I wasn't going to get involved in National Game Design Month this year, really I wasn't, but then I was laying in bed while my two sons charged around like lunatics and I had no choice but to hear their game. It revolved around using lasers on each door to stop the ghosts from stealing their duplo models because it would give the ghosts special powers that would allow them to take over the world.
You couldn't make it up.
But maybe we should try? I couldn't face playing a game over the weekend with my boys that would involve them rejoicing that they'd killed something. Too soon and too real, despite the fantastical setting. So I grabbed my bedside notebook and pencil, and got scribbling. In the fifteen minutes I had before their game turned into bickering and mutual recrimination, the bare bones of a child's imagination rpg was in place. One in which the players must sustain their imagination to succeed and the worst that happens is you declare "I'm not playing!", and the semi-imagined monsters are "sent packing". Nobody dies.
And that might have been the end of it, after all I've got several projects on the go already (Knights' Quest, creating Averaigne, painting orcs, chaos warband/army, a giant, sci-fi, finishing my gaming table), but MiniRab#1 came and asked what I was doing, and then if he could help. A father-son geeking project? Particularly one that he could meaningfully contribute to? How could I refuse?
If he and I stick at it, which looks likely at the moment, I'll put my scribbles into order and inflict it on you all. He's in bed now, thinking up spells for wizards, but I'll leave you with his three contributions so far:
A strapline: "Let your imagination run WILD!"
A character sheet:
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| The health scale and four characteristics are my choice |
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| I wonder if a new-found belief in the protective power of socks means he'll be happier to put them on in the mornings? |
Don't forget to wrap up warm and take your wodden sords and sheilds with you in case of dragons,
Rab
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