My Son, My Hero

[BobDerme]

Year: 2005
Location: Indy

Six months before we went to Gen Con we started planning. This would be my son’s first Gen Con and he knew he wanted to play D&D at Gen Con. We decided that Living Greyhawk would be the best approach. This way he’d be playing a character that he was familiar with. We’d played a few Living Greyhawk games at local conventions and game days, so when Gen Con arrived, Robert was well versed at playing his cleric, Jake.

We found a low-level group for our event. Though none of the other 4 players said anything, I had a feeling that they weren’t sure how this kid would play. Robert was quiet for the early parts of the adventure, asking a few questions and accepting the answers. About mid-way through the adventure, shortly after entering the dungeon area, a pair of zombies surprised the group. Robert was first to act, and without hesitation he used Jake’s turn undead ability to great success, destroying the beasts.

The question marks turned to smiles and, as the adventure progressed, Robert used Jakes spells and abilities to support the party to great effect. In the final encounter my fighter character charged into a line of enemy archers to draw their fire from the rest of the party. The others engaged the enemy melee fighters as my fighter battled the archers. And while the archers fell, the managed to wound my character. As the last enemy melee fighter fell, so did my character. Jake had 1 spell left. It was the spell that could save my character from death. My son charged his character through the last archer and cast his spell just in time. Jake dispatched that remaining archer the following round, to the cheers of the others at the table.

My pride rose even higher when I heard a couple of the other players telling Robert that he’d done a great job, and their surprise to learn that he was only 9-years-old.