Tag Archives: Gaming with Kids

Digital Playground

Into the 3rd Dimension: Mario in March

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Introduction

So far, I admit Mario in March has been a bit of a bust this year. The snow stopped just in time to interrupt my carefully laid plans. Admittedly, I still take pride in the fact that I updated the YouTube page regularly until last week and even uploaded a video with some game play that got almost 70 views. Even though the page is almost 10 years old, this is the first time that I focused this much on putting time into making it work as more than just a family page. And, so, we come to “Into the 3rd dimension.”

Uh hoi!

Every time I write that, I think of The Simpsons episode. We watched it last year as a family to celebrate Halloween and I must say, “It holds up.” I’m about to sound like a grumpy old man, but you write what you know. Those early seasons of The Simpsons are just pure magic and will never be surpassed. But, as I often do, I digress.

Super Mario 64

By the time we reach this generation of video games, I grew up. I worked at Yankee Candle (the local warehouse earlier mentioned in the introduction to this page before changed) and lived with my then girlfriend (and eventual wife and mother of my children). If you asked me now how I ended up purchasing a Nintendo 64, I’m sure that I would retcon (but it might be the truth) and give the ages old excuse of all Nintendo has to do is release a Mario, Zelda, and Metroid game and I’ll buy the console.

It’s-a-me!

Truth be told, I think the only one of those three franchises even rumored to be released for the system at the time was Mario. And, more truth be told, I never became a fan of Metroid until Metroid Prime and then Metroid Zero on the Game Boy Advance. Two truths and a lie? No, three embarrassing truths. You know this by now. We revel in our nerd shame around here. Final truth. I forgot all about Zelda and similarly rediscovered the games with Ocarina of Time and later A Link to the Past on the Game Boy Advance.

Not Mario. I played every Mario game available. Especially this one. I loved this game so much and it came at just the right time in my life. Old enough to afford it, but young enough to still have enough time to play until I beat it 100%. I even found Yoshi on the roof.

Super Mario Sunshine

I know that some consider the Nintendo Gamecube to be the weird red headed cousin in between the much more popular Nintendo 64 and Nintendo Wii. However, I have a soft spot for the weird purple cube that played the weird little discs.

Not a bad game. Just…not what I wanted.

That weird cousin gave birth to an equally weird child in Super Mario Sunshine. While much of the traditional Mario game play, and even the three dimensional elements introduced in Super Mario 64, persisted in this game, they also threw quite the wrinkle at us. Mario wore a water spray jet pack on his back that allowed for all kinds of new and cool stuff for him to do. If you watched my video, you know all about how I reacted to this development. While I found it intriguing, I treated it very much the same way I treated Super Mario Bros. 2. I ignored it for other games at the time. To this day, even though Liam picked up a Gamecube, I never went back to play it again. Perhaps this article will inspire me.

Super Mario Galaxy

Okay, this is more like it. The game plays almost exactly like Super Mario 64. But, it adds some new mechanics, as well. Unlike Sunshine, though, those mechanics aren’t too weird. They take some getting used to, but they are more of an extension of the game instead of introducing all new and weird stuff like jet packs.

You fly, bro!

This game truly took Mario into the 3rd dimension. While Super Mario 64 emulated three dimensional game play very well, it wasn’t until Galaxy that you felt like you had full range of motion. I think I went back to finishing Mario games again with this one. As an added bonus, this is the first Mario game that I got to play with the boys.

The Verdict

Like many at the time, I wondered how three dimensional gaming might work with our favorite plumber. Yes, it’s true. Some will try to deny it now, but many people predicted Super Mario 64 as a flop among flops and that side scrolling is the only way to experience these games. As I always do, I will admit that I’m wrong and bringing Mario into the 3rd dimension was a wonderful choice and I’m glad to have seen what they were able to do with the games.

On the Tabletop

Shadow of the Dragon Queen

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Introduction

I told the story several times already. This year Christine asked the boys to put together Christmas lists. She requested several items needed and several items wanted. I never ask for anything for Christmas. While I love the spirit of Christmas, I find the actual holiday abhorrent. A day dedicated just to buying stuff? Gross. For some reason, though, I gave in this year and put together a list. On the list, I included Dungeons and Dragons books. I meant Shadow of the Dragon Queen.

Instead, Christine bought me Dragons of Deceit. Initially disappointed, I quickly recovered. Weis and Hickman, as you know, wrote the book. I love Weis and Hickman. Also, I got the idea to record the book club podcast and actually kept a schedule, more or less. Episode 3 comes out tomorrow or Saturday (pending a snow day) with Chapter 4 and 5.

From Disappointment…Hope, Then Disappointment

Because Santa dropped off the “wrong” present for me that actually ended up working out okay, I ordered the source book myself. I kept trying to talk myself out of the deluxe edition with the board game and ultimately failed. What can I say? I’m a sucker for those gimmick board games based on the other successful franchises I enjoy.

I can’t comment on the quality of the game. I haven’t had a chance to even look at it other than the box. It looks interesting and I always like to play those cooperative board games. We played Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time often and everyone joins in. I need to read the rules so that we have a chance to play over February break. Come back in March for my review.

The source book itself underwhelms. I expected a more robust campaign setting updated to 5th edition. Instead, they give us some rules on the special ancestries and subclasses of Krynn for the first few chapters. Then, the rest of the book is simply an adventure. Funny how things change. I remember wishing as a teenager that they released more adventure modules for the characters I built in Dragonlance.

The Verdict

Ultimately, like the novel, I like Shadow of the Dragon Queen in spite of potential warts. The adventure promises to bring some joy to a playgroup either at home or in school. At least Quinn and I will play through the board game once. Christine suggested that I try it with Quinn and his friend Tristan. Okay, plan on meeting here in about a month and a half for that recap.

On the Tabletop

2022 Tabletop GOTY: Dungeons and Dragons

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Introduction

I missed a couple of days of updates. I planned on doing this one on Thursday and 2022 Console GOTY yesterday. If I’m being honest, which I often am, console GOTY would be only slightly less difficult than choosing PC GOTY was. I played about an hour of the Red Dead Redemption II prologue this morning. Great game. Also, released four years ago. Other older games we enjoyed this year; Mario Kart and Mario Party on the Switch. Liam and Quinn played a ton of the new Pokemon, so I could have them write a guest article about that one. Thankfully, 2022 Tabletop GOTY is much easier to pick.

An argument that the choice is virtually automatic has merit. But, we tried other games this year. Quinn and I played Roll Player Adventures a couple of times. Our family broke out several family trivia games during the year. I know those aren’t traditionally thought of in the same category as Dungeons and Dragons, but they are all tabletop games. So, let’s explore why the old lady gets our 2022 Tabletop GOTY.

Dungeons and Dragons with Quinn

We started the year with momentum on the D&D front. I wrote one adventure that Quinn and I played through. That gave me ideas for other adventures. I finally followed up by writing almost all of a second adventure that starts on a haunted ship and ends in a harpy cave. I wanted to play that adventure during this vacation, but most of our plans went for naught this vacation.

I stole this harpy lair from one of The Witcher games and added D&D flair. Some puzzles, some fighting, and a little bit of mystery.

Just looking at that map makes me want to finish the adventure the whole way through and play it with Quinn. In fact, I just searched for the Starter Set box with all of our characters in it. And, I found it! So, after I finish this article, time to finish that adventure. We still have a couple of months until February vacation, but maybe I can convince him to play one of these weekends. I think this one might take a couple of play sessions to complete.

Dungeons and Dragons at School

I started running the D&D club at the high school at my old job a couple of years ago. Mostly, I just sat there and planned or corrected as my faithful group of 4 to 6 gathered in spite of the threat of Covid to play their favorite characters. The group expanded to 8 regulars last year and even grew as much as 12 during a couple of the meetings.

This year, they talked me into taking the middle school club as well. Before I left the job, my reputation (and, more likely, Stranger Things) helped grow the club to two high school groups of about 6 to 8 and three to four middle school groups. One played consistently from week to week. The other groups moved, merged, and sometimes fought among themselves. Mostly, we enjoyed our time together. I even ran a group for several weeks. We finished most of the prologue for Curse of Strahd and then played through some of the Dungeon of the Mad Mage in my last session with the group.

The Verdict

I think I made a case for Dungeons and Dragons as our 2022 Tabletop GOTY. Looking ahead, there might be some competition for the old lady. I bought a Pathfinder starter set from Humble Bundle that has a solo adventure that might inspire me to play that more. I also bought some Warhammer 40k books and want to make some characters for that game. Finally, I somehow acquired a starter set for a Fallout RPG that might or might not be discontinued. So, look out for them in addition to D&D in 2023.

On the Tabletop

Thankful for Pokemon Cube Redux

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Introduction

I meant to write and post this article on Thursday. Regular readers of the page know that is one of the warning signs that I might be falling off on regular updates of the page. I promise you that’s not the case this time. I am cram studying for a placement test for a Master’s degree program in computer science. But, I took a break this morning to update the page with my thoughts about the Pokemon Cube Redux.

The actual sequel here is simply this article. I never actually finished the cube that I started a couple of years ago. What can I say? I searched for the cards on the list and started to put together a cart on eBay. And, I discovered that it’s not just Magic the Gathering cards. People pay quite a bit for these little rectangles of cardboard.

“Planning” the Cube

“Planning” the cube actually went very quickly. I searched “Pokemon Cube” and one of the links lead me to a Google sheet that I then looked through with our cards to see which ones we already owned. Perhaps surprisingly (and perhaps not), our collection included a good amount of the cards. Even so, I still needed to purchase three quarters of the cards to finish out the cube.

A bit on the nose that a nerd like me used a spreadsheet to build my cube. But, it’s incredibly detailed and well organized.

But, as I said above. Collectors know what they have in this day and age of the internet. They charge a lot even for Pokemon cards. So, my inspiration and drive to finish the cube waned and eventually died. What brought back the spark? I’m glad you asked.

Chris got married a few weeks ago. I even shouted out the website during my best man speech. Don’t worry. I promise it was sincere and not tacky. Anyway, in the months leading to the wedding, we put together a couple of text chains for the groomsmen. One of the guys in the chain actually has a history here on the page as part of a night out where Chris and I went over to his play to play some MTG. He talked about ordering a bunch of proxies for his own cube (possibly inspired by my talk of a Pokemon cube) and then I felt like a huge idiot. Circle of life and all that.

Building the Cube

Even ordering the proxies (which admittedly are of good quality) from the web page that he mentioned would be somewhat cost prohibitive for me. And so I went back to Google and searched a for a page that offered even lower cost, or free, proxies. I found Limitless and started typing cards into the search bar. I made it about two-thirds of the way through the list of cards before I needed to take a break.

From now, I need to finish the list, print out the cards (this will be tricky since we no longer own a printer again) maybe at Staples or one of the University libraries. I don’t want to misuse the resources at work for this project, obviously. Once I print everything out, I want to do a test run with the boys.

The Verdict

The only thing I worry about in this Pokemon Cube Redux is that I’ve chosen grey scale cards to save time and money. Just looking at them on the screen, some of the cards look like they might be difficult to read in that format. That’s not a deal breaker, but it is something to consider. Ultimately, though, come back in December or January for my report on our experience with the cube.

On the Tabletop

Curse of Strahd: Finale?

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Introduction

At the beginning of the month, I realized that I needed to play the role as DM in our humble school Dungeons and Dragons club. Thanks to Stranger Things, the game blew up this year and everyone wants to play. In a flash of inspiration (or dorkiness…or both), I decided to pick up a Halloween related adventure to lead a group through. This is the last week in October, so I expected to go out with a bang with our Curse of Strahd finale.

Best laid plans and all that. The sixth grade and, my entire play group, went on a field trip to the Museum of Science in Boston. They told me the day before that the trip would end around 3:30, which is when the group usually started to get antsy and disbanded for the afternoon. So, imagine my surprise when I heard a knock on the door at about 3:15.

Sometimes Teaching is About Cutting Your Losses

Initially excited to be able to lead the group again, that quickly changed. They took almost 20 minutes to settle down. One would say, “Let’s get started.” to the others, then jump up and another would repeat the process. So, I should have known that things might not go well.

When we finally sat down to play, things initially went okay and my fears started to subside. Then, one of the players tried “massaging” a die roll here and there. I called him out on it once during a “hit roll”. Towards the end of the session, I let one go. It was only an initiative roll. It felt like the right thing to do, but it clearly wasn’t.

Other than this week, things went well. I’m probably just overthinking things.

Another player got angry about it and refused to roll for his turn during combat. When we finally convinced him to do so, he rolled a hit and then intentionally knocked the die over to a miss. I threw my hands up and said, “Sorry, guys, I can’t do this today.” They started some in fighting and I laid my cards on the table. “No, it’s all of us. This just isn’t working right now. We’ll try again next week.”

Epilogue

If this ends up being the Curse of Strahd finale, it ends not with a bang but a whimper. I knew from the beginning that things might go sideways and they ended up doing just that. The fear that I ruined D&D for my family by not being a great Dungeon Master the one time that we tried to play is now rising with these guys. They asked the last couple of weeks to play more on Friday and now I leave them with this bad taste for week. Maybe I’m overthinking things. Even so, I think I might try to find another adventure to run for next week. One of them said that they wanted to fight dragons.

On the Tabletop

Curse of Strahd Part 2: For Real This Time

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Introduction

Last week, our intrepid group played without two of their players. So, instead of continuing our adventures in Ravenloft, I convinced the remaining player to hack and slash his way through some goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears. Other than a mishap with another player who joined the ranks, he enjoyed the experience. Check out that article for that summary. This week, our party plays Curse of Strahd Part 2 for real this time.

In fact, he enjoyed it so much that he asked for another hack and slash after one of their group got picked up early. They tried to convince me to let them keep playing the main adventure, but I got them to abandon that idea with some slick DMing. I’m getting the hang of this. But, join me for a quick recap of the adventures for this week.

Session 2: To the Attic to Get to the Basement

In anticipation of this week’s (it might have even been last week) session, I reviewed the map and where our party explored already. Since they are young, they don’t always think to check for traps or secret doors. So, this time I gave them some grace and more or less pushed them through those secret doors. Being a Dungeon Master is sometimes a delicate balancing act between rules guru and storyteller. Not with this group. With this group, I’m all storyteller and as a result, I sometimes need to dispense with the rules and take matters into my own hands.

So it became that they “found” the secret door to get to the attic and then “found” the secret door to get to the basement. I actually screwed up and needed to improvise by saying that one of them bumped the second secret door with their butt while searching the room. Of course, that got a laugh from all of them.

They also experienced a wider range of combat this time. Fighting both a specter and an animated broomstick got them some experience points and closer to leveling. And, isn’t that the real reason we all play this game? To grow ever more powerful and eventually challenge the gods themselves? Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But, by the end of their senior year, I expect that to happen.

The Verdict

Playing Curse of Strahd Part 2 (for real) went rockier than last time. I continually needed to remind them not to touch each other’s dice, not to hit one another, and not to swear. Honestly, much more on par with how I expected a Dungeons and Dragons group with middle school aged kids to go, so not a huge deal there. We only have one session left in October, but if they finish the introduction, maybe I can get them to play another theme adventure for November and December.

On the Tabletop

Curse of Strahd Part 2: Noob DMs in Middle School…Again

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Introduction

Last week, I played the role of dungeon master for three middle school students in my Dungeons and Dragons club at school. I got the idea to play through the Curse of Strahd module with them because…Halloween. Later in the week, I then worried that they might get bored with the adventure because it is mostly story and, being middle school age, they’d want to beat stuff up. I need not have worried as they enjoyed it so much, they wanted to play again on Friday. Alas, I told them to wait until this week for Curse of Strahd Part 2.

Well, cut to this week. Because, well, middle school, many of them never showed up for the club this week. In my group alone, two of the three ended up as no shows. To his credit, the one who came still tried to convince me to let him play the adventure by himself. Granted, I probably could have pulled it off, but that’s bad D&D etiquette to play without your group.

Hack and Slash One Shot

Looking through the resource books I brought to school, I stumbled on a map for a goblonoid war camp. I quickly came up with the idea to allow the player to hack and slash his way through some goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears in a one off adventure. I know this doesn’t have a Halloween theme, and halfway through the adventure, I could have added Halloween and made it funny by making the hobgoblins throw pumpkins like the comic character. But, I kept it straight.

Curse of Strahd Part 2? LOLJK

The player appreciated my efforts and played along with the bare bones story that I told to keep the narrative going. I even got two other players to join us briefly. I told one he couldn’t play because his character was too high level. The other played a level 1 character but ended up meeting his ultimate fate at the hands of two bugbears. These kids are too young to watch “Stranger Things”, so I should have given them the advice. You never split up the party!

The Verdict

We were both bummed that the other kids didn’t show up. But, thinking quickly, I made the best of it and enjoyed my experience being a DM with limited preparation. I need to take in some of my other resource books, though, so I have more ideas for when these things inevitably happen again.

I can also write down ideas as I get them and flesh them out over time to make them more entertaining and engaging. Sure, I got away with it this time, but I might not be so lucky next time. So, with all of this being said, hope for Curse of Strahd Part 2 next week.

On the Tabletop

Curse of Strahd: Noob DM’s in Middle School

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Introduction

I teach middle school and high school this year. Granted, I have more middle school classes than high school, but I prefer high school for now. I taught middle school over a dozen years ago and that ended in disaster, so maybe there is some residual processing that still needs to be done on that end. Last year, I took over for the Dungeons and Dragons club in the high school. This year, I also took on the middle school. A couple of the newbies wanted me to DM for them. I took advantage of Spooktober to lead them in a campaign with the adventure Curse of Strahd.

Session 1: Tarokka Cards and Creepy Kids

Another kid decided to join us for the session this week, so I had three players to DM. Even though they are all relatively new to the game and middle school kids, I felt nervous. When I tried to DM for my family, it went poorly and only Quinn asked to play again. I wanted to make sure that wouldn’t be repeated this time.

So, I took about an hour to read through the adventure ahead of time. I’m glad I took the time. I set the mood by reading from the Tarokka cards for them during the introduction. They loved it. I then wasted no time in getting them to Barovia by using the shortest method and dropping them right into the Death House mini adventure.

I worried I might lose them because, as the introduction says, “Curse of Strahd is more of a story driven than combat driven adventure” and they seem more like a hack and slash group. Plus, they missed many of the secrets in the beginning of the house. However, they got fixated on the stairs and ended up on the balcony fighting an animated armor. I also allowed them to loot the rooms along the way. That kept them going.

I finally got them to the point where they knew to look for secrets as much as possible. They got one of their partners to squeeze into a dumbwaiter to go up to the master bedroom. They looted the bedroom and are now in possession of almost 1000 gold worth of jewelry. I had so much fun and they did, too. They actually asked me to stay after today to continue the adventure.

The Verdict

I took the books home to do more research into the adventure so that it goes more smoothly next time. I ended up searching a little bit too much. Granted, they didn’t mind at all, but I want to get better as a Dungeon Master. Aiden said he’d play again if we got the Stranger Thing module. Of course, it now is a collector’s item, but I (*shhhh*) found a PDF of it. So, now I can use Curse of Strahd (and Quinn’s ghost pirate adventure) to continue to hone my skills for the next time we play as a family.

Snap *censored* Pop Culture

Introducing Spooktober 2022

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Introduction

Our better half got married last night. I served as the best man and had to give my second speech of the year. I also spoke at the graduation for my school at the beginning of summer. As someone who doesn’t like public speaking (yeah, weird for a teacher to say), that’s a new record. During the speech, I used the introduction of the page. And, now, I’m back with our Introducing Spooktober 2022 post.

Introducing Spooktober 2022?

Ever since I started the page, I wanted to do theme months. Spooktober goes all the way back to the start of the page. I might have even done a post like this all the way back then and never followed up on it. I’m took lazy to check right now. Okay, my curiosity is stronger than my laziness. I found no evidence of Spooktober 8 years ago during the month of October, but I found my old Zombie Mill Deck post.

So, now, kids older, working less than I ever have (even if I have taken on a ridiculous amount of stipends this year), I feel ready to unleash the magic of Spooktober onto the page. It will start with a redesign, including new graphics and a new color scheme at some point over the next week. It will continue throughout the month with themed posts, including my first foray into DMing my middle school D&D group through the Curse of Strahd module.

He awaits…

Quinn and I still have to play the ghost pirates adventure that I wrote over the summer. I have one horror novella that I wrote and I can pepper in some teasers from that and also planned on writing some Dungeons and Dragons or Magic the Gathering fan fiction.

The Verdict.

I have plenty of content planned for the month. Who knows, maybe I will come up with more and try to expand into YouTube or TikTok videos to help expand our reach. As I also said in my speech last night, things happen in their own time. Stay tuned.

On the Tabletop

Roll Player Adventures: Games We Love

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Introduction

About a half a year ago, I became addicted to Kickstarter. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But, I did support several gaming themed campaigns. One of them arrived in a huge box. It took so long to be delivered that I forgot about it and wondered what the postman delivered. “Ah”, said when I opened it, “Roll Player Adventures. It’s a game I ordered on Kickstarter, I explained too my family. I got the game because it sold itself as a single or two player action game similar to Dungeons and Dragons.

Not exactly like D&D. That’s fine. Now we have two outlets for our nerdiness.

As I mentioned in my previous article, I hadn’t finished the newest adventure for our duet campaign I still havne’t completely finished it. I have the first part of it done now. At the time, I suggested we try Roll Player Adventures instead. Quinn agreed and off we went.

First Impressions

This game takes forever to set up for the first time. There’s so many different types of cards, dice, tokens, maps, and books. Plus, you need the rule book to set up your characters (thankfully, in this game, they came premade, so that saved some time) and an adventure book to set up the adventure map. Some of the set up is intuitive and (again) thank goodness for that. Some of it makes no sense without the context of the game, but you figure it out quickly enough.

I mean, look at all that stuff! It’s pretty intimidating.

Gameplay

Again, the gameplay is mostly intuitive if you’ve ever played a dice game before. A few things are difficult to understand, but the rules are mostly comrehensive. We screwed up more than one ruling, but it was just the two of us. Ultimately, no harm, no foul.

You move your party around the map. There are encounter tokens that can be either a skill check, combat, or sometimes both. There are also the defined areas on the map. Here, you run through a story that changes based on your decisions. Skill checks and combat work similarly. You need to build a die pool from the die bag, roll them, and match numbers and colors on the card to pass the check or win in combat.

Probably easier to show. To defeat the bandits, you need a white two, blue three, red three, and any color five. You have three rounds to win as shown in the lower left corner.

You draw dice from the bag, roll them, and try to match them. While this might seem like an almost impossible task, you can buy certain colors using your attribute points. You have a hand of cards that lets you alter die rolls or colors. All in all, we’ve only ever gone past round one on a couple of fights. In etween fights, you can rest to get ready for future challgenges. Rinse and repeat this process as you work your way around the map until the book tells you “The End”.

After that, you advance your character and you can “save” the game. This sets you up for the next play through so that you don’t spend as much time getting ready. The second time we played took a lot less time to set up and a lot more time to play.

Roll Player Adventures: Overall, a fun game

Both times we played, Quinn mentioned how much fun he had. He talked about the game at dinner to Christine and both of his brothers. We were supposed to play more today, but we took a two hour hike and we just finished eating dinner. I think tomorrow might be busy, too. So, you might have to wait until next week to hear more of our exploits against the enemies of ulos.