4e and a Seven Year Old

DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 1:51 am

Alright, so I picked up the 4e Starter Set for my 7 y/o son to see if it'd give him an interest in tabletop RPG's. He really digged the set itself and was excited to give it a shot. So, today we sat down and ran a session for him to see if he'd actually enjoy the pen & paper experience.

Looking through the books included in the set, he decided upon the Dragonborn Paladin pregen as his character. My wife made up a character and I threw in an NPC for good measure to round out the party.

So, we sat down today to run the minor adventure include din the set to see how it'd play out. I modified the adventure for a smaller party, tweaked for personal taste and we got started. I decided to take the "he's 7, not stupid" approach and run it like any other game, just give him a learning curve by letting him know what he needed to roll.

The party:
Kriv: A dragonborn paladin. My son's first character and he was a bit unsure about his concept beyond, "He's a tough fighter who wants to be a hero." Good enough I suppose. Althea: An eladrin swordmage from Mithredain. This is my wife's character and her character is venturing out from her home city to see the world outside of the fey realm.
Hengest: My wife laughed at the arrival of this dwarven warlord NPC. I seem to work a dwarven NPC somewhere in every campaign by the name of Hengest.

So, the group is in the Harkwold and tasked by the villagers to find the source of the nocturnal attacks on their tiny community. Their investigation leads them into some old ruins along the outskirt of the village.

For my son ,I printed out a little HP and healing surge tracker for him. I made it for teaching young ones to track their health. We were ready to roll.

I ran the encounters pretty much by the book, only adjusting the encounter sizes for a group of three instead of 4.

My son picked up on the mechanics pretty quickly. I admit I didn't go full blown mechanics on him though, I'm deliberately leaving out modifiers for environmental effects and such for now. But he had no problem with using his class abilities and he took to the idea of healing surges and standard, minor and movement actions pretty quick.

I really hammed it up on my depiction of the monsters and the fight descriptions for his benefit. He had an absolute blast. We were all laughing too at one goblin who no one could manage to score a hit on and my depiction of him twirling his spear around, blocking and dodging. He was just a goblin like the rest but the dice decided he was a badass. He damn near killed Hengest and kept my wife and son busy for some time. Kick ass fight. When it was done my son asked, "Was that goblin a ninja or something?"
I added Bargle to the final encounter (WotC was even good enough to post 4e stats for him on their site). It was a memorable encounter and my son got frustrated as hell that Bargle escaped.

So, next session he's insisting Kriv and Althea try to track down the rogue magic user.

Great first session for the kid, he enjoyed it and wasn't befuddled by the system. I found it interesting that he's a fairly cautious player, not wanting to take too serious of risks as he wants to ensure that his character survives. Looks like he is finally ready for some true gaming. So, we'll keep plodding along with it like any other campaign.

I don't see anything that would keep kids from picking this game up easy enough. The trappings for it are like icing on the cake for the young ones too.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 1:57 am

Have you tried C&C with kids?

I have had success doing that.

Quite a bit cheaper on my shallow pocketbook.
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'Follow your bliss.' -Joseph Campbell

DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 2:08 am

The purpose of giving him the 4e starter set was so that he'd own a RPG product of HIS OWN that was nifty enough to grab his attention.

I could have started him out with any system, but needed something to give him for his very own that would make him want to keep checking it out even when we weren't at the table.

The Starter Set served admirably.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 2:53 am

Ahh...I see.

Let him create his own myth and find his own path sort of thing.

I gotcha.

Sorry...I am just a hard core hater of all things wotc anymore, but at least I am willing to admit it.
_________________
'Nosce te Ipsum' -Delphic Maxim

'Follow your bliss.' -Joseph Campbell

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 3:38 am

Joe wrote:
Ahh...I see.

Let him create his own myth and find his own path sort of thing.

I gotcha.

Sorry...I am just a hard core hater of all things wotc anymore, but at least I am willing to admit it.

Hey Joe, there is a Con in Phoenix I am hoping to make in January. Interested in meeting up for some C&C?
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Joe · Post by **Joe** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 7:55 am

You betcha!

PM me the details please. Sounds like an excellent birthday present for myself.

We can game together, and compare notes if you wish.
_________________
'Nosce te Ipsum' -Delphic Maxim

'Follow your bliss.' -Joseph Campbell

Lord Dynel · Post by **Lord Dynel** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 11:37 am

Sounds awesome DD!

Though you know my feelings on 4e, sounds like you've done a great job introducing yet another fledgling roleplayer to (what it seems) a dwindling pastime. Kudos, good sir, and I hope he has as a wonderful time playing as you have DM'ing him!

DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 12:43 pm

Thanks LD. I'm hoping too that after he gets comfortable with the system and enjoys playing RPG's he'll start looking at some of the other games on my shelf as well.

The goal isn't to make him a 4e'er, the goal is to make him a gamer.

DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 3:39 pm

The goblin who wouldn't say "quit".

Lord Dynel · Post by **Lord Dynel** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 4:55 pm

DangerDwarf wrote:
Thanks LD. I'm hoping too that after he gets comfortable with the system and enjoys playing RPG's he'll start looking at some of the other games on my shelf as well.

The goal isn't to make him a 4e'er, the goal is to make him a gamer.

Indeed. Makes perfect sense, if you ask me.

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 5:37 pm

DangerDwarf wrote:
The goblin who wouldn't say "quit".

Where did you find that? I would like to turn that into a Maptools token for my on line games.
_________________
The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 6:13 pm

cant say, not knowin'.

I save pics as I come across them into a general RPG Pic folder I have set up. No earthly idea where I get most of them.

papercut · Post by **papercut** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 1:48 pm

I have been playing CnC with some young Taiwanese kids for the past several months. We don't use mini's; we just talk, which has worked out very well. Lately though, I have been thinking of trying some minis, it may be useful for the kids to call out what they do- the more speaking the better. And it seems they like to have physical interaction with stuff.

One problem I have run into is that Vancian fire and forget magic isn't really meshing with the kids too well. I think the concept is fine but counter to "FUN" and as we are playing a game right now with a wizard and cleric this is bothering me a bit. The 4e starter seems like a good chance to try something new- dice, pogs, map tiles, pregen characters, quick start rules- all things things that will be "fun." The kids love combat, so the limitations of 4e won't bother them at all.

It will take about 2 weeks for the starter set to arrive, so I will make due with some heroclix, graph paper, and the quick start rules from Keep on the Shadowfell which is, cough, cough, on loan. I love C&C, but without the Basic set, my mind has wandered to other possibilities. If this mini's thing falls apart, I can always run back to the Trolls.
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Lord Dynel · Post by **Lord Dynel** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 3:58 pm

papercut wrote:
One problem I have run into is that Vancian fire and forget magic isn't really meshing with the kids too well. I think the concept is fine but counter to "FUN" and as we are playing a game right now with a wizard and cleric this is bothering me a bit. The 4e starter seems like a good chance to try something new- dice, pogs, map tiles, pregen characters, quick start rules- all things things that will be "fun." The kids love combat, so the limitations of 4e won't bother them at all.

I do applaud your efforts in bringing gaming to the youth of today, papercut. I just don't know if I agree with the above.

I don't think Vancian magic is counter to fun. It's a simple mechanic that I would think be understandable. My six year old is in the very early stages of learning RPGs (right now out of the Mentzer red box) and he's been able to grasp the concept of once a spell is cast, it's gone for the day. Unless there is something else that I'm missing. I just don't think lining up C&C beside 4e and calling one fun and the other not is not a very fair thing to say - even in regards to a young crowd.

Now perhaps, if they've been heavily exposed to other gaming media (i.e. computer and/or console games) then tabletop rpgs might seem a little slow. If they're needing the , "fire at it with a power until it dies" kind of action, then maybe 4e is the way to go.

Lucifer_Draconus · Post by **Lucifer_Draconus** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:06 pm

Nice thread DD let us know how future sessions go . I'm looking to get my nephew into RPing but would like to find a few local people willing play w/ a 7yo .I hope TLG releases their "basic" set soon , though I feel the regular C&C game will do fine .I'd be open to considering 4ed. basic as a option after reading this thread.I met a chica on the bus while heading home from my Monday RM game. She's into RPGs . Her & her fiance is looking to run a 4ed. I may hold my nose & try it just so I have a local group to game with. Maybe I can convert them to C&C =P
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papercut · Post by **papercut** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:49 pm

C&C works great for kids! It is so streamlined that it is no problem to get them to understand. I am just looking for something more interactive for the kids, something to force them to speak more. We generally only play for 30 minutes a session so I want to pack as much "fun" and "interaction" in as possible.

Even if 4e fails to impress the kids, I still get a new set of dice, monster and character pogs, and tiles. Not a bad deal, I might just buy 2!
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papercut · Post by **papercut** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 3:17 am

There is an awesome awesome thread with a similiar story on teh interwebs:
http://www.story-games.com/forums/comme ... ionID=6630

its OMG
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Someone send me some dice!

DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 3:28 am

Cool.

My son continues to rock along with it. He's majorly pissed that Bargle managed to elude him twice now.