Is not easy motivate the imagination of eyes that have seen practically everything. Netflix with bulk drawings, super productions of superheroes, animated comics and video games that leave little room to cover gaps with your head. This is not a text about everything in the past was better or anything like it, I wish I had all this, but one about trying to bring positions closer together.
With the help of the latest Dungeons & Dragons Starter Box, last weekend I tried to unite that imagination that became a hobby during my childhood and pre-adolescence with the overdose of stimuli that my kids are subjected to. could you convert a classic role-playing game into something flashy enough to make this fantastic hobby known?
learning to lose shame
The challenge comes to mind from time to time and I had even approached other more childish proposals such as Little Monster Detectives, but for one reason or another we had never finished sitting down at the table. The fact is that it is one of those experiences that, beyond the subject of imagination and trying other types of hobbies, seems important to me to be able to fight against one of the great evils of my house: embarrassment.
Sitting around a table with other strangers pretending to be a dwarf cleric with a good background and expert in stones is not easy for a 7-year-old, let alone a 12-year-old pre-teen, but I was the typical shy kid who I missed many things because I didn’t know how to abstract myself and, although I don’t care if their hobbies or tastes end up being completely different from mine, I would like their experiences with life to be able to get away from that modesty.
After the crazy birthday choreography and going out dancing in an improvised disco, the next step was to imagine that you were someone else and act accordingly. As in a play or, with something more striking, as in a Dungeons and Dragons RPG. Another one of those things that would have completely choked me at the time.
Despite the fact that I am not fond of introducing your children to your own hobbies down the throat – here everyone who likes what comes out of their mouths – luck has wanted them to be great fans of video games, so their love of Minecraft seemed like a good excuse to jump from one world to another.
From zero to beginner in 30 pages
After soaking up as much as possible of the rules of the starter box of this latest edition of Dungeons and Dragonsjust 30 pages that are read relatively quickly but that require a little more attention and retention because it does not stop introducing concepts, the next thing was to consider in a certain sense where the shots were going to go.
I wanted it to be light enough so that they wouldn’t cringe as soon as I started, so the idea was to explain the basics to them and, from there, let their imaginations in front of what they could or couldn’t do do the rest. In other words, the rules should be a guide at all times, not an imposition.
Why not make it all up myself, then? Well, because being the father of three children and setting up a role-playing game in an era with a thousand video game releases and pending analyzes is far from being something that even remotely resembles the concept of free time. For that and because, well, who doesn’t like to get things done.
Things like how high a character can jump based on their height to grab onto a ledge, or how to escape from an enemy’s grasp, are the typical things that could easily be overlooked and that through the rules will allow you to contribute something. more variety and realism to the situation.
With Minecraft and video game tutorials as an excuse
The next thing, just as fucked up as the first, was to create some characters, and although here I admit that I quite overlooked much of its content at the beginning, depending on the situation I was introducing things like what languages they knew and how they could be useful in that moment.
The idea, broadly speaking, was to advance in the game as if it were the video game walkthrough. I cannot give a 7-year-old child a page written on both sides and pretend that he is aware of what is there at all times, but I can adapt a language that they know, such as that of the video game, to make it easier to internalize concepts slowly.
After strolling through his town of Minecraft Forging weapons and buying resources, they approached a portal that had suddenly appeared to travel to another world entirely. They had just arrived at Island of Stormsand from there it was my turn to follow the thread.
After handing out the character sheets and helping them understand under what conditions they would play, it was time to grab onto the script that, beyond the rules, helps you introduce the story, give context to what you find step by step, and improvise tests and battles with which they could take advantage of the weapons and resources with which they had reached that fantasy place.
a promising adventure
Despite the fact that the script makes it clear what you should tell them and what you should keep to yourself, it is another reading -this time about 50 pages- that it is advisable to bring a look from home. So that we understand each other, what to say “roll the dice and see how much damage you do” Anyone can do it, creating a credible and cohesive world in which each decision leads from one place to another without tripping over your own improvisation is something more complex.
Introduce new characters, let them tell you about secondary missions, control the state of the tide to know if at that time of day you can enter an underwater cave or not, when they level up and what they get after it, what they can find between the boxes of a wreck…
It is appreciated that, despite always having the opportunity to let your imagination run wild to pose other challenges that are not set in stone, the book of Dungeons and Dragons be detailed enough to be able to constantly add value to the story they are living.
What was meant to be a couple of entertaining hours and little else turned into a fantastic afternoon that we will soon repeat to continue the adventure. It helped to have people with experience in RPGs who encouraged them to be more creative and take their decisions more to heart, but I think that by accompanying them in the process we would have arrived at the same place. We will definitely return to the Island of Storms Sooner than later.
Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle (Spanish Version)