First DCC Session with My Kid

Okay, I ran DCC today for my kid. Her name is Lucy, and she is 10 (almost 11). We were supposed to have a few other people over today, but it was just her and I. So, I ran Portal Under the Stars, and she controlled 12 0-level funnel characters. She has played D&D once, and Munchkin several times, but this was the first DCC game for the both of us.

The party was a bit understrength for this module, but I couldn't see her trying to manage another four characters. I figured it was going to be a one-off anyway, so what the hell. She did remarkably well, though the game ended in a TPK. I think she learned a valuable lesson, though: Be willing to run away.

So, the party entered the dungeon without incident, because after going through the portal, she figured out that the pattern of jewels in the door looked like a constellation. I hand-waved that she figured out that it was what the sky would look like soon, and they waited the necessary 2 hours, and voila! Open door.

They entered the room with the spear guardians. The spear guardians did their best, but only one connected with a spear. The characters took the spears and the scale mail. She was pretty paranoid about it though. So, proud!

They entered the room with the giant napalm sprinkler statue. She experimented by moving the party, splitting the party, examining the statue, and so forth. They were trying to figure out if it was dangerous. It was, of course, but not until someone opened the door. She also figured out that the scorch marks weren't from a campfire at all. This was just her reasoning it out on her own. Clever little girl! In the end, they went through the door into the room with the gazing pool. One of them died from fire from the statue. We had to stop and have a discussion about "Stop, drop, and roll!" because (WTF?) they don't teach that in school anymore. It didn't matter, though, as they managed to move through the door in pretty good order. They did forget to close it behind them though, allowing the statue to take out another PC. He failed his "Stop, Drop, and Roll" roll, though, and expired shortly thereafter.

Once in the room they saw the pool and the crystal statues. She didn't jump to any conclusions, though, and allowed them to approach. After a bit, she figured out they weren't a danger, and turned her attention to the pool. They pried out 20 of the crystals and noticed it was draining rapidly. They got out of it and made their way to the door leading to the downward spiral staircase. After trying to figure out if the crystaline beings would follow them, I said that they couldn't move down stairs. The party descended, never to return.

At the bottom, a search turned up the silver statues in the Strategy Room. They exited into the chamber with the clay army in it. This is where things got bad for them. Although the water had destroyed the clay foot soldiers, I ruled that the generals were still in action, as the map suggested that they might be elevated above the pool. That's how it looked anyway. At this point the fatal tragedy started to unfold.

The generals moved to the left and right around the now-mud army, toward the end of the room where the party was clusterfucked. The daughter decided to split the party to meet each group with roughly equal numbers (5 and 4) of the remaining PCs. While they managed to kill two of them, the generals proved too strong, and she really rolled poorly while I rolled well. The end was a TPK.

After, I talked to her about her strategy, and about why splitting the party might have been a bad idea, and how doing so helped the generals to cut off their escape. There may or may not have been additional discussion of Scooby Doo.

She still doesn't have a sense of "routine" measures (e.g., searching for traps and secret doors, tactical doctrine, etc.), but that will come. I'm looking forward to having her play with other gamers, people who have done it a lot before. She'll pick it up quickly, I think. Her mom, though, refused to play. I'll have to work on that. "But honey, it's an opportunity to do something with your daughter! Don't you love your daughter?" And she will laugh at me, because she already spends a ton of time with her.

In any case, we both had a lot of fun. She liked digging the crystals out of the gazing pool, and how that helped her kill most of the clay army. She was surprised by this. "Hey, Lucy, what are you going to try to do next time?" Her: "Not die!"