Games To Raise Kids On: The D&D Adventure System
Playing boardgames is the activity we use to bring our family together, and this series explores the games that have given us hours of enjoyment and fun.
Our family's encounter with the D&D Adventure System began one fateful day in a thrift store where my elementary-aged son found copies of Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, and the Legend of Drizzt. They were incomplete sets--one of the boxes was gone, some miniatures and tiles were missing, but most of it was there. We took them home and our adventures began.
My personal journey with D&D began decades earlier, of course, when I discovered the original paper and pencil role-playing game in the 5th grade. I have fond memories of crawling through dungeons with my friends, fighting monsters and evil wizards, uncovering arcane treasures and becoming heroes of renown. It was good to watch my son's excitement as he was introduced to the same fantasy world, to see his imagination captivated by its potential for exploration and adventure.
The D&D Adventure System Board Games occupy a special place for our family. Though we did a little old school role-playing with our kids, traditional role-playing games have a hard time bridging the generational gap. Role playing games are great fun with your peer group. For kids especially, they are filled with silliness and humor. It's not the same when you play with your parents, and older gamers likely favor more serious game play.
The D&D Adventure System Board Games offer a perfect middle ground. The game has its role-playing elements. You can imagine yourself as the heroic but intellectually challenged barbarian, or the less than trustworthy thief who tends to pocket more than his share of the party's treasure, and Dad can play his wizard character and have his running commentary on how the whole party just exists as his bodyguards. And as you achieve certain milestones in the scenarios, there are passages to read that set the mood and narrate the adventure so you feel like you are a participant in a role-playing story.
But at its heart, the board game elements keep the game grounded and moving forward. Gridded dungeon tiles set clear limits on movement of the miniatures. Each character has cards that describe the possible actions and special abilities they can resolve. Other cards control the tactics of the monsters you encounter, the defenses the dungeon throws at you, and the treasure you can loot.
No game master is needed to run the game. All the players get to play cooperatively. And no large investment of time for planning a game is needed. Just pick a scenario from the included book, choose your characters, set up the tiles to explore and a few encounter decks, and the adventure is ready.
This game was also fun for us as a family outside the game itself. It was the game that originally got us into painting plastic miniatures, which has been a staple activity in our household. And for me as an obsessive designer, it is a great game to modify and tweak. The sets usually contain multiples of certain miniatures, and it wasn't long before we were making our own versions of new monsters. Each spider, wolf, drake, and bear got its own unique paint job and a custom card with new abilities. Later, we began to pull in other fantasy miniatures and integrate them into the game. Once we exhausted the included adventures, then came the making of custom scenarios and new villains. Truly, it became an endless game that accompanied our family through the years as the kids grew to adulthood.
The D&D Adventure System sets are highly recommended by all members of our family. If you have kids in the upper elementary grades or middle school, it's the perfect time to guide them into this imaginary world of swords, magic, and heroic deeds.
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