GenCon with Geeklets, Part 2 (Infants and Toddlers)

This is part 2 in a series of posts about navigating GenCon with geek kids. Part 1 (General Advice) is here.

Infants and Toddlers:

Big stroller. Tiny baby. Stark casual.

Practically speaking, small babies are pretty easy to manage in a con environment. You should plan to bring child-wearing gear, or the smallest stroller that you can manage. If you intend to take a stroller into the dealer's hall then please be aware of the footprint -- our jogging stroller is pretty substantial and we definitely found parking it on the edges of booths for browsing purposes problematic at times. Bigger booths with internal space were much less trouble. People are overall very aware of their space and we didn't really run into trouble with tripping or collisions. People are also very polite and did not give us mean looks or snide comments to our faces, and in return we tried to be as polite and careful as we could be.

Toddlers are a full-time job, and you should probably plan to have someone who can devote their attention full-time to child monitoring at all times. You would not believe how quickly a toddler can get lost in a crowded dealer's hall, when you just stopped for a moment to look at that game demo. For your toddler, you will still want to bring a stroller (again, small footprint please) or your child-wearing gear of choice, because you will be doing a lot of carrying. The convention hall is big. Really big. You are going to wish you had a grownup to carry you sometimes.

Really really busy.

The convention is busy. It is loud. It is full of sudden colors and intense stimuli. Your primary responsibility is going to have to be to your littles -- be aware of their responses to their environment, especially in the dealer's hall, and be prepared to get out if need be. Pax had no trouble with the noise and chaos of the dealer hall, but Cap'n's first trip was a little more stressful. He got overwhelmed at times and was just at the starting-to-walk phase so he wanted to be down and exploring frequently. We spent quite a bit of time that year at the Family Fun pavilion, which is located at the back of the 100 section of the dealer hall, and the surrounding booths and demos.

The kids waited in line just for this stuff.

Feeding:

I'm on my third child and by this point I frankly don't give a hoot about whether people's sensibilities are offended by breastfeeeding in public, but not everyone (or their babies) is at that place. This year Family Fun introduced a crawlers space and a private nursing area, which had two chairs with arms and was a real blessing; additionally one of the convention hall women's bathrooms apparently had their powder room space set up for private nursing space (I never found it but I was told it was quite nice). It's a pretty substantial walk to the back of the dealer's hall (pro tip: they usually have an open entrance along the Capitol Ave hallway that's less crowded and a LOT closer to the Family Fun pavilion) and I'm lazy, so I also took an inflatable My Brest Friend nursing pillow (I saw a lot of travel Boppy pillows too) and a cover and just grabbed whatever space was available in hotel lobbies or the chairs along the concourse to feed Pax. Nobody gave me any trouble, and I had some great conversations as well.

Also Donuts.

For older infants: Bring baby food or a grinder if you are going to need them -- there is a pretty limited store selection in the near vicinity, and the food trucks do not cater to the bland and mushy palate. If you need a fridge in your hotel room, ask the hotel in advance. Frequently these are provided, but we have had years where there were no fridges or a waiting list 1-2 days long for fridges. If it's extremely important (breast milk supplies, special dietary needs) then you may consider bringing your own cooler for emergencies.

This is covered in more detail in the General Advice post, but if the food trucks are not an option for your toddler, there are some bistro-style cafes in the convention center and Circle Center does have a food court. Most of the restaurants near the convention center also provide a kids' menu, so your picky eater will have eating options. However, lines are long in the surrounding few blocks so you will need to plan your restaurant ahead. Pack snacks.

Baby-Specific Needs:

We have yet to find a bathroom -- men's or women's -- in the Indianapolis Convention Center that has a changing table. Be aware. The surrounding hotels do have some changing tables, including in the men's rooms, but not all hotels and not all bathrooms are so equipped. Bring a changing pad and be ready to do diapers in a down and dirty fashion.

For emergency supply needs you may be able to get some things from your hotel's front desk, but if not then the closest pharmacy is the CVS on Ohio Street, approximately 3/4 of a mile walk away. They carry a sufficient selection of baby and nursing supplies and the staff are very nice. It's not a 24 hour store so check the hours before you go late at night. Circle Center Mall has children's clothing but is pretty upscale so does not carry basic necessities that I'm aware of.

Family Fun Noodle Fight

Entertainment:

If you do cosplay, we cannot recommend Baby Yoda highly enough. We've done several variants on this costume (this year Etsy provided a crocheted Yoda hat) and it's quick, easy, extremely recognizable, and eminently washable. Also for older babies Luke Skywalker's Dagobah outfit is basically a beat-up white tank top and some cargo pants, and you can carry Baby Yoda in a backpack to complete the set.

Cosplay Baby!

If you're a little craftier, I took some pre-con time with my embroidery machine (you could economize and buy patches too) and did some baby costumes based off of a Simplicity baby dress pattern. They were a huge hit and Pax got a lot of compliments. Everyone loves a geek baby.

As far as doing activities, we had good luck with the CCG hall and game demos; parking the stroller next to the game space was no problem for larger booths or playspaces like Iello's demo room. Over-18 and over-21 activities generally will not permit even infants in, which I find to be a point of respect for the other attendees and we did not try to take Pax to see the Glitter Guild. Concerts are often pretty tightly seated but you can put a stroller in the back of the room and sit with it there or lap-sit your baby; we have taken the littles to see Marc Gunn play in previous years (I recommend the Cat Lovers show) and that's gone well when they're not overtired.

As far as playing in scheduled games, most convention games are on a time-restricted schedule and often players are booked back to back. If your baby is going to require attention and take your focus away from the game (hint: most babies will not reliably schedule a two-hour nap during your game slot) then you should have someone who can care for them during the game. If you don't have someone, then ask your GM in advance (if possible) how they feel about having the distraction. Then ask the other players. Be prepared to bow out if your child is going to negatively impact others' con gaming experience. As a GM, I've seen distracted players sometimes pull down the whole run, while other groups are able to work around them much more flexibly. Playing with strangers is an adventure in itself.

Strollers are not welcome in True Dungeon, nor would I recommend trying to bring a carried infant into the space. It's dark, it's loud, things move around and there are lots of surprises. Signing a waiver is probably your cue that this is not a baby-friendly activity, if you make it that far. Get a baby-watcher and have yourself some adult fun, if True Dungeon is your thing.

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...next up: Part Three: Big Kid Activities...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take a Letter

This morning, I was reading this article from Forbes. In it, Bartyzel, the author, talks about how Disney spent $15 billion in order to acquire Star Wars and Marvel, but then focused all their marketing on the young, male demographic. Basically, they took all the girls out of their merchandise, going so far as to make a toy based on a scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and replacing Black Widow with Captain America. We've run into this before looking for superhero fabrics and outfits for Cups our 8-year-old comic book geek girl, only to find the Avengers apparently only comprised of Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. (To their credit, DC has been better about including Wonder Woman, which is likely why Cups has so much Wonder Woman stuff, even though I'm a huge Marvel nerd.)

I brought this article up with my spouse, and we commiserated at Disney/Marvel's lack of desire for a wider audience. (At least, in their toys. Marvel's stories, especially in the comics, has become incredibly diverse as of late, while their movies are moving in that direction.) Cups overheard us, and she became angry as well. My spouse suggested she write a letter to Disney about it, so off she goes to get paper and a pen to write her letter.

We have a 4-year-old as well. Cap'n was also around, and not to be out done by his big sister, he wanted to write a letter, too. He said he likes girl superheroes and wants more toys with them as well. I had to help him with the writing of the letter, but he told me what he wanted to say and signed it himself.

Their letters finished, Cups went off to search for envelopes and stamps, since she was fully intent on mailing the letter. (And we'll get to that, as soon as I find the right snail mail address for it to go to.)

Cap'n went off to play with the Rapunzel play dough set.

Pregnant Cosplay

So we made a tactical error and it appears I'm going to be due on the first day of GenCon 2015. I blame GenCon for being almost 2 weeks earlier than usual, but it's not that far from home to the convention and the kids are going to be out of school and able to attend all four days, so we don't want to write the con off, so we're currently counting on the fact that my babies have to be forcibly evicted from my body rather than coming on schedule.

In other words, we booked a hotel room for GenCon today, muaha.

The problem is cosplay: I have a lot of neat ideas for cosplay costumes including having the kids team up with cosplay buddies for Magic Knights Rayearth, putting my spouse in blue spandex for a gender-swapped Mystique and Magneto (this one had great potential for nursing adaptations), the Incredibles (with modifications for the whole Spandex thing); and dressing the baby up as a small mongrel dog and going as Dorothy. But none of those are particularly amenable to a 40-week pregnant belly.

Enter the Internet. Exclude immediately any scene from Alien.

I've been doing some research, and since I'm not about to pick up an anime series just to find out about a pregnant character, we've narrowed the field to several choices: Amy and Rory from the Doctor Who episode "Amy's Choice" (very casual and requires only regular clothing); the Death Star (I have seen this done quite well and I'm sure the spouse could be some kind of pilot); or the current front runner: Padme and Anakin Skywalker, from Revenge of the Sith.

Did you know it's sort of tricky to find pregnant women in prominent roles in sci-fi and fantasy movies? They are mostly shown being stuffed into refrigerators dying in childbirth.

Padme, on the other hand, gets to negotiate an entire movie of being pregnant before she goes the refrigerator route, and her wardrobe ranges from the action-hero Mustafar "sleeveless" dress (leather cross-bracing around the breasts makes it probably a no-go for me, as Boobzilla does not need any highlighting) to the giant black velvet cape (not in August, not at GenCon) to the fantastic embroidered green velvet "at home" number (pretty, very pretty, and probably too complex to fit to my changing body). It also includes several simple drapey nightgowns, which I am eyeing right now and attempting to decide whether I want to modify the Veranda nightdress to include straps (this will involve some new stitching or embroidery techniques and about 10 yards of silk satin) or mock up the embroidery patterns along the edges of the aqua georgette.

I'm really eying the georgette because I think it's super pretty and I like the sleeves better. The spouse likes the idea of dressing in full Jedi leathers and acting moody, and if we're going to do a prequel cosplay then I suppose Revenge of the Sith is not the worst one to do.

The entertaining part of this was when Cups came in on the discussion. "Are we going to do Star Wars? Can I be Princess Leia?" Followed by Cap'n an hour later: "Can I be Luke Skywalker?"

Yes, kids. Yes, you can. As creepy as it is, that's totally appropriate for you to be.

I'm going to have to start working on this soon. I'd better make up my mind.

 

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Geeklets: LEGO Travel Adventures

We had an opportunity recently to give our local Children's Museum money – not very much, about the price of a night at the movie theater, with popcorn – in exchange for a special Donor Preview Night at their newest exhibit.  This just so happened to be Lego Travel Adventures, which was an immediate Must-See for both Cups and Daddy, so we ponied up our movie admission and headed out for "Family friendly hors d'oeuvres" and a sneak peek at the exhibit. 

I'd never been to a Donor Preview Event before, but we did go the night $childrens_hospital rented out the museum from 6-9 PM for all of their referring docs and office staff, and that was pretty bruisingly fun, so we were definitely looking forward to it.  Cups was looking forward to it for an entire week, and the car ride was almost intolerable: at some point when she chirruped "I'm so excited!"  I shot back with

"And you just can't hide it?"  Never teach a five-year-old to sing 80's hits, even in jest.  Try as I might, I couldn't get her to wrap her head around the rest of the lyrics.  The rest of the ride was one-line 80's hit night.

Our Children's Museum is a really nice place and they know how to throw a party, including an open wine and beer bar, which is really vitally important when you are shepherding excitable kids through a Lego exhibit between 6:30 and 9 PM.  For the eats there were ciabatta pizza rectangles and fried raviolis and vegetable skewers and ice cream bars and brightly colored Jello rectangles, and the tables all had little frosted glass candle holders full of Legos on them so we could build while we ate.  It was all themed in primary colors and rectangles.  

Just to emphasize how excited Cups was, she built a tower instead of eating her pizza and then scarfed it down in ten seconds flat when told there would be no more Legos until she finished her dinner.  And then, three bites into an ice cream bar, she abandoned it to run upstairs to check out the exhibit.  Let me repeat that: Cups handed me a quarter-eaten ice cream bar and said "I'm done.  Now for the Legos."

I am an old-school Lego Maniac: the kind where there were rectangle pieces and flat pieces and square pieces and wheels.  I am bewildered by all the specialized bits that have come out of the modernization of Legos, and at the same time very excited about angles and slopes and things.   Cups, on the other hand, has always been able to build dinosaurs and Jeeps and languished over the untouchable Vader lurking over Daddy's study desk.  It's just the way Legos are for her.

The exhibit was subdivided: there were Duplo cars to build and race (and a Lego racecar big enough to sit in!) as well as some of the larger building blocks, the kind big enough to build playhouses out of, out among some glass-enclosed model cases with clever themes like "San Francisco" and "Paris".  There were also some interactive computer displays for creating virtual models. 

Cap'n quickly got bored after a few runs of the Duplo car down the track, since he was explicitly banned from either eating it or from sliding himself down in lieu of a wheeled construct, so he and Daddy headed over to one of the other exhibits, which left Cups and I to enter the Building Area.  I am certain that when this particular exhibit is open to the general public that the Building Area will be shoulder-deep in kids, and there will not be room enough to build a two-block tower, let alone the "dream vehicle" they encourage you to make.  But at the Donor Preview there was room, and Cups shouldered her way up to the build tables. 

They were big flat areas to build on with buckets full of disembodied Lego parts, mixed and matched from all the sets.   Scattered over the tables were partially assembled Frankenfigures and half-constructed walls.  Cups grabbed a partial body and started assembling.  It just so happened that the majority of the minifigs on the table were from the Lego Friends set: you know, the creepy friendly new “For Girls” Legos.  They have a size advantage over the original minifigs, as well as being leggier and arm-ier, so maybe that’s why all the kids were building with them, but it was still sort of satisfying.  Cups grabbed a head and a torso and legs and about six different hairs before she found one she liked (blonde, like her), and put a little pink crown on the top of it, and held it up to me.  "This is Princess Leia, Mom." 

All of the pink in the whole world was forgiven in that moment.

Princess Leia had a minimalist spaceship, and a dog, and a console, and we headed over to make a greenscreen copy of it to email to Friends and Family.  I wouldn't call the greenscreen camera a quality lens, but we did render the picture you see here, including Cups with the very strange face, and sent it to ourselves.  And then Princess Leia flew around the volcano for a bit before stopping to let her dog out, and we headed off to more Fun and Adventure. 

Really, there isn't much to a Lego Exhibit except the bits where they show you the awesome stuff people have built and the bits where you get to make your own awesome stuff, but for the Donor Preview the Children's Museum also roped in some other activities. 

One was the Master Build, where a Lego Master Builder was working with all comers to generate a huge Space Shuttle model (hint: if you ever want to do something that's fabulously tedious, get a bunch of kids to do it a little bit at a time), and another was the Girl Scouts, and their First Lego League entry.

I was a Girl Scout once.  I quit because my troop was interested in fashion shows and manicures and etiquette lessions, while I was interested in snakes and computers and science fiction books.  I wish that there had been something like First Lego League in my troop, because I would have loved getting involved in robotics, and I think First Lego League goes about it the right way: they target kids of all stripes, rather than dressing their event up in pink and calling it "for Girls".  And then they make it fun.    The Girl Scouts couldn't stop fiddling with their machine, showing off tasks, correcting each other.  They couldn't stop talking about what they were doing.

I stopped to chat.  We talked about Lego Friends, and the marketing of Legos to girls, and the Girl Scouts volunteered that they didn't particularly want pink Legos, because the ones they had worked just fine.  We talked about First Lego League, and snakes, and about being part of a team and making something; we talked a little bit about engineering and science in a roundabout way, but it was clear to me that the competition wasn't about being Girls in Science to these Girl Scouts.  It was about making something really cool.

That's how I would like science (and, incidentally, Legos) to be marketed to Cups: I'd like it to be as easy and natural as showing girls having fun in the photo array on the top of the First Lego League webpage.  I'd like it to be something that girls do because it looks like a lot of fun, and not because someone tied a pink ribbon on it or made it sparkle.  I'd like to stop playing into the divisive ideal that there are "kids" and there are "girls", because that becomes down the line that there are "people" and there are "women", and leads to some people's accomplishments being prefaced with "female" as if somehow being a "female engineer" is a different thing than being an "engineer".  And that leads to people sitting in think tanks asking how to market Legos to girls, when girls were already playing with them.

Cups knows how.  So do the Girl Scouts I met the other night.  And so does Princess Leia in her minimalist spaceship air vehicle. 

Self-Rescuing Princess: Disneyland

  We were headed to California anyway: there was this conference in San Francisco.  And it happened a lot like it does in the commercials: There was one night where one of us said “come look at this,” and the other one said “that’s not too bad…we can do that”  and then there was a lot of sorting through websites and looking at plans and discounts and things like that.   And the long and the short of it was: we were going to Disneyland with nearly-five-year-old Cups and one-year-old Cap’n.  In mid-November.  Which, editorially, is quite possibly the best time to go.  Ever.

It has been recommended to me that when one is traveling with children to make sure there is “cushion” time on both ends of the flight – time for the little ones to adjust and recuperate.  It is probably not recommended to board a plane at 6 AM EST, get off the plane at 9:30 AM Disneyland time, and be in the park for a full day one hour later.  For the record, Cap’n slept on the plane and both kids were model citizens. 

We arrived at our hotel at about 10 AM or so Disneyland time.  Cups, whose planned highlight of the California trip was a visit to see Pierre the Penguin at the California Academy of Sciences, had been telling everyone along the way all about the story of Pierre (look it up, it’s pretty awesome).  So when we got out of the taxi and unloaded our stuff, I turned to her and asked her “Do you want to go to Disneyland?”

“Naah,” she said,  “Maybe another day.”

We depend on Amazon Prime and Netflix for our TV entertainment, and it was at that moment that it dawned on me that she might not know about the  commercials.  “Do you know what Disneyland is?" I asked her, curiously.   She shook her head. 

“Nope.”  Then she thought about it for a few minutes.  “Is that,” she asked, “where all the Disney people live?”  I assured her it was, and then the magic happened.  Her eyes got big and the wheels started turning, and minutes later she was counting down until we got into Disneyland itself. 

Many many things have been said about Disneyland and the man behind the empire.  Many many things have been said about the characters – particularly the female characters – and I agree with a lot of them.   I would rather my child not model her life after Aurora or Ariel or Snow White or Cinderella; I would rather she be her own person: and opinionate and willful and trying as she can be, she definitely is her own personality.  But I am coming to grips with her desire for sparkly shoes and fluffy dresses; her insistence that pink is the “best color ever”; she insists that she can “run faster” in a skirt than jeans, wore the toes out of her black Mary Janes in the park, and does not discriminate between tulle and denim as far as climbing gear goes.

We went to see the princesses, but only after we rode Space Mountain, and the rocket ride, and shot up some aliens with Buzz Lightyear.  We stood in line – the longest lines, I will note, in all three days at the park were for the princesses, the fairies, and Rapunzel – in front of a faux-medieval wall with a bunch of little girls (I didn’t see any brothers, besides Cap’n, and precious few dads) dressed up in their sparkly best with their pink sparkly autograph books.  Some of them had princess dresses on.  Some of them had princess wigs, most of which were rather hilariously askew and looked as if they were on at least their second day of wear.

Cups was offered a selection of shirts that morning and chose her Self-Rescuing Princess one, which I thought particularly apropos.  It gathered comment from several  mothers of girls in wigs and tulle skirts, and at least one “where did you get that awesome shirt?”, so I am judging it went over well.  We made friends with everyone in line near us (kids will do that) while waiting, and then it was our turn to be escorted around a turn into the Disney Princess Fantasy Faire.

I feel for the women who play princesses in the Faire.  They have nothing to do but stand and mimic the mannerisms of animated women while talking to excited little girls all day long.  I also admire them: when Cap’n didn’t want to give up his autograph book (ours were plain black sketchbooks decorated with the kids’ names) because he had found out how much fun it was to chew on, nobody lost their cool.  There were still smiles and cheerful voices the whole time, and the photographers had their cameras going to catch the magic while we herded the kids.

And there was magic: all three princesses (Ariel, Snow White, and Cinderella) had to hear about how, after Disneyland, we were going to go to the California Academy of Sciences to meet Pierre.  At the fairy grotto, Tinkerbelle asked what sort of things Cups rescued herself from, and got a little shrug.  “I don’t know.  Stuff.”

We made it the entire day, with a break for early dinner and Cap’n passing out on the table, and were back for accidental character breakfasts in the morning.  We did go to the Jedi Academy, but Cups refused to volunteer for training (“I don’t want to be a Jedi”), although she was interested in watching.  There may or may not have been an argument between Cups and Mommy, who wanted her to get her moment of fame, but in the end the stronger will prevailed and we all sat and watched instead. 

Somewhere in there, we stopped by the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique to do a little shopping, and discovered the source of the tulle and the princess wigs: it appears that you can pay to have your little girl (ages 3-12) primped and powdered and, depending on the package (they start at $50 and end upwards of $200), begemmed, bewigged, bemanicured, and begowned to look just precisely like her favorite Disney Princess, complete with photographic documentation of the process.  Reservations are recommended.  Oh, and on the very bottom of the brochure in tiny print it mentions they do have knight makeovers too.  We left the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique with a solid-feeling shortsword and shield combo, as well as a Mickey Mouse-themed gem bracelet, all hand-selected by Cups. 

I spent the rest of the time feeling faintly creeped out whenever I saw one of these little girls in the $200 fantasy outfits, and wondering privately if anyone ever actually got a knight makeover.  Did that include hairstyling, shimmering makeup, body jewels, a manicure and optional costume?  (Answer: according to the WDW page the Knight package includes hairstyling and a sword and shield for $14.95 plus tax: it is surprisingly inexpensive to achieve knighthood).   And what does it say about my ability to suspend disbelief that I couldn’t just roll it into the whole magical experience?

Disneyland itself is a suspension of disbelief: the place is scrupulously clean, stunningly themed, and filled with cast members who have been solidly trained in the art of being pleasant and happy no matter what.  If you stay at the resort hotels (we didn’t), then there’s no spending money in the park – just use your room key.  We skipped the ATM surcharges and bought Disney Dollars with our debit card to keep within budget, but it felt like playing with fantasy money.  The whole thing is set up from the moment you walk in to leave an impression that you’ve entered another world.  Thursday morning on our Magic Morning early passes we were escorted in stage by stage, revealing the park one postcard view at a time, until it opened out and there was room to avoid a potential bottleneck.  It is all choreographed and all thought out in advance.  There is magic promised, and magic delivered: changeouts of characters are handled with grace (“I’m sorry, Alice and I have to have tea! With the Queen!”), and the attention to detail is everywhere.    Even the greetings my children received were part of the show: Cups was almost universally greeted as “Princess”, while Cap’n was “Prince”, or “M’lord”.  But I couldn’t turn my brain off: we met only one prince (Rapunzel was accompanied by Flynn Rider) despite a host of princesses and fairy godmothers. I saw little girls in princess dresses everywhere.  And the rides…

Angel points out that there are all sorts of movie-themed adventure rides and storybook rides – Dumbo, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Mr. Toad, Buzz Lightyear, et cetera – and yet the only princess-themed ride is Snow White’s Scary Adventures (and, if you stretch, Alice in Wonderland, which we did not ride).  Everything else that has to do with princesses involves standing in line to meet them and get their autographs (a passive activity) or walking through Sleeping Beauty’s Castle looking at pictures (Cups: “Is that the whole castle?”) .   It’s a little thing, but it seems to support back to the idea that there are things for kids to do and then there are things for girls to do.  (One counter-example: in Toontown, the kids’ coaster is Gadget’s Go Coaster, named after a female supporting character).

I have to admit that I was gratified when Cups elected to close her trip to Disneyland with the Matterhorn, Buzz Lightyear, and back-to-back trips through Space Mountain.  It’s exhilarating to hear my daughter cheering for another ride on one of my favorite roller coasters ever.  It’s also a learning experience for me – a tomboy at heart, most comfortable in jeans and work boots and baggy shirts – to let her pick out her own mouse ears (pink princess crown) and her own trading pins (Ariel and Tinkerbelle).  It’s hard to remember sometimes that although I may want her to be tough and independent, there’s no reason she can’t do that in tulle.

Gaming with Kids: Lego Heroica

Hit up the Lego booth at GenCon and got to actually play around with Heroica a bit.  It seemed like the kind of thing that Cups would enjoy, and since we are always trying to find new ways to let her feel like she’s a part of the roleplaying circle and to encourage her quick and creative mind, we picked up a set a while later at our Local Big Box Store.  No guilt here about going through an intermediary: Lego is too big for me to feel like I owe them anything.

We got all of the sets right off the bat, after having seen the big setup at GenCon with them all linked, and promptly assembled everything into little modular pieces.  Cups put the dice together and helped find the interesting little specialty bits.  For our first game we set up the main Heroica box just as the book suggested to.  After that, we put away the guidebooks, picked out a bunch of rooms, stuck them together, and picked out some microfigs. 

 

Rules and Setup:  The game sets consist of a bunch of two-by-two or three-by-three square rooms, with flavor decorations, separated by little bridges that snap into place.  It’s set up with tiles of alternating colors, making each game square pretty easy to identify.  Assembling it is just like any other Lego set: you can follow the instructions or not as you choose; following the instructions guarantees a certain outcome but you can create more interesting ones by deviating from them; there are extra pieces that look like you missed a step – and sometimes that is correct – and it all snaps securely together. 

Each of the Heroica sets comes with its own set of microfigs: inch-high Lego people of varying colors.  It’s pretty easy to distinguish enemies from heroes at a glance, and some of the sets included bats and spiders if you are opposed to killing humanoids.  All of the sets also come with color-coded health packs matching to the hero microfigs that hold four little red cones and, depending on the set, may also have a place to store weapons and defeated enemies. The color of your microfig determines its special powers (more about this later).  On the Heroica site all of the microfigs have little backstories and the special powers seem to match well to the stories provided, making them easy to remember. 

The game also comes with a double-purpose (customizable!) Lego die: each of the six faces serves both as a movement die and as an attack die.  Most of the faces are split diagonally: one side indicates how far you move with dots and the other side indicates the outcome of the battle.  The sixth “special” face is a shield which lets your microfig use a special power or move 4 spaces.  On your turn, you roll the die, move accordingly in any direction until you run out of spaces or come to something that stops you – treasure, locked doors, or enemies.  When you meet an enemy you immediately stop and fight them – again by rolling the die.  Depending on your roll, you either defeat them or not, and you may or may not lose health points even if you win.  When you run out of little red cones on your health pack then you are knocked out and you have to roll each turn to replenish your health until you are at full again.

Scattered around the board are various treasures: gold cones to serve as coins, little potion bottles, keys, and some special pieces as well.   Keys unlock locked doors, and you can carry only one at a time.  Picking them up can be strategic if you are playing to win the game, and it is in fact possible in some setups to completely blockade the other players from achieving their goals through holding a key hostage.  Potions are helpful  – replenishing health, moving extra spaces, and allowing a reroll of the Lego die.  Coins can be used to buy weapons from the shop, which sit cutely on your health pack and give your microfig the ability to use an “almost-as-cool” version of a different microfig’s special powers.

Winning: Although Heroica is a roleplaying-style board game it still provides for a way for a particular player to win.  Different suggested setups have different win  conditions such as defeating a boss mob or getting to a particular piece of treasure or square on the board; we used the classic “defeat the goblin king” in our games, but there are particular pieces such as a protective helm, a chalice or a book that could make perfectly good items to retrieve from a dungeon.  You could also play cooperatively, leaving out the single-player goals and bringing a party into the dungeon.

 

Gameplay: If you are playing with all the Heroica sets open, you can choose between six different microfigs and special powers for your hero: The barbarian (yellow), who can defeat all adjacent monsters and move a space; the wizard (red), who has a four-square corner-turning ranged attack; the druid (brown), who can heal back to full health; the rogue (black), who gets to defeat an adjacent monster and take a gold from the store; the ranger (blue), who can move one space and then has a five-space ranged attack; and the knight (grey), who can move up to 2 spaces and defeat an adjacent monster.   All of the powers can be extremely useful, but none of them is overwhelmingly better than the others.  All of them can be nearly duplicated by a purchased weapon’s power if you can’t live without two different powers.

There’s not much to the game, really: you roll the die, you move, you either fight an enemy or not. you head to the defined goal.   It was easy enough for four-year-old Cups to grasp with minimal explanation, and once she had the hang of the rules she really got excited about combat and rolling the die.   If we had wanted to stack the rules in her favor it would have been easy enough to take the provided tiny plastic crowbar and replace some of the die faces, weighting combat in the heroes’ favor.  We didn’t need to, though; she took getting defeated in good stride when it happened. 

It was during the course of our first game that I discovered that my daughter is in fact a budding roleplayer: she deviated completely from the agreed-upon goal of defeating the goblin king and meandered over to a room that had a leg of meat on a table.   She declared happily that she was going to (a) spend her turn eating lunch and (b) put the meat on her head as a helmet.  Not wanting to disappoint her, we tried it.  It fit.  The rest of the game was played with a meat head, and eventually the goblin king was defeated. 

Replayability is high, mainly due to the immense amount of fun we had building different dungeons and arranging the treasures.  The game itself is really only about half as enjoyable as making it, something that again seems to be common to Lego constructions everywhere.  There are a lot of little pieces, though, even accounting for keeping the rooms intact and only breaking apart the bridges: microfigs and coins and potions and weapons and health cones and keys and special pieces.  Our Heroica set now resides in three boxes, one of which is half full of little plastic containers for sorting different small pieces, so this is probably a game that we aren’t going to introduce the Captain to until he is old enough to understand about not putting game pieces in his mouth.

 The downside of the gameplay is that this is a dungeon which can be potentially quite extensive, and it is very easy to find your microfig on the wrong side of a lot of corridors with nothing in them, having cleared out all the mobs in the process of getting to the treasure/key/coin/leg of meat that you were pursuing.  Moving across a large board at no more than four squares a turn drags a bit; we tended to roll 1 and 2 square movements more than anything else and so catching up to the party was occasionally tedious.  A couple of solutions were under consideration: Randomly spawning patrols to add a little more spice to the trip; being able to move in a straight line until you encountered an item of interest or crossroads; double moves in empty hallways.  We haven’t had a chance to try any of them out. 

The other downside has nothing to do with Heroica itself and everything to do with Cups.  I want her to grow up without feeling like her gender makes her something exotic or unusual in the gaming world, and unfortunately Lego is not being helpful here.  All the Heroica posters at GenCon featured little boys playing at being heroes; four of the six microfigs have beards or stubble; all the stories on the Lego site – heroes and villains alike – reference male characters (except for the grunts, who are only referred to in the collective).  These are clever and interesting little stories that give a history to the microfigs and make the game just that much closer to a roleplaying board game; the website is interesting and has neat animations.  It would have been a very little thing for Lego’s writers, I think, to make some (half?) of the heroes female – or better yet to tell the single-paragraph stories without explicitly gendering the characters.  It would have been a big thing for my daughter and me to be able to identify with them.

Conclusions: Lego Heroica in its several incarnations is fun to put together and easy to play.  There are a lot of small pieces to keep track of, so I recommend investing in small containers or baggies for these to save you grief in the long run.  There’s a high degree of customizability and the dungeons you create can vary from straightforward and simple to bewilderingly complex.  The rules are sufficient to play and yet easily adapted to a particular playstyle.  Overall, a good fun family RPG boardgame with a lot of potential for storytelling practice with the younger crowd.  I just wish there were women in the Heroica world.

GenCon Update: Gamers and Kids (Picture Post)

Little Pirates on Parade

Pirate Princess

 Last year we took Cups to GenCon for a  Marc Gunn concert and she left very upset.  "Why don't we have costumes on?"  So we brought her back in a dragon costume the next day.  Couldn't get ten feet without stopping for pictures, and she loved the attention and the exhibit hall.  She did very well for a three-year old, so we were comfortable expanding her exposure this year to two days.  Yesterday we all dressed as pirates and went to the exhibit hall for the kids events.

Cap'n Cap'n Sir

 I hear a lot about - and GenCon promo materials perpetuate this stereotype - how gamers don't have any social skills.  Some of it, perhaps, is claiming the pejoratives for ourselves, but some of it has a sort of self-deprecating well, that's just how we are: we game because we're not cool enough for normal stuff feel to it.  And maybe it's that sense of being a fringe community that colors the way that gamers interact with children, but I have been pleased and gratified at the way that my now four-year-old and the nine-month-old Cap'n have been treated by everyone we've encountered here.  At GenCon, they are people too.

Non-gaming kids under 8 are registered and tagged at Special Services: that is to say their names are entered in the GenCon register (and they are apparently tracking how many kids are here specifically) and they're given one of those super sticky fairground armbands with their parents' phone number written on it.  That's all basic stuff and I'm glad the staff do it, but both years now they have also taken care to explain to my daughter who to look for if she gets lost, show her the GenCon staff shirts, practice telling them that she's lost, and then remind her that she should not give out her name to anyone, but that she should let her mom or dad do that.  Last year she was told: "From now on, your name is 'ask my mom or dad'."


This is advice that Cups routinely ignores.  She is outgoing, sociable, and doesn't know a stranger - even when surrounded by people in costumes who are playing new and interesting games.  As a parent, I know that for some people the last thing they want to do is explain how to play "Blood Bowl" to my child, let alone tell her that's what they're playing, but she has been met at every turn with grace and polite conversation.  Her questions have been answered with small words and simple concepts, and my near-constant apologies for interrupting have been smilingly brushed aside.  In short, my children have been embraced and welcomed in the public circles at GenCon, not just tolerated as small intrusions.

Some of that may be because we have scheduled our gaming for days when they are not with us, knowing they will not be able to sit for two hours of Hollowpoint or go through a True Dungeon with us, so their interactions with the gaming community are mainly limited to the hallways and exhibit halls instead of the sacred spaces, but at nine last night we went to one of the halls to watch the opening rounds of the Dice Age tournament.  We had bought a mugful of dice and a bag for Cups so she could have her own dice, and she moved from table to table every time we let go of her hand, talking about her dice bag and its contents - and, as I discovered a few minutes later, asking if anyone had more dice for her.  Several of the gamers that night not only explained their games to her but willingly gave up some of their D6's to add to it, including someone's commemorative con die, and waved off my apologies as I scolded her for asking.

For Cups, this is the face of gaming.  This is what will shape her view of gamers and cosplay and geeks and nerds down the line.  I couldn't be happier about how it is playing out.  So this is an open thank-you to the people who've taken extra time out to talk to an excited four-year old, and answer her "what are you being?" questions, and exclaim over her bag of dice.  It's a community that she's going to grow into, and her first forays have been welcoming ones.