David O'Mahony: From D&D to cards, the family that games together stays together

There’s a scene at the end of 'Stranger Things' where Mike, having run the last D&D game, watches his sister and her friends pick up the mantle. I felt a bit like that watching Son pick up my old interests.

In the wake of Stranger Things ending, I recently confessed to something that, in certain circles, might have been an unforgivable sin.

I love fantasy fiction. I love everything about role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Elder Scrolls, and others. I know far more about them than I sometimes realise. I even have a cousin who has just founded his own gaming convention. And yet I had never played a tabletop RPG, only videogame versions.

There’s nothing wrong with those, by the way. Far from it — and Son, 12, a Zelda veteran, has taken a sudden interest in a classic RPG video game called Oblivion which I would have played in, shall we say, younger times. 

There’s a scene at the end of Stranger Things where Mike, having run the last D&D game, watches his sister and her friends pick up the mantle. I felt a bit like that watching Son pick up my old interests.

But Oblivion is a single-player game, and we are not a single-player household (we all like gaming). with Daughter having turned seven, and much more clued in while also frustrated by not winning at chess or Monopoly (how do we have four sets?), we have been having fun with card games like Snap and Go Fish. 

But perhaps, like the Pokémon of old, it’s time for us to evolve into a boardgame family. If nothing else, it would be a break from screens. The family that games together stays together. But where to start?

A strong story element

None of the boardgames we’ve had previously had an overall sort of storyline, which it turns out is something we all enjoy.

For Christmas, Son got an RPG boardgame called Heroquest. This is a venerable title which has a strong following. It’s more straightforward than D&D, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less fun. Or, as we found on our maiden quest, any less chaos.

Now, a caveat: I have never operated as a games/dungeon master, so I am a million miles away from the man profiled by Sarah Horgan earlier this week. There’s a lot to take in in terms of oversight, but the fun part had never occurred to me: That I would, in essence, be playing all the monster characters. You see where this is going.

With Beloved Wife channelling her distant Norwegian heritage (and Conan) as a barbarian, Son, 12, as a wizard (his brother is happy that we play games, but doesn’t want to take part), and Daughter, 7, as an elf, we began.

Daughter, having lobbied to play the game for a solid week, immediately bailed because her friends called to the door, so her character was played by the other two

We quickly went off the rails, making up or adapting rules on the fly as Son in particular barged into traps and monsters because he wanted to win, dammit.

The odds were against them. Your humble columnist, through attrition and sheer blind luck, wore them down.

Daughter, arriving back at the death and seeing her brother playing a wizard, decided in a move so stunning we couldn’t deny her that she was picking up a new character and teleporting in to help her brother — the logic being that the wizard could use magic to summon her.

To the victor...

Quickly realising that her brother was, in fact, about to die, she then beat a hasty retreat all the way across the board to the starting position so her character could escape. By escaping, and being the lone survivor in the game, she proclaimed herself the winner.

To quote one fictional fantasy king: What daring! What outrageousness! What insolence! What arrogance!

I’m looking forward to, and also feeling apprehensive about, what she’ll come up with next. Now that she has more freedom to be creative, she’ll be unstoppable.

However, this is not a condemnation of screens. After all, aren’t they just the latest incarnation of tales around the campfire?

Even when watching cartoons, films, or TV shows, all kids want to do is share their interests with parents — hence you’ll get a blow-by-blow account of characters, themes, and events

There was a time when I could list off most of the trains on the island of Sodor, and whether they were diesel or steam (I probably still can).

In the past couple of weeks, Beloved Wife and I have been coaching Son as he played Oblivion— either helping him with his quests or giving him ideas. I’m even considering a novella based on some of the things he’s put his character through. Since he discovered how to exploit glitches in the game, he’s boasted that he’s now showing me how to play the game.

Dear Reader, this pleases me greatly. He’s already floating the idea of us coming up with our own Heroquest scenarios (like D&D, you can invent your own).

But we’ll keep spreading our wings. Waiting for us on the shelf at home is a gentler, tile-based game called Carcassone, while the small people in our family have been playing a slightly more anarchic card game called Exploding Kittens.

D&D is coming, though. Daughter has already decided she’s going to be a witch-type character. Dear Reader, she has a Lego figure with a broom and magic wand that she’s decided is going to be her avatar.

I’m doomed, aren’t I? Long may it continue.

• David O’Mahony is the Irish Examiner assistant editor, short story writer, and novelist.