Last night, my group of almost 2 years did something special, they let my 6 year old daughter join them for a brief, 1 hour, delve. She has been watching us since the start and she and I have played a little, but never actually statting up a character and playing.
We decided to use AD&D as she would have had trouble trying to grasp all the powers that would be available to her in 4E. She and I rolled up Knight Arianna, a Fighter/Magic-User, late last week and she was READY.
I built a basic 3 "encounter" delve that I hoped would last about an hour. She and the other characters were hired by a Wizard to retrieve a Crystal Ball that had been stolen by a Dragon. Pretty basic premise, but hey, she's 6.
The first encounter was 4 guards at the gate to the cave the dragon was in. The other players gave her the choice of attacking or talking with the guards. Interestingly, she opted to talk with them. They denied the players entrance since they didn't have a letter from "the boss". Much to my surprise, she took out a piece of paper, and with the help of a couple other players, proceeded to attempt to forge a letter of entrance! I wanted them to fight, so I called the bluff since she didn't know the real name of "the boss". I did praise her several times afterward for such a great idea. It was a fun encounter and she got to use her sleep spell as well as have some melee combat. The characters recovered a small can of red paint, yellow paint, and blue paint from the corpses. I do feel guilty about shooting down her letter idea though.
Entering the cave, a fire giant was found guarding a door. One of her other spell choices had been Charm Person and she was HOT to use it. The giant was placed there specifically for this reason. She charmed him and he left. However, the door was locked and only by solving a puzzle could it be opened. Engraved on the door were the words "Only by using all the colors can you enter." There were 6 grooves underneath the words. She continued to amaze me by solving the puzzle with minimal help from the other players. Mixing the 3 paint colors to create the 6 colors of the rainbow really impressed me....I was also impressed I came up with the puzzle.
The final encounter was behind the door, the dragon. It only lasted three rounds, with the rogue jumping on top(and getting slammed against the ceiling), a ranger diving underneath(and getting crushed on the way down from the ceiling), and a whole lot of hammering on the dragon. They recovered the crystal ball and received a big diamond each as reward.
She hasn't stopped talking about it. She actually cried when it was over because she had so much fun and it was over. To anyone who has a child interested, encourage it, she'll be filling in at our bi-weekly game soon enough. Thanks again to my players for indulging me for an hour. I think they all enjoyed it as well since they wanted to know if we were going to let her join us again this summer.
We decided to use AD&D as she would have had trouble trying to grasp all the powers that would be available to her in 4E. She and I rolled up Knight Arianna, a Fighter/Magic-User, late last week and she was READY.
I built a basic 3 "encounter" delve that I hoped would last about an hour. She and the other characters were hired by a Wizard to retrieve a Crystal Ball that had been stolen by a Dragon. Pretty basic premise, but hey, she's 6.
The first encounter was 4 guards at the gate to the cave the dragon was in. The other players gave her the choice of attacking or talking with the guards. Interestingly, she opted to talk with them. They denied the players entrance since they didn't have a letter from "the boss". Much to my surprise, she took out a piece of paper, and with the help of a couple other players, proceeded to attempt to forge a letter of entrance! I wanted them to fight, so I called the bluff since she didn't know the real name of "the boss". I did praise her several times afterward for such a great idea. It was a fun encounter and she got to use her sleep spell as well as have some melee combat. The characters recovered a small can of red paint, yellow paint, and blue paint from the corpses. I do feel guilty about shooting down her letter idea though.
Entering the cave, a fire giant was found guarding a door. One of her other spell choices had been Charm Person and she was HOT to use it. The giant was placed there specifically for this reason. She charmed him and he left. However, the door was locked and only by solving a puzzle could it be opened. Engraved on the door were the words "Only by using all the colors can you enter." There were 6 grooves underneath the words. She continued to amaze me by solving the puzzle with minimal help from the other players. Mixing the 3 paint colors to create the 6 colors of the rainbow really impressed me....I was also impressed I came up with the puzzle.
The final encounter was behind the door, the dragon. It only lasted three rounds, with the rogue jumping on top(and getting slammed against the ceiling), a ranger diving underneath(and getting crushed on the way down from the ceiling), and a whole lot of hammering on the dragon. They recovered the crystal ball and received a big diamond each as reward.
She hasn't stopped talking about it. She actually cried when it was over because she had so much fun and it was over. To anyone who has a child interested, encourage it, she'll be filling in at our bi-weekly game soon enough. Thanks again to my players for indulging me for an hour. I think they all enjoyed it as well since they wanted to know if we were going to let her join us again this summer.
