OTish; new game

[weswood]

I started a game with my 11 year old daughter tonight. She's not into WWIII games, more into horror. I thought I'd throw an alien invasion at her. She rolled up a 12 year old kid as a character who has ridiculous combat skills for a kid.

1st session: She's at home alone, her parents out on a date. (No I wouldn't leave her at home at this young age in real life.) Lights, computer & television go out. She goes outside, whole 'hood is out. She happens to notice the traffic on State Highway 146 is stopped, all the cars are dead, no lights anywhere, people standing in the road, cell phones out. Goes inside the house, gets a machete and flashlight, starts following the crowd of stranded drivers towards town.

She walks about a mile where there's a Walgreen's Drugstore, and uses a hairpin to try to pick the lock. A passerby stopped her and while they were argueing, there was a low deep rumble coming from the direction of Houston. Soon, there's a huge flash of blinding light, a glowing column of light reaching towards the sky and a roiling dark cloud. She ran home after that. After a little prodding, she remembered Dad's stash of guns, her German Sheperd and her bicycle. She loaded the bike's basket with Dad's 1911 & HK4 .380, strapped a semiauto shotgun across her back and tied a .22LR lever action rifle to the bike's handlebars. We stopped for the night there, I've got a raging toothache, I was having trouble thinking.

Next, giant eggs are going to fall from the sky. Different size eggs- small ones will hold 4' bipedal black cats armed with electromagnetic repeating crossbows, larger eggs will hold air & ground assault vehicles.

[Snake Eyes]

Pretty awesome. I watched Falling Skies last summer (and the V reboot before that) and thought it would be cool to play in an invasion scenario. Been a long time since I tried running one. Looks like you're off to a great start.

[Tombot]

In which direction did you think you will take that adventure with your little girl, before you started ?
I mean the tone of the whole thing and the goal for your little protagonist. I cant imagine playing with a kid anything that involves heartbreaking losses (dead neighbours, lying on their frontlawn and horrible stuff like that), severe injuries, etc.

In a fantasy-game, things could be more "nice" to get around the treatment of injuries ("Its magic!") f.e.
The only approach i could come up with, would be like a humorous One-shot in the tradition of the "Simpsons Halloween Specials" ("BARTOCALYPSE NOW") :)
So i am interested to know how you go about these things.

PS: Hope your tooth will get well soon & have fun with your daughter playing

[weswood]

In which direction did you think you will take that adventure with your little girl, before you started ?
I mean the tone of the whole thing and the goal for your little protagonist. I cant imagine playing with a kid anything that involves heartbreaking losses (dead neighbours, lying on their frontlawn and horrible stuff like that), severe injuries, etc.

In a fantasy-game, things could be more "nice" to get around the treatment of injuries ("Its magic!") f.e.
The only approach i could come up with, would be like a humorous One-shot in the tradition of the "Simpsons Halloween Specials" ("BARTOCALYPSE NOW") :)
So i am interested to know how you go about these things.

PS: Hope your tooth will get well soon & have fun with your daughter playing

I've already corrupted my daughter, her favorite movies are Zombie movies and hack n slash horror movies. After watching "Zombieland" I looked her dead in the eyes and told her as serious as I could 'You turn into a zombie, I'm going to cap you right between the eyes." Her reply was "Not if I get you first." She's a pretty tough kid, unfortunatley she'd dealt with death already- Grandma, aunts, cousins, pets.

After describing the effects of an EMP and a kenetic energy weapon she told me she wants vampire, werewolves, and zombies. Got to figure how to work that in.

[boogiedowndonovan]

on a zombie related note,

do you and your daughter watch "Walking Dead" on AMC?

First season is out on DVD.

[Medic]

While the concern for weswoods kid is understandable, 11yo kids can be pretty mature and frankly speaking, many parents don't even realize what kind of stuff their kids watch on TV. And I believe, weswood knows what he can and can not present to his kid.

Not to rant, but nowadays people tend to raise their kids in a vacuum where they can see nor hear evil and are oblivious of anything bad even being possible.

I wish, my sisters kids lived closer to me, so I could corr-err-introduce roleplaying games to them. :D

[Tombot]

Yeah, sounds like she has a cool taste for an eleven year old.

I asked, cause i was just curious. No moralizing shit from me here.
Your right; kids are often up to a lot of serious things.
Would´nt be good to stuff a child in an isolated bubble of "disney-cheese", when its pretty mature for its age already.
I work with youngsters from 15+ (most of´em are 18+); so i only have a bit of experience with younger ones through my godchildren. And i am not shy with them, too.

Go for it! Hunt those invading bastards down with her ! (And a movie with good´ol Woody Harrelson & Billy Murray/ with zombies= good choice for starters!)

[weswood]

I wasn't worried about moralizing. Kids don't come with a manual and everybody has different opinions. You just have to raise them the best you can and hope it all works out. My favorite sayings to her are "Well, if you really want to do it, but I don't want to hear you cry if you get hurt" and "Suck it up, Princess."

Our cable company doesn't have AMC, but I got her season one DVD I think for Christmas last year.

[Odie]

As far as Zombies, here is a link to real life zombies. Just goes to show real life can be stranger than fiction.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/pictures/110303-zombie-ants-fungus-new-species-fungi-bugs-science-brazil/

[weswood]

Finally got a chance to play again.

Apparently, the huge blast from the direction of Houston was some kind of bio- weapon. When she walked outside the house the next morning, the next door neighbors came out and started coming at her. Thier skin was tinged greyish and they had blood stains around thier mouths. She whips out her trusty HK4 .380 and lets loose on the Mrs, the Mr being a paraplegic and having to pull himself along with his arms. She hits the Mrs several times but no kill shots. She does manage to hit a leg so Mrs Zombie is slowed down. She finally drops the pistol and uses the lever action .22 and puts 2 carefully aimed shots into Mr & Mrs Zombie's heads, killing them.

She moves to the front yard and the neighbors on the other side come at her. She fires the HK again, out of 5 rounds, manages to wound Mr Zombie in the left leg and left arm bad enough he's crawling on the ground in circles. Changes to the rifle and fires 1 round into the head of Mrs Zombie. Trying to save ammo, she runs up to Mr Zombie with her machete. He takes a swipe at her but misses and she whacks his head off in a single blow. She's standing there catching her breath and she hears a wierd howly-growly coming from the other side of the neighbor's fence. (6' privacy fence) She looks through the fence cracks and sees 3 zombie dogs on the other side of the fence. She decided she didn't want no part of them and left them there.

She rode her bike back to the Walgreens and saw a dozen zombies in the parking lot staring at the door. She wanted to get into a position where she would be able to shoot them before they could reach her, but then decided she wanted to quit playing when she figured out math was involved :).

[CarolG]

Finally got a chance to play again.

Apparently, the huge blast from the direction of Houston was some kind of bio- weapon. When she walked outside the house the next morning, the next door neighbors came out and started coming at her. Thier skin was tinged greyish and they had blood stains around thier mouths. She whips out her trusty HK4 .380 and lets loose on the Mrs, the Mr being a paraplegic and having to pull himself along with his arms. She hits the Mrs several times but no kill shots. She does manage to hit a leg so Mrs Zombie is slowed down. She finally drops the pistol and uses the lever action .22 and puts 2 carefully aimed shots into Mr & Mrs Zombie's heads, killing them.

She moves to the front yard and the neighbors on the other side come at her. She fires the HK again, out of 5 rounds, manages to wound Mr Zombie in the left leg and left arm bad enough he's crawling on the ground in circles. Changes to the rifle and fires 1 round into the head of Mrs Zombie. Trying to save ammo, she runs up to Mr Zombie with her machete. He takes a swipe at her but misses and she whacks his head off in a single blow. She's standing there catching her breath and she hears a wierd howly-growly coming from the other side of the neighbor's fence. (6' privacy fence) She looks through the fence cracks and sees 3 zombie dogs on the other side of the fence. She decided she didn't want no part of them and left them there.

She rode her bike back to the Walgreens and saw a dozen zombies in the parking lot staring at the door. She wanted to get into a position where she would be able to shoot them before they could reach her, but then decided she wanted to quit playing when she figured out math was involved :).

It sounds like a fun game with your daughter thinking the situation through a lot further than a lot of kids her age when they are gaming.