Rules for Zombie Dreidel

 

So here's a little Hannuka themed game, born while sitting around a table at a Hannuka-themed Bat-Mitzva party with members of my gaming group. It's inspired from Steve Jackson's Zombie Dice. It makes for a light holiday-themed party game.

Rules

The Original d4

You are Macabees, resisting the Greek(Seleucid) conquerors. Each time you roll the dice, you go to battle!

Equipment

You will need a pile of 8-10 dreidels, and a writing implement/smartphone to track everyone's score.

Winning

Whoever gets to 8 points first wins!

Your Turn

Turns go around the table. On your turn, roll 3 dreidels like dice, representing the next 3 Greek warriors facing you!

• Gimel- you defeated your opponent, get 1 point
• Hey- you scored a hit on your opponent, get 1/2 point
• Nun- you and your opponent are still facing off
• Shin(or Pey)- your opponent scored a hit on you

Put your points on one side, and the hits against you on the other. The Nuns go back in your hand. If your opponents score 2 hits on you, your turn ends and you lose any points you gained this turn!

If you survived your first turn, you must choose to either

1. Tactical Retreat- write down the points you gained this turn, and pass to the next player
2. Continue Fighting- leave the Gimels, Heys, Shins you rolled on the table. Pick up the Nuns you rolled and more dreidels from the pile for a total of 3 and roll again!

The real Hannuka battle is one of willpower!

You can choose to keep pressing your luck and Continue Fighting until you win with 8 total points or you get two hits against you, in which case you lose any points scored this turn. My personal advice- quit while you're ahead! Remember, the real Maccabees won with Guerilla tactics!

Have a happy holiday and don't eat too many Sufganiot!

Lycanthropy for Fun and Profit!

Due to the Passover holiday, we had 13 gamers turn up for game night, including 8 kids(my daughter included). We decided to "split the party" and run an adults game and a kids game. Avi ran the adults game. I got the kids. It was not dull. Rarely has so much ADHD sat around a single table. We continued our long-running Swords and Wizardry Palace of the Silver Princess campaign. Here is the summary:

Characters:

• Princessa- Human Fighter with a bastard sword, ring mail and a shot bow. Watch out for this one!
• Minionoid- son Minion. A chaotic Elven thief with a two handed sword who has joined the party for obscure reasons
• Ragnar- Chaotic Dark-Elf Assasin who backstabs people with his two-handed sword
• Yoland- Elf Wizard with a staff and a Javelin
• Blitzen- Tough Dwarven Fighter lady
• Aragon- Elf Wizard who aspires to fireballing everything
• Firestorm- Elf Druidess who loves animals

Summary

The party started off in N'Sau, a village full of war-refugees. First everyone got excited about fishing and made skill rolls. Minionoid then decided it was time to avenge his father, so the party started their journey to the Palace. Blitzen decided to stay and fish and was eventually eaten by Bears(I think her player realized she was ~5 years older than any of the other players, so she quickly lost interest)

They encountered a lone Wolf Warrior on horseback. They tried to kill him but he fled. Firestorm befriended his horse, so he was forced to flee on foot and she kept his horse.

At night, they encountered a Bugbear and two Orcs. Yoland charmed the Bugbear, and the Orcs were killed, with much excitement over the division of treasure. Minion was knocked unconscious and bandaged by Firestorm and the party took a few days for him to heal.

Updated map of ground level

(A quick DM note: I quickly realized that with 6 hyperactive kids shouting , having everyone roll for initiative to determine combat order, as I usually do, was simply not going to work. I chose to just go clockwise around the table, with the Monsters going last, which worked much better, especially with kids getting up and changing seats.)

Upon reaching the Palace the next day, the party saw two Wolf Warriors riding in the front gate. They climbed in through the tower window.

They did some exploring, encountered killer bubbles, and purple moss. They found a statue of mother and daughter with a hidden compartment revealing a riddle about My Lady's Heart. At this point, they have explored most of the ground-level of the dungeon, except for the Northwestern and Southeastern quadrants.

Ragnar discovered a treasure, including gold and a silver Wolf Warrior ring, but was discovered by the rest of the party. Princessa and Minionoid beat him up, divvied up the stuff, with Firestorm healing him and taking the ring.

They party then encountered a red-headed amazon. They chased her and when she turned to face them Princessa and Firestorm began to parlay with her. Her name is Aliegha and she is here because of her master. She was happy to hear that the party had killed some Wolf Warriors, since they have been hunting her.

At this point, Minionoid and Ragnar got bored and wanted to just kill Aliegha. This really upset the two girls, who were trying to befriend her. (Was a really funny pre-teen boys/girls dynamic for me to observe.) Finally, Minionoid declared he was shooting an arrow at her, while Ragnar snuck up behind her for the backstab.

Aliegha was injured, but suddenly shape-changed into a bear, knocked Minionoid unconscious and chased away Ragnar. Then she told the girls her story.

She is a Werebear, cursed with lycanthropy and hunted by the Wolf Warriors, notorious lycanthrope hunters. She is here because she works for her master, a powerful Cleric, Catharandamus. He made a deal with the Goblin king: he will help the Goblins take-over Gulluvia, and the Goblins will then help him find My Lady's Heart.

Princessa and Firestorm tried to convince Aliegha to revoke her support for this evil plan, but she sadly told them there was nothing she could do. She urged the party to flee this place and go on with their lives elsewhere.

Princessa convinced Aliegha to bite her, thus giving her lycanthropy too! With that, Aliegha bade them farewell and left.

We ended there, and everyone got 500XP, which just pushed Princessa to 2nd Level!

On Running Games for Kids

This was my first time running a game for kids who were mostly not my own. It was fun but hard! The kids' energy was high, but they also occasionally got distracted and wandered off. My daughter, for example, went and made herself an omelette at one point, but was also very engaged at other points and overall told me she had a great time and couldn't wait to play again. Another kid was very engaged for most of the game, but disappeared about 1/2 an hour before the end.

Character creation was a bit hectic with all the new players. Some ported over an existing character from another game to 1st Level Swords and Wizardry, others created characters from scratch. All but one of the kids had played some form of DnD before, either joining for one of our adult games or going to a paid, after-school DnD activity, run by a guy in the neighborhood.

Two brothers who were there were constantly fighting with each other. I didn't manage to separate them, but if I run another game in this series I definitely would. Their dad told me they had an amazing time though, so apparently the fighting didn't hurt their experience, even if it distracted me.

One thing for sure is that, if I run a game like this again, I will implement a "No Screens" rule during play(to be fair, I've had this with adult players, which is infinitely more annoying). One of the players was on his phone the entire time and we had to keep calling him over to the table and explaining him what was happening now. At some point I just stopped calling him over.

Finally, I think that I would cap the number of players at the end. Seven is just too much, and anyway, three of them dropped-off leaving us with four highly engaged characters at the end.

Lost in the Dungeon

We had another good turnout this session with my 3 eldest plus A&L came over. They brought their 3 year old, so when my 5 year old's attention span went he went off to play with her. He was reluctantly recalled to the table whenever thieving skills were needed.

The Lineup

1. Princessa- Human Fighter with a bastard sword, ring mail and a shot bow. Watch out for this one!
2. Melech Yisrael- Elf Fighter/Magic User. He carries a longsword and longbow along with his spellbook
3. Lavi- Dwarven Fighter/Thief with leather armor, magic longsword, and light crossbow
4. Ragnar- a bastard of a Ranger with a bastard sword
5. Moriah- a Cleric lady with a warhammer. Yay, a healer- oh wait, it's S&W so she's waiting to get some spells at second level...

Session Summary

The party decided to change directions and explore the Southwest side of the dungeon. I rolled a random encounter and got 9- Scouting Party of Wolf Warriors.

Now, module B3 may say who the Wolf Warriors are, but if so, I couldn't find it. Also, a quick google search fails to turn up anything. So, I did what DMs do and made something up!

The Wolf Warriors are an evil mercenary band(think The Black Company) scouting out the location to use as a base for their next nefarious plan. Their plate mail has the face of a snarling wolf stamped into it.

After some tense parlay with the party, they decided to team up against the monsters. The party took them to the room with the giant invincible monkeys. The monkeys were defeated at last! One Wolf Warrior was injured, so they took half the treasure in the room and left the dungeon. We may see these guys again though!

The party mapped out most of the West side of the dungeon, with it's weird caves and cult areas. They killed some more monkeys and found treasure locked away in a cell. After failing a few lock-picking rolls they heard boots and harsh voices approaching!

We ended the session there!

Run From the Killer Monkeys

Characters:

1. Princessa- Human Fighter with a bastard sword, ring mail and a shot bow. Watch out for this one!
2. Melech Yisrael- Elf Fighter/Magic User. He carries a longsword and longbow along with his spellbook
3. Lavi- Dwarven Fighter/Thief with leather armor,  magic longsword, and light crossbow
4. Minion- a chaotic Elven thief with a two handed sword who has joined the party for obscure reasons
5. Ragnar- a bastard of a Ranger with a bastard sword
6. Moriah- a Cleric lady with a warhammer. Yay, a healer- oh wait, it's S&W so she's waiting to get some spells at second level...

Dungeon Map

Picking up from last session, the party rested a few uneventful days, then ventured out into the dungeon. They went downstairs from the tower level and opened the door to the killer monkeys. They immediately changed their minds and closed the door, securing it with a Hold Portal spell. They quickly met two new PCs, Ragnar and Moriah who were lost in the dungeon. They decided to team up in search of slaying Evil critters.

The party did a lot of exploring. They met an even greater than themselves, and found lots of good treasure, including a magic throwing dagger. That said, they don't seem to be any closer to discovering My Lady's Heart or the source of the Goblinoid invasion...

Palace of the Silver Princess Season 2

With the change to Winter time, the kids and I are picking-up our Swords and Wizardry campaign again where we left off half a year ago. Not only that, but one of our neighbor's kids just got into Magic Cards, so he jumped at the chance to join our DnD game when I mentioned it. So the party as it currently stands:

1. Princessa- Human Fighter with a bastard sword, ring mail and a shot bow. Watch out for this one!
2. Melech Yisrael- Elf Fighter/Magic User. He carries a scimitar and longbow along with his spellbook
3. Lavi- Dwarven Fighter/Thief with leather armor,  magic longsword, and light crossbow
4. Minion- a chaotic Elven thief with a two handed sword who has joined the party for obscure reasons

Gulluvia

Gulluvia City

The party begin in the house of Mooncow the Artificer, a Jeweler(and his daughter) who they had previously saved from the goblins.

The three veteran members wanted to head straight for the Palace of the Silver Princess, while Minion wanted to know where he could earn large quantities of coin. They managed to convince him and the party headed out.

But before they could escape the city, a roving Goblin patrol, led by a huge Bugbear, overpowered them(despite Melech's excellent shooting and successful charming of one of the goblins). They woke up in a house that had been modified as a holding cell.

Together, the party members managed to break the lock and Minion found his sword in a pile of equipment and backstabbed the Orc guard into the netherworld. The party managed to find all their equipment, but gave up on recovering their mounts from among the goblin camp laying siege to the castle in Gulluvia. Instead, the party snuck down an alley and made for the nearest exit from the city, killing a couple wandering Goblins on their way out.

Overland

Kingdom

The party shunned the main road and took the less used path to N'Sau. They avoided fairy trickery at night and chased a bear. After two days' brisk hiking, they arrived at the village. After buying some supplies, they headed North.

While heading through the forest, the party was held up by a band of bandit archers hiding in the trees. Minion managed to sweet-talk them into accepting 10GP and leaving the party alone.

The Palace

Arriving at the palace, the party climbed back up the tower and started searching rooms. They found a room full of spare short-swords but were discovered by an angry looking bugbear. The Thieves jumped to attack him. They dispatched the beasie, but Minion was left wounded and unconscious, so they decided to bunker down in an unoccupied room and heal-up.

ODnD Kids 4: Flummoxed by Faeries

Well, here's another session I didn't write up, until now that is! Hopefully, my memory isn't too foggy, it was only a month ago or so...

This one was a bit different than previous sessions in that my two boys were in bed, while my eldest stayed up to play with me and two friends.

The Party

1. Princessa- Human Fighter with a bastard sword, ring mail and a shot bow. Watch out for this one!
2. Kevin Lockbuster- burly Halfling Thief with a longsword on his hip and darts up his sleeve
3. Jad the Witch Hunter- zealous cleric with a mace in his hand and retribution in his heart!

Tavern Tales

I didn't want to have Kevin and Jad meet Princessa in the Palace of the Silver Princess, where the party left off, so we said that they had returned to the village of N'Sau to resupply. They met up in the local tavern but couldn't find sleeping arrangements since the town was flooded with refugees from Gulluvia. The party decided to seek their fortunes in Mere to the East, they decided to leave immediately in the afternoon and camp at nightfall.

That said, the second watch was interrupted by strange, beckoning lights in the forest. The party dressed and left their tents to investigate. They followed the lights deeper into the forest, then deeper, then deeper still until hopelessly lost. They ended up fighting an bear, Kevin was badly injured, and they spent a difficult night in the forest. At dawn they managed to find their way back to their camp, though all their food had been eaten by animals.

The party returned to N'Sau to heal up and resupply and tried again the trail to Mere. This time, they found themselves being followed by riders. They hid in the forest and saw a whole band of bandits was on their trail. Their leader, a cunning looking old coot with an eye-patch, ordered them to sweep the forest in search of the party. The party engaged the bandits. It was a close battle. Jad was badly wounded, but the bandits were defeated and their leader captured. A close investigation of his person revealed a very nice emerald in his eye.

The party made it to the Halfling village of Mere. The locals were very hospitable, especially to Kevin. They took charge of One Eyed Jack, the notorious bandit leader, pointing out that his gang would surely ransom him(yet again) in a few days. He was angry with the party for taking his gemstone and swore revenge.

The party decided to check out war-ravaged Gulluvia. They defeated a group of Goblin Scouts and entered the city. They found a jeweler, but his residence was besieged by a squad of Orcs. The party defeated the Orcs and the jeweler was so thankful he gave them a good price for Jack's Eye-Socket Jewel.

ODnD Kids 3: Horse Cleaning Service

This session picked up where Session 2 left off, with the party in dire straits. Deep in the dungeon, Giant Killer Monkeys finished off Frog and Toad and the rest of the party barely escaped with their lives. The survivors decided to make a hasty exit and rest up in the forest. But first, the lineup:

1. Princessa- Human Fighter with a bastard sword, ring mail and a shot bow. Watch out for this one!
2. Melech Yisrael- Elf Fighter/Magic User. He carries a scimitar and longbow along with his spellbook
3. Lavi- Dwarven Fighter/Thief with leather armor, longsword, and light crossbow

They made their way back up the stairs, avoided a Bugbear, and rappelled right back out the tower window. They then mounted up and rode deep into the forest to rest up.

In the Forest

The first afternoon of resting, the party heard voices. Lavi snuck into the brush to investigate. Two evil priests were walking along a game path towards the Palace, discussing the success of the goblinoid invasion of Gulluvia. The party ambushed them. Melech Yisrael's Charm Person spell failed, as did Lavi's backstab, but the party still managed to overwhelm the surprised clerics.

Their rest continued undisturbed a couple days longer. That said, they only have a few more days of rations before they'll need to resupply...

Map of Entryway, Explored Territory

Palace: Take 2

Upon returning to the palace, the party decided to try entering via the main entrance with it's raised portcullis. Together they managed to lift all the barriers and they chose the branch ahead and to the right. They debated whether to leave their horses outside to graze or bring them in, ultimately opting for the latter approach this time.

The party searched room by room, hoping to discover the legendary gem, My Lady's Heart. Instead they found rotting food, filthy dishes, and a carrion crawler. Their search didn't go entirely unrewarded, though, as they found 3 GP of a strange old coinage and a wand of Detect Secret Doors.

We ended the session there, but The Campaign will continue next time...

ODnD Kids: Session 2

Well, me and the kids got together for another session of Palace of the Silver Princess. Here's the scoop:

The Party:

1. Princessa- Human Fighter with a bastard sword, ring mail and a shot bow. Watch out for this one!
2. Melech Yisrael- Elf Fighter/Magic User. He carries a scimitar and longbow along with his spellbook
1. Frog- a charmed Goblin
2. Toad- a charmed Orc
3. Lavi- Dwarven Fighter/Thief with leather armor, longsword, and light crossbow

Last time, the party escaped from Gulluvia, a city under attack.

This time, the party headed North towards the Palace of the Silver Princess to see if they could get to the bottom of the invasion and My Lady's Heart. They hitched a ride with a tinker and his daughter, but parted with him when he headed to Dead Mule.

Mysterious Sponsors

The party met a group of Elves, out hunting Orcs. When Melech told them of their mission, they gave him a Potion of Extra Healing, before continuing on their way. When Princessa and Lavi asked for a boon, they were rebuffed as mere mortals.

The party arrived in the village of N'Sau. They bought rations at the general store and paid a farmer for board in his barn. At night they heard an owl hooting. Lavi went out to investigate. A great owl appeared to him and showed him to a tree with a bottle of powerful poison. Princessa went out to check on Lavi and saw the transaction. She asked the owl for a boon and was shown the way to a magic scroll. Not herself a wizard, she traded it with Melech for his potion.

Mount Up

Cpt. Vallaria Amazonus

The next day, the party hiked to the village of Thorold, known for it's fine horses. The party bought mules and donkeys. The local guard captain ordered the party to go to Gulluvia to help fight the invaders. Princessa told her that that is where they are headed and talked the good Captain into providing her with a fine horse from the Queen's stables. Melech and Lavi asked for horses too, but were rebuffed due to their inferior gender. The party pretended to leave in the direction of Gulluvia but then doubled back towards the mountains.

Grin and Bear It

They camped that night in a cave. While heating up their food, a huge, grumpy bear entered. Lavi fed it rations mixed with his bottle of poison. It lay down feeling sick. Lavi decided he wanted to be the bear's friend, but it died in his arms. The rest of the party celebrated the quick victory against the beast.

The Palace

The next day, the party crested the mountains and saw the valley stretching out before them, with the half-ruined palace in the middle. They descended on the desolate valley and approached the castle. Seeing the entrance blocked by a heavy portcullis, Lavi climbed up to the tower window, but was met by a smirking goblin. He stabbed it, and lowered a rope for the rest of the party, who left their animals to graze.

There was some cat and mouse with goblins and hobgoblins in the rooms of the tower, culminating in a short, but decisive fight. The party found a weapons rack with glowing weapons. Lavi picked a glowing sword while the other two took a quiver of arrows each. A voice praised the Lawful adventurers and the remaining weapons disappeared.

The party descended the stairs and fought some gigantic monkeys in a room with a checkered floor. The monkeys killed Frog and Toad and the rest of the party fled into the hall and Melech cast Hold Portal to keep the door shut. That was where we ended the session.

ODnD Kids: Session 1

Well, last weekend me and the kids kicked-off the Swords and Wizardry campaign I planned for them.

The Party

Warrior Woman, Magic Elf, and Dwarf Thief

1. Princessa- Human Fighter with a bastard sword, ring mail and a shot bow. Watch out for this one!
2. Melech Yisrael- Elf Fighter/Magic User. He carries a scimitar and longbow along with his spellbook
3. Lavi- Dwarven Fighter/Thief with leather armor, longsword, and light crossbow

The Setup

The party are visitors to the city of Gulluvia during the Great Festival. They woke in the morning to screams of terror from the street outside the inn. Lavi rushed to the window and saw, on the street below, a huge Hobgoblin fighting an ill-equipped city guard as residents fled in terror.

With some well-placed bow shots, the party dispatched the Hobgoblin and saved the guard, who told them the city is being invaded. They ran with him towards the city center to defend the royal palace.

Baby Snatching

Thanks, Maurice, for all the nightmares!

"My baby!"

The party sees a terrifying sight. A group of 9 Goblins have overwhelmed a mother and snatched her baby away.

Melech Yisrael cast Charm Person on the goblin holding the baby and ordered it to "Give it back to it's Mommy!" The Goblins attack and the party dispatches them. Their Guardsman friend goes down, pierced by Goblin barbs.

They ran to the central palace but saw it was under-siege by thousands of Goblinoid troops.

The Hook

The kids wanted to heal up their characters and they don't have a Cleric so I showed them where a Temple was on the map. The avoided a large melee on the way their and convinced the priests to open the door and let them in(along with their charmed Goblin buddy).

The priest healed them up and asked the charmed Goblin why the invasion is happening. The little guy told them that it was "to obtain My Lady's Heart". The Priest explained that there is a legend of a great ruby hidden in the cursed Castle in the mountains to the North. He suggested the party might investigate since the city troops are occupied.

Escape from New Gulluvia

The party decided to depart the city. They encountered a small patrol of Orcs ransacking a neighborhood. They charmed one Orc and dispatched the rest. They escaped the city and headed West on the Queen's Road, with friendly Orc and Goblin in tow.

So that was how it ended after about 90 minutes. The kids really had fun. Even my 4-year-old was really engaged until about an hour in, at which point his attention span ended and he wandered off. My daughter had fun but was a bit disappointed. Apparently she had the impression that DnD is something you play past midnight while gorging yourself on soda and junk food! (I have no idea where she got that impression...)

ODnD Campaign for Kids

My 8-year-old daughter's been after me for a while to run a D&D game for her(we've moved beyond Doggie Game). Her brother's got half a year of 1st grade under his belt, so I figured me might want to play too. That got me thinking how to run a pen and paper RPG for kids. The basic guidelines I came up with were as follows:

General Principles

1. Rules-Light: the kids aren't going to read much, except their character sheets and perhaps equipment lists, so the smaller the rule-set, the better
2. Short Sessions: due to short attention spans, sessions shouldn't last much longer than an hour
3. Standard DnD: I want to use the game to help the kids learn DnD rules, as opposed to choosing a simpler, non-DnD based kids RPG
4. Visual Aids: there should be lots of visual aids to orient them geographically, bring the game world to life
5. Light Tone: game should be G-rated and occasionally scary(but not too scary!)



Books

6. Cultural Context: the kids should be able to relate to the game world. They don't have much exposure to Tolkien, so the game should draw on other more familiar media

Swords and Wizardry

I ended up ordering a copy of Swords and Wizardry, a cleaned-up clone of ODnD. It's a very lightweight version of the rules, at under 150 pages. The one thing that surprised me is that, while Labyrinth Lord uses Race as Class, S&W keeps them separate, though with many limitations.

The Party

In any case, S&W is nice and simple and the kids rolled-up characters, and I helped them fill out their sheet. I limited their their options to keep things simple. So, for instance, I only offered them the 4 basic classes and I had to walk them through picking weapons and armor. I tailored the options I gave to each kid's developmental level, so when my 4 year old insisted on also getting a character, I had him roll the dice and offered him only the most basic of options. I also opted for ascending AC since the rules support both systems and it's a bit more intuitive.

Palace of the Silver Princess

Player Prep

In searching for a module to base the game on, I remembered a B3 Palace of the Silver Princess play-by-post game I played in years ago. It had a light, fairy tale sort of vibe.

The DM modified the starting scenario in a number of ways:

1. You start out visitors in a city for some big festival
2. You wake up in the morning in your room in the inn. All hell has broken loose- an army of Goblinoids are invading the city. A dragon rider was seen landing at ruler's palace.
3. The party fought their way through the streets to the palace, snuck in through the sewer
4. The palace was the the dungeon from Silver Princess, except occupied by royalty/servants
5. Our first encounter was a kitchen full of angry sentient furniture/silverware. Reminded me of Disney's Beauty and the Beast

I decided to adopt a lot of this for the kids' campaign, though the dungeon itself will still remain in the wilderness, 500 years abandoned. There is a connection between the invasion and the dungeon...

Game World

I had been wondering whether to set the game in the Faerun or perhaps Warren's Deep. Another great thing about Silver Princess is that it comes with a mini-sandbox in the form of a kingdom-map and descriptions of settlements, so that gives me a good basis to build on. Gulluvia will keep it's Amazonian vibe, though a more benign, sympathetic version.

Visual Aids

Maps of the Realm and the city of Gulluvia

Besides the kingdom map, I found an appropriate city map and printed it out to help the kids navigate the city during the invasion. Between S&W and DCC, I have pictures of all the Goblinoids the party is likely to encounter. The kids had fun coloring-in copies of the kingdom map and the dragon-rider illustration prior to the game.

Appendix N

Here are some influences to draw on for world building:

1. Munchkin card game
2. Fairy Tales
3. Tooth Fairy
4. Scooby Doo
5. Ninja Turtles
6. Superheroes
7. Octonauts
8. Disney Movies
9. Where the Wild Things Are
10. Mouseguard
11. Martial Arts lessons
12. Archery lessons
13. Family camping trips
14. Biblical stories
15. Jewish Folklore

The Hunt for Haman's Sons

So at some point during last week's Purim meal, I ran a game for the kids present(ages 4-8 I think) together with the help of a friend. This was particularly challenging both due to the young age of the players and because of the millennia-old Purim tradition to drink "until one cannot distinguish between the Cursed Haman and the Blessed Mordechai". I can't really claim to have reached that point, but I did put in a decent effort all the same...

In any case, due to the young age of the participants, the decision was made to run a LEGO/d6 based game with the simplest rules possible. This is what we came up with:

PC Stats

• HP= 2+armor(number of pieces worn- shirt/armor/helmet/shield)
• Movement=10-armor+1 for cape/robin hood cap
• Encubrance-whatever lego pieces your character can carry comfortably
• Initiative- go around the table in order, PC’s first, DM last(except in case of surprise)
• Specialties(pick 1)
• warrior- dual wield hand weapons, use great weapons(2 dmg)
• magician- need a magic wand/hat/cape/scroll etc. Unlimited spells:
• fly-anywhere on the board
• crumble-touch effect on wall or other scenery
• heal- heals all of this character’s damage. Touch effect
• Hypnotize- they miss their next turn. Must get them to look at you
• flame hand- shoots flames for 1 dmg. Range as lego flame

More Rules

• Skill checks need 4 or higher on a d6. Specialists need 3 or higher. For example, Warrior attack needs a 3 or higher, while magician needs 4 or higher. Magician spell needs 3 or higher.
• Melee weapons--if your weapon can reach him you can attack him.
• Great weapons--big axe, big sword. Take two hands
• Bows--line of sight, can’t be reloaded when engaged in melee. -1 for target behind partial cover

The Hunt is On!

As for the scenario, the Book of Esther relates that for two days the Jews in Shushan fought their enemies and slew the 10 sons of Haman, but no details of this adventure are given.  As such, the kids were told that they were following up a rumor that Haman's 10 sons are hiding in an abandoned villa(which I build ahead of time with the help of my kids). The scenario basically divides into 4 encounters:

Arisai, Aridai, Vaizatha

• 3x archers up high on villa's parapets. Fire on intruders.
• No armor, but they shoot from behind cover

Adalia, Aridatha, Parmashta

• 3x Cavalry waiting in yard
• 2 armor, Spears

Dalphon, Aspatha, Poratha

• 3x footsoldiers inside villa
• 3 armor each and hand weapons

Parshandatha

• 1 Priest of Zahhak
• Spells:
• Avatar of Zahhak- two vipers growing out of his shoulders to defend him, each gets an attack
• Summon Dragon 10hp, 3 attacks. Fly's from outside of villa--starts breaking it's way in

When I actually ran the scenario for 4 very excited kids, they had a blast putting together their characters, but then, once the game got started, almost all the rules got thrown out the window. Equipment-based stats and movement rate were simply not an option given the manic energy-level in the room, and the only Magician just wanted to flame-hands every turn anyway, so not much variety in spells cast. Matters were further complicated by the younger kids' really unique method of indicating which enemy they were attacking, by smashing him(and any of the Manse's walls that happened to get in the way) repeatedly with their own character!

In any case, Haman's sons didn't stand a chance against these young Murder-Hobos and once the smoke had cleared, my kids reported that the game had been most satisfactory. In other news, our hosts reported that they are still finding LEGO pieces scattered throughout the house.