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the dice are trying to kill my son

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

I've been playing D&D with my young son; I swear the dice are trying to kill his first character. It started with some random monster encounters that were way, way above his first level. Then they just kept coming; everywhere he went, the dice demanded a random encounter and then threw in something nasty. He probably thinks that there's an ogre lurking behind every tree, and that nine-headed hydras are commonplace.

But just as the dice taketh away, they can also giveth; they've been unusually kind with monster reactions to him. He's now got a blink dog companion, and a sphinx was so happy that his party had indeed slain the hydra that he (the sphinx) gave each surviving member something from his horde of magical treasure. The Boy wound up with a brooch that will change color when a creature you're thinking of comes within a certain proximity.

[update, 2014.11.09: Today my son got several low d20 rolls on attack; he even fumbled his weapon when his party was facing a room full of gargoyles.]