Sooo....my oldest son (4.5) has always loved my D&D minis. He loves playing with them, making them interact (mostly the dragons eating the people) and even building things for them with blocks. I was enthused by this so earlier I build a masterboard with TLX hinterland tiles for him and my younger son to play on with cars, minis, or whatever. They loved it.

Soo...I decided to conduct an experiment. I bought with the intent of laying it out and at least getting him to count squares with the minis and roll a d20 if nothing else.

Boy, did I ever underestimate his ability to comprehend the rules! Of course I secretly hoped he would get it, but he took to it perfectly. I will say that I did simplify it a bit:

* We each played one character with one power that I chose ahead of time.
* After a couple rounds, I put the encounter and treasure cards aside.

That being said, we did the "Monster Hunt" twice (successfully!). Early on, he was remembering his attack mod and comparing his rolls to the monsters' ACs. He also knew the monsters' names and made attack motions (when he played the wizard, imagine a mini-Palpatine shooting lightning at his enemies). He even understood the poisoned status (and the saving throw) and knew when his counters equaled his HP he was dead until he used a healing surge. Add to that randomly picking monsters and tiles and we both has a great time.

Needless to say, I was impressed and more than a little proud of him. I think I will still keep my modified rules for now but we will probably try a different scenario next time.

Also, I bought it two days ago and the deal I made with him was that he had to be a very good boy to play it. He missed out yesterday but he was an angel today, even telling me it was "fun to clean up" his toys. Yay!

And to end the night, we finished by watching some Firefly...my equivalent to the cowboy shows I used to watch with my dad when I was a lad.

That's the ticket! Corrupt 'em early!

The Auld Grump

Keep going with it!

My 2 sons (10 and , are doing well in their campaign, and seem better at avoiding combat than the main group I play with!

The younger one especially, has a great personality for his PC, which is very different from his own.

Here's a great first. Kids love 'em! Cthulhu in all his cuddly glory.