The Family That Slays Together…

So, my son turns six this month and I’ve been thinking that the time might be  right  to introduce him to D&D. He’s already got a good foundation for such things. A couple of years ago, I saw a commercial for Disney’s Toontown and thought it might be something my little boy would enjoy. If you’re not familiar with Toontown, it’s  an MMORPG designed for the young and young at heart (oh my god, did I really just write that last phrase? I’m losing enough cool points bringing up Toontown on an Old School Blog!) It’s actually a pretty fun little game, well designed, but, it gets rather repetitive at high levels. My wife and I even purchased a second account, so one of us could sign in at the same time as our son and we could fight cogs together. I made a character and played for quite a while, a mouse named Duke Leroy McPhooey. I eventually tired of the game and haven’t played for months. My wife still plays. Interestingly, my father decided to order an account so he could adventure with his grandson. He quickly got hooked and being retired, played constantly, leveling up past the rest of the family in just a few weeks.

Then there’s our LARP sessions. I’ll grab a toy lightsaber, put on a plastic Iron Man mask and become Darth Bellicose, Sith Lord and nemesis of Luke Skywalker. My son plays Luke as well as being the GM.

“Allright daddy, I have a thousand hit points and you have ten!”

“You’re not dead yet, daddy.”

“Allright, when I hit you, you fall into the lava. That’s the lava (pointing to the kitchen tiles.)

He’s a bit railroady and needs to learn to allow room for my imagination as well, but  he’s getting there. His main thing right now is the Star Wars, Batman, and  Indiana Jones, Lego games. While he’s playing, he’ll do what he calls “The talking part.” He’ll role-play with the little characters on the screen. I’m not sure if he picked up doing this from from watching the movies upon which the games are based, or, from early memories of watching his mother and I play D&D with a room full of gamers. Regardless, between Toontown, Star Wars and playing with dad, he’s already familiar and comfortable with some of the basic concepts (with his mother and I both being geeks, he never really had a chance, though, right?)

  So, as I was mulling this over, it hit me that Swords & Wizardry would be the perfect introductory game. Rules light, straightforward, a character sheet you can  put on an index card; besides, I’ve been wanting to take it for a spin and I’ve been itching to get back in the DM’s seat. For various reasons, a formal campaign won’t be feasible until after the first of the year. March or April, it looks like now. But some casual, catch as catch can Swords & Wizardry with my wife and son would be not only fun, but just what the doctor ordered. If I could get another player or two…

Now, my father is every bit as much a geek as I am. His apartment is filled, I mean filled with books and dvd’s. Wall to wall bookcases, in the living room, dining room, bedroom. A rather large percentage of his media collection is devoted to Science  Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. He’s not the most discriminating collector, though. You’ll certainly find Peter Jackson’s LOTR and Joss  Whedon’s Buffy series amongst his DVD collection, but, you’re just as likely to find Krull and Sci-FI Channel premiers. Anyway, the walls of his apartment are adorned with MOC Action Figures and he still collects comic books. You would think D&D would be right up his alley.

I’ve invited him to play a few times, over the years,  but, he’s always declined. I suspect the old Satanic Panic thing probably spooked him on the whole subject.  I decided to try one more time, playing the uber-powerful Grandson Card.

“So, pop, I’m cooking up a Swords & Wizardry game to introduce Brisco to D&D, wanna play? It’s rules light, simpler than Toontown. It’ll be a blast and you can spend some time with you’re grandson.”

Lo and behold, he agreed to play. So, I need to come up with something simple and straightforward, that will appeal to a six year old and a sixty-five year old, as well as my wife. I think I’ll keep it simple and just plop them at the entrance to a dungeon. I run sandboxes, but, I think a little direction is appropriate in this instance.