I was lucky enough to get into ‘Wood Badge’, which is the highest level of advanced Scout Leader training available. It entails two three-day weekends, and focuses more on leadership skills than outdoor ones. I’ve been to management training at work, so not a lot of this was new to me, but it was really interesting to see it all in the context of Scouting. I also learned a LOT about other aspects of the program that I hadn’t paid attention to, like Venturing. The most valuable outcome of the training was the contacts I made, frankly – my Patrol and the other attendees were fantastic to talk with about their experiences in Scouting, good and bad.

Still on Scouts, I decided to accept my pack’s leaders’ suggestion that I take on the Cubmaster position for the 2010/2011 year. I’m a bit trepidatious, only because things are really running incredibly well in the pack right now, and I don’t want to mess anything up. I’m sure I have nothing to worry about, because the leaders are all top-notch, and highly motivated and enthusiastic. We’ll see! I’ve got a bunch of ideas and projects (aka ‘tickets’) from Wood Badge I’m going to be working on in the coming months, and I’m sure I’ll be posting on the subject over the next few years (at least until Jacob crosses over into Boy Scouts).

Yours in Scouting!

P.S. For any Scout Leaders out there who are considering attending Wood Badge: do it. It’s a great experience – and feel free to get in touch with me if you’d like to talk further.

In Cub Scouts, Jacob has continued to progress  (and, more importantly, have fun!) in his first year, and will be getting his Wolf badge in February. The Pinewood Derby at the DCU is coming up later this month, and we’re in the midst of designing FOUR cars, which has been a lot of fun, but a lot of work too. We’ll see how we fare, but I think we’ll do well.

In Girl Scouts, Rebecca has also been having lots of fun and has engaged in lots of cool activities. Her troop won first prize for their “Gingerbread House” design over the holidays, and hearing her and her friends caroling was a blast!

We’re working on Amanda’s reading, and hope she’ll be able to start her own scouting fun later this year – we’ll see!

Anyway, as the title mentions, I’ve introduced the older two to D&D. I grew up with AD&D (2nd edition), and thought that given their propensity for reading fiction (mostly fantasy) and playing computer games, they’d be intrigued. I researched the current offerings from Wizards of the Coast and decided against going with the new 4th edition rules, because it seems to have marginalized the differences between the various classes. Instead, I went with 3.5, which has a huge amount of support on the web, is still pretty current and popular, and last but not least, the books are still available for purchase!

But let me tell you this: transitioning from 2nd Ed. to 3.5 Ed. has been pretty hard for me – it’s MUCH more complex than I remember, with Skills and Feats, and a level of minutiae in the rules that I suppose is necessary for competitive play at conventions and such, but in my opinion suck the fun out of the game itself. As I related to some of my friends at work, today’s computer interpretations of D&D obviously don’t have the feel and “spirit” of a pen+paper D&D game, but I think that with the later editions, the Wizards of the Coast have tried to emulate computer games themselves, with pen+paper versions of MMORPGs.

I do like a lot of stuff I’m seeing with 3.5: clerics (anyone) can use swords, or attempt to use weapons they aren’t trained in, with a commensurate penalty to its effectiveness and their abilities. The same goes for armor. The move from THAC0 to AC10 takes a bit of getting used to, but definitely makes a lot of sense. I was already using miniatures and maps as an aid, so the move towards almost requiring miniatures for battle was welcome.

I’ve decided on a couple of “kid-friendly” rule variants, in addition to my traditional house-rules:

• At any point in the game, they can ask me what I think their characters should do. I have them roll a d20, and if they get a high roll, I’ll give them excellent advice specifically related to their character’s abilities with a small bonus to their roll if they choose to take it (ex. cast a “light” spell at the Orc Leader’s eyes). On lower rolls, I still give them good advice, but it’ll probably be basic stuff (keep attacking the orc with your weapon). Skills and Feats, if they need to be personally activated, are part of this, too – if their characters COULD do it, they DO do it (if that makes sense).
• Spell Casters don’t need to memorize spells. The whole “Sorcerer” thing is new to me, so I guess I’m taking some of the skills of the Sorcerer and giving them to my kids’ wizards and clerics.
• Stuff like searching for treasure is automatic – I had to do this because they just don’t think of it (I suppose this is a good thing, though!)
• XP and Treasure are, right now, double or triple what they’d normally be.
• I have a very loose interpretation of the game’s rules – I’m allowing clerics to heal at a distance, for example, and am not worrying too much about carrying weight or encumbrance.

I had a bit of trouble explaining to Jacob that he couldn’t ‘make a suggestion’ to his sister if her character was in another room, and couldn’t hear him. He also struggled a bit with the fact that “I jump from behind the wall, leap onto the table, do a flip over the leader’s head, knock his sword from his hands with my weapon” was not going to be as successful as “I jump out and attack the nearest monster.” He’s slowly getting the hang of it, though!

The most fun we’ve had so far is with character interactions – which is as it should be. They’ve also had a lot of fun with expanding upon their characters’ histories.

The campaign is set in the Forgotten Realms, but in a remote part of it – simply because I haven’t had a chance to familiarize myself with the setting or its countries!