Save the Dinos!

During this whole pandemic scenario, there have been two resources that I have under-used to keep my gaming sanity.   My daughters Maja (11) and Millie (9), and my next store neighbor, James, who is more of a CCG and party game type player.  By the time school finally finished, the worst was over in our area, and the social circles expanded enough that the kids were kept active in the neighborhood while I remained shackled to my home office.  James got furloughed for the first five or six weeks and has been working on a construction site two hours away since then.  We've gotten a few games of Apples to Apples, Unstable Unicorns, and Pass the Pandas in, but not much else. 

But let's add a new resource to my gaming agenda.  James (and his wife Amy's) kids. 

Little Miles and Hallie are 5 and 3, respectively, and while much of what they do falls into the "Yep, I've seen it with my own kids," one potential area that excites me is revisiting "Toddler Gaming"  after years of experiments with my own kids. 

Getting permission from the parents for a quick "babysitting" lesson, I packed up the dinosaurs, unearthed all the palm trees I need to touch up anyway, and headed next door to introduce the kids to Mr Eric's rules. 

Concept:  Everybody's figure helped discovered a Lost World of Dinosaurs and other giant creatures.  Unfortunately, a volcano is about to erupt and destroy the Lost World, so it's up to the heroes to wrangle as many dinosaurs before it explodes (aka both kids get tired of the game).

Players:  Hallie, Miles, with Maja and Millie playing/helping.  And of course, Dad (James) wanted in on the action.

Rules:  Another version of my Toddler Interactive Adventure Resolution... Adventura (TIARA).  After years of trying to use different cool types of six-sided dice, I left the rules simple. 

• Only dice they stay on the table count
• Initiative - Playing Cards.  Everyone had one number, with the other three in the deck.  Sometimes you got lots of turns, sometimes you had to wait.  Teaching patience (even with the big and bigger kids).
• 5-6 Good, 1-2 Bad
• Full Ruler - run, but can't convince the dinosaurs to leave
• Half Ruler - walk, and talk to dinosaurs (or anything else they thought of) 

 Characters: 

• Quesadilla Bill 
• Mr Jumaji
• Rose the Big-Game Hunter
• A Kitty Made Out of Stone
• Lego Nightwing (pretty freakin' sweet!)

The first wave of dinos make it to the river.

In application, the game ran nearly perfect.   Players needed to move their figures to a dinosaur/creature and make a roll to convince them to follow them back to the river.  Success and once the dino touched the river they were safe.  Failure and a number of things could happen (more dice rolls!), including getting trampled on. 

Quesadilla Bill tries to talk to a T-Rex

Right before the first wave of dinosaurs reached the river, Hallie bailed on us, for a couple reasons, but Miles kept on till the very end. 

And the T-Rex was nice enough to carry Bill to the river...

 In the last round, there was a great push to get everyone off the board, but a giant butterfly had landed on an ankylosaurus and it was up to Nightwing to save them.   

Mr Jumaji rode his dino to safety. 

Using the power of the magic stone he had brought to the Lost World, he was allowed to roll four dice (all Good!) and the Butterfly picked him and the dinosaur up into the air.  

That flight stand is a mason jar full of bones from some dissection project the kids did.  

Trying to control the butterfly was too much and the dino landed back-first on top of the volcano, stopping the eruption! 

Not scientifically correct, but great for 5-year story.    And technically, Millie's character Rose was trampled by an angry dino during the game, so the threat of death is there... if you're 9 or older.

Within an hour and fifteen minutes I had set up, played through the initiative deck twice, and had cleaned up in record time.  Next time, we might try something a bit more directly cooperative, but the race to see who could rescue the most dinos looks like a winner.