As the snow starts to melt, and our long, long, long, winter finally looks like its coming to an end, there’s plenty going on around my house this week. In addition to pulling out sunglasses, splash pants, and rubber boots, that is…
To start with, a play-by-post campaign of Legacy of Fire that I’m involved in just lost a player, and my kids were accepted as a replacement. They spent a few days after school brainstorming and planning, and together we put their characters onto the Paizo website. They loved picking out their avatars, and saying hello on the discussion board. So what are they bringing to the table?
A pair of gnome siblings who travel the world as their whims take them. They have a particular fondness for the desert, and have recently been wandering the wilds of Katapesh. My son is a sorcerer with the elemental bloodline (water). Studious and curious, Min Bunnisbeldar is a blue-haired gnome who obsessively studies and researches magical techniques and theories. Along with his elemental ray bloodline talent, colour spray is his go-to method of attack. But, his intelligence might be his greatest weapon. Min’s sister, Rab-rab, shortened her last name to Bunnis. She has a pet jackrabbit (not surprising at all, if you know my daughter’s love of rabbits), and is childish and whimsical. Rab-rab is an air kineticist who can push her enemies back with her air blasts. She loves to explore, and fly kites, using her aerokinesis to keep it aloft even when there’s no breeze. Min and Rab-rab hope to bring some excitement and optimism to the campaign when they get to join in a few weeks.
In other news, Paizo updated their website. Although I was expecting some minor maintenance, it turns out they launched an entire new site design. Ironically, I was just thinking the other day they their site was super useful and easy to navigate, but was looking decidedly old fashioned. Well, that’s no longer the case! The site looks gorgeous, and it’s much, much easier to see the current new releases. It’s bold, and works great. There are some down-sides, of course. The ‘My Campaign’ tab, which you’ll rely on constantly if you’re involved in play-by-post gaming, has vanished. There are other ways to navigate to your campaigns, thankfully, but none are as fast or efficient. Fortunately, I hear they’re working on bringing the ‘My Campaign’ function back. There were some complaints that the font hurt people’s eyes or was too small. Personally, I liked it, but the majority has spoken and the font size for the message boards was increased dramatically. I think it’s obnoxiously large, myself, and hopefully they can strike a balance in the future. Honestly, my biggest problem is the black bar on the top of the page. I find that if you look at it and then proceed onto one of the white pages–like the messageboards–you get afterimages across your eyes, which makes it hard to read and gives me a headache. All in all, I’m happy with the changes, and am excited to see how the site gets tweaked in the coming weeks.
At home, my family and I have been slowly playing through our first Starfinder adventure, Into the Unknown. Soon, I’ll be sharing our character designs and our experiences here, on d20 Diaries.
In Pathfinder news, my kids have both been working on writing an adventure in their free time. My son’s involves buried treasure, and is intended to be played by pirates, while my daughters involves a mysterious island. In the coming weeks I’ll be sharing their adventures, and our characters created for them, with you, so stay tuned!
Lastly, my son filmed a youtube video about a dungeon he made. It’s our first d20 Diaries video, so we’re pretty excited. He’s thrilled with the outcome. So if you want to see what a six-year-old D&D player gets up to in his free time watch, The Temple of Snakes, below, or check out d20diaries on Youtube! We’d love to hear what you think.
Thanks for joining us on d20 Diaries!
Jessica
d20 Diaries 
Arin here 🙂 Looking forward to following this blog, as I’ve also introduced my kids to PF to varying success. My wife and oldest now plays PbP games on Paizo, the younger ones aren’t super into it (yet?) Can’t wait to see how your kids’ adventures turn out.
Out of curiosity, how much of the core rulebooks have they read on their own?
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Oh, hey Arin/Steven! Thanks for stopping by!
My youngest child is just learning to read, so tackling the rulebooks aren’t quite where she’s at yet. Haha.
My eldest is in grade one and has a copy of the original ‘Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting’ book they put out back before Pathfinder had its own rule set. He reads through it at bed time a lot. We also have a map of Golarion on the wall that he pores over all the time. He’s read a few published adventures, and is working his way through the Bestiary. He’s read only a bit of the Core Rulebook. Character options mostly. It’s a difficult read for him as far as comprehension is concerned, so he much prefers to flip through the Bestiaries on my bookshelf.
You’ll find plenty of the articles on my blog have to do with the characters my children have made or campaigns they’re playing in. My daughter’s even made her own race, driven by her obsession with rabbits.
We do a lot of walking, and I’ve found that talking games help to pass the time when they’re bored, so they got really hooked on Pathfinder by playing verbally, on the way to and from school everyday. I think it was a combination of playing informally like that, and them watching the ‘grown-ups’ play in the evenings that made them want to sit nice and join the ‘real’ games at the table with everyone else. Even now that they play a lot by the proper rules at the table, and have tried their hand at making their own adventures, we still play verbally most days. They love it.
They actually both made their first play by post entries today, for one of ShieldBug’s Outpost games, and are having a blast.
Thanks again for the support! I hope you enjoy my blog.
Jessica
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