Post by Pagemistress on Jun 9, 2014 19:12:03 GMT
Hi everyone! This is Pagemistress (nickname from hubby since I'm always reading), also known as Zhuliana the Death Knight, Sorleine the Mage, Michele to friends and family or just Mom to my twin 8 year old girls.
I started DMing about 33 years ago when my mom got me the Red Box for my 12th birthday. She had no idea what the game was (neither did I) but she knew I loved fantasy stuff and figured I would enjoy it. I cracked open the box and was literally overwhelmed by this game. Mom rolled herself a male barbarian (loved that Conan movie I guess), I grabbed a few of my friends and off I went.
To say we hit some snags is an understatement. My mom couldn't map her way out of her own bedroom, let alone a dungeon. My other friends were no better at it, so I actually ended up drawing the maps myself on a vinyl wet-erase grid. We used game tokens from things like Clue just to figure out where the characters were (being 12 I had very little income for minis or things). But we plowed through and spent the next 15 years running memorable dungeons. It cracked me up that my elderly mother would go into work after a dungeon binge and her co-workers would not believe her when she told them why she looked like death warmed over.
But things changed as they always do. Friends moved away. I got married and was an instant mother to 3 kids. My parents retired and moved out of state. I gave birth to twins. I kept my dungeon stuff, mostly because I could not bear to part with it. Which brings me to about a year ago. I was re-organizing my game room and had taken a box of Heroscape minis down off the shelf. My twin girls (7 years old at the time) asked if they could play with them. I said yes and continued my chores. When I came back in the room, they had staged a Heroscape Armageddon, complete with rules (the table was a cliff, the throw rug was lava). I watched in fascination as they made up an epic story behind the war that was going on before my eyes. Once my shock and awe wore off, I realized that I had found my next generation of players.
Okay, so time to take an inventory. I had tons of Heroquest figures, the BattleMasters game and of course Heroscape. I had the pre-printed D&D tiles and modules galore. I had always painted my minis, so at least that was done. Over the next year, I collected the entire Descent board game line and grabbed the three D&D board games (my budget had gone up considerably since I was 12). I was thinking to myself that I should grab some 3D elements and looked into the Hirst Molds. Unfortunately, as nice as they are, I simply do not have the resources to purchase what I would need, nor do I have the time to run 20-30 casts of a single mold. I liked the pre-printed dungeon tiles anyway, so I figured I would look around and see if there was anyone who could show how to craft things like tables and columns, etc. That's when I found DM Scotty on Youtube on Friday night. This whole weekend, I went on a Scotty binge. I watched every video I could get my hands on.
I had always considered myself a crafty person. With multiple children to do school projects for over the years, I knew my way around a glue gun and some paint. But this weekend showed me what an amateur I really was. I felt like I had literally been hit over the head with a stick at how simple yet how absolutely awesome these projects were. The relative ease of putting them together along with the fact that you could customize a tile to your own game had convinced me to replace all of my pre-printed tiles with tiles of my own. I figured that if I were absolutely blown away by these things...what would my players think? And the gridless idea (which was shocking to me at first...how can you play without grids?) became more and more attractive as I saw how immersive it could be. Another good reason to ditch the pre-printed and go with my own.
Thankfully, I have a few years to work on my tiles and build my collection. I've already picked out a couple adventure paths that I will start them on when the time comes. For now, the girls and Daddy will be starting with Heroquest and working their way up to full-blown D&D/Pathfinder. The girls are absolutely excited to begin their heroic adventures. In the meantime, it's great to have found a place where I can get some ideas as to what to throw at them when the time comes. I just can't wait until they run into that blood altar that I will shamelessly plagiarize from DM Scotty.
Now...how to fit that Sarlaac pit into a school project...
I started DMing about 33 years ago when my mom got me the Red Box for my 12th birthday. She had no idea what the game was (neither did I) but she knew I loved fantasy stuff and figured I would enjoy it. I cracked open the box and was literally overwhelmed by this game. Mom rolled herself a male barbarian (loved that Conan movie I guess), I grabbed a few of my friends and off I went.
To say we hit some snags is an understatement. My mom couldn't map her way out of her own bedroom, let alone a dungeon. My other friends were no better at it, so I actually ended up drawing the maps myself on a vinyl wet-erase grid. We used game tokens from things like Clue just to figure out where the characters were (being 12 I had very little income for minis or things). But we plowed through and spent the next 15 years running memorable dungeons. It cracked me up that my elderly mother would go into work after a dungeon binge and her co-workers would not believe her when she told them why she looked like death warmed over.
But things changed as they always do. Friends moved away. I got married and was an instant mother to 3 kids. My parents retired and moved out of state. I gave birth to twins. I kept my dungeon stuff, mostly because I could not bear to part with it. Which brings me to about a year ago. I was re-organizing my game room and had taken a box of Heroscape minis down off the shelf. My twin girls (7 years old at the time) asked if they could play with them. I said yes and continued my chores. When I came back in the room, they had staged a Heroscape Armageddon, complete with rules (the table was a cliff, the throw rug was lava). I watched in fascination as they made up an epic story behind the war that was going on before my eyes. Once my shock and awe wore off, I realized that I had found my next generation of players.
Okay, so time to take an inventory. I had tons of Heroquest figures, the BattleMasters game and of course Heroscape. I had the pre-printed D&D tiles and modules galore. I had always painted my minis, so at least that was done. Over the next year, I collected the entire Descent board game line and grabbed the three D&D board games (my budget had gone up considerably since I was 12). I was thinking to myself that I should grab some 3D elements and looked into the Hirst Molds. Unfortunately, as nice as they are, I simply do not have the resources to purchase what I would need, nor do I have the time to run 20-30 casts of a single mold. I liked the pre-printed dungeon tiles anyway, so I figured I would look around and see if there was anyone who could show how to craft things like tables and columns, etc. That's when I found DM Scotty on Youtube on Friday night. This whole weekend, I went on a Scotty binge. I watched every video I could get my hands on.
I had always considered myself a crafty person. With multiple children to do school projects for over the years, I knew my way around a glue gun and some paint. But this weekend showed me what an amateur I really was. I felt like I had literally been hit over the head with a stick at how simple yet how absolutely awesome these projects were. The relative ease of putting them together along with the fact that you could customize a tile to your own game had convinced me to replace all of my pre-printed tiles with tiles of my own. I figured that if I were absolutely blown away by these things...what would my players think? And the gridless idea (which was shocking to me at first...how can you play without grids?) became more and more attractive as I saw how immersive it could be. Another good reason to ditch the pre-printed and go with my own.
Thankfully, I have a few years to work on my tiles and build my collection. I've already picked out a couple adventure paths that I will start them on when the time comes. For now, the girls and Daddy will be starting with Heroquest and working their way up to full-blown D&D/Pathfinder. The girls are absolutely excited to begin their heroic adventures. In the meantime, it's great to have found a place where I can get some ideas as to what to throw at them when the time comes. I just can't wait until they run into that blood altar that I will shamelessly plagiarize from DM Scotty.
Now...how to fit that Sarlaac pit into a school project...