Uncle Leo? Running a game for my teen daughter and her friends.

Uncle Leo left you a grand inheritance,
IF you can get it from his vault.

A few weeks ago, I ran Crucible of the Gods for my kids and they really liked it. Being revved up by it, my oldest daughter (just turned 14!) wanted to bring her two best friends in and have me run a game for them. I was told by my daughter to keep it down to just 2 hours of gameplay.

Last Friday night, we ran that game. I used some level 1 pregens from the D&D Encounters. I borrowed rooms from Fane of the Heresiarch (FotH) and Tower of the Ascendants Level 1 (TotA).


The adventure plot:

1. Crazy Uncle Leo has passed away, leaving his massive inheritance to just one PC - if that PC can retrieve it from his vault of tricks, traps and monsters.
2. Central chamber is a hub, requiring three keys to open the vault. Four chambers spread off of the main hub, leading to the Alchemy Study (TotA), the Shrine of the Skull (TotA), the Gauntlet of Walls and the Chaos Maze. In each of these sub-chambers is a key that is used in the central chamber. The doors to these sub-chambers had a large sign on them, revealing to where each led.

Player reactions:
The names of the chambers drew them to Chaos Maze first, then Shrine of the Skull. The save or die effects were big hits - I could tell they were more excited about those kinds of rolls than the "he hits you for 14 damage" (even if I described the attack in detail). Their dice were hot - they never died from any SoD effects.

One of the friends did show all the classic boredom signs - dice stacking, excessive iPhone texting, etc. But, she focused when it was her turn.

The other friend was much more into it, even creating her own descriptions for things. She's had some WoW experience, so it translated a little easier.

After the game, I talked with my daughter and she said I could have put more tricks into it. Indeed, I had simplified it some because I was worried about only having 2 hours to play and running for new players. If I am to take anything away from it, it's this: don't oversimplify a game for new players. Keep it challenging, and they will have fun.

Also learning something about my daughter... now that she's experienced Crucible of the Gods, straight-up fight the monster battles are not as much fun as encounters that include tricks, traps, puzzles, exploration, etc. That same thing happened to me too!