A Great Quote for My Fellow Dungeoneering Parents

A buddy of mine who goes by the name of Eryx on various message boards posted this quote on Facebook.  As a parent, I found it particularly poignant. 

Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed. - G. K. Chesterton

Cloudy with a Chance of Orcus – Whiteboard Uses for RPG Gaming

In my post about the showdown in the Upper Temple of Orcus, Omote noticed a strange “map/poster” sitting on an easel in one of the pictures:

That is a piece of extra shower board/tile board/Melamine. Before I started using my massive battle map, I used two pieces of “whiteboard” purchased on the cheap from Craig’s List. The lady selling them didn’t know they weren’t real whiteboards (neither did I). Anyhow, they were cheap and these extra pieces are damn handy. Oh, the easel is my wife’s, but I long ago commandeered it for my own twisted purposes.

Various uses:

• Mapping - I stand in front of the whiteboard and draw an overview dungeon map as the party explores. This makes me feel like some strange, Gygaxian weatherman, but it works very well. It makes the mapper’s job easier and gives all the players a sense of where their characters are. It may sound like extra work, but it actually speeds up play because the players don’t need to question me as much about dungeon details.

• Initiative Tracking – I often write the initiative order on the board so that everyone in the group has a clear idea of when their turn is coming up.

  

• Extra Battle Room – I bust out these pieces when the battle spills over the area on the large battle map. It happens more than you’d think in a dungeon the scale of Rappan Athuk [especially if the DM (uhm, me) doesn’t start drawing at a good point on the large map].

• Artwork – My girls love to draw on these surfaces.

Epic Battle

I thought I'd share some of Chaos's artwork here.  Here is one of the more epic battles she's done.  On the right is the bad dragon.  On the left are the good beasts, from top to bottom: a pegasus, a unicorn, and a Chinese dragon (that last inspired no doubt by "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan").  They are using their "powers" (those are the squiggly lines going from the beasts to the dragon) to slay the evil dragon.

Erol Otus, look out.

R.I.P. Pepper the Guinea Pig

It was a rough weekend.  Chaos's guinea pig, Pepper, passed away on Saturday.  We discovered him Saturday morning nearly motionless and with a severe case of diarrhea.  A quick Google search revealed that this is a pretty serious condition for a guinea pig.  Once those little guys dehydrate like that, everything inside them starts shutting down.  We found a vet that saw small animals as quickly as we could, but it was a half-hour drive away.  I had a bad feeling that he wasn't going to make it that long and, unfortunately, I was right.

This would have been tough normally, but it was particularly rough because Mrs. Frost and I just gave our daughters the guinea pigs for Christmas (Mayhem's little guy, Henry, seems to be doing fine). We've had other pets, but this was Chaos's first.  It was her pet and no one else's. She loved that little guy.

I know that some might think, "Buddy, it's just a guinea pig."  Trust me, when it's your five-year-old daughter's guinea pig, it's not "just a guinea pig."

Books I Read to My Kids: Greek Myths for Young Children

Since I'm on a Greek Mythology roll, I wanted to share a great book for kids: Greek Myths for Young Children

I gave this book to Chaos for her fourth birthday. At the time, she wasn't taken too much with it, but really enjoys it now. Although it's very colorful and has plenty of illustrations, it doesn't have pictures on every page.  That sort of put a damper on her interest at first, but now, at five, she doesn't seem to mind. I also think some of the creatures used to frighten her (she wasn't too big on the picture of the Cyclops).

Actually, we've returned to this book because I ran out of myths to tell her.  When I put Chaos to bed at night, I often tell her a Hercules or Odysseus story.  "Hercules and the Hydra" is one of her favorites ("Cut! Burn! Cut! Burn!"). When my mental stash was depleted, I busted out this book again.

It's a great book and, although the tales are bit abridged, be warned, they aren't censored and no happy, Disney-like endings have been added.  When Bellerophon, after riding Pegasus to slay the Chimera, gets cocky and decides to ride the flying horse to Olympus, he still ends up plummeting to his death.  That certainly isn't the kind of ending my daughter expected.

I'm not sure what she makes of those kinds of things yet, but she always asks for "one more page," so I take that as a good sign.

It’s a girl! Here is your pink d20.

So the days of the expectant father sitting in a smoke-filled lobby are long since gone.  Still, the tradition of handing out a cigar or some other token remains.  There are all kinds of crap for this now: candy cigars, personalized chocolate bars, etc.  Like anything else these days, a once informal gesture has been turned into a marketable “must.” 

Well, what does the proud gamer father give out?  Dice, of course.  Before my oldest daughter, Chaos, was born, I was pondering what to hand out and my wife suggested a die.  Brilliant.

Finding pink dice was a bit tricky and the d20s I handed out for Chaos’s birth were borderline purple.  For Mayhem’s birth, I found some nice pink ones at dicepool.com (and the price was reasonable, too).

My good friend and fellow gamer just welcomed his daughter into this world and, for the first time, I was on the receiving side.  It was a really cool feeling.  Now, I’m not delusional enough to believe that I was the first to do this, but I do think it’s a fun tradition.  My buddy handed out these pink d20s to gamers outside our immediate group and they loved it. 

Hopefully the idea will catch on and one of these days I’ll receive a blue d20 to go with the pink ones.

My Daughters: Chaos & Mayhem

Mayhem (2 years old) plots a PC's demise

I've written a good bit about dungeoneering, but nothing about being a dad. I am the proud father of two girls: my five-year-old, Chaos, and my two-year-old, Mayhem.* I love these little two to death. It's funny. I'd never imagined I'd still be playing D&D as a parent. When I was a kid, I always figured when I finally grew up, I'd hit some point when I would only do grown up things. Suddenly, D&D wouldn't appeal to me, no more video games, and I'd start listening to adult contemporary music. Yet, here I am, 33-years-old, married with kids, and I play D&D almost as regularly as I did in high school, I play video games whenever I can (granted, which isn't much), and I just received the Black Tide "Light from Above" CD for Christmas.

Chaos (nearly 1 year old in the photo) awaits a TPK

Suffice it to say, my girls are used to seeing all sorts of odd books in their dad's office. They love playing with my dice and I've bought them each their own big d20s. The plastic minis from Wizards of the Coast are a bit of a godsend, as I don't have to worry about them playing with lead or ruining a paint-job. I have to admit, I'm pretty protective of my books (and by "pretty protective," I mean "borderline OCD"), but they really haven't gotten into them anyhow.

My daughters were born into a gaming. When Chaos was born, my good friend, Steve, gave her her own copy of the 3rd edition D&D Player's Handbook and I wrote her name in the cover (come to think of it, I should probably give that book back to her... I commandeered it for my own purposes via Fatherly Right). On top of that, a few of my players hand-made a set of giant, soft dice for her. They made the whole set and picked colors to mimic those of an old-school dice set. They have bells inside that jingle when they roll. A lot of time and effort went into those dice and my girls have gotten a good bit of use out of them (they like the big d20 and d12 the most).

Chaos (3 years old in the photo) enjoys her big dice

My daughters look forward to D&D night as much as I do. That's when their "uncles" and "aunts" stop by, loaded with sweets. They feast on cookies, cake, chips, and whatever else my health-conscious friends bring. I love it and so do they. It's a bit taxing on my wife who has to handle bedtime duty solo those nights. Normally, I put young Mayhem to bed while Mrs. Frost handles the elder Chaos (and even then, I'm usually on "clean up" with Chaos, telling her a Hercules story and singing her a song or two after she's had time with Mom). On game night, my wife has to round them up and get them to sleep on her own. No small feat when you have two girls as rambunctious as mine who have main-lined sugar for a half-hour or so.

On a side note, my wife isn't a gamer, but is very understanding and supportive of my hobby. I'm blessed in that way. She gave D&D a try and had some fun, but decided it really wasn't for her. On game nights, she usually hangs out with the other D&D widows and catches up on chick flicks on the DVR.

I'm not sure how much my girls grasp what I actually do down in the basement, but they do know I'm playing some kind of game. They don't seem to care too much, just as long as they get to devour the goodies. Like I said, there is nothing quite like game night.


*Obviously, these aren't their real names, but I don't feel comfortable posting that info.