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Message: <blockquote data-quote="halfling rogue" data-source="post: 6493697" data-attributes="member: 6779182">My kids and I have played a couple times since I’ve updated around here. Last time I mentioned that they might be growing a touch bored with “Lost Mine” as it is written, in that they had become interested in their own backstories more than the current adventure. I’m still planning on using Lost Mine as the springboard for perhaps creating a new adventure, but for the time being, they are still inside the Redbrand hideout.In an in-between session they encountered the Nothic. That was kind of hard to roleplay with the secrets, etc, but I tied it to their backgrounds. The session was mostly uneventful but a quick bit about the treasure beneath the bridge. My 7yr old fell through the far bridge and saw the treasure. The 10 year old, wanting to beat him to it, jumped in to get it (ouch). Oddly enough the 4yr old was wise enough to climb via a rope...I ruled she grabbed it first (to the chagrin of the others). She was pretty thrilled about the magic sword.One thing that I’m realizing about playing with young children is that first, they need a lot of hand holding. By that I mean they bypass things that more mature players would catch pretty easily. I’m constantly asking if they want to be sneaky or if they want to look for something (or saying, "hey, maybe next time don't jump down a crevasse"). For instance, they’ll enter an empty room and want to immediately move on. This isn’t a complaint, but rather a recognition of the reality for new and young players. In this way I hope that my recommendations will help them become better at the game later on.But the other thing I’m realizing is that, while I need to hand hold for small things, I almost have to restrain myself from limiting their imaginations! What I mean is that I need to make sure I hold back long enough before pushing them in a direction or otherwise I might stifle something awesome.For instance, when we played over the weekend the kids were presented with two doors. One door led to the wizard’s workshop (with the rat familiar) and the other led to the Redbrand common room (with 4 drunk ruffians playing knucklebones). They listened at both of the doors (per my recommendation) and I assumed that they would kick down the door ready to fight in the Common Room. But instead they chose to find out what that bubbling sound was (actually, the youngest here, age 4, figured it had something to do with the wizard, because, duh boiling cauldron…this spurred the others on). So they enter the room, see the rat (which alerts Iarno to book it) and a somewhat empty room. They enter the (recently vacated) wizard’s bedroom, find some treasure, find a letter, and a secret door. So far, they are getting bored and pretty bummed they missed the wizard (I did drop lots of hints to have them try to chase the wizard, but they didn’t bite). I could tell they were wanting to tangle so I almost had a Redbrand discover them, but held back to see what they would do. They wound up heading back to the Common Room door. Now here I thought, for sure, they were going to kick the door down and brawl. But instead, without my prodding, they recalled that they were wearing Redbrand cloaks and all decided to try to trick the Redbrands. I played this per the adventure (which recommended a DC 15 deception check) and they convinced one of the members that the wizard wanted him for some new assignment. That’s about as far as they thought ahead so I was really curious as to what they’d do next.So the other 3 Redbrands are sitting around the table. I made one of them suspicious, the other completely wasted and the last one greedy. (They walked in on them just as he was collecting a large sum of winnings.) So while the leader was off to see the “wizard”, and I thought there would be an awkward pause trying to figure out what to do next, all of a sudden my 7 year old son said he wanted to join them. He grabbed a beer (in character…don’t drink, kids), threw some money on the table and told them he was playing. Seemed like a good enough plan so the girls joined too. One of the girls threw down a valuable pearl, to the great interest of the others who decided that this would be an all or nothing type of game. The winner takes all. But since I couldn’t think of a game on the spot that they might play as a type of side game, I had the Redbrand leader return and say that the wizard was gone and “What’s going on here”. Another DC check conceived him that they don’t know why wizards say what they say and leave us alone we’re playing a game. When he expressed doubt again, my 4 year old did something completely unexpected and hilarious: her character stood up on her chair and pointed her sword at the 10 year old’s character (who was the main one trying to deceive the leader). She said, “Yeah, what’s going on here?” and she told me she was trying to trick the other Redbrands to think that she was on their team (of course she missed that she was aslo throwing her own teammate under the bus! But it was cute). This little event caused the suspicious Redbrand to become even more suspicious. When I had my 4 year old roll for deception, she failed her DC check and the suspicious Redbrand stood up, pounded the table and shouted “LIES!”And here is where my 7 year old did something just as hilarious and unexpected. He stopped me as I was describing the scene and asked if he could steal all of the money on the table while everyone was looking at the unfolding scene. I had him roll a slight of hand and he rolled a natural 20! So when everyone was standing up all tense, he was clearing the entire table into a sack unseen! Back to the action.My 4 year old’s PC was caught in her lie so I gave her one final opportunity to do something about it before I had the Redbrands attack. She still had her sword pointed at her sister’s PC. I asked what she wanted to do and she said, “I take my sword and hit the Redbrand”. So she rolled and took that suspicious bugger down to 1hp! At this I ruled that she flat out killed him. And the scene exploded in an all out brawl. During the battle my 7 year old who stole the ‘winnings’ intentionally drew the greedy player to himself by making sure he heard the money Clink as he dropped the bag to draw his sword (how awesome is that!?).The 10 year old jumped on the table and was embroiled in a miss/miss/miss battle with the wasted Redbrand. The leader jumped on a chair next to the 4 year old to be on the same level and I rolled a Natural 1. So obviously he swung and fell prone. With the drunk and the greedy Redbrands dispatched they all surrounded the leader. He stood, swung again…and I rolled ANOTHER 1. So he stumbled over the fallen chair, prone again, and the adventurers easily finished him off.Before, throughout, and after the battle the kids were in a full on roleplay mindset. They didn’t use the mechanics of the game to their advantage; they did things in character to sway the scenes and the battles. I just gave a few highlights here, and might not have described it well, but this might have been the greatest D&D battle I’ve ever witnessed. This battle would have fit right into a movie like Pirates of the Caribbean. We had to end our session after that battle and I was teary eyed with laughter. I couldn’t help but keep telling them how awesome it was. Grins and laughs and high fives all around.</blockquote>

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