So my daughter, who just turned 6 this past January, has expressed an interest in playing with our group on Monday night's. I thought that she might lack the attention capacity to last the normal 2 1/2 to 3 hours we play weekly but since character creation is easy, it wasn't really an issue. So some key questions where asked: "What sort of character do you want to play, magic user or warrior? What race do you want to play? Do you want to be tricky or noble, etc." Her response was: a scary elf who wields dark magic, but only uses dark magic to hurt the bad-guys. So, Drow Warlock (heh, Char_Op early on) named Ursdeth, which is a combination of Ursla, an evil antagonist from The Little Mermaid and Death, which is what she wields. She also loves the wilds and has the Outlander background. * At this point, we're all pretty impressed. Then came the adventure....

So it was a pretty simple adventure. A town, which at this point is nameless, was being plagued by a recent string of kidnappings. As the villagers were in a town-square meeting, a kidnapping happened again. Now my daughter's character, Ursdeth, observed some hunched creatures dragging a boy into the woods where she was exploring. I asked her what she wanted to do and she said she wanted to warn the villagers. As she proceeded to the main gate I cautioned her that the guards might not like her because she looks scary (because Drow are scary and people mistrust / hate them). Her response: "Well I'll just put them to sleep....." to which received a round of laughter from the group. Wow, talk about starting off agressive, lol. However as the DM I suggested that a more subtle approach might be better. She decided, instead, to pretend to be an old lady and deceive the guards into letter her in. Then she started role-playing......

.....and we were all very very impressed. Getting out of her chair she acted and spoke as an old woman. The imagination of a kids mind is something to cherish. Needless to say I was very happy and even gave her Inspiration for doing such a good job. Being based off of Charisma and having proficiency in Deception she easily made it past the guards and into the town. There, during the disruption and chaos of the new kidnapping, she was able to approach the other players characters and tell them of what she saw. The paladin in the group was at first suspicious but could not discern any ill-will or intent and decided to follow her into the woods, along with the Wood-elf Ranger (under great duress) and the Tiefling Monk.*

*What follwed was a slew of dead Kobolds and a follwed trail of tracks to an abandoned Monastary (to Oghma and Denir). There they faced off against a very dangerous threat, a Jackleware who was using the sacrificed villgers, who he ordered kidnapped by the Kobolds, to summon a demon. The players were woefully ill-equipped to fight such a monster because none of them had weapons that could hurt the monster. Ursdeth, however, had her magic and in two rounds, she felled the beast (max damage on Poison Spray to boot). Two of the villagers were saved in the process.*

She was so enthralled and happy that she threw a pretty big tantrum on having to get ready for bed. That's my girl.

So, all in all 5E has provided a*GREAT*introduction into the game and has easily captured my 6-year old's enthusiasm for playing more and more.*

Just damn awesome. Warms the cockles of my heart

awesome!

Thanks!

I'm really surprised at how well she picked up playing (in the sense of character interaction and what she wanted to do). I still have to do the math for her and write the things down but it's also a great way to exercise her math and I have her roll and add all the modifiers herself, to which she's doing a great job with.

Seriously, schools should be doing this as an activity because it does SO much for the imagination, math, public speaking, and social interactions.

I love these kinds of stories. It's always so impressive how quickly kids catch on and get into it. And often have such a fresh point of view and ideas. It provides some perspective too. That this hobby is basically "Lets Pretend" with a little more structure.

5e is okay, I guess. That your daughter had a good time suggests to me she had a good DM. So, kudos

Quote from: Batman;814341Seriously, schools should be doing this as an activity because it does SO much for the imagination, math, public speaking, and social interactions.

indeed!

That's awesome. Hope I get to do that with my 6 year olds!!

Thanks for the story, that was pretty great. It begs the question, without qualitative judgement: is she thinking more like an adult, or are we all practising to be more in touch with our child-minds?

//Panjumanju

Children love to make up fanciful stories. RP is very natural to them.

Character sheets are a little weirder, but they start encountering that with school, so if you can keep the rules light enough, I think most kids would really get into RPGs.


Some of my earliest memories were essentially acting out stories with friends. 'Ok, pretend that I'm a superman flying around and you have electricity powers!'

Fuckin' A.

Quote from: Panjumanju;814378Thanks for the story, that was pretty great. It begs the question, without qualitative judgement: is she thinking more like an adult, or are we all practising to be more in touch with our child-minds?

//Panjumanju

Without doubt, we are tapping in to child-like qualities when we role play. There is even a name for the concept: Neoteny

All young creatures learn through play, but the behaviour drops off to differing degrees in different creatures. Humans retain the quality longer than most, and this is reckoned to be one of our evolutionary advantages over other species.

So, scientific proof than role players are more highly evolved than non-role players!