5 Year Old DM

My son, just shy of 6, wanted to DM a game of D&D like his dad. Yesterday, he got his wish!

I tried to rally the troops, which was entertaining of itself. Jeremy in particular, asking me "What system will it be?" "What about character sheets?" as if it were going to be anything other than freeform gaming. Maybe he had my boys mixed up? My 12 year old is also hoping to DM a game soon, too, and it will likely have some more structure.

Dean and Denis were free, and of course me, too. We created characters! I was a big fat wizard (Stevie basically gave me this character), Dean was a sentient jack-o-lantern, and Denis was a kung fu dragon-man.

The session involved us stopping rampaging ass-goblins by cleaning them, interacting with bizarre NPCs, lots of "home shopping" where Stevie would tell us that there was something for sale and ask who wanted to buy it (usually for outrageously high or low prices), dealing with a monster that needed to go to court, and stopping a dragon by sending it and the court monster onto a space ship.

It was pretty much what you'd expect from a nearly 6 year old's stream of consciousness. Oh, and a lot of it was dictated by the free to use minis on Roll20, as he would find one he liked, stick it on the map, and that thing was suddenly there.

He's looking forward to DMing again, and I'm glad to have him so excited about playing D&D!

Huh, wonder why?

No idea why, but my 'get off my lawn' post from a two weeks ago is already the 10th most viewed post on this blog (not counting the Flying Swordsmen page).

Sure, it generated some good comments, but about half were from my players and me!

But then the post in number 9 is my lackluster review of the third Abrams Star Trek film from four years ago, so maybe it's bots?

Oh, and sometime earlier this year (I don't check the stats that often) I passed 1 million total page views. Hurray for me!

Actual game related content coming soon! I'm reading another book on gamification for a paper I want to write, so expect a return to some game theory posting in the near future.

Game Trek: The Next Generation

My research trip/vacation in the US is almost over. It's been a good month with my family. And one of the best parts has been seeing my boys' interest in gaming increase while I've been here.

I've got two boys, Flynn (12 next month) and Stevie (5). Flynn played in my West Marches game while he was in Busan, but for the past year they've been in the US so he only got to play once with us online last year. He has tennis practice or tournaments most Saturday mornings, so our Saturday evening Korea time games are usually busy times for him. Stevie's been asking to join the D&D games ever since Flynn got to participate, when he was only 3.

They've gotten into board games, and one I got for Flynn last Christmas was the updated version of Dungeon! We played a few rounds of it while I've been here.

In this game, Stevie and I were both the Rogue (Elf in the original version) and Flynn was the Wizard. Flynn ran out of spells pretty early on, and Stevie went to level 4 and kept getting damaged by a werewolf that he kept fighting to get his treasure back, while I went around levels 1 and 2, got the treasure I needed, and won the game. They had fun and learned a thing or two from the game, I think. 

Later, we went to the local hobby shop. I think I mentioned this the other day. The first time we went, Stevie picked up a pair of HeroClix singles based on Thor: Ragnarok. He got Valkyrie and Arena Thor. The next time we went, he convinced us to buy him a set of 6 Captain America themed figures (Cap, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Winter Soldier, and a couple of Cap clones I'm not familiar with from the comics) and a map, so he could play. We've done some actual(ish, no rulebook so going on my memory of what the powers are/do) games, and just played around with the figures, as well. Stevie's only 5, so he's got plenty of time to actually learn the game. And yesterday, we were back at the hobby shop and the dude there just gave him some more figures and maps for free! They were old promo items, he explained. 

At the same time we picked up the Captain America set, Flynn got four Official D&D Minis of dragonborn (which he played in West Marches, they didn't have any Half Orc Paladins, which he also played) and he's been painting them himself. He's got two done and another nearly complete. 

Pretty good for his first time! He's always been artistic. Hopefully he'll get the last two finished tomorrow, since the weather will be good and I can show him how to use the spray-on top coat I bought while the weather is nice. 

Finally, one day while rummaging around my old bedroom at my parents' house, they found this 2E era starter pack for D&D. I picked it up many years ago when I was working at WaldenBooks (back when there was a WaldenBooks) mostly for the minis and dice that came with it, because I had the employee discount. The boys brought it home, and we've been talking about playing it but they keep finding other things to do. I'm leaving it with Flynn, though, so maybe he'll go through it and give DMing a try this year. 

It's a bit disappointing that we haven't actually played D&D together this month. We still have this weekend, but since it's my last one in the States for a while, my parents want to get together one more time, the boys want to go out and do fun things...we'll see what happens. I just feel good about leaving the boys with a gaming itch. I bet they're going to be bugging my wife to take them back to the hobby shop from time to time to get more HeroClix, minis to paint, and so on. 

Oh, almost forgot. We watched The Mandalorian together as well. They both loved it! And they want Mandalorian helmets an LEGOs and so on for birthday presents. Flynn wants to craft his own armor for next Halloween. :D 

All in all, this has been a great trip for me to share my love of gaming/geekery with my boys!

ZVP Fan-trailer

I'm off to the U.S.A. for a few days. While I'm gone, enjoy this awesome bit of inspiration for your Chanbara games.

Hat tip to Tedankhamen Bonnah for the link.

If you build it, they will come.

Haven't seen Field of Dreams in forever, but the line is fitting today. I put up my usual "event" post on the D&D in Busan Facebook group to advertise my West Marches game next Sunday (already Sunday evening here in Busan). And in the post, I mentioned I'm switching to Classic D&D.

Soon after, I got two messages. One's from an acquaintance who games but we've never gamed together. One's from a stranger. But both want in on my old school game.

So I may lose a player or three, but it looks like there are plenty of people willing to take those spots.

Now I've got to get a bit more work done preparing to run Classic D&D again! And switching over my notes. Should be fun!

Chanbara Play Test Art!

Last night was another (in my opinion, at least) successful Chanbara play test session. The big bad boss fight at the end went MUCH faster than I thought it would, and more decisively in the players' favor, but they did do a few things "right" and had a few tactics that I didn't anticipate that went well for them (which is not a complaint at all, I'm not in love with my NPCS, and I'm happy to see the players defeat them when they can).

Anyway, just before the session, Jeff submitted this graphic novel-ish recap of the previous session a couple weeks ago, and I thought I'd share them (with his permission).

Nostalgia and Serendipity

While back at home, my older son (now 7) had a great time raiding my and my brother's old toy boxes for good stuff to bring back to Korea. I'd promised him he could have my old LEGOs, and he decided that just wasn't enough.

So he has some vintage TMNT toys (all 4 turtles, Beebob and Rocksteady, and a frog whose name I'm too lazy to Google), some of my old D&D figures (Strongheart and Kellek, some non-articulated orcs, etc.), lots of old Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars, etc.

Along with them, one set of toys that really fascinated him were the Battle Beasts. Remember these guys?

Originally produced in Japan as a tie-in to Transformers and sold in the U.S. in the late 80's/early 90's, they're anthropomorphized cybernetic animal figures with a variety of odd melee weapons.

Actually, of the two dozen or so he brought back, only 4 were actually mine. Apologies to my brother may be needed in the future when his son next visits grandma and grandpa's and finds them gone.

Anyway, seeing them again made me realize that they're perfect minis to use in a Gamma World type game. Use little green army men (or cowboys, or knights, or pirates) for pure strain humans. Throw in some MUSCLE  Wrestlers (more great 80's toys, and I already have my collection here in Korea) for the altered humans.

Then just figure out what to do for the mutant plants (a quick bit of garden pruning, maybe?) and you're all set. 

Now if I only had time to run GamMarvel World as a face to face game...

I should be writing this down!

Recently, my son has begun asking me to play Dungeons and Dragons with him.  He's six now, and remembers a bit of free-form play we did on our morning commute to the kindergarten two years ago.  He suffered from a lack of linguistic ability then (one drawback of raising a multi-lingual child is that development in each language is slower at first compared to a monolingual child).

Anyway, now his English is closer to native speaker level (give him a couple more years), and he's more cognitively developed.  When we free-formed two years ago, he would make interesting choices (fight the dragon, run away from the skeleton, things like that...hey, skeletons are scary!).  It was refreshing to me to see his actions/reactions through fresh eyes, without the baggage of nearly thirty years as an RPG gamer that I have.

Last year, he didn't like the free-form improv, but did enjoy pulling out my old Dragon Strike board game and moving his piece around the board (usually the Wizard), pretending to fight monsters with my wife and I as companions.  He also loved playing Pixel Dungeon (a free Rogue-like) on my smart phone.

Anyway, in the past week or two, he's been asking nearly every morning to play that improv style game again, along with nights and weekends.  A few months back we tried playing some actual D&D by the rules, with dice and maps and everything.  He enjoyed it, and this current round of free-form play started with his new character, the Fighter Stinky-Feet, avenging his previous character, John Jacob Bibbybobby, who died fighting a bone golem (and who had avenged his first character, Wizard the Stinky-Feet). 

His new character has managed to recruit some allies (knight, sorceress, thief, and Sloth) by releasing them from magic mirrors, find the pirate treasure of One Eyed Willy, battle goblins/orcs/hobgoblins (and run away once the alarm was sounded and his group was outnumbered), explore a mummy's pyramid, raid an ogre's castle, put a ghost's spirit to rest in a haunted tower, sailed to the Ghost Kingdom to rescue Bibbybobby's spirit, and more!  He's made it to Level 5 by now! (Level advancement is at the hands of the arbitrary and capricious DM, of course.)

While he's apt to suddenly declare his character to have certain abilities ("I speak Egyptian, so I say to the mummy...") or items, for the most part he's using clever ideas to deal with challenges and traps, although he usually just battles against the monsters.

We use rock-scissors-paper as a resolution mechanic, by the way.

Tonight, he wanted to go to the Dragon Mountain.  I described the mountain with five caves, each the home to one of the standard D&D chromatic dragons.  The green dragon was his first target, but it surprised him, and after breathing poison gas (and losing the rock-scissors-paper), he found himself nearly dead.  He decided to try talking.  The dragon demanded his treasure and magic sword, which he surrendered in exchange for his life. 

Undaunted, he went back to the blue dragon's cave, but gnomes allied with the dragon convinced him not to fight it.  His third attempt was the black dragon's cave, and due to some unlucky "rolls" his knight companion died to acid breath.  He and his other companions escaped.

He handled the setbacks well.  "Dad, if Stinky-Feet dies, I will make a new character."  That's the spirit!  During dinner, he then managed to defeat a Man-Bat (like from Batman comics), and just before his shower a giant (buy building a giant punching machine and getting the giant drunk before the punch).

In addition, I've been making up these dungeons and adventures for him on the fly.  Several of them might make good one-page dungeons, or at least interesting locations in a sandbox game.  As I say in the title of this post, i should write them down!  And by posting this, I'll at least hopefully have enough down here to spark my memory when I finally get around to it.

Forget about that cover kerfluffle, here's Dark Dungeons, The Movie!

So while everyone's busy judging books by their covers, I stumbled across this:

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/dark-dungeons-movie/

An independent movie, made by the same production company responsible for "The Gamers" movies, about every gamer's favorite Chick Tract.  And according to the article, they're playing it straight, not taking the piss out of it.

To that, I say well done!  It's our job as viewers to take the piss out of it, MST3K style, and we surely will.  If the people making this were just doing it to poke fun at the source, I think it would end up just being this stupid little thing everyone would forget about quickly. 

Anyway, I'll be looking out for this one in the future.

Vacation's Over

I finished my first day back at work after an entire week off.  Unlike public school teachers, Korean kindergartens are for profit affairs, and that means I get one week in the summer, one week in winter. When every other damn person in Korea also has vacation, so it's pointless to try traveling.  At least not on the money I'm making and with the grad school tuition I have to pay (which is incredibly cheap compared to grad school in the States, but I've digressed from my digression so I'll stop now).

Anyway, the week was nice, eventful, and allowed me to catch up on some lacking daddy time that my son needed.  It also meant I was away from the blogs for the most part, so I didn't post anything.

Didn't do a bit of work on Chanbara either.  I don't know if I'll get around to playtesting this thing after all.  I've got books I need to read in preparation for choosing a dissertation topic on order, due to arrive soon.  Not light reading by a long shot.  That will suck up all of August, I'm afraid.  And then the next semester starts in September, so I'll have to continue the readings for the dissertation selection while doing normal class readings.

Long story short, Chanbara rules are more or less complete and should be playable.  Are they balanced?  Does it matter?  I've still got a bit of setting detail to write up.  A bit of editing.  Formatting and proofreading.  I may manage to slip out an untested version by the end of the year or early next.  And that may be the end of my hobby RPG publishing career.  At least until I either earn my Ph.D. or quit.

On a positive note, I did spend evenings last week working on the mega-dungeon, and after last Saturday's game the guys were asking when we'd play in it again.  So I may find some time to DM it in the coming weeks or months.

Also, yesterday I took my son to the weekly board game meetup (which I usually miss).  After we got home, he wanted to play some games with me, and we did.  This morning, he got up and while I showered he played the games again by himself, just rolling the dice and moving around (snakes and ladders, and a similar rocket themed race game).  My son is finally old enough to grasp rules, and not to get upset when he loses.  And obviously smart enough to have realized that by playing by himself, he's guaranteed to win.  I'm sure we'll be playing all sorts of games within the next few years. 

Anyway, expect a session report from our game last Saturday over the next few days, and hopefully a few other posts about RPG related stuff soon as well.

28 years gaming

It's my birthday today.  Number 39.  I've been playing D&D for 28 years now.

My parents sent me an Amazon.com gift card.  Time to think about what to spend it on.  Probably a physical copy of one of the retro-clones (I saw at least the Labyrinth Lord core book through an Amazon vendor). 

The Hobbit also opens here in Korea in two days.  I'm gonna have to wait until Sunday to see it thanks to my busy schedule, but we've got plans laid.  But that's also part of my birthday celebration.

Proud of my boy!

Last night, when I got home from work, my son said to me, "Daddy, Disney Channel!"  Meaning, of course, 'I wanna watch some cartoons.'  I asked him if he wanted to watch cartoons in English or Korean (our actual Disney Channel switched to dubbed Korean a few months back, instead of the old English with Korean subtitles that most Korean kids that age can't read).  My son opted for English cartoons last night (meaning stuff I've downloaded and put on a USB stick to slot into the DVD player). 

When I put it in, he decided he wanted to watch Dungeons & Dragons.  Yes, the old cartoon from the 80's.  He's quickly become a fan of it.  After 2 episodes, he watched some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and one episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.  Then it was time for bed.

Tonight, he again asked me, "Daddy, English Disney Channel!  I want to see Dungeons & Dragons!"  Boy, was I stoked!  Then he said, "No Holly."  Slight bummer.  That meant no Land of the Lost (of course the original 70's one!).  Still, while we lacked in sleestaks, we made up for it with orcs, lizard men, and Venger!  We rewatched the same episodes as yesterday (and the Spider-Man episode as well). 

And while we were eating dinner, my son came running up with a blanket over his head.  I asked if he was Sheila the Thief, and he said no, he was Flynn the Thief. 

Now I really can't wait until he's old enough to game!  Just a few more years...

Accordions in the Deep

Be afraid.  Be very afraid.  Especially if you're one of my players.

I've spent most of the evening playing Weird Al songs for my son.  I can only believe that this will have a positive effect on my megadungeon.  Planning to do a bit more stocking of it now.

Your books are overdue.

My Unexpected Christmas Bonus

Today was the Christmas party for the kids at my kindergarten.  And as usual, after the explanation of Christmas, Quiz Game, cello performance, giving of gifts by "the Santa Brothers" (us five foreign teachers), crafts, games, face painting, and all that sort of stuff -- we had the "Christmas Market."

We'd been awarding fake dollars to the kids all month, and this was their chance to use them.  Amongst the pens, pencils, cheap toys, and Angry Birds and Rilakkuma goods, were these fine educational toys:

Not sure why Blogger put this in portrait when it's landscape on my hard drive

Scooped up six packs.  One's a stocking stuffer for my son, the rest are mine!  Mine!  MINE!!!

And yes, I've got plenty of dollar store d6s to finish out the sets.

There are also more packs at the school, but I didn't want to seem greedy.  I may grab a few more when I return to work in January after the vacation.

And that reminds me - I'm heading back to the States from the 26th to the 30th, so likely won't post anything here.  I will post about the reason for the trip though when I get back (or depending on internet access and time, while I'm there).

Stop the Presses!!!

Just checked DeviantArt.  I'd sent messages a while back begging a few artists there for cover-worthy material for Flying Swordsman.

And I just got a "Yes" from Daxiong Guo.

Who is he?  Well, read about him here, and take a look at his work here.  In addition to a ton of books and comics when he was in China, he's been working for Dark Horse and DC Comics since coming to the U.S., among other things.  Top notch artwork here.

I am really happy right now.  But the little guy's asleep (so is the wife) so no jumping and yelling with joy. 

Spooky Adventure Writers Wanted!

Blogger Fenway5 of Sword & Shield put forth the proposition that a bunch of us (well, 31 to be exact) each write a spooky 2-page adventure.  One page map, one everything else.  Get some artists to donate some spooky cover art and borders, the compile it all as a free PDF/at cost Lulu print publication.

If you're interested in helping out, visit his blog post RIGHT HERE.

Megadungeon Success!

As I mentioned in my previous post, we got together last Sunday and played around in my megadungeon.  Things didn't go according to plan, but they did go well.

First off, I'd never been to the venue - a new used English bookstore with beer on tap, run by a pair of foreigners - as it just opened about 2-3 weeks ago.  Our usual start time on Sundays was 1pm, so I suggested we all meet there at that time.  Place didn't open until 2.

I met Jeremy, though, so we hopped into Starbucks, he updated the Facebook page with the info on his smartphone, and we rolled up his characters.  Brian, new to the group and found out about it through this here blog, also got there, and tried to call me, but I'd accidentally given him my wife's number, not mine.  My wife's and my numbers are only one digit apart, and I rarely have cause to call my own number, so I've made that mistake before.

Anyway, at 2, Jeremy and I had finished the char gen and talk, and headed back to the book store.  Brian was there waiting for us.  After introductions, I got myself a beer, they got cokes, and we got set up.  About that time, Pat, Alex (from the board game group, not the 4E group), Bill, Greg from the FB group, and a dude named Dan I'd never met before online or off, all showed up.  Wow, didn't know if we'd have room!

But then they informed us they were gonna play a board game instead of D&D.  Figures.  Alex doesn't like OSR type games, and Bill's really only interested in 3E D&D, so I knew their interest would be low.  Oh well.  We decided to just have Jeremy and Brian run all 3 PCs they'd rolled up (Brian had made his in advance) simultaneously, rather than using the extras as reserves.

I was testing JB's idea that Thief skills should just automatically work if the Thief has time to do the job (sorta like Taking 20 in 3E), but if the Thief didn't have time they had to roll.  I'm not sure I like it.  I've actually placed enough keys around that failing an Open Locks roll would just mean search a bit more and come back later.  Both Jeremy and Brian did a good job of roleplaying how to bypass the traps they encountered.  We had one instance of climbing, but they could have used a rope and grapple in that situation if the Thief didn't want to risk the roll.  And the only time the Thief tried to be stealthy was in an area with a non-animated skeleton, and another area with Yellow Mold.  So the rule seemed to be overkill.  Don't think I'll be using it again.

On the DM side of things, I realized one failure of making this dungeon piecemeal and converting stuff from the old dungeon to the new.  They ended up finding a treasure box, locked but completely unguarded, with 1000pp, and a bunch of gold and silver (dont' remember exactly how much).  Mistake on my part filling in the encounters, but I had written it down, so I let it stand.  That, plus the bandit treasure they got by killing the 3rd level Cleric leader in one hit with a Potion of Giant Strength/thrown feast table combo, and the monster XP (I was still using the OD&D 100xp per hit die thing) meant they all went up a level.  I'd started them on 2500 xp per character, they each earned around 2600 xp for their actions. 

Jeremy and Brian both posted on FB that they enjoyed the game.  I really enjoyed running it.  They had some really creative play, and I had fun throwing challenges their way, working in random encounters, and trying to give them just enough info in any situation that they were wary of traps/ambushes, but not overly cautious.  No PC casualties, although Brian's Cleric was down to 1 hit point at one point, and his Dwarf got beat up a bit as well, while Jeremy's Barbarian managed to make it out with only 2 or 3 points of damage total for the session.

And they both want to play again.  They had a few rumors of Key Treasures and are hoping to get their hands on the famed gem, The Eye of the Frost Troll in the future.

Serendipity

I've been jotting down ideas for adventures to write up for Flying Swordsmen during the commute lately. 

And the other day I finally got to fill in one of those gaps in my cultural knowledge.  I finally watched the original 1971 film Shaft.  And funny thing, one of the ideas I've got in the notebook is fairly similar to the plot of Shaft.  Now I know how to flesh out the rough ideas I've got for the module.

This...

...plus this. Win?

Should I run a game set here?

Check out his website for other funny pop culture charts.

Shinobi Sunday: Yinja!

On Friday, in the last class of the day, on of my students asked me if I knew what 음 (eum) meant.  I did.  It's the 'yin' of 'yin and yang.'  I told him that, but he didn't think I understood, so I drew the yin/yang symbol on the board.  He immediately ran up and drew a stick man body under it. 

Hence, Yinja was created.

Enjoy!  I'm taking today to relax.  We've got a big group getting together to play some board games all afternoon.  I need it.  I've spent a lot of time this week trying to organize my old college friends and acquaintances to donate money for one of our old friends who lives in Sendai and needs our help.