Well, today was my first time as GM. And my first time playing ICRPG. And my first time playing any TTRPG. I played with my wife and two kids (6 and 3). Yeah, I know… I had no idea how it would go, but I wanted to give it a shot.
Rather than start with Alfheim or Warp Shell, I wanted pick a setting that would already be familiar to my family, for a quicker ramp up time. So, I put together spells, potions, monsters and loot all from the wizarding world of Harry Potter. I’ve been reading the books to my 6 year old daughter, and we’ve all watched the first few movies. It took a while to put these together, but I think it paid off in getting started playing.
I made a few minor modifications to the ICRPG rules to fit the theme. In place of armor, I just had monsters roll against the target for the room. I also decided that each player character could have a pet (owl, cat, rat or toad), which basically worked similar to loot, I guess. Each animal type had one or two useful things they could do in certain situations. That seemed to play pretty well.
I just wanted to get our feet wet and see how it went, so we played through one “room” that consisted of Hagrid’s cabin and the immediate surrounding area, into the edge of the forest. There were blast-ended skrewts to deal with in the pumpkin patch, and Fang had to be rescued from dementors in the edge of the forest. They came up with ideas I hadn’t expected, and we had a lot of fun and laughs. We were really winging it, but my daughter had a blast and wants to play again tomorrow to continue the story that ended in a cliffhanger.
I just want to say thanks to everybody who posts here and puts stuff on YouTube. I’ve watched so many Runehammer videos and several Roll for Effort vids, and spent hours reading on here, in addition to reading most of the Core ICRPG book (hard to say exactly, as I’m jumping around in it). I’ve learned a lot, and I have a lot to learn.
Strength, honor and butterbeer!
“Expelliarmus!”
