The Day of Your Life

Bear in mind that we are entering, in this retelling, maybe day 3 of E's discovery of D&D. As it turns out, this was more than enough time for him to decide to try his hand at being a gamemaster -- bless all eight years of him. After we returned from the game store, he announced it was time for HIM to make a dungeon, and for me to make a character. Well, there's a lot to be said for fostering ambition. So I let him tell me what he wanted to do.

E began to narrate the "things" his dungeon needed to have: an incubator, a training room, a secret passage, an arena ... As he went, he drew inspiration from a dungeon cross-section featured prominently in the DMG. I have to admit, the picture has a powerful appeal -- makes me want to sit down and start hammering out a dungeon myself:



Well, guided by this architecturally correct, exploded-view dungeon, E continued to enumerate the key features of his dungeon. Once we had a list of a dozen or so, I began to draw a map that incorporated them. We went back and forth on each item, trying to decide where to incorporate it and how it should look. I'll share our results, though really, they're none too legible. I'll do my best to transcribe the legend.



The legend, as best I can read it, goes like this:

1. Orc guards; giant owl statue; thick wall
2. Dueling ground/arena
3. Training room
4. Secret passage with dragon eye lock (as on the cover of the Monster Manual, seen in this image):
5. Incubator
6. Orc barracks
7. Weapon room
8. Dining hall
9. Kitchen
10. Forge
11. Storeroom
12. Destrachan training
13. (In E's own hand) Caverns!

With the dungeon designed, of course I needed a character. I rolled a dwarf, a ranger I believe, named Eragol. Well it rapidly transpired that Eragol was not going to enter this dungeon alone. No, he was going as part of a large gang of fairly high level characters, all NPCs. And this was just as well, since the power behind this particular dungeon was a Dark Sorceror of level 20 or thereabouts. Vaguely skeletal, possibly undead, generally bad news.

The gang of us pushed our way into the dungeon. It turned out that the parts of the dungeon we had actually drawn and designed were the innocuous parts. The orc guards didn't bother us much: apparently too busy doing arena training and incubating monsters. The real dungeon was reached by going straight downstairs from the first room, through the secret door with the dragon eye lock. THERE, it turned out, was the real dungeon. We proceeded through the dark. Eragol didn't get to do very much: the place was haunted by a number of hideous Monster Manual creatures called destrachans, eyeless horrors which are capable of locating you by a form of sonar, then bursting through solid rock walls to assault you (the orcs above, as you might note from the legend, were given to training them). My crack squad of NPCs dealt with most of these, but we did encounter some lower-level cave dwellers, such as cloakers, which Eragol handily dispatched. Finally, a climactic encounter with the dark lord himself, in which the NPCs figured prominently, and hardy Eragol somewhat less so.

But all was to be redeemed. E was aware, of course, that at the end of an adventure one handed out experience. I think I got about 600 XP for my participation in the struggle with the dark sorceror.

"And then -- Daddy, this is gonna be the day of your life -- for those two cloakers you killed? TWO HUNDRED POINTS each."

Now why is this significant? Well, like many kids, E has struggled a bit with math from time to time. (Last night, he tried to tell me he was "not very good at math.") But it's interesting what can be accomplished with the right motivation. Here, in his head, he had started with 600 XP, and, realizing that one makes the leap from level 1 to level 2 at 1000 XP, had correctly reasoned that two cloakers at 200 apiece would bring me exactly to second level. More, he'd assumed I would follow his reasoning, and be suitably thrilled with the award (and so I was).

The day of my life, indeed.