Ok, so I wanted to share a proud dad moment with you, or more accurately, I'd like to take a moment to be a proud dad. As I was thinking through some of our game sessions I realized something about my oldest that gave me a great big smile. I'm watching him grow into a real critical thinker right before my eyes. I constantly find it amazing the things of which he thinks while we are playing. Setting dressing suddenly becomes an integral part of the story when he enters the room.
I had set up an encounter with goblins performing some sort of magical ritual in place of rescuing the miners in the Mines of Martek adventure. I simply described a table with an open book surrounded by several potion bottles, some empty while others had yet to be used, that the goblin shaman (named Benny Goblin) was using to recite a chant for the spell of transference. Suddenly, my son decided that he wanted to take the potions and the spell book. Ummm ... ok. He wanted to try and use the spells in the book. Ummm ... it's an alchemy book. You'll need potions and ingredients. Now he wanted to know the ingredients. Sooo ... now he is using the Spell of Finding in the goblin's alchemy spell book to search out the cult of evil fire druids, and I am writing a spell book and developing an economy of potions and their uses to satisfy his clever little brain. I refuse to just deny them their creativity without reason, and so I get the privilege of watching his brain begin working 5 to 10 moves ahead of what he thinks is coming. It's awesome. He created an entire dynamic to the game that didn't exist before because he decided to pick up the spell book after defeating the goblin shaman. He also created a hook to get them looking for the lair of the Minotaur aside from the 5 pieces of the artifact. After all, where else can you find the fangs of a giant snake that are needed to cast the Spell of Finding but in the Maze of the Minotaur ...
I'd love to hear your memory-maker moments in the comments.
Showing posts with label Memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Memories. Show all posts
Monday, June 22, 2015
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Favorite Moments 1
I've decided that I'd like to share some of our best moments from our campaign (and some of the moments from our non-campaign adventures, too). We have played Hero Kids for at least 40-50 hours at this point (not including all my prep time, which I also love) and have had a dozen or so "memory-maker" moments. As a dad, these are why I play games with my boys, coach my boys' teams, and vehemently protect my free time to spend with them. Their joy gives me joy.
I'll share 2 moments in this post, and more in later posts.
One of the best reactions I have gotten so far is when I made my 7-year-old son break down in tears just before bed. Granted, I don't usually love when my kids are bawling their eyes out (especially when I caused it), but this time it gave a nice warm feeling in my heart. That's because after nearly 6 hours of playing over 2 sessions we had just reached the "Big Bad" of our first adventure (yes, Basement O' Rats took us over 9 hours to complete), and I had decided that they would get captured by having the whole party get KO'd instead of defeat the boss. Unfortunately, it was also an hour past bedtime and a "good" place to stop until the next day. My son thought he had just lost his character forever and that all the clever things they'd done meant nothing and that they'd lost the game and were done. He broke down in tears, and went to bed wailing, "but I don't WANT us to lose my guy! We're dead! I want to play more!" It took another 20 minutes and a few hugs to reassure him that I had a plan and his guy wasn't dead.
The second moment came at the end of that adventure when my older son, who plays the warlock, finally got what he'd wanted the whole time. I had limited him to fire magic throughout the adventure so that he learned to roleplay the character rather than himself. Being a little disappointed that he couldn't "bend" the elements, he reluctantly limited himself to creative fire-based solutions. The boon that he was given at the end of the adventure was control over all of the elements. He jumped up, threw his fists in the air in triumph, and yelled, "I'm the AVATAR!!"
If you want to share any memory-maker moments you've had with Hero Kids, post them below.
I'll share 2 moments in this post, and more in later posts.
One of the best reactions I have gotten so far is when I made my 7-year-old son break down in tears just before bed. Granted, I don't usually love when my kids are bawling their eyes out (especially when I caused it), but this time it gave a nice warm feeling in my heart. That's because after nearly 6 hours of playing over 2 sessions we had just reached the "Big Bad" of our first adventure (yes, Basement O' Rats took us over 9 hours to complete), and I had decided that they would get captured by having the whole party get KO'd instead of defeat the boss. Unfortunately, it was also an hour past bedtime and a "good" place to stop until the next day. My son thought he had just lost his character forever and that all the clever things they'd done meant nothing and that they'd lost the game and were done. He broke down in tears, and went to bed wailing, "but I don't WANT us to lose my guy! We're dead! I want to play more!" It took another 20 minutes and a few hugs to reassure him that I had a plan and his guy wasn't dead.
The second moment came at the end of that adventure when my older son, who plays the warlock, finally got what he'd wanted the whole time. I had limited him to fire magic throughout the adventure so that he learned to roleplay the character rather than himself. Being a little disappointed that he couldn't "bend" the elements, he reluctantly limited himself to creative fire-based solutions. The boon that he was given at the end of the adventure was control over all of the elements. He jumped up, threw his fists in the air in triumph, and yelled, "I'm the AVATAR!!"
If you want to share any memory-maker moments you've had with Hero Kids, post them below.
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