The Boy's 1st D&D Adventure

We love to play games together in our house - that's no surprise if you read this blog. Like any group of individuals, however, there are some games specific people prefer. Up until very recently, our boy has not taken any interest in participating in role playing games (RPGs). On Thanksgiving Monday (October 14, 2013), our family friend DM and his young son were over playing the ongoing campaign. (I wrote about this particular campaign in this post on this very blog.). For some reason, my son decided to join the fun. He created a character, called Talrock, who was an alchemist. The drawing below illustrates episode four and episode five, in which Talrock entered the fray.

In Episode 5, the group of adventurers were given a large, egg-shaped object by a fearful kobold. As they rode back to town, carrying an unconscious and severely injured Brother Egon, they met up with a band of leather-clad forest dwellers who insisted on a "protection fee" for passing through. Brother Egon recuperated and was told by his contact in town that they were being sent on a fool's errand. Talrock met the other player characters in the pub, who were examining the odd relic they acquired.

My son has never played an RPG before, so it was very entertaining to see how he (and DM's son, who is about 8 years old) chose to play. Our GM told our son to roll a six-side dice and since he rolled high, he told my son that his character (Talrock) recognized the relic for what it truly was - a dragon's egg. Talrock decided not to share the information (that all of us, out of character at the table, has just heard) and instead, offered to give the other characters the data we desired in exchange for some valuable minerals he needed for a potion he was brewing, located in the caves we were just at prior to our meeting. He offered to share a random mixture he was creating to my character, Inga. My character drank the brew and fell down dead. (I rolled badly.) Thankfully, Drake and Talrock revived Inga with a combination of healing antidote and magic spells. Despite this minor set-back, the party decided to head back out to the caves after Inga took time to recover (and restore her hit point pool).

It was utter chaos, and hilarious! Drake (played by DM's son) wanted to go with his pal Grimaldi (played by DM in addition to his GM role) to the goblin caves because by raiding them, we could get some gold. Talrock wanted us to get the minerals from the kobold cave, which he said was possible to get by extracting it from under the dead body of a kobold guard infested with toxic rot grubs. We didn't want to get too close to the body, because there was a deep pit right in front of it and the grubs caused a lot of damage. We decided to light some oil on fire, throw it on the body to roast the grubs, and then scrape up the mineral (which the GM ret-con'd to explain was rot grub poo). Grimaldi lit the oil, but rolled dice poorly and accidentally set the floor on fire. While the rest of us ran away, Grimaldi rolled poorly again, caught himself on fire and fell in the pit. He was severely hurt (taking eight points of damage), but the player characters managed to fish him out of the pit in time.

"I thought you were the Game Master! I thought you had the power!" my son shouted. We had to explain that part of the drama unfolds based on how the dice rolls go. I loved how my boy hijacked the story, shaping it to his interests.

"I don't think I ever played like those two [young boys] when I was a kid", observed my husband after the game. It's true that this is a very different game, but I had to laugh and go along for the ride. We'll see how future adventures unravel!