Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cerebral Paladin" data-source="post: 5510385" data-attributes="member: 3448">Deforch's Tenth and Eleventh AdventuresSorry about the delay in posting--I've had a busy couple of weeks, and I haven't had time to write up any games until now.  But I have had time to play some D&D with my son, so...I've played several D&D games with my son since I last had a chance to write one of these posts.  Most of these were very short games, so I figure that I'll cover them at a faster clip than one per post.  They were also interesting in that I experimented with a more free-form approach to running games--unlike most of my previous games with my son, I ran these with absolutely zero preparation and without even using monster stats. Deforch's tenth adventure presented a bit of a problem.  I had told my son that I would run a game for him after his nap, and I had been looking forward to that.  But then his nap ran long--to about 5 PM--and I had guests coming over at 6.  More to the point, the guests were coming to play D&D, so it would have been even more upsetting to him than otherwise to delay his game to the next day.  But it meant that we really didn't have a lot of time in which to play.  So, I decided that I would run basically a single encounter.  I asked him what he wanted Deforch to do in this game.  He said he wanted Deforch to practice fighting with his swords, so that he would get better at it.  So I ran a little encounter where first Deforch sparred with two of the guards at his family's castle in a two-on-one sparring match.  After they had both yielded, I brought out a figure of a warforged (a type of combat golem, for people who aren't up on recent D&D character types).  My son really likes this figure, so I thought it would be fun to use it.  I explained that the warforged was a practice golem, clarifying that a golem is a type of robot that works by magic instead of technology.  Deforch asked his parents if they had made the golem; they replied that while Deforch's daddy is a wizard and can make some magic things, he doesn't know how to make a golem like that, but that they had actually discovered it on an adventure years ago when they found it in an old dwarven ruins.  I pointed out that dwarves are master crafters, and could make things that were better made than just about anyone else.  I figured that since Deforch still has a long-term story arc about exploring the dwarven halls beneath the castle, this set up reusing the warforged mini in a later game.  Deforch and the two guards then fought together against the golem.  After a little while of fighting, I declared that they had won.  As a friend commented on a previous game, my son's still at an age when he's happy to accept the joy of winning without really needing the feel of overcoming a difficult obstacle.  So we wrapped up the game with everyone happy.A few days later, we sat down to play another game.  Between the previous game and this one, my son had told me that he wanted Deforch to fight a vampire.  His interest in vampires came from a book that he has.  Some friends of ours gave us a book they made, "My First Monster Manual," which has pictures of one monster for each letter of the alphabet, along with humorous little rhymes.  It's a wonderful little book, and he loves it.  In any event, he has begun flipping through it to find things he wants Deforch to meet, and this time he wanted to face a vampire.  He also talked a little bit about the vampire and its powers--he clearly conceived of vampires as having wizard powers and using a magic wand.  It took me a little bit of thought to figure out how to handle this, partly because I want to preserve some sense of different power levels for different types of monsters.  Still, I wasn't going to say no, so…The game began with Deforch's dad telling him that some of the villagers in the local village were sick, and that Deforch's dad was suspicious that the sickness might be magical in nature.  My son immediately cut to the chase:  "Maybe they've actually been attacked by a vampire!"  Deforch's dad agreed that that was part of what he was worried about, but that he didn't know for sure.  So off Deforch went to investigate.He quickly found a group of villagers, some of whom were "sick" and some of whom weren't.  The people who were sick were very pale, with basically no color in their cheeks at all, as well as feeling lethargic and tired.  A skill check confirmed that that matched the symptoms of someone who had been attacked by a vampire and also provided the basics of how vampire attacks work:  that vampires attack by sucking blood, with their two large fangs, typically biting the victim's neck or wrist.  So Deforch checked the sick people, and sure enough, they had bite marks at their necks.  At that point, Deforch knew that the "sickness" was actually the result of a vampire attack, but not who the vampire was.  So he made another skill check to get more information about vampires, and it turned up two more facts:  vampires can't go out in daylight, and they can't enter a home without an invitation.Deforch quickly asked around about whether anyone had asked to come into the homes of the people who were sick.  They mentioned that there was a merchant who had been asking for a place to stay and offering gold in payment…So now Deforch knew who the vampire was, but not where to find him.  I expected him to do some more legwork to get a report on where the vampire's lair was, but instead he focused on nightfall:  protecting the people who had been attacked, and defending the rest.  He started by telling everyone not to invite the merchant into their homes.  I pointed out that that wouldn't keep the people who had already invited the vampire in safe.  Deforch immediately said that they should go to the castle, and that he would tell the guards to not admit any strangers after nightfall.  Not quite the response I expected (I thought he would just have them stay in their neighbors' houses), but entirely reasonable.  And really, having the villagers flee to the castle for protection when faced with a threat is just so right.Deforch then spent the evening patrolling the village.  The "merchant" tried to persuade one of the remaining villagers to let him in, and then raged at Deforch's interference when the villager refused.  Deforch rushed over as the vampire turned to face him, with the vampire vowing revenge, and the battle was joined.  The battle was short and straightforward.  I didn't have actual stats for the vampire, but I made him tougher than a normal foe--Deforch missed on okay but not great rolls, and the vampire hit on okay rolls, doing a bunch of damage.  My son asked me to tone down some of the descriptions.  When I described the vampire draining Deforch's energy, with a cold touch, trying to describe necrotic damage without using an unnecessarily opaque adjective, he asked that I stop my description.  But he was okay with the damage, and after a little while longer, the vampire retreated, disappearing in a cloud of black smoke and a swirl of bats.  Deforch would need to hunt the vampire down to its lair to finish the task, but that's an adventure for another day (and for a day when his other parent could join us, since he recognized that it would be a hard task and wanted to bring Deforch's mommy along to fight the vampire).</blockquote>

Verification