Friday Night Dungeon with my Son

[torilen]

[This topic was merged with Monday After School with my son and Grand Campaign (with my son) on 8/7/2015]

YAY! Finally had the chance to introduce Aaron...my 5 year old son...to HeroQuest.
Of course, He absolutely loved it and can't wait to play again.

I used Inked Adventure tiles for our game tonight.

Aaron played the Dwarf and the Elf and started out hunting down goblins that had attacked a village.
They were hiding out in the forest. The last goblin tried to run, but the dwarf managed to chase him
down and kill him before he could get away and bring more goblins.

The two then made their way into the mini-dungeon. The dwarf decided he wanted to kick in the
first door, and alerted the goblins in the next room. The two were still able to kill the goblins.

The next door, the dwarf opened nice and quiet, and the goblins were too busy digging around to
notice. The dwarf sneaked up behind the closest goblin and took a swing...AND MISSED COMPLETELY!
Of course, the goblin noticed and alerted the other two in the room.

In the end, the Elf and Dwarf killed all the goblins in the hideout and searched for the treasure. They found
25 gold coins and a gem worth 35 gold coins.

Tons of fun.

[cynthialee]

Sounds like a wonderful time was had. I envy you folks with children sometimes. This is one of those moments.

[whitebeard]

I believe I started my son at about the same age with "The Maze" which is not included in the NA version. I had just bought the game on eBay and had never played before. I read about this alternate starting quest on the old forum and was able to download it. You might want to try that some time soon, not as rough as "The Trial" if I recall correctly. My son played with the game board, minis, and furniture for days/weeks afterwards making his own adventures. Very cute at that age, listening to him explain how he found treasure… It really pushed him to read and write at a higher level. I know that I wasn't really reading in kindergarten, but he sure was!

[torilen]

So...I put together a little game for us for after school. He wanted to play the Barbarian and the Wizard.
(Tragic times, by the way...I can't find my Dwarf or my Barbarian - I had to make use of other minis). I
only gave his wizard 3 spells for now, until he learns to use them well and can read a little better.

They were out traveling while the Elf and Dwarf were taking it easy after killing the goblins. They run across
a pixie in the forest that needed help - goblins stole her pixie dust and hid it. (He likes peter pan and Jake and
the Neverland Pirates...so I thought this plot would go far. I was right).

They made their way into the forest, killed the goblins and the skeletons (in the cemetery) and made their way
into the dungeon. The goblins had hidden the pixie dust in the dungeon, guarded by a few more skeletons.

You'll see I used Inked Adventures tiles again. I'll be using the HQ board for the next adventure.

During the adventure, they found two healing potions and were given the Wizard's staff by the pixie for their help.

NOTES - I made special BP counters for my son - small hearts with a B or a W in the middle (for barbarian and wizard).
I also made special spell cards (oh yeah...I don't have spell cards, either) with easy wording for him. He's five and
just learning to read, so I made sure to use words he would either know or could remember easily.

I took it easy on him - gave him a spell or two back when he needed it; I let him reroll a few times; and I gave him
a healing potion out of nowhere once. Otherwise, he did pretty good.

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[Goblin-King]

Great read!
Really cool how you basically remade a big portion of the game to make it more accessible for your son.

I can't find my Dwarf or my Barbarian
...
oh yeah...I don't have spell cards, either

Dude! What are you doing! Get your **** together!

[torilen]

I'm not sure what happened with the barbarian and the dwarf - it might not have come with the
game - I bought it second hand and was so excited just to be getting a mostly complete game that
I didn't care at the time.
I know for a fact that the spell cards didn't come with it. I'm not so worried about those, since I make
my own spells anyhow.

If we get any of his friends to play, I'll just have to splurge and print off really nice spell cards and find
replacements for the figures. Shouldn't be too hard, I'll just have to spend a bit. I think one can usually
get a barbarian off Ebay for $10, probably less - there are tons of dwarfs on ebay right now for $4-$8
with free shipping.

[torilen]

PART 1 - Kidnapped Kids
So, the heroes are having dinner and a drink in the town, when farmer comes running in.
His son and daughter have been kidnapped by goblins, led by an orc. He has no reward to
offer, but the other townsfolk in the tavern pool some gold to reach 30 gold as a reward
if the heroes help.
The elf and wizard (played by my son) and the barbarian (played by me) go to find the kids.

It all starts out well. Then, they split up. The elf runs into a caster who casts the chaos version
of tempest on him. The wizard goes to save him - casting tempest onto the caster-goblin...quite
funny.

The barbarian, on the other hand, runs into six goblins playing cards (high card) and after a brief
fight decides to flee. Instead of running toward the elf and wizard, he opens another door and
finds two more goblins, and gets trapped among them all.

He gets down to 3 BP and drinks a healing potion. He manages to clear out almost all of the
goblins that were fighting him, with some help of the elf who shows up on the last two.

*************************
We had to stop here for the night - but will pick up later this week. This adventure is about
1/2 finished at this point. I'll try to remember to take pictures next time.

*************************
Here is the great news - his counting and reading are getting better. He was able to read the
names of his spells tonight (only 3 for the wizard...don't want to overload him). And he now
knows to start counting with one die, and then continue with the other, instead of counting
the dots on both every time.

Oh yeah...for those who don't know...he is 5 1/2 years old.

[whitebeard]

That's fantastic!

My son (also in kindergarten at the time) took to it similarly. He'd sit there with ALL of the Wizard cards and only a rough idea of what they do.

It takes the little guys while to count all of the dots, and they don't stop doing this for another year or so (your milage may vary). To encourage the immediate pattern recognition you might ask him to move twice, e.g. 2 then 5. This way he does not have to add or count and play will go faster. And if he can recognize the dot patterns for what they are, he'll be WAY ahead next year in first grade. Once he's solid on that, you can make him add them up.

What the little guys can do with reading and the right motivation is astounding. After playing a few quests my son started making his own treasure cards!

[torilen]

I haven't come up with any names yet, except for the lake. I'm trying to come up with names
my son will like - things similar to names from his favorite shows - Peter Pan, Jake and the Neverland
Pirates, Sophia the First, etc.

After this adventure - the Kidnapped kids - I'll show him the map and let him decide where he wants to go.
I haven't decided how to handle that yet. Don't know if I want to try out some good roleplaying, or just do
a simple EWP card technique that will create short little encounters along the road.
(any thoughts and ideas would be great)

NOTE 1 - Scale is 1 space = 2 miles

NOTE 2 - In the lake are mermaids. Not the happy little mermaids like would be found in disney's The
Little Mermaid. These are heartier mermaids, and are more prone to be warriors and such. They are,
however, a little more accepting of visitors, but hide themselves well and have few visit.

NOTE 3 - The town all the way at the top right, near the mountains - this is going to be a bit of a mix
between the D&D settings of Keep on the Borderlands and the Village of Hommlet. In short - great
adventure spot. Notice the hills spaces in the mountains - these are valleys. These valleys will be filled
with grand adventures.

world map.jpg

[cynthialee]

I still use the Keep on the borderlands on occasion. The Caves would make a good HQ game. Just use HQ mechanics and a battle mat and you would be golden.

The Keep on the Borderlands reboot is pretty awesome. I highly recommend it.

Return to the Keep on the Borderlands

http://gobbi.free.fr/scenarii/ADD/TSR%2 ... rlands.pdf