DDMU - Dungeon Master Dad Update

Full disclosure, to make this easier to explain - the oldest and youngest are both technically my girlfriend's sons. But they live with us. The middle is my daughter, and she lives with us. We've lived together a few years, so essentially they're all our kids. Anyway, here's the update to my original post (here: http://imgur.com/gallery/lrujQUe) - To make it easy for the kids to get used to playing and for me to get used to DMing, we had planned on playing a really watered down version of a d&d campaign, Monster Slayers: Heroes of Hesiod. You can find it in a couple of places. (It's free!)

At first glance, it's a cute, little, easy to grasp game. Not a whole lot of customization available, which is probably good for those trying to understand the basics. Anyhow, after a text from my girlfriend telling me she'll be late, I offered to get the kids. Only to in turn realize I myself was going to be late as well. I had planned a big, medieval style dinner to get the kids into the spirit and that was quickly rushing into "It'll be wayyy too late for the kids to stay up if we do that" territory. We actually debated not playing last night.

Me in the car on the drive home.

I realized "I cannot waste this opportunity. We must play! Also, 5.000 people on imgur upvoted me. I can't bail now." I decided they'd get by just fine with pizza while we play. The kids were way excited by this. My failure is their reward.

Good job dad!

So my girlfriend gets home, we start setting the scene, the kids are getting way into it. The monsters are supposed to attack immediately, but I let everyone roam around and try to find anything that might benefit them. In the middle of this the pizza comes. Outside, while I signed the credit card slip, our oldest says "This is AMAZING! Can we play every night?" I said there's no way we'd have that kind of time. So he asks:

"Can make it a weekly thing?"

At which point I feel like the best DM/Dad in history. Mind you this was before ANY real action. That feeling lasted until we got back in and he looted a barrel and found two potions. My daughter asked "If we find stuff like that and people need it, can we give it to them to help??" hashtag:Proud-Dad. And our oldest goes "I'm keeping it all for myself!" and I had a flashback to earlier in the day when he asked like 3 times if we were allowed to attack each other or steal from each other.

MFW I realize my oldest son is going to kill the party.

So now I'm tasked with my first struggle as a GM already, how do I convince him to play fair? Oh boy... Anyhow, they are immediately attacked by the terrible BULLETTE. Which of course attacks my girlfriend and everyone thinks I did that on purpose. It attacks the highest HP! Back off family!

The devastating, but ticklish Bullette

Our youngest son dug in the ground to search for materials. I told him there were no random materials buried, but he did find a beetle and a worm. I thought he would be disappointed. However, he thought that was the greatest thing ever and put them in his pocket.

Meanwhile, my girlfriend attacks and does the first damage of the day!

Only to have it turn around and swallow our youngest son whole.

Oops.

But? He tickles the Bullette on his next turn and rolls high enough to be spit out!

Nice roll, kid.

After about 2 minutes though he screams in terror: "OH NO DID I LEAVE MY BUGS INSIDE THE MONSTER?!??!!"

He was not joking. He was fully engrossed in this world and in love with his pet bugs. I said "No, they stayed in your pocket. Would you like to check to see if they're still alive?" He said no, which really upset me, because I wanted to tell him there was magic inside the Bullette that turned the worm until a big, furry, muppet-like snake.

Fine. Have it your way.

Now, you might have noticed I haven't mentioned my daughter much. This is when she asked if she could climb into one of the open barrels to hide from one of the monsters. She's a very cautious girl.That's when I realized she had spent the entire game moving the opposite direction of either of the monsters on the board.

No, they can't see you, dear.

At this point we had been playing for nearly 3 hours and they had only killed one of the four monsters. It was an hour past their bedtime, and I decided to pause the game. I honestly thought we'd have completed all 4 in an hour or two. Who knew it would take so long?

Thanks for reading.

All in all, we loved it. It had its ups and downs and I'll have to learn how to manage our oldest's evil side, and our daughter's cautious side, but as soon as we finish this small campaign I'm going to write a campaign that plays to all of our strengths and weaknesses and holds the kids' attention. I'll be using some of the great ideas people mentioned in my last post. Thanks guys, you made this all much easier for me and started a new family tradition!