West Marches for Kids, Redux

As I'm sure I've mentioned, I run an annual World of Dungeons at a winter retreat for the families of my daughters' primary school.  The first year, I sat at a table in the cafeteria with a pen and a roll of butcher's paper and drew a map.

It looked like this:

Before long, some kids wandered by, asked what I was up to. "Drawing a map," I said.

"What for?"

"An adventure role-playing game."

"What's that?"

When I explained it to them, their eyes nearly popped out of their heads.

"I wanna play!"

"Me too!"

"Okay, go and find a couple more friends, and decide where you want to go."

An hour later, we were all off to Raventree and the Doughman's Wood. The next year they did back-to-back sessions of Sorg Devours (The Coming of Sorg) and River's End (Though Flesh Be Vast).

This past year they explored the midden mine (Midden of the Deep) then hacked their way to the top of Tannoch Rest-of-Kings.

I started coloring the locations they've visited between games, and adding a few new locations for them to visit in the coming years, so now the map looks like this:

Running sessions for parties of nine eleven year-olds is intense.. I think I go through two bottles of water at a session just keeping my throat from drying out!