More D&D minis with my son: this time with props!

Props, you say? Well not the greatest props, but a fun kinda arena of sorts. Here's a quick shot of the scene:


Dig those old bakelite red and green dice. They make an old game prop seem even older...but cooler still. Pay no attention to the smiling floating head in the left side of the pic. He just couldn't resist...ha!

Anyway, last go 'round my son got a little carried away with "rolling" the dice. Let's just say I spent quite a few turns retrieving them from the kitchen floor...and the greatroom floor...and the hallway...etc. So, I dug out an old dice game, some of you may remember from your youth, to make use of it's dice rolling tray or plate or whatever ya call it. It goes by many names, the ones I recall are Tric Trac and Shut the Box, but I'm sure there are other variations as well. At any rate, it makes for a nice little felt covered box to throw... err... roll your dice into without fear of flinging a few into the heater vents or the garbage disposal, when things get really pumped up.

Here's what a cleaner version of the game looks like (found the pic somewhere on the internetz, as I don't have a good isolated shot of mine to post):


So I cleaned my old Shut the Box up a little (it's pretty freakin old), set it up on the table, and dug out some more D&D minis for my son and I to use in our bloody battles. If you recall, my son just turned 5 years old, so I'm keeping things real simple with this. We just pick some guys, choose out dice, and start kicking each others butts. Last time we just did single figs, with simple attacks (except for the mutliple haymaker move he used to "finish" me last time), and we did not make use of any special abilities, powers, or healing.

This time, I was almost ready to bust out some of the cooler abilities of the figs, but decided to still hold out on that (maybe next time), and instead build us each a team of heroes, and make this Tric Trac dice tray an actual arena for these glorious gladiators. Fight on!

I dumped out 12 minis and let him choose the teams. Well I say let him choose them, as he pretty much did it while I was out of the room, grabbing some dice and figs for his little sister to mess with (she's 2 years old, BTW). She woke up from her nap and was pretty jealous of big brother and Daddy and their "ice" game, so we hooked her up with some goods too.

He basically choose the biggest, baddest guys for his squad, and gave me the smaller (yet more colorful) guys for mine. It showed a little categorizing skill on his part, along with some devious strategy, so good job boy!

Here's a shot of one of the showdowns, his Mummy Guardian vs my Chillborn (from the Warforged Crossbowman's point of view, apparently):


Sadly (for me), without any bonus abilities, my Chillborn bit it pretty fast at the clubbing stumps of his Mummy. The Chillborn fig has a great graphic with that open-mouth look and the reaching hand, but yeah, his Mummy basically said WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU MA'AM!...in that order.


Next up is this little tightrope duel featuring his Vampire Spawn and my Defiant Rake:


This setup "spawned" (sorry) a proud Geekdad moment for me, as he tagged the fig as a "sorta Dragggula guy, right Daddy?" Right son!...sorta. Notice in this shot some more members of my "tiny" squad: the Kobold Archer and the Ice Mephit (those are his wings, at least)...fearsome, eh?

Ah well, we had tons of fun, and that's all that matters. I'll leave ya with one last pic, a work of art entitled (paying respects to Bud and Lou) "Frosty Meets The Mummy!":


Ya see, while I was busy looking up the sucky attack bonus of my Ice Mephit, I heard my son utter this gem: "Arrrrrrhhhhh......I made a snowwwwwwmaaaaaaannnnnn!!!!!"

That's my boy!