chose The Gamers: Dorkness Rising to view that night. It was probably because my wife was going out with friends and she would not sit through this kind of movie if I paid her to. Garrett and I used to play Dungeon & Dragons and this movie is pretty funny to those with a gaming background. My daughter, Lauren, was also sitting down to watch the movie with us, and she had no idea of what to expect having never been exposed to DnD.

Lauren loved the movie and thought it was pretty darn funny, especially when the Bard would make a short appearance. Throughout the evening she overheard Garrett and me discuss our experiences with good and bad gamers when we were kids. Lauren mostly just listened to us and I figured she just filed it away as one of the weird old things people of my generation did.

The next day, Lauren asked me more questions about DnD and wondered if I still had the game. I answered and went about my tasks. Another couple of days passed and she asked about it again and this time wanted to know if she could try playing it. This time I really took notice. I realized that it really did have an impact on her and she was genuinely interested in knowing more. I told her I would have to think about it and discuss it with her mother.

Another few days passed and I hadn’t had the time to discuss it with my wife yet. I realize it seems like it should have been a quick and easy thing, but my wife wasn’t really into gaming and I didn’t know what she would think of her daughter picking it up. I also wasn’t sure the game was right for a 10 (almost 11) year old. During this time, Lauren again asked me if I had discussed it with her mother yet … OK, OK, I got to get on this!

I did some research and one of the great discussion areas I came across was at boardgamegeek.com (http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/407085/do-kids-still-play-rpgs for one of the discussions on kids and gaming) where other parents were talking about when and how they introduced their kids to gaming. I was feeling a lot better about this now and starting to remember that I was every bit as young as Lauren when I first started playing (and that was without a parent present).

So, I pitched the idea to my wife and she didn’t see anything wrong with giving a try. I told Lauren we were a go for playing and she got very excited. I wondered how long that excitement would last when she saw the difference between a movie of characters acting out adventure and the reality of all the reading and writing involved with actual playing. But, we were going to give it a shot for better or worse.

The ensuing entries here will follow the progression of this gaming experience between a dad and his daughter. Sure, DnD Gaming Night will mean “Dungeons and Dragons” for most, but for me it now means “Daddy and Daughter Gaming Night” … and these are times I don’t want to forget … thus a blog is born.