Kids, D&D and friends

Roleplaying with children is very different than with adults.  Apart from the obvious, children do not have the attention span to go into depths with the character details and the character developments; children have an idea and they want to do it right away and be damned with the complexities of how long something takes and finding the person who has to do it.  That is one difference.  The other is the difference faulty memories, the adults that is.  The adults forget what it was like to roleplay when they were kids.  I remember.  I remember being shocked that roleplaying was spelled that way and not roll-playing, because when you played it was all about rolling dice and killing monsters.  We would move from one room to the next killing monsters and then killing more and more and then we would loot the bodies after every group went down.  That was the fun.  But in a mixed group the adults forget that and the kids want to get on to the roll playing and rolling dice.  That is the other difference.

Yesterday, I got to play with my friend's kids again.  We started off in the keep and we spent the first bit doing stuff.  Like identifying magic items, resupplying and my idea, getting silvered arrows and bolts, for undead and werewolves, you never know and there was a troll after all.  I asked the young boy if he thought it would be cool to have the troll's head mounted on his shield.  He thought that would be cool but the guy said that it would take a while to get it done.  We next decided to wait until the next day so we could hit the Caves of Chaos early in the morning and have a full day clearing out the critters.

We got there just around dawn and we looked around and we had to decide whether we would hit the same cave as last time or go after a new cave.  I thought that the one cave with the dead troll in it and the barred secret door would be a bad idea because the occupants might be waiting for us, it had been two days after all.  They thought that was a good idea, plus to get in the way we did it last time we would have to cast knock again, unless they did not put the bar back on it, which I would think they would have done.  So we might find another cave entrance to get those critters.  So we looked for another entrance to go into.  

The kids decided that they would try one that was on the other side of the gorge and up part way the side.  I told them to hang back so I could scout it out, being a ranger.  I could also check to see what sort of tracks we're at the cave mouth and so know what was living there.  Moving up I saw that they had heads sitting in carved niches in the wall.  There was a kobold, a hobgoblin, a human, an elf, and an orc, but the orc looked odd, its eyes followed me around.  I cautioned everyone to ready their weapons, as I put an arrow in my bow and readied it.  Then I snapped my bow up and loosed the arrow directly into the orc head.  The Orc screamed and bellowed, its niche was a hole into the cave.  It yelled a warning before collapsing.  

We spread out taking cover and preparing for the onslaught.  The fighter was positioned just outside the entrance and the cleric on the other side.  The bard and the Mage on one side and I on the other.  The orcs came boiling out of the cave mouth in three waves, four, six, and two.  Positioned as they were, the fighter and the cleric attacked the orcs as they ran past, allowing me to try to finish off weakened orcs, I cast Hunter's Mark on the first one and loosed an arrow striking it dead.  The fighter struck two of the beasties, the cleric cast a Spiritual Weapon spell and attack two orcs, one with it and the other with his mace.  The bard used Vicious Mockery with impunity.  The Mage cast Flaming Sphere and moved it amongst the rest of the orcs as they came out.  The second round six orcs came out to join the one surviving Orc from the first wave.  Two of the orcs headed for the Mage but she moved the Flaming Sphere to burn them, blocking off that direction.  The two remaining headed for me, they charged.  I missed the first one this time and the next round he closed and hit me.  I could not use my bow so I dropped it and pulled out my hand axes and tried to hit the brute with them.  By the end of the fourth round of combat, eleven of the twelve orcs were dead and the last was running away.  The orcs in the cave were retreating.  We entered the cave looking for the rest.  

We turned down two passages that entered the same large cave which seemed to be a place where the orcs lived and cooked their meals.  The benches were overturned in the back of the cave as a barricade before three exits.  The bulk of the remaining orcs were there behind the barrier.  In the middle of the cave was a large pool of oil and the orcs had torches at the ready.  They thought they had a strong position, but they were mistaken.  The Cleric of Pelor and the Mage cast the same spell sending two Flaming Spheres in behind the barricades and burning almost all the Orcs.  They ran in terror.  Two thirds ran down two of the corridors into the living quarters and a third up a slope.  We grimly entered the living quarters where the wounded males and females made their last stand protecting the children and the orc babies.  It was flame sphere work with axes and arrows after a few minutes it was done, the vermin were dead and the spawn.  I said explaining that orcs are vermin, they breed like rabbits and mature quickly, by wiping out this nest we were saving lives.  They died quicker than any of their victims would have.  But at this point the smoke from the various fires was getting quite thick, so we decided to leave the caves while we could and wait for the smoke to clear.  We took that as an opportunity to see if the smoke came out any other openings.  If it had then there was another exit for the group of breeding females to escape with their chieftain, which we never encountered; there was only smoke coming from the entrance and the chimney.  We sat outside and took a breather and a small rest.

Next session, we will reenter the caves and hunt down the last of the orcs and more fully explore the cave, searched for secret doors and treasure.  I plan on cutting some of the trees down and piling it at the base of the cliff and throwing the bodies of the orcs on it along with the oil, from the cave floor and cremate the bodies before we leave the area for the day.  If we ever decide to spend the night in the gorge, this cave has some excellent defenses, like the watch post and the narrow approach.  With the elf and myself taking the majority of the watches, we could stay in the caves and identify the caves for future strikes.  Possibly setting the groups against the others.  Who knows maybe making a deal with one group to get information and to get their help exterminating the others.  Well possibly not, because I would not want to honour that deal.  But it might get us more information and a better strategy for taking out the caves.  Perhaps the kobolds, get them to deal, in exchange for temporary avoidance.  But then they have to clear out of the area or face extermination.