Apathy Blogs

When I was fairly young my older sister’s friend told me about Dungeons and Dragons. I don’t really remember much of what she told me, only that by the end of that summer I wanted to play. I had some experience delving into dungeons as my favorite computer game was Hack, a rogue-like game that later evolved into Nethack. It was a very old school RPG, where magic items were identified through trial and error, or the lucky use of an identify scroll. When you died you got your name on a high score list and started all over again from level 1. Monsters get harder and harder the deeper you go. The dungeon was randomly generated each time, so no two games were a like. Ok, I need to stop talking about how awesome Nethack is so I can move on to the actual point of this article.

My birthday is in the fall and I asked for Dungeons and Dragons for my birthday. I didn’t get it. My mother wasn’t certain about it, so she bought me the Middle-Earth Role-Playing Game (MERP) instead. She’d read The Hobbit, so she figured it couldn’t be too bad. It was based on Role-master, which is not a beginner’s game. It was a great read and had fantastic art though. I don’t think I ever played a real game of it though, although I know I made some characters.

Shortly thereafter I convinced her to let me get actual Dungeons and Dragons. I think I started with the AD&D Player’s Guide (First edition, but we didn’t call it that since the second edition was a long way off). I shortly thereafter had the Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set (Red Box), the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide and In Search of Adventure (A collection of adventure modules B1-9). I only had myself and my cousin to play with, but that was enough to keep us going for a couple years. We didn’t have anyone older to play with or teach us the rules. We just read the books and muddled our way through.

So now I have a niece and nephew. They aren’t quite as old as I was when I started, but they are the age many of my friends started gaming. Their father is also a gamer, but he’s concerned about introducing true violence to his children this early. I can’t blame him, D&D is about murdering people and taking their stuff. Still, sometime soon I’d like to get them an introductory RPG product.

Wizards of the Coast has recently released A 4th Edition Starter Kit (in a red box). From what I hear it isn’t really a complete game. It doesn’t have a standard character creation rules book, it has a choose your own adventure thing that walks them through character creation. That’s neat to include, but a little red player’s guide would have been handy. I’m not convinced this is a good stand-alone starting set. It’s designed to get you to buy other books, not to be a complete package for more than 1 level of adventuring.

I am really curious about Green Ronin’s Dragon Age RPG. It looks like a better boxed set, with a complete game that is fairly rules light compared to 4th Edition D&D. If they were about 5 years older I’d be tempted to get it for them, except the dark in “Dark Fantasy” is probably not age appropriate. I would have to read through the book myself before getting it for them.

My love of Doctor Who makes me want to check out Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space. It has an advantage in that the Doctor never carries a weapon, and always tries to resolve things peacefully. Monsters may exist, but talking to them is usually an option. How many times has the Doctor tried reasoning with the Daleks? Of course, the price point is such that I can’t just casually get it for them on a whim. Still, it might be a strong possibility for a Christmas gift.

I also keep thinking that Traveller RPG could work with some guidance. Sure, there is the possibility for fighting space pirates. On the other hand, my brother-in-law will likely be running a game for them. You can easily run a more Star Trek The Next Generation style game that focuses more on peaceful exploration of the galaxy. Not quite the out of the box experience, but still quite possible.

So it should be noted that other than Traveller, I don’t own any of the above products myself. I’d certainly like to try them out sometime. Does anyone else have a suggestion for a less violent starting RPG? I really want something that is self-contained in no more than two or three books. It’s kind of too bad Bunnies and Burrows is out of print. Maybe I’ll just get them Squirrel Attack! instead.