CharlesRyan
Adventurer
Reading the thread on getting kids into the game, and then the thread honoring pit traps, has really brought to mind one of the great pleasures of playing with kids: Everything is new again.
Long-time players have seen it all. Even if they want it, even starting a new 1st-level campaign with fresh-faced characters, there's little spontaneity when they run across their first pit trap or their first kobold. There's just no getting around the fact that they've seen it before--many times.
But a kid hasn't read the monster manual. Every horrific or weird description is really, to them, horrific or weird. Even more to the point, when they meet their first chasm to cross, their first pit trap to avoid, or any challenge like that, you get to watch them size it up, try things out, work for solutions.
Like it's 1979 all over again!
Long-time players have seen it all. Even if they want it, even starting a new 1st-level campaign with fresh-faced characters, there's little spontaneity when they run across their first pit trap or their first kobold. There's just no getting around the fact that they've seen it before--many times.
But a kid hasn't read the monster manual. Every horrific or weird description is really, to them, horrific or weird. Even more to the point, when they meet their first chasm to cross, their first pit trap to avoid, or any challenge like that, you get to watch them size it up, try things out, work for solutions.
Like it's 1979 all over again!
