A couple of weeks ago, I took the two oldest to a game store--the kind with D&D dice and books, little known board games from Germany (why do Germans make up so many board games?), and battle figurines--where we browsed for a long while. Then they started asking if they could play Dungeons and Dragons. They're a little young for such a complex game, so I found them a simpler role playing game instruction .pdf available for free. Dd10 read a bit of it, and then they stopped talking about playing D&D.
But the idea hadn't left them. They just didn't want to play someone else's game. They have now made up their own game. They call it Boarding School Dragons. It has a game board that began as only 6 pieces of paper that they had drawn on to form their playing surface. They have since expanded it to be double that size; I think they were influenced by this Horrible Histories video comparing Alexander the Great's military campaigns to an ever-growing Risk-like game. They have made their own game pieces, their own gold (paper) coins, and who knows what else. They made up all their rules*, and at the end of each session dd10 has to record what is going on in the game so they can pick it up again the next day.
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| Boarding School Dragons |
It is amusing to see them--dd10, dd7, and dd5--so earnestly involved in creating and playing their game. It is also gratifying to me, for they happily entertain themselves after the schoolwork is done and when they could be watching videos instead.
* Dd7 hates to lose games. When they play store-bought games, she sometimes stops playing when she does poorly. I suspect she is tweaking the rules while they play to allow herself to get the outcomes she wants and the other two children let her because they are all having so much fun.
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