We've Done It!!!

So it took months but I was finally able to get the Rabbi's wife to move on this. The way it happened was my girlfriend, who is friends with the Rebbetzin calls me up and says that the Rebbetzin wants me to take her kids and play "the game" with them. So with no time to prepare I said sure and a few hours later there I was with three of her boys sitting down at the table and creating characters.

It went very well. Since I hadn't been expecting this I had nothing prepared and hadn't even read up on the rules so I explained to them that I would be "winging" it so that they would understand why future sessions had different rules. We mostly just rolled d20's to figure stuff out and I would make up modifiers as seemed appropriate to the situation.

These kids really enjoyed the character building process which I think is great. One of them decided his monk didn't speak and this in and of itself was both hilarious and great from a role playing and story point of view.

The story that we used was Cain and Able as I knew it well enough to create a back drop for a few simple encounters. The time flew by and it was two hours later with the boys begging to keep going or at least play again tomorrow.

Now I need to actually get some things together and re learn the rules. I know I can get by even as we did in this session by winging it but I would like to use the rules and only deviate where I feel it is necessary.

Please feel free to post suggestions and questions I will flesh out how the session went in my next post some time this weekend.

Still Alive

Sorry for the delays, the Rabbi's wife has been overwhelmed by the holiday and all it's events. We will still be moving forward with this in the near future but I am not sure if it will still be the Chanukkah story or if we will be changing that.

More to come as soon as I know.

Just a mini update

Just a mini update. I am waiting to meet with the religious school head and the Rabbi's wife to go over my plan. I have spoken with the head and it looks good so far, I described my idea for the Cain and Abel campaign, but I don't want to make too many more moves before I find out exactly what is and is not ok with what I have proposed. I will be doing a big post after the meeting either way, it should be this Thursday.

First things First

One of the most important issue for any campaign (I would think) is choosing a location for it to take place within. The following options have occurred to me so far.

-Biblical Setting

-A D & D established setting

-Home Brew Setting

Each of these has its advantages and disadvantages and I am initially leaning towards homebrew.

This would allow me complete control over my setting and inhabitants but obviously requires a great deal more work on my part. I would certainly have more flexibility to incorporate events and stories from the Torah in whatever order we decide upon. This also comes with the added bonus of being able to deviate from the religious curriculum easily if the opportunity arises. This could be due to a shortage of time, a slow week as far as what is occurring in the Torah portion or any other possible issue.

The above benefits would come with using a D & D pre-made world as well but offers slightly less customization. As I write this and keep in mind the amount of work that will go into this project this idea becomes more attractive to me despite the added cost of procuring the additional books and or other resources that may be necessary. I have an account for the D & D tool kit on the Wizards of the Coast website and I have yet to fully explore it so it is possible that the resources are already available to me.

I started writing this last night and have since had a chance to look at the rule book for Testament which is a great resource that anyone interested in this type of project should look over.

It has special classes for Israelites, Babylonians, Egyptians and more. The whole thing looks very cool. I don't think I want the entire campaign to take place specifically in the world of the ancient Middle East though so I'm leaning towards either home brew or pre made D & D world and will then input my players into the various time periods and scenarios from the Torah/Testament. Otherwise it would be hard (I think anyways) to get them from one event to the next as they can be separated by hundreds or even a thousand years.

I'll look over testament again and have more info for the next post.

If you take the time to read this please let me know how I'm doing and if you have any suggestions!

Thank you.

First Post an Introduction to the Plan

So I'm a geek.

With that out of the way if you found your way here you probably are too so lets dive in. I am trying to run a Dungeons and Dragons game for some kids at my local synagogue and I plan on using this blog to document both the research and preparation that goes into this as well as the game itself. The goal here is to combine the rules and world of (or one similar to) that of D & D with Jewish learning.

To begin I contacted a few people on twitter who had come up when I googled this subject. Matthue Roth was the number one hit and he helped get me started with a few suggestions. From there I went to Wizards of the Coast and found no forum postings on the subject, thus I started one of my own which I will link here.

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/29441227/Combining_D__D_with_religious_learning

So far I've had some really great comments and ideas and I hope more are forth coming. I currently have the Players Handbook and other books for 3.5 but may be picking up 4.0 depending on how things go.

Ultimately I would like to find a way to seamlessly incorporate iconic stories, characters and moral lessons from the Old Testament with the fictional world my game will take place in.

One of the first issues that occurs to me is figuring out what to do with the Pantheon. This is an issue I brought up directly with the head of the Hebrew school and the Rebitzen as I could imagine them taking an interest in how this is dealt with.

Some options on how to deal with this have occurred to me but I'm definitely looking to explore this more. One scenario would be to take the D&D pantheon and add the Jewish G-d to it. Another would be to make the world monotheistic in fact but have the pantheon exist as a series of incorrect beliefs held by the vast majority of the world. I think that removing the pantheon all together would not be ideal as the way in which we deal with other religions (as a vessel to provide contrast to our own), and the way in which we deal with those who believe in them on a daily basis, can provide some very important lessons.

There is work to be done, please feel free to comment on any of this on the Wizards of the Coast thread or you can hit me up on twitter, I'll be using @AristaqisDM for this project.