Grandolf's first foray: Protect Those Flowers!

I have read other blogs about parents playing roleplaying games with their kids - and particularly, with their daughters.  I recall one where the adventure seemed to be focused mostly around riding ponies and shopping, which, whilst I can accept that some might find that fun, I am thoroughly glad I don't have to partake in.  Indeed, when Ali and I sat down to take her character "Grandold the Hobbit Wizard" on his first adventure, her first two questions were right to the point: "Are we going to fight something?", and "What can we fight?"

Effort was made to tie in the oncoming desired battle with some form of story, but all Ali was interested in was hitting something - and, in short time, that 'something' became a green dragon.  With a little convincing, I scaled it down to a few green drakes, used the stats for the kobold mooks, and told her that she was after them because they kept eating her flowers.  Ali was on board with that, with an encouraging "yeah!", and so Grandolf and Denver (the dwarven ranger I built to accompany her character) set out to deal with these pests.

The first roll of the session was a natural 20 for Grandolf's initiative, to which she cheered and demanded a high five.  Strangely, from then on, it was the hopes that we would each roll the same number (not necessarily a high number) that excited her.  I am still playing around with how to balance 13th Age combats, so this first battle was decidedly easy; the three mooks did not stand long against two characters and their friendly wolf.  That in itself wasn't a surprise - I didn't want poor Grandolf to go down on his first outing.  And it was most likely a good choice, too, as Ali's grasp of tactics didn't really match up to her eagerness for battle. It's not every day you see a wizard leap into melee, zap the enemy once, and then turn to bludgeoning them over the head with his staff...

Ali was keen to heal up again once the combat was over, even though Grandolf had barely been scratched. Again, she called for battle, and her desire for the green dragons had not been quenched, so I grabbed a large mini, and looked up the stats for a real green dragon.  Level 4...it could be dangerous?

The second skirmish started with us both rolling natural 4's for initiative...so of course, Ali had to run around the house, telling everyone how wonderful it was that we both rolled the same number.  She had no care that it meant the dragon was able to bite us before we could react - we had rolled the same number, so more high fives were called for!

As it turned out, low rolling was the flavour of the encounter, and I was beginning to wonder if the green dragon had any bite, when it finally started triggering all of its special abilities.  It's definitely an interesting mechanic - instead of being able to choose between a number of actions, the dragon had one attack, and three triggered follow-ups.  The way it played out for us is that it did minimal damage for the first three rounds, where it missed or barely hit, then on round 4, it almost ate poor Denver alive!

Having no experience of fighting green dragons, Grandolf's first attack was his Acid Arrow.  The aim was botched, but there was a slight hissing as the splashback dissolved a few scales.  The rest of the battle was back to thumps with his staff, whilst Denver and his wolf focused on keeping the dragon off the wizard.  I did get the benefit of the "reroll-on-a-2" Two-weapon-fighting rule, which I enjoyed, but also brought up an interesting rules question I will have to research: is it the initial natural 2, or the new, rerolled score, that triggers the ranger's second attack?

With the dragon's saliva burning our skin (Ali then quizzed me as to what effect her mucus would have on the dragon...eww...), it was looking dire indeed, when a marvellous series of deft strikes (including one staggering critical) from Denver weakened the dragon enough that Grandolf's next clobbering knocked all the fight out of it.  " 'I surrender!' ", I had the dragon say, and described to Ali how it now cowered before her, respecting her power.  "What do you do now?" I asked her.

"I beat him up!" came her reply.  Hrmm... it would seem I need to teach her about accepting a surrender.

"No," I tried to clarify, "He is giving up - he is saying sorry, and that you win.  What do you want him to do?"

"Fight us!!"  Even after all her previous calls to battle, the violent call was still a surprise.  I guessed I just had to make the dragon seem even more weak and grovelling!

" 'No, please, I won't bother your garden any more - just let me go...' " The dragon made a final plea for mercy before the all-powerful and enraged wizard.

Something must have finally made it through, because her next response was a simple "OK, we go home."  And with that, the adventure was complete.

Ali enjoyed her time, and I managed to learn something about the system from the two minor encounters. Hopefully, next time will not be so focused on dragon-slaying; but for now, the good thing is that there will be a next time.  Already, she has been asking me "Daddy, when can we play that game with Grandolf and the dragons again?"  It's definitely a hit for her, and it's a fun thing we can share together.

On 13th Age (My Initial Thoughts, and My Daughter's Character)

There have been many things said on 13th Age so far, and many in-depth and useful reviews about it, so I am not delving into areas that have already been poured over many times.  In short: if you have not yet done so, take some time to read about what others have said, and if you can, try it out through their Organised Play events.

The best one-line summary I have read was that 13th Age was what DnD Next / 5th Edition should have been; without the hate for 4e players, and without the teary apology letter to Pathfinder fans. That is, where many 4e fans have felt 5e has ignored what they enjoyed, 13th Age has kept similar options.  It has been made from the houserules and home sessions of Rob Heinsoo (lead designer, 4e DnD) and  Jonathan Tweet (lead designer, 3e DnD), but has moved onwards, taking elements from each edition and forming something new (instead of simply rolling back to past editions, ala 'Next').

They have some great tricks, some of which can be found in other 'indie' games, but which would work well and be easily implemented in a 3rd or 4th edition game.  The Escalation Die is one I see the most talk about, but after backgrounds, I'm not sure I ever want to return to using skill lists!  4e simplified the skill lists of 3e, but Backgrounds makes them a whole new, easy to use, creature!

There are parts that I am still not too sure about - the "simple" classes (Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger) seem too simple on paper.  I am withholding judgement until I have seen more of them in action, but the latter two in particular have the feel of 'not enough choice' mixed with 'choosing from the same pool again'.  4e ran aground of this with their 'essential' fighters.  You have a pool of powers, and choose some from them.  Then, as you level up, you choose another, from the same pool.  Then another.  Ultimately, despite you gaining levels, the items you choose are getting worse, for all the best (be that mechanical, flavour, or however you chose them) were taken earlier.

But for every element of doubt (Constitution modifier to HP again? +1 to your constitution has huge differences at higher levels) is outweighted by many elements that are great (choosing middle modifiers for defences, more even scores, class and race getting stat bonus options).  Even the whole 'Vancian magic' problem has a simple, if not complete, solution, in that instead of 4e's at-will / encounter / daily slots, each spell slot can be filled with a spell of any kind, thus allowing a purely 3e wizard to be created alongside a wizard matching one from 4e.

When I received my 13th Age book, my daughter (currently 4, at least until the end of the year!) was eager to play this 'new game' with me.  So we sat down with the book, and talked about what she wanted her character to be.  There were times when her attention wavered ("How To Train Your Dragon" was playing in the background), but by dinner time, we had arrived with this:

Clearly, she was heavily influenced by "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" (she's only seen the first bit of The Hobbit, until they leave the Shire, and none of the LOTR movies...but she's played through the LEGO game, and I have a ...reasonable... collection of the LEGO figures).

Her character was "Grandolf, the Hobbit Wizard" (I wasn't going to go into the hobbit / halfling distinction), and it was played by a Sauraman figurine, because she liked his cloak.  Through some questions, she allocated her stats (10 / 8 / 16 / 18 / 14 / 12) and noted down her defences and hit points.

Ali decided eagerly that one of her backgrounds was going to be that Grandolf liked to breed spiders from eggs (watching the eggs with a telescope (!) to see when they cracked open, and the babies came out). He even carried a spider familiar! 

Strangely, the second background was a lot harder to pry out.  Every question as to what else Grandolf had done or likes to do kept coming back to those spiders...but eventually, we worked out that he also is an avid gardener, having the most colourful garden in the village.  These things turned out to be equally important, and so both gained a +4 bonus.

She then told me that Grandolf grew up on the clouds, which I quickly tied to the Overworld.  It seemed to fit that he should start with 2 points (positive) with the Archmage, and one point (positive) with the high Druid, because of his gardening.

By the time we reached spell choices, I think Ali was wishing she had chosen a simpler character (she did keep eyeing off my Fíli-the-Dwarf-Ranger and his Warg companion. I was making this character alongside her, so that she didn't have to adventure totally alone.).  But with some simple drawings, I described the spell options to her, and she chose them - but the only ability she wanted to write down was "Evasive".  The rest of the numbers were causing her to get a little distracted.

So now Ali has her character sheet, she has a card with her spells written onto it (made by me this time), and she has some dice - this weekend, I foresee some adventuring happening.  And I'm looking forward to it!