red-letter gaming day for me yesterday

rogatny · Post by **rogatny** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:52 am

So my wife is at work, and my infant son is taking a nap. I ask my four-year-old daughter what she wants to do. She wants to play a game.

What game do you want to play? I ask her. She walks over to the gaming shelf (actually shelves, taking up an entire wall in my home office), and I was expecting another rousing game of Chutes and Ladders in my near future. Instead, she points to the Black Box Basic D&D and says, "I want to play Dungeons & Dragons." (She recognizes the logo from the cartoon DVD box that she begs me to watch over and over again... Her favorite episode is the one with the Fairie Dragons.)

Of course my heart skips a beat and my chest wells with pride. However, I was pretty sure she was still a little too young to play it. Instead, I point to my old Dungeon! box and say, "Let's give this a try."

We end up playing five games. We had a blast and she absoultely loves it. She likes being the super-hero. She tends to run directly to the lowest levels and then repeatedly loses to vampires and dragons and the like. ("I fight him again" "But you need an 11 to hit him." "I really want my treasure back!") By the end, I think I'd gotten her convinced to stay in the mid- and upper- levels until she'd found a magic sword.

If you have kids that aren't quite old enough for D&D yet, I highly recommend it. Really, all they have to do is tell you where they want to move, flip over the right monster card, and have them roll the dice. Her biggest thrill was to see what kind of monster she was fighting and what kind of treasure she gets after winning. And for the attention span deprived, the game only takes about a half hour.

My poor wife. After coming home from work, she had to endure about an hour of... "and this is my Secret Door card. I get to go through secret doors. But you can't. And this is my pretty ring... I got it from the giant rats..." I was loving it.

jgbrowning · Post by **jgbrowning** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:48 am

Heh. And the circle continues....

joe b.

Brad · Post by **Brad** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:04 pm

I think you're just setting your daughter up for an inevitable career as a practitioner of black magic. Just make sure her name is Ms. Frost and not Blackleaf.

stranger · Post by **stranger** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:16 pm

Thats Awesome! You never hear enough stories in this country about kids being raised right.

Glgnfz · Post by **Glgnfz** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:34 pm

great! i played "dungeonquest" - the boardgame with my daughter when she was 7 - but dungeon! at the age of 4 - that's great!

Stormcrow · Post by **Stormcrow** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 2:39 pm

I play Dungeon! every year at Thanksgiving with the young'uns.

xyanthon · Post by **xyanthon** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:50 pm

rogatny,

That's awesome. My son is almost 3 and likes to get my Marvel Superheroes FASERIP box off the shelf. We spread out the map and get out the counters and roll the dice and move counters around on the board. He has a blast. I'll have to get out the Dungeon! game and see what kind of response it recieves.

billchamb · Post by **billchamb** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 7:12 am

Well, that's just terrific and inspiring!

Now, I'm gonna have to see if I can lay hands on a Dungeon! game of my very own.

I have never played it, or actually seen one first-hand.

Are all versions/iterations of the game created equal, or is one production year preferred? (No, I'm not trying to bait and "edition war" on Dungeon!)

francisca · Post by **francisca** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 7:30 am

I play the old HeroQuest boardgame with my 7 and 4 year old about once a month. They have played Dungeon! as well.

http://boardgamegeek.com/game/699

Stormcrow · Post by **Stormcrow** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 8:14 am

billchamb wrote:Are all versions/iterations of the game created equal, or is one production year preferred? (No, I'm not trying to bait and "edition war" on Dungeon!)

I've never seen the first edition (1975), though I've read the rules. I own the second edition (1981), which I understand to be of superior materials. The rules to the second edition are a little simpler, but fairly compatible with the first.

I've heard that the later versions, called "The New Dungeon!" (1989) and "The Classic Dungeon!" (1992), are inferior. I have no experience with them, though my researches have confirmed these reports to my own satisfaction.

I recommend getting the second edition. It's probably the easiest to find.

rogatny · Post by **rogatny** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 10:04 am

Stormcrow wrote:I recommend getting the second edition. It's probably the easiest to find.

The 2nd edition of the game is the one that I have, too. I have the rules for the first edition and there are a few subtle differences in the basic game rules, mainly in the spell casting for wizards. However, the first edition has a number of optional rules such as player-on-player combat and wandering monsters that can make things a little more interesting for adults playing. I didin't use any of that stuff with my daughter - heck, I didn't even use the wizard or spell casting - and we still had a ball.

Also, there were at least three early Strategic Review and The Dragon articles that gave new classes, monsters, and treasures.

T. Foster · Post by **T. Foster** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 11:48 am

I've got the 1975 version, but back when I was a kid we played my friend's copy of the 1981 version. The biggest difference is that the 1981 version is sturdier -- the board is mounted and (IIRC) the cards are thicker/laminated, more like playing cards. This is enough to make the 1981 version preferable, especially if you're playing with young kids. As RA mentioned above, the 1975 version contains some optional rules that might make the game more interesting for adults, but I've never played using them so I don't know how well they work in actual play -- if they actually make the game more fun/challenging or if they just slow it down.

I've also never played using the additions from TSR/TD, though it appears the original owner of my set did, because the monster and treasure cards are modified as per the instructions in that article (and, IIRC, a couple are 'house-rule' modified beyond what that article suggests). The first two sets of additions (clerics, dwarfs, thieves, hobbits, plus new monsters and treasures) are both reprinted in Best of The Dragon vol. I; the 3rd set of additions (monks and bards, IIRC) was in TD17 (the same issue with "Faceless Men and Clockwork Monsters") and didn't make it into a Best Of volume.

JDJarvis · Post by **JDJarvis** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 4:16 pm

woo hoo!! Gotta like when the youngsters game.

francisca · Post by **francisca** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 8:44 pm

JDJarvis wrote:woo hoo!! Gotta like when the youngsters game.

Oh hell yeah.

Tonight I played:
3 games of Hungry Hungry Hippoes with the 4 year old
1 game of Labyrinth: The Card Game with the 4 year old
1 game of Junior Labyrinth with the 7 and 4 year old
1 game of Stratego with the 7 year old

http://boardgamegeek.com/game/533 (Labyrinth card game)
http://boardgamegeek.com/game/1218 (Junior Labyrinth)
http://boardgamegeek.com/game/1917 (Stratego)

Loads of fun!

rogatny · Post by **rogatny** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:08 am

I'm going to start a Dungeon! thread in the Board/War game forum.