The original Hobbit novel
that my mother read to us
The original Hobbit novel
that my mother read to us
It started for me the way it starts for many would-be gamers: when I was a boy, my mother read The Hobbit to my brothers and me. I was positively fascinated by this world of gruff Dwarves and noble Elves, nasty Goblins, magic swords, and terrible dragons. Later on, she read The Lord of the Rings to all of us and it instilled within me a lifelong love of the fantasy genre.
Some years later, when I was in 7th grade, I took a field trip. I sat at the back of the bus with a classmate of mine (named Doug Phillips) who wanted to introduce me to D&D. I made a male, human fighter named "Crash". All the way there, and all the way back, we played. I don't remember where we went on that field trip. It might have been a sunny day, I don't quite recall. What I do remember was spelunking through the catacombs, solving puzzles & riddles, avoiding traps, slaying monsters, and chatting with other dungeon denizens. There was graph paper with significant markings. There were funny-shaped dice. He said next time we played we could use little lead miniatures.
I was hooked.
The Hobbit graphic novel
Many years later, in my adult life, my two oldest daughters were getting to the point where they could sit for longer stretches and I could read more complex stories to them. (Lisa was about age 5, Jessica was about age 4. My youngest, Sara, was just a newborn and not up to stories of any kind yet.) My brother showed me a beautifully illustrated comic book adaptation of The Hobbit that was remarkably faithful to the book. I picked up a copy of my own and proceeded to read it to them, affecting different voices for all of the various characters.
They loved the description of his house. ("He lives in a hole? Underground? With a circular door? And the doorknob in the center?") They were very worried when Bilbo and the Dwarves got captured by goblins and then later by giant spiders. They were fascinated by the riddle game that Bilbo played with Golumn; they insisted I read them the riddles again and again until they could recite all the answers from memory. When the thrush landed on Bard the Bowman's shoulder and whispered in his ear about the hole in Smaug's armor, they were amazed that anyone could speak bird-language. And when Bard let the arrow fly, they were terrified at Smaug's scream of rage, and relieved when the waters of Laketown extinguished his fires (and his howls). When Thorin died and Bilbo cried, they were sad with him. When Bilbo returned home, they were glad to be back. I think the thing they liked the best was that the entire story revolved around the smallest character. (We rounded out the experience by watching the 1977 cartoon.)
The ITT gaming group
During that same year, while I was teaching classes at ITT Tech, some students of mine who were fellow fantasy-gaming enthusiasts inquired as to whether we could start a D&D group of our own. I was intrigued and immediately went to pick up some supplies: the latest rulebooks, several boxes of minatures, a wet-erase roll-up map we could draw on, and a "Pound o' Dice". (We ended up playing for several years at ITT. Even though I've changed jobs, I still get together with a group of my former students for D&D.)
When I first brought home all the new gaming supplies, my daughters wanted to examine everything.
Jessica: What's this?
Daddy: It's a d20.
Jessica: Oh. (pause) What's this?
Daddy: It's a d4.
Jessica: (turning it in her hand) It's like a triangle.
Lisa: (examining pictures in the Monster Manual) What's that?
Daddy: It's a Beholder.
Lisa: What can he do?
Daddy: He shoots different kinds of spells from the eyes at the ends of his tentacles.
Lisa: Like what?
Daddy: Oh, some of them make you go to sleep, some of them can confuse you and make you attack your friends, some of them could even paralyze you.
Lisa: Wow. (pause) Can we read the Monster Manual for betime stories?
Jessica: What's this?
Daddy: It's a map. You can draw on it with these pens to show where you are. Whether you're outside, in a house, in a cave, that kind of thing.
Jessica: Can I draw on it?
Daddy: Sure.
(Time passes...)
Jessica: I drew a farm.
Daddy: What do they grow on the farm?
Jessica: Hearts.
Lisa: (examining the miniatures) Who's this?
Daddy: It's an Elf. See, he's even got pointy ears.
Lisa: What's this?
Daddy: It's a goblin.
Lisa: Yuck! (eyes open wide as she picks up another) What's this.
Daddy: A Halfling Rogue.
Lisa: Halfling... Like a Hobbit?
Daddy: Exactly like a Hobbit.
Lisa: (eyes wide) Can we play this game?
New players
So I quickly made up some rules that we could use. The "standard" rules would be much too complicated, so I made sure that the ones we used were simple and involved lots of dice rolling, drawing on the map, and moving minis around. Naturally, they both wanted to play Hobbits. I had been playing a Halfling Rogue called "Kridlob Fannypants" (a.k.a. "Kridlob the Gainsayer" -- he didn't like his last name), so they decided they would be the daughters of Kridlob Fannypants, named "Geesa" (Lisa) and "Jetta" (Jessica). (Art imitates life.) They got to crawl through inky dungeons, they had to solve puzzles, they got to slay a dragon, they got to pry gems out of the eyes of a statue... and they even got to play the riddle game.
And they knew all the answers.
They were hooked.
3x5 character sheets
In all the many, many times that we've played D&D, I've been abidingly amazed at how they've improved their reading, writing, and arithmetic. They've learned many things that have complemented (and at times exceeded) their studeis at school.
When we first started, I made character sheets for them that had both pictures and words next to all their stats, the intent there being that they could look at the pictures until they learned how to read. Lisa was very excited to go to Kindergarten for this reason alone. I'll never forget picking her up from her second day of school:
Daddy: Hi, Lisa! How was your day?
Lisa: (disappointed) They haven't taught us how to read yet.
The two of them were able to identify most numbers before entering school, but there were a few that they struggled with. The repetition of rolling dice caused both familiar and unfamiliar numbers to come up, giving them ample opportunites to practice. In short order, they could identify all the numbers.
Place value dice
During one particular sunday night D&D session, I kept track of all the math concepts they either learned or reviewed.
Jessica makes a d6 out of a
radish one night at dinner
The key to effectively teaching math can be summed up in two words: Relevant Application. I've seen them stare bleary-eyed at a worksheet full of abstract problems, but they've got fire in their eyes when it means figuring out how much gold they get or how much damage the fireball does. They learned (and applied!) more math in one night than I think they did in a week of school.
Map of the Plane of Fire
During one campaign, the girls visited the 4 elemental planes. I tried to give vivid descriptions of the various planes when they first arrived. ("Okay, jumping through the portal, you find yourself standing on a cloud. In front of you is a fabulous sunset, turning into night. Behind you is a pink-fingered dawn. A rainbow bridge leads from this cloud to a much larger, sphere-shaped cloud in the distance. What do you do?") When they got to the plane of fire, I was surprised at how Lisa took the reins from me:
Daddy: Okay, after jumping through the firey portal, you find sky, trees, ground, and a river, but unlike any you've ever seen before. The --
Lisa: No wait, Daddy, I can visualize it! The ground has red rocks, the river is lava, the sky looks like it came out of a chimney, and the trees have leaves on them but the little leaves are made out of flames!
(The next thought that went through my head was: "Holy cow, she used the word 'visualize' in a sentence.")
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." -- Albert Einstein
The plane of water
(The girls drew the jellyfish
One night when we were playing D&D, Lisa asked if there wasn't anything to eat. I had a bag of M&Ms in my car, so I brought them in and cracked them open. After munching on a few, Lisa observed "Hey, we're really playing!"
Because, you see, it didn't matter how many dice, maps or minis we had, it wasn't until the swag showed up that we were really playing.
Since then, having a bag of swag (of some kind) has become part of the tradition. The night usually begins with all 3 girls chanting "Swag, Do, Swag! Swag, Do, Swag!" ("Do" being an abbreviation for "Daddy") until I bring some downstairs.
Venita (played by Jessica) and Glouve (played
by Lisa) cry out from Howler's Crag in the
Windswept Depths of Pandemonium (the Apparatus
of Kwalish is pictured in the background)
At the conclusion of their first campaign ("The Return of the Sun Necklace"), everyone (myself included) was very pleased with the way that they dispensed with the "boss enemy" and accomplished all their objectives. To celebrate, we went upstairs to have some ice cream. Their mother, wanting to be genial, struck up a conversation:
Mom: So, girls, how did the adventure go?
Lisa: Great!
Jessica: We defeated a displacer beast.
Lisa: Yeah! I distracted it with some Dancing Lights--
Jessica: And then I used my Sneak Attack--
Mom: Sorry girls, you're already talking over my head.
Daddy: (putting an arm around each of them) It's okay, girls, you can tell the story to Uncle Jared and me.
One evening, much later on, I was chatting with Lisa:
Daddy: So, Lisa, how was school?
Lisa: (sighing) There aren't enough geeks at school.
Daddy: (nodding) I know, honey. You'll find more when you get to Jr. High.
Lisa receives the D&D animated
series on DVD for her 9th birthday
After one battle, the two girl's characters got particularly beat up. Jessica (now playing "Venita", a Catfolk Cleric) decided to heal the party:
Jessica: I cast Cure Moderate Wounds.
Daddy: Okay, that'll cure 2d8 damage to both you and your sister. Go ahead and roll.
Jessica: (rolls and gets an 8 and a 7.)
Daddy: Way to go, Jes! So, add them together and tell me how many hit points do you heal?
Jessica: (looks at the dice, then looks at Daddy) Eighty-seven.
One night Lisa learned the important distinction between player and character.
Daddy: Okay girls, you walk through the canyon and pass some funny-looking boulders. Both of you make spot checks.
(Jessica rolls high, Lisa rolls low.)
Daddy: Okay. Jessica, you notice that one of the boulders you pass is moving towards your sister.
Lisa: I move away from that boulder!
Daddy: I'm sorry, Lisa, you didn't notice that, only your sister did. (Turning to Jessica) Unless you want to share that information with Lisa?
Jessica: (shakes her head emphatically)
Daddy: Really? Okay, sorry, Lisa, you don't know that anything strange is going on.
Lisa: But I just heard you tell Jes that the boulder was moving!
Daddy: Yes, you, Lisa, heard that, but your character, Glouve, didn't hear that. You have to take actions based that.
Lisa: (looking at her mini and cupping a hand to the side of her mouth) "Hey Glove! There's a boulder sneaking up on you!"
One time at church, Lisa's Sunday school teacher asked them to draw a picture of something they like to do with their family. Lisa's drawing showed a couple of stick figures (one of them was her) kneeling around a large rectangle on the floor. (At first, I thought it was a picnic.) On top of the rectangle were some smaller stick figures and some strange polygons. In a little word balloon coming out of stick-figure-Lisa's mouth were the words "I cast fireball."
All 3 girls at the mat
(Yes, we used the toy castle)
On one occasion, Jessica was playing a Gnome Ranger (named "Shamiel") and they were visiting a farmer:
Daddy: (as the farmer) My daughter says she saw a Kobold go down the path last night.
Jessica: Do you know where he was going to? We're looking for their lair!
Daddy: (again, as the farmer) No, we just saw him last night. If only there was some way to track him...
Jessica: (looks skyward, wondering)
Daddy: (after a few moments) I said, if only there was some way to track him...
Jessica: (taps a finger to her chin)
Sara: (age 4, has been hearing the whole thing; she runs around the map to her sister and whispers in her ear) Jessica, you can follow the footprints and find out where he went!
There's a song by Harry Chapin called Cats in the Cradle which describes a father's middle-age regrets for never having spent enough time with his children. I don't think I'm going to feel that way when I get older, in large part because I've always set aside several hours each week for playing D&D with my daughters.
As mentioned earlier, Sara has been joining us for each session starting at around age 3. She doesn't play a character, but she does enjoy eating the swag and playing with the dice and minis.
Sara: (looking into the box of minis) Beholder! Beholder! Where are you, Beholder!
Daddy: (finding the Beholder in the corner of the box and holding it up for her)
Sara: Oh! There he is. (She pauses to turn the mini in her hand) He's got an eye!
Sara doesn't feel like she's quite ready to join us yet, but she's warming to the idea. Who knows, someday we might just make a character sheet for her and pick out a little mini that'll be hers to command.
But first, I think I'll read her The Hobbit.
(Time passes...)
Sara in her Wizard outfit
Early in 2009 (February, I think), Sara started playing D&D with us. I asked her what kind of character she wanted to make and she instantly shouted out "Spellbinder!" She even has a wizard costume that she wears when we play on Sunday nights.
Sara seems to know exactly what spell she wants to learn every time she levels up. Some examples of her replies:
Laser eyes!
Lightning!
Blizzard!
Summon Dinosaur!
At the same time, Jessica's artistic talent has been improving by leaps and bounds. She frequently will draw pictures of the evening's adventures during, or after our session.
And for all those who were wondering, yes, I read Sara The Hobbit. She kept me on task and reminded me every night that it was time to read. Her favorite part was where Gandalf makes the trolls argue for so long that they turn into stone with the morning light.
A picture Jessica drew of her and Sara's visit to a candy shop in the village of Himinborg on the Heroic Domains of Ysgard. (Click to enlarge.) The monster in the "Monster Pops" jar that you may not be able to identify is a Grell.