Game day looms - DMing for my toddler!

Tomorrow is Saturday, which is cool because after a six day week of late evening shifts I get to play Dnd with my son. My son is three years old, an he's been nagging me about this all week. We've been playing now for the best part of a year (he is nearly four).
I never thought I'd see the day when I ACTUALLY HAD TO TURN DOWN my son asking to play Dnd because I had to go to work. I guess it arrived sooner than anticipated.
Now, our sessions don't bear too much resemblance to a high-fantasy, story-driven campaign BUT they do involve plenty of rolling dice, smashing monsters and grabbing loot. All played out against the backdrop of a scary forest or dark dungeon ("sooooo scary" as the young fella might say).
So in that sense, classic Dnd.

I will take some pictures of tomorrow's session so you get an idea of what it all entails. And in the near future I'll write up a dedicated post on what "rules" (so to speak) we used and what other stuff I've picked up from trying to get the young lad interested in the game. But for now I want to briefly chat about the value of getting kids into RPGs from a very young age.

Now, at this juncture it might be apt to turn to the title of this blog. Most of you will probably recognise that 'Awakened Shrub' is the title of one of the more pathetic monsters listed in the 5e Dnd Basic Rules provided by Wizards of the Coast for free download. But it also made me think of awakening the joy and wonder of a first-time RPG player in very young children whose imaginations are as fertile as a 16-year-old on prom night (sorry - maybe that was mixing metaphors a little too far).
But all week we've been grabbing snatches of conversaiton about playing Dnd and I've seen his eyes light up with wonder at miniatures I was painting, or at the pages of the latest monster manual (we were looking at giants this morning and he loved the fact the Storm Giant has birds flapping round his head).
So we're awakening this incredibly powerful force in our children when we introduce them to the world of RPGs - a force that was awakened in me at around the age of seven, although I was forging my own path with very few people to guide the way, living in a small Welsh town with whatever RPG books I could get my hands on.

So my son, in a sense ... he is the Awakened Shrub.
And hey - his hair is kinda shrub-like.

Daddy DMs and the future of RPGing

As more of us who were born in the 70s and 80s grow up (much as we try to resist) and have children, I see more and more emphasis on ideas and products that will bring our own children into the RPG fold.

Susan J Morris wrote a very cool version based on 4e rules called DnD for kids, although it's aimed at SLIGHTLY older kids than my own, it still looks like a fun way to get a gang of maybe 6 to10 year olds enthused. Wizards of the Coast recently resurrected this idea and asked Susan to write a tie-in for the Elemental Evil storyline that they have been running for much of 2015.

Susan has also featured on the Gamer to Gamer podcase as well as the official Dungeons & Dragons podcast here ... in fact, playing Dnd with youngsters has been a recurrent theme on the podcast in recent months meaning Wizards must be getting turned on to the fact that there are thousands of parent-players out there. They featured this recent podcast about designing a Girl Scout badge for learning how to play DnD. All of those are well worth a listen.

Hero Kids fulfils a similar role to Susan's rule set and the two could probably be mashed together if you're looking for more simple adventure ideas, and tokens.

This blog post describes how one dad 'turned his four year old into a Dungeons and Dragons geek'

Geek Dad wrote a bit about simplifying Dnd for children - something I'll be coming back to again and again on this blog. He put together his own version of the rules called DnDish - which is worth a read, if only for inspiration.

Gygaz Magazine featued this very entertaining post about DMing for your toddler.

And veteran game designer Monte Cook recently kickstarted  No Thank You Evil! 
It promises fun for all the family and a scaled rule set to cope with different age groups' abilities and expectations:

"A six-year-old might play, for example, a Princess. A eight-year-old might play a Super Smart Princess. A ten-year-old creates a Super Smart Princess who Experiments with Science. Each of these stages adds a level of sophistication to how the game is played—but all of these characters can play around the same table in the same game!"

I backed the project and can't wait for the box to drop, plus it's got some cool art:

I don't know what excactly this is from No Thank You Evil! but ... Yes! Please!

Here's some of the stuff I've noticed since I started DMing for my toddler:

Better numeracy - We've been rolling dice, calling the numbers and working out who got the highest. With a 20-sided die that's really improving his math skills.
Improved vocabulary - Well, I learned so many weird words from DnD I can't begin to list them all - from "scion" to "carrion" to "clairvoyance" to "bastard sword".  I think my teachers raised some eyebrows when they all started to crop up in school essays. I still pronounce some of them kinda funny though.
Descriptive skills - I get him to describe the scene, be it a a dungeon room or snow-covered mountain. It's basic stuff but he enjoys weaving the story. Then when monsters get bashed, he comes up with some pretty descriptive sentences!
Quality time - We're hanging out together, away from distractions like TV or even other friends and family. It's just the two of us - or whoever else wants to sit in. But it's time reserved for me and him, which is really important for any parent and child to try and carve out.