pentapoda

[pentapoda]

There is now a second set of children who demand the kid dnd experience (i played with them once over a year ago and apparently they have not forgotten), so here we go

This is a set of caves that overlaps with an ancient tomb and is inhabited by weird mushrooms and magical cave creatures. Aside from combat encounters, the main obstacle is size. Most tunnels connecting the caverns are rat tunnels, so the kids have to find a way to either 1) unblock the larger main passage or 2) fit into the teeny little rat tunnels.

The session plan is vaguely based on the heroes kids ttrpg intro adventure (basement full 'o rats), but spruced up unnecessarily because the kids don't care but i'd be bored.

(Map drawn with "dungeon scrawler" online map thing + a bunch of highlighters & a micron pen)

[pentapoda]

Update: they survived because the stupid wizard kept accidentally throwing healing potions at them instead of, you know, evil potions. I guess the dice didn't want to kill grandma. At least not this week.

kid dnd, which means more fun with game mechanics i just made up

doing kid dnd prep for monday night. we've abandoned any educational content (aside from the inescapable educational content of imagination, problem solving, and probability).

First off is the clue they'll need "ice magic" to solve, aka putting something in the freezer (no, for real). Basically i bought these pens:

Because they were cute and next to the register (I'm easy and bad at impulse control) and it turns out they're erasable. Now with erasable pens, that means that the ink becomes clear when heat is applied (the "erasers" cause heat through friction), which made me wonder if putting the ink in the freezer would make it visible again. Turns out it does! So, nephew will receive a paper with steps to get into the evil wizard's workshop... but! one key step has been erased. (It's currently hidden by the blue highlighter swirlies).

so....looking forward to that!!

Other highlights: the evil wizard's special ability is throwing random shit from his chemistry set at you

Also, since they're in the wizard district with the wizard school, there's chance of random enchantments due to inexperienced baby mages.

i put some hidden "useful" aspects into a few of them, and I'm hoping somebody will try some off-label usage, as it were

anyway wish me luck

[pentapoda]

Here's the clue post-spending a minute in the freezer. As you can see, the erased ink doesn't come back at full strength but it does become visible. Nephew was very into acting out the full unlock sequence. (The party initially set off the trap before realizing there was a secret instruction, but everyone was able to dodge it.)

kid dnd, which means more fun with game mechanics i just made up

doing kid dnd prep for monday night. we've abandoned any educational content (aside from the inescapable educational content of imagination, problem solving, and probability).

First off is the clue they'll need "ice magic" to solve, aka putting something in the freezer (no, for real). Basically i bought these pens:

Because they were cute and next to the register (I'm easy and bad at impulse control) and it turns out they're erasable. Now with erasable pens, that means that the ink becomes clear when heat is applied (the "erasers" cause heat through friction), which made me wonder if putting the ink in the freezer would make it visible again. Turns out it does! So, nephew will receive a paper with steps to get into the evil wizard's workshop... but! one key step has been erased. (It's currently hidden by the blue highlighter swirlies).

so....looking forward to that!!

Other highlights: the evil wizard's special ability is throwing random shit from his chemistry set at you

Also, since they're in the wizard district with the wizard school, there's chance of random enchantments due to inexperienced baby mages.

i put some hidden "useful" aspects into a few of them, and I'm hoping somebody will try some off-label usage, as it were

anyway wish me luck

[pentapoda]

kid dnd, which means more fun with game mechanics i just made up

doing kid dnd prep for monday night. we've abandoned any educational content (aside from the inescapable educational content of imagination, problem solving, and probability).

First off is the clue they'll need "ice magic" to solve, aka putting something in the freezer (no, for real). Basically i bought these pens:

Because they were cute and next to the register (I'm easy and bad at impulse control) and it turns out they're erasable. Now with erasable pens, that means that the ink becomes clear when heat is applied (the "erasers" cause heat through friction), which made me wonder if putting the ink in the freezer would make it visible again. Turns out it does! So, nephew will receive a paper with steps to get into the evil wizard's workshop... but! one key step has been erased. (It's currently hidden by the blue highlighter swirlies).

so....looking forward to that!!

Other highlights: the evil wizard's special ability is throwing random shit from his chemistry set at you

Also, since they're in the wizard district with the wizard school, there's chance of random enchantments due to inexperienced baby mages.

i put some hidden "useful" aspects into a few of them, and I'm hoping somebody will try some off-label usage, as it were

anyway wish me luck

[pentapoda]

Dorian, Will, and Orym. I was trying to draw a real picture, but it was too hard, so instead have my artist's headcanon on some differences between Will & Dorian.

[pentapoda]

Update on the emotionally-paralyzing Dinolisks:

Shocking no one with child-experience, the 5 year old spotted the educational content a mile off and curled up in a ball under the table, saying we should skip his turn because he didn't want to do it. Ironically, curling up in a ball and skipping his turn was the in-game consequence written on the card.

On the other hand, it was really funny (to me personally) to make my mother go through the "manage emotions" mechanics that the nephew refused to do.

Not for the reason you think, though.

Because step 2 to the "Manage Emotions" mechanic is "saying why you feel that way." You have to come up with a plausible reason that your character would feel the emotion in these silly pseudo-medieval circumstances. And you can't say "The monster made me feel that way" because your character doesn't know that.

My mom is a great sport playing D&D when she has not a single nerdy bone in her body and zero experience creating her own fictional stories. So "Imagine a reason your character - a bear who is also an archer - would feel angry while fighting a dinosaur/basilisk hybrid on the docks of a medievalish city with a modern subway system except the trains are giant millipedes" is a big ask that I personally enjoyed asking.

And gosh darn it, she came up with something.

This week kid dnd is going to be slightly more educational than normal. Last week, they were at the monster market, and some creatures got loose. I asked the players each for a 'scary animal'. Wee child: Dinosaur! His aunt: Basilisk. His grandma: ??? Me: Ok, so... Dinolisk.

Dinner was ready, so we ended there. Had a week to realize that I don't want to deal with passerby turning to stone, so... their gaze freezes you with... emotion. Wish me luck???

[pentapoda]

"Gay Christmas" 2025 is prepped and ready to go!

I would feel more accomplished if it i weren't so aware of the things i was procrastinating while doing this XD

as an aunt to small children, i have introduced the annual tradition of gay christmas, wherein at some point in june, i show up and give the kids a bunch of rainbow shit

[pentapoda]

This week kid dnd is going to be slightly more educational than normal. Last week, they were at the monster market, and some creatures got loose. I asked the players each for a 'scary animal'. Wee child: Dinosaur! His aunt: Basilisk. His grandma: ??? Me: Ok, so... Dinolisk.

Dinner was ready, so we ended there. Had a week to realize that I don't want to deal with passerby turning to stone, so... their gaze freezes you with... emotion. Wish me luck???

[pentapoda]

as an aunt to small children, i have introduced the annual tradition of gay christmas, wherein at some point in june, i show up and give the kids a bunch of rainbow shit

[pentapoda]

were these game mechanics i just made up mostly lost on the five year old? Yes, but tbf, he was very solid on the bit where he could weaken ghosts by doing a little booty wiggle + fart noises. that's why i always rope in at least one adult so that someone appreciates the little things, like that the legend for the city map includes a district called "monster town". that's the magic combo - a child making fart noises + a grown-up willing to read the footnotes.

anyway, point is combat was a success; i got to use all my sizes of chicken standups and later watch the 5 year old try to explain a giant chicken to his parents and grandparents over dinner.

Which, btw, was chicken.

Getting ready for another installment of dnd with a five year old and a three year old

[pentapoda]

@laylainalaska i had an extremely delightful time periodically saying, "oh, i gotta roll for the chicken!" in the middle of players doing other shit during the whole combat encounter.

Because, you see, it was very important that the chicken be totally irrelevant to everything going on ("everything going on" = fae-touched pig and sheep attacking from the west door while castle ghosts attacked from the east door). Every time the chicken changed size, players would ask -- again -- if it was perhaps looking threatening? Maybe turning the pink- green color combo that marked the fae- touched animals? Did it look... ghostly? Was it doing... *anything*?

Me: Nope! It is searching for bugs in the hay using its special ability, bug-spotter.

Players: ....

Me: 🥰

Getting ready for another installment of dnd with a five year old and a three year old

[pentapoda]

Getting ready for another installment of dnd with a five year old and a three year old

[pentapoda]

Since @maybee-not asked, here is the character sheet I use to play D&D with kids, based on Hero Kids Fantasy RPG (and therefore not D&D but we call it D&D anyway). I use the Hero Kid rules and their tips about playing with kids, but I write my own adventures rather than using the prewritten ones from Hero Kids because that's more fun for me (I have binders, multiple binders).

The only stats are strength (melee attack), dexterity (ranged attack) and intelligence (magic attack). The skills section lets you add nuance with things like dark vision, perception, social skills, tracking, lock-picking, or whatever your heart desires, which the player or the DM can call on to adjust the difficulty. The five year old filled it entirely with pictures of individual fruits and vegetables once, so I just gave him advantage on anything food or health related.

Since there aren't spell slots or spell levels for magic users, I've had success telling the kids that they get to pick one magic power for the session. The kids have chosen things like: turning themselves or someone else invisible, "freeze powers" like freeze tag, lifting and throwing stuff with magic. On their turn, they can use their attack to do damage or use their power without doing damage (e.g., cause the giant spider to freeze in place and be unable to attack).

I also give out bonuses to incentivize the kids to be creative and ridiculous (i.e., be more entertaining to me, the DM). The bonuses are +1 coupons they can spend to improve their rolls any time that session. Things I give bonuses for: enthusiastically acting out what their character does, giving a vivid and specific description of an action, coming up with creative and out of the box ideas, and/or tactics requiring teamwork between two players (a la "fastball special"), etc. They can spend their bonus points on any roll that session.

Obviously I could spend a lot of time talking about this, but I'll end it there for now.

Haven't been writing much fic, haven't been drawing much fanart

what i have been doing is playing dnd with little kids.

Characters i have been asked for: a kangaroo wearing an outfit that looks like green goblin's outfit from the spidey show (5 year old), a monkey princess (8 year old), an owl wizard named drama girl (3 year old), a koala wizard wearing a Mario tshirt (5 year old), Princess Rainbow kitty who has butterfly wings, multiple magic wands and eats ghosts (3 year old).

The five year old has since graduated to drawing his own, so I no longer play a role as creative consultant unless he needs help spelling ("how many Gs are in 'Diggy'?" - for a pangolin fighter).

I have learned that character sheets are really coloring sheets and this is essential to maintaining their attention. Also, they will need a new one for each session (hence the reformat from a full page to a half page when i understood how many i was gonna need).

[pentapoda]

Haven't been writing much fic, haven't been drawing much fanart

what i have been doing is playing dnd with little kids.

Characters i have been asked for: a kangaroo wearing an outfit that looks like green goblin's outfit from the spidey show (5 year old), a monkey princess (8 year old), an owl wizard named drama girl (3 year old), a koala wizard wearing a Mario tshirt (5 year old), Princess Rainbow kitty who has butterfly wings, multiple magic wands and eats ghosts (3 year old).

The five year old has since graduated to drawing his own, so I no longer play a role as creative consultant unless he needs help spelling ("how many Gs are in 'Diggy'?" - for a pangolin fighter).

I have learned that character sheets are really coloring sheets and this is essential to maintaining their attention. Also, they will need a new one for each session (hence the reformat from a full page to a half page when i understood how many i was gonna need).

[pentapoda]

Every time someone comments on my old fic, i feel like I'm an old actor getting paid residuals. Appreciate you, old-fic-commenters. Key source of emotional income, tbh.

[pentapoda]

WOW. Filed under "images that immediately make me message the artist about commissions".

Based on Judith Slaying Holofernes, I love this painting and it’s on my midterm study list so I’ve been thinking about it a lot (made this instead of studying for said midterm)

Anyway jourrael is kinda a girlboss ngl im sad she didn’t show up more (ik she’s supposed to be evil and very bad and all that but slay lowkey)

Gonna leave the og painting under the cut for those who aren’t familiar

[pentapoda]

I just think they're neat