Last Sunday I had the chance to sit back down in the Dungeon Master chair in real life. It had been awhile.
It was a lovely day and we setup on the enclosed deck at my friend’s house. The cool thing was this was going to be the first game for three people, including a fourth grader, a sixth grader and an eleventh grader. All of the kids were meeting for the first time which was adding to the awkwardness of the situation. On top of that one of the old men had not played in decades.
We switched from a Dungeons and Dragons edition that I am very familiar with (3.5) to one that is supposed to be more updated and user friendly (5E). I have played 3.5 since it came out and played a little bit of 5E but was not super familiar with the rules.
We got our characters created, jumped into the adventure I had written called Lost Puppy. It was a slow start getting the kids into the game and figuring out the new edition of the rules but as we kept going everyone seemed to be into it, the adults were deferring a lot to the young ones, which I appreciated as the game was 100% for the youngsters. At one point, the fourth grader’s character was getting perilously close to expiring. She is the tiniest player but playing the mightiest character so her character was getting picked on in combat a lot. Her cheeks got red, tears were forming in her eyes, but in the end her character pulled through and frankly it was a testament to how invested she was in the character and this initial game.
We played for six hours, stopping only for the obligatory pizza break. I thought we might stop there, at about the four hour mark, but the kids were all in. So we played the rest of the adventure to rescue the lost puppy (which they successfully did but it was close!). Even after six hours they were still ready to continue on and want to keep playing, but all the old people needed a nap. So we are looking for the next Sunday we can all get together to get started on a real campaign. I am reliably informed that the kids had a great time. Play Dungeons and Dragons with your kids!