Intro to Gaming - Kindergarten Style

Most of you that know me well know I'm a huge fan of gaming, particularly role-playing games. This is one of my many interests that in time I'd like to involve my children in, however at their ages it's a bit of a challenge to get them involved. Recently however they were given a fairly large collection of Star Wars Galactic Heroes toys (thanks again Nathan!) and I decided this was a great opportunity to introduce them to some of the basics of game-play.

First all the pieces are placed in a large plastic container and we take turns selecting pieces randomly. We play on the floor which is tiled. Each character is able to move at a speed of one tile per turn, except when mounted on a speederbike, then their speed is doubled. Melee characters can attack any enemy characters within the same square as them, characters with blasters can attack up to three squares away. 

 The large black section where the tile has been torn away serves as a 'pit' into which deceased characters are cast. It also serves as 'rough terrain' and can not be crossed.

This guy is one of my favorites of the set!

Once the figures are distributed among the players we take our starting positions and each roll the die once to determine who goes first. Each player gets a move action, and standard or attack action. To resolve an attack the instigator and defender both roll. If the attacker's roll is higher, then it's a hit and the character is placed into the pit. If the defender's roll is higher they succeeded in dodging the attack. 

Initially we began playing with your standard d6's but eventually they were misplaced and Ian came across a set of story-telling dice that a friend had given me. We began to use that, only instead of rolling to see who could roll the higher number, each picture meant a different event would occur when rolled. The eye for instance meant that the attacker missed or had become temporarily blinded. The castle meant that for one turn, one character could not be attacked. The tree and rainbow were tough ones to use. The both ended up meaning that the character attacking missed their target, but the reason was usually because they'd wound up going up a tree or rainbow instead of attacking. This doesn't make a lot of sense, unless maybe there was a tree nearby with a trap that they'd sprung. Hmm maybe I'll use that idea...Anyway it did occur to me by the end of the game it might be cool to use the rainbow to bring back dead characters that had been placed in the pit. The rectangle symbol was used simply to mean that a ranged or melee attack had been successful and the pyramid was used to signify that a force power had been used. Ian imagined in particular a Jedi (or Sith) using the force to raise the earth under their opponent.

While I don't enjoy getting down on the floor to play (it sets off my allergies >_<) I do love the creativity Ian's brought to this and even though these are baby steps, I look forward to continually introducing him to more advanced forms of gaming.