Gaming With Kids 2: My Kid Does the Gygax 75 Challenge

I prompted my oldest daughter to write her own dungeon. She's nine. I ran her through a game of a few sessions, and she's watched us play D&D once, but mostly just listened to me talk about it. Until this point she'd never run her own game. I suggested she draw it on graph paper, and make a key listing the contents of each room. I didn't give her any more help than that because I was curious to see what she would come up with on her own. I gave her no guidance on how to structure a dungeon, nothing on how to stock a dungeon, and no guidance on reaction checks, traps, difficulty, or anything else.

In short order she wrote two floors and ran me through it. She'd never DM'd before. I helped by knowing the rules, reminding her when to roll wandering monster checks, and offering suggestions for how to resolve certain things (eg, rolling 1-in-6 to find the right stone to open a secret door).

The rules we used were a loose primitive mash-up of old school because that's what is in my head. I scribbled out a page, front and back, for her to reference if she wanted to, but told her to use her own judgement. I've got the Moldvay stat bonus spread memorized, so I threw 3d6 straight and ended up with a 7HP  Fighter named Silverlight who wielded the long sword called Bright-Blaze, wearing chainmail and equipped with your standard grognard dungeoneering equipment.

I feel comfortable taking a picture of the first floor
since I explored most of it.

I strike up my torch and enter through the staircase at the top left. I took the east branching path and came to what is labeled room 1, which had a pool of fresh blood in the center of it (empty room!). I smelled it to see if I could discern what species the blood belonged to, it was human. She offered that it was likely the blood of another adventurer (adjudicated!). Unperturbed, I proceed to listen and tried the handles of both doors. One was locked, one was stuck. No sounds came from either, so I kicked the stuck one open only to discover both doors led to the same corridor (trick!). At the end of the corridor I heard a gruff, angry voice.

This is the exchange we had:
"Who goes there?"
"It is I, Silverlight of the Lands of Men!"

"Why do you enter our lair?"

"I come in search of treasure and glory, now who are you?"
"None of your business! Leave this place before you die!"

Not one to be threatened by a disembodied voice I drew my sword and quickly rounded the corner. I discovered a goblin in red. I asked her to describe the goblin and she said "He's 7 feet tall, purple, and covered in hair with a mean face". Impressed and more than a little intimidated, I pressed on.

"Is that a threat or a promise, foul one?"
"I will kill you!"
"Small chance! Who else lives here? Speak quickly and do not lie!"
"The goblins! This is our dungeon!"
"Fine--Then take me to your treasure, fiend!"

"No!"

"Then prepare to meet my steel!"

The goblin landed a solid hit on me, dealing 3 damage. I pressed on. After a volley of misses I finally connected with two hits and killed the beast. I searched his body, finding a ring of goblin royalty and a few gold. Pocketing the treasures continued north up along the passage to a shut door. I thrust it open and found a tiny, bare room. I assumed the western wall was a secret door, so I searched it and discovered that I had to roll a d6 until I discovered the correct stone to open it.

Once through the secret door I headed sound and kicked open the next stuck door where I was met by a bevy of horrible hissing spiders! Venom dripped from their fangs. I slammed the door shut and sprinted back to the secret door to escape only to find that I had to select the correct stone again! The spiders didn't pursue, so I produced a flaming oil bomb and torched them.

I went to explore the room they guarded, but it was full of cobwebs I couldn't cut with my sword. I employed fire again and removed them. This room had a series of smaller rooms branching off of it. In one was a beautiful garden where I met a rather rude gnome. Using my best manners I was able to befriend it, and he gave me some magical seeds.

In another room I found a caged owl. After talking for a bit I freed the owl who offered to help me find treasure if I offered to help avenge him against the goblins who captured him. He said he was a messenger from the Lion King.

In the next room I found a bed. Underneath the bed was a ring. I took it.

I kicked open the door to room 5 and found a bunch of snarling wolves ready to attack! I entered combat with them and was able to defeat all three. I searched their bodies and discovered one wore a bracelet with the symbol of the Lion King on it!

I think she had kind of written herself into a corner at this point, or all the improvising was wearing thing, because what happened with the wolves made little sense. The owl was pissed at me for killing the wolves because the wolves work with the lion king, which made them the owl's friend, but he didn't warn me of that when they attacked me. BUT they also work for the goblins, which would make them the owls enemy? Anyway, the owl chastised me before vanishing into thin air and leaving me alone in the dungeon.


There were further adventures, but I won't detail them here. I was quite surprised and pleased by how she made and ran it all in under an hour. She made lots of twisting, branching paths connected by rooms of difference sized, interspersed with secret doors. She's seen dungeons I've drawn in the past but otherwise came up with this all on her own. She had empty rooms, tricks, surprises, traps, and even some hidden treasures and battles. She adjudicated and improvised all very well. I saw her key for the rooms which were comprised of things such as:

5. wolves
6. bed (invisibilite ring)
7. gnome
8. owl

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She hasn't worked on it much since that game. The other day when we were short on time for our language arts class (we homeschool) I told her, instead of her normal work, to write a paragraph about the area around her dungeon, naming the area around and what's special about it. Here's what she wrote:

"The ckave is a Dungeon, a vary Dangangris Dungeon. A vilig is nere The Ckave. The Ckave is srawide in foriste. In The Ckave are Vary dangangris crechrs! The foristets name is The moving foriste. The resin it is coolde that is beicas the trees tolcke, moove, and are alive!"

A great start at worldbuilding. Now all we need is a map, a wandering monster table, a description of the town, and some named NPCs!

She has a friend that wants to start playing too. Her friend can't read yet. I'm thinking about giving them a print out of the Holmes rules and seeing what comes out of it.