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]

Originally Posted by 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

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.