Hey gang, I’m new to the community and I love Dungeon World. I’ve really been enjoying looking at everyone’s custom classes! Some great work there. A little about me – I’m currently playing with my girlfriend and her three children, ages 8, 10 and 14.
Now, given their different ages, they each are having very different experiences in our game. The 14 year old is already snarky and well versed in gaming, so he’s looking for something to challenge him. The ten year old is learning how to work his imagination and he’s playing the druid, so he’s really able to do a lot. The 8 year old is amazing, because she’s playing the game to be a chaotic, borderline insane character.
So, if anyone has some fun ideas, I would love to borrow them. Elizabeth’s birthday is tomorrow, so we are going to play a game that prominently features her. There will certainly be a big, tough ork princess. Beyond that, I don’t have a lot of ideas. If anyone could throw out some suggestions, I would be beyond grateful. Thanks!
Ooh! Maybe have them compete in games of skill at a festival, (archery etc) before the revery is broken by the ork princess crashing the party because she didn’t get invited.
I should also add, we are in the Pirates! supplement, so currently we’re all at sea. (We can absolutely still have a festival though! Might even be better on a boat.)
Sure thing. I was kinda hoping this would be a little self-contained adventure, a little break from the main adventure.
The kiddos and their mom are transporting a treasure ship back to their home empire. They’ve captured an ork vessel and the rowdy crew surrendered to their might after they took out the big leader. They are now in charge of the orks. And, as a team, have all decided to steal the treasure ship, become pirates and never go home. The main problem is that there is a ferocious cleric of a growing cult in charge of the treasure ship. And the orks are rowdy and only respect power. It’s largely a comedy heavy game, but I still throw them some hectic battle setups from time to time.
I mine the “One page Dungeon” contest for ideas. Also take the plot from any old D&D mods you remember fondly and use it as a guide/starting point. Things will take a left turn soon enough but it’s a good place to mine for cool location/events.
We recently had some seabourne scuffles in our troop as well! Better not to say what went down. Our barbarian is exceptionally hard to control.
If there is a power struggle or mutiny attempt on board the treasure ship, that could be interesting. Could be parlay-heavy, convincing the orks to stand by the party, maybe ending with some kind of duel…
What’s cool is when all the boats meet up and form a temporary floating city for the coral festival.
It’s a game that gets derailed very easily. At first I was worried about violence – I don’t want the kids to be freaked out by killing humans. They requested an evil unicorn show up at some point, and when it did…1) they killed it without a second thought, 2) They chopped off its horn and 3) they harvested it’s blood for future potions.
My latest effort was an attempt to introduce a social conflict for them, something that wasn’t a problem that could be solved by violence. It ended with Elizabeth kidnapping a human to keep as her pet. She wants to teach him tricks, and she threatened poison on the other players if they let him out of his barrel. Like I said, she’s playing to be chaotic. In her mind, chaotic = insanity.
Oh yeah, Elizabeth drank the blood right off the bat. It was one of the improv moments I enjoyed the most, because they were all looking at me, waiting for the effect of the blood to kick in. Could have been anything. I choose temporary bloodlust, because that seemed exciting.
And they have no problem killing anyone anymore. That wasn’t on me, that was a discussion they had themselves. Still, I try to keep it PG or so, with a lot of ‘he fell over the side of the ship and you’ll never see him again’ kinda stuff. You didn’t shoot him, he fell on some bullets 🙂
Pets. All kids who play Dungeon world need pets. Seriously. Monsters, arcane constructs, plain old animals. But once you open the lid, you ain’t never goin’ back.
These are all wonderful ideas, thank you bunches!