Showing posts with label My Little Pony. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Little Pony. Show all posts

Thursday, April 11, 2019

Dungeons and Dragons with 11 Year Olds is a Great Way to Spend Spring Break

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A couple of weeks ago, my daughters History and Mystery asked me if I would be willing to run a D&D adventure for them and their friends as part of a Spring Break sleepover party. My response was as excited as it was swift. After dancing a quick "I win at life!" jig, I told them that I would be more than happy to run an adventure for them and their friends. My daughters and I have been playing My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria - The Storytelling Game for a little over a year, so they have a good amount of role playing game experience. As excited as I was at the prospect of running a D&D game, I wanted to make sure that the event was perfect and that it spread the love of D&D to a whole new generation. This meant that I had to approach the event with a plan, not just any plan, a master plan, ...mwa..ha...HA!!!

The first thing I did was ask James, one of my regular gaming group, if he would be willing to play in a D&D session with me and my daughters a week before the sleepover. I would have asked the entire gaming group, but our schedules are extremely difficult to juggle and we are lucky if we can get together once a month. James has one of the more flexible schedules and he not only agreed, he was as excited as I was. I knew James would be a good player mentor to bring over as he and I met when I was running 4th Edition D&D Encounters at a local game store with a group that included young teens. He's helpful without being condescending and is always "all in" to making sure others have a good time. That session was a great success and the girl's experience with My Little Pony meant that they didn't really need mentoring at all. The only real challenge was character creation. We built the characters using D&D Beyond and I began to see the first hints of what it's like to play D&D in a "post-Appendix N" world. While my daughters love to read, they haven't read a lot of what's in Appendix N or even much derivative of it. The closest they have is Adventure Time, How to Train Your Dragon, My Little Pony's D&D episode, and Norse Myths. Those go a long way, but they don't go all the way. Explaining the Paladin class as "what Finn is" works fine, but explaining what a Bard is or the nuanced differences between Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard took some time. Time well spent though as their friends had even less connection to Appendix N literature and derivatives, and zero exposure to Tolkienesque archetypes.

Having turned my daughters into the player mentors for their own gaming group, the time came to choose the adventure I'd be running. While I am happy to wing it with my own group, though we do post wing it book keeping to maintain world consistency, I wanted to have something with a solid structure that could be run in a short time. I did what any reasonable person would do and asked my friends on the Book of Faces for their advice on what adventure to run. I was quickly met with a number of responses regarding HOW I should run an adventure for young gamers. An answer to a question I didn't ask, and answers that didn't really provide anything I didn't know. Much of it was very good advice, but it wasn't advice that a 20+ year gaming veteran who has run games for tweens at game stores in the past needed. I needed advice on an adventure that could be run in four hours. I received some good recommendations, but they either came too late or were for Pathfinder. In the end, I looked through my own gaming collection to see what I could run and settled on the first Dungeon in a Box adventure: Caravan of Peril. This was an ideal choice.


David Crennan, aka "America's GM," designed the Dungeon in a Box product to fill the exact niche I was looking for and I've been a fan of his from the Saving Throw Show for quite some time. The great thing about Dungeon in a Box products is that they come with almost everything you need to run a vibrant and immersive adventure, right out of the box. All you need are the D&D rules. His box includes all the character miniatures you need, battle maps, a flexible short adventure, and some great replay value due to some evergreen content in every book. In this case, there are three pieces of evergreen content: a random caravan generator that allows you to populate any caravan with interesting characters, a random events table that is very flexible and much more in depth than a wandering monster chart, and a new type of magic item that adds depth to a campaign without breaking the game system. Below is a picture of the contents of Caravan of Peril, along with additional minis representing the player characters.



As you can see above, Crennen has provided a battlemap showing the caravan resting for the evening. In addition to the caravan on the map, he also provided a play tile of an additional wagon. This additional wagon becomes important in game play as the adventure continues. There are a number of transparent standee miniatures that have fun illustrations on them and that cover all of the creatures you need for the adventure, except for spiders. Thankfully, Trash Mob Minis has some excellent spiders that are perfect for younger gamers. You need spiders. Finally, there is a world map that hints at the larger setting of the Greenwold. It's a fantastic product and I cannot recommend it enough.

Having selected the adventure I was going to run, the next step was to to my Dungeon Master prep. I carefully put together my DM adventure worksheet, a sample of which you can see below.

The images on the worksheet are from the Trash Mob Mini set listed above and the stats are from the Roll20 SRD Compendium. I find that having sheets with the stat blocks of creatures and space to track damage to monsters is very helpful when running a D&D game. No need to pause and look things up and no need to flip though rule books. With the ability to cut and paste, this is only about 20 to 40 minutes of prep time for this adventure. The harder part was naming all the non-player characters that the kids might ignore. If you look at my worksheet, you'll see that I came up with twelve NPC names and jobs. I was able to use the caravan generator to assign the jobs, but other than the first two names the other names are all mine. I was particularly fond of Harald Pickleshipper, but the players never chatted with him. Having prepped as much as I could, all that remained was the session.

As with the the twins' earlier session, we began with character creation. Let's just say that everyone, and I mean everyone, wanted to be a wizard as their first choice. After some discussion of how the different classes complemented each other, we were finally able to get a relatively balanced party. One of the kids even agreed to be a Cleric. The final party was as follows: Claudia the Aasimar Paladin, Emmy the Aasimar Cleric of the God of Magic, Fluffkins the Elf Wizard, Gwynneth the Changeling Wizard who changes the color of her hair every hour, Nummy the Golden Dragonborn Barbarian, and Skybolt the Copper Dragonborn. Character creation took over an hour and most of that time was spent describing the various classes. Everyone knew what a wizard was, but the audience was very unfamiliar with most traditional fantasy classes. They may play Minecraft and Portal Knights, but they don't think about it the same way a D&D player does. It was interesting describing D&D classes in Portal Knights terms instead of the other way around. I helped the kids pick minis for their characters, and the majority of the minis were selected from the excellent Wardlings series by Wizkids games. Every player wanted a pet, and every wizard wanted a familiar, this worked out perfectly. Since pets in games like Portal Knights have little to no "game" effects, the kids weren't disappointed that only wizards could scout ahead using their pets. After assuring one of the players that she wouldn't be facing Demogorgon today (she HAD seen Stranger Things), the group of six young girls was ready for their first D&D campaign to begin.
 

The girls role played well during the early role play heavy encounters and seemed to enjoy my various character voices. When I gave one my best "Artful Dodger" voice (which I am certain would horrify my British friends), the girls really engaged with that character. Sadly, that was Ulmeer Tweetweaver and not Harald Pickleshipper. Some of the girls were reticent to "act" and others weren't, but all had a fun time during these scenes as I exhausted myself to make sure that everyone was included in the scenes. I didn't want any one player to dominate time and energy, which is something that can naturally happen even with experienced gamers. Over the course of the journey, the players had a couple of skirmishes and managed to tame an Owlbear, who was quickly given the name Albert the Owlbear. I found this really funny as that's what most Owlbears are called in my regular group too. It was nice to see intergenerational humor, even without shared Appendix N or Monte Python references. I will also add that the flat minis, or minis in general, were invaluable here in showing the players what the monsters look like.
After a few hours, and a few smaller fights, the time came for the first half of the big showdown. Dun, dun, DUNNNNN. In this scene, a goblin tribe sends wolves to harry the camp as they attempt to use a tamed Ogre to haul away and steal one of the caravan's wagons. An exciting fight ensued where the players succeeded in part due to their taming of Albert the Owlbear.

Having finished the first half of the big boss fight, the second half comes after the players track where this raiding party originated, I looked at my watch to see that it was past eleven at night. I knew the girls would want to have some time to themselves at the sleepover, so I ended the session there with the hope that they would all want to play again in the future.

It was a great time and one from which I learned many lessons, as I always do when gaming with new groups. The biggest challenge this time was conveying a sense of a traditional fantasy adventure when the group didn't have much experience with the genre. For example, I was surprised that my daughters were the only ones who had seen The Dragon Prince or Trollhunters on Netflix. Given that things like Adventure Time are as much a deconstruction of the archetypes of the genre as they are depictions of those archetypes, they only serve a certain level of utility in bridging the gap. All of the kids are still pretty confused regarding why Bards are a thing. And no, I didn't mock Bards. Looks like it's time to pull out some Celtic mythology off the shelves for bed time stories and to point out the places in the Norse Tales where skalds play a role.



Can't wait for the next session.





Wednesday, February 27, 2019

River Horse Announces FILLY SIZED FOLLIES, New Adventures for the TAILS OF EQUESTRIA Role Playing Game.

When I first read that Hasbro had licensed a role playing game based on the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic television series, my mood wavered between excitement and skepticism. Hasbro had already created one role playing game in an attempt to provide a gateway into the hobby for younger gamers. That game, Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game, was a fun game with a very simple design by Bill Slavicek and Stan!, but it never fulfilled its potential because Hasbro quickly abandoned the game line after sales didn't meet expectations.

My skepticism faded when I found out that the game would be produced by River Horse Ltd., a British game company started as a way for Alessio Cavatore to publish his own gaming material. Alessio was one of Games Workshop's key designers in the late 1990s and is one of the better war game designers in the industry. His past work includes Mordheim, Bolt Action, Kings of War, and several other excellent games. His past work in the Grim Dark alleys of Warhammer and the bloody fields of World War II, may not make him seem the best candidate for a My Little Pony game, but all of these games share one simple quality. They are all clearly written and free from cumbersome rules that can lead to analysis paralysis.

In short, he's exactly the kind of game designer who could create a set of rules that were simple enough for kids to understand while being deep enough for adults to enjoy. If you don't believe me, you really should check out Kings of War. It's a miniature war game that plays quickly and with almost no need to go back to the rulebook once you've read through them once. They are also complex enough that the game has come to fill the niche left behind by the absence of Warhammer Fantasy Battle pretty seamlessly.


Unlike the old Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game, which was published by Hasbro, the Tails of Equestria game has been extremely well supported by River Horse who is now publishing their fifth adventure for the game.

Filly Sized Follies contains three different stories for young gamers to play through, with adventures aimed at ponies of levels 2-5.

All around Equestria there are ponies in need, and only the player's ponies can help them!

In this book you will find:

Three brand new adventure stories that can easily fit into any ongoing game or be played by themselves.

A range of challenges for fresh-faced characters, through to experienced adventurers.

A whole host of new characters, each with brand new original artwork!


Past adventures in the game have focused on teaching players the value of kindness, teamwork, and friendship. This adventure is likely more of the same.
 

Sunday, August 06, 2017

A Game a Day, for a Week?! What is this Madness?! #RPGaDAY Day 6

While all of the #RPGaDAY prompts are thought provoking, most of them fall into the realm of "realistic." Today's prompt is the rare exception. Autocratik's question of the day is, "You can game every day for a week. Describe what you'd do." First, that's a wonderful fantasy. I wish I had the time to game every day for a week, RPG game that is. I'm pretty sure that I could find a way to fit in a game a day if I really tried. It's just that the gaming would include things like Solitaire/Patience and a couple of quick Dice based games from Reiner Knizia's essential book of dice games. As for role playing games, that would be impossible...or would it?


I'd have the friends/family I gamed with rotate the GM role when it's needed.

Here's what I imagine I'd be playing during this mythical week of a game a day.

1) The Prince Valiant Role Playing Game.


Have 10 minutes and a small pile of quarters? Then you can learn to play this game and get playing.



The Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game is a fantastic starter RPG and it's one that I'd like to play a little bit more. The "Pokemon Emergency" box set comes with a complete mini-campaign.

3) Chill




Quick and easy, this game can be played straight out of the box and the very simple introductory adventure allows for a lot of role playing while also making it easy for the novice game master to run.

4) Home by Jim Pinto


The rule book is 32 short pages, all it requires is a deck of regular playing cards, and it's the first in Jim Pinto's very thematic and dramatic Protocol series of games. I'd love to play a few of these with my group, and a game fest like this would be the perfect opportunity. Oh, and I'd have the US version published with the Spanish cover.

5) Arena of Khazan by Ken St. Andre


C'mon, there is no way I'm getting a group of gamers over every day to play and Ken St. Andre's Arena of Khazan is one of the best, and most replayable, solo dungeons ever written.

6) DC Heroes by Mayfair Games


In order to expedite play, and get straight to the action, I'd use the "Exposed" starter adventure included in the 2nd edition boxed set. It's a commentary on reality tv culture, in the case of the adventure of Geraldo Rivera, but it is surprisingly topical. It's also funny, has a great mix of heroes, and ends up with a smashingly fun free for all.

7) Tails of Equestria 


A family friendly role playing game designed by the creator of the Mordheim skirmish miniature game? Yes please! This game is wonderfully easy to pick up and play and has a core mechanic that inspires creative thinking. It's also a great first game to GM.




Wednesday, July 19, 2017

From a Gaming Perspective the MY LITTLE PONY MOVIE Adds a Lot of Material


The My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic franchise is moving from the small screen to the big screen on October 6th and as a gamer dad I could not be more excited. A quick glimpse at the new film poster the production released for #SDCC gives one hint why. The Mane Six and Spike don't have aquatic features just because it's cute, they have them because the new movie is adding new mythological creatures to the Pony-verse. A look at the film's trailer gives even more context to the additions. Give it a quick view.




Earlier this year, River Horse publishing published an excellent role playing game based on the My Little Pony IP. In that game, players can make characters based on the three types of ponies that are featured in the series: Earth Ponies, Pegasi, and Unicorns. The Alicorn, a combination of Pegasus and Unicorn, is mentioned in the role playing game, but is not allowable in play. Just based on the trailer of the film, I see two things that I want to bring into my roleplaying games. The first is a new kind of pony, called "Sea Ponies," are featured in the book Under the Sparkling Sea. The second is the existence of a Unicorn with a broken horn, which inspires the question of "what happens when a Unicorn breaks its horn?"

Given my daughters' love of the Percy Jackson books, I'm particularly excited about Sea Ponies. Of all the characters and creatures of the Percy Jackson-verse, the hippocampus Rainbow was their absolute favorite. Now hippocampoi are cemented as a type of pony. If River Horse, who given the company's name should, doesn't publish guidelines and traits for hippocampoi in the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting some here, but I'll have to read Under the Sparkling Sea first in order to see what traits need to be created. The great thing about the My Little Pony RPG is that the the system is very adaptable while also being easy to learn and run.

In fact, I'm going to commit to it. I'm also going to stat up some Savage Worlds versions of the Mane Six based on the way they are defined in the River Horse game. Given the similarities between the systems, it will not only be easy but fun as well.