No D&D for the last couple of months! 😦

A combination of in-laws and other relatives staying with us most of the last 3 months; my son starting his first year at secondary school in September, with all the acclimatisation and homework that involves; me travelling for work every other week for the last two months (as least it feels like that…); and the ever increasing menu of sporting activities that both kids are committed to in the weekend (including multiple weekends away show-jumping for my daughter); well it all leads to the D&D slot getting squeezed out of the picture…

This is of course disappointing, but at least the kids and I have still been managing to get a few fantasy ‘fixes’ in:

The first is the Merlin TV series, showing on BBC One in the UK at the moment. This is a great fantasy series, with lots of D&D-like features: knights and battles, witches and wizards, dangerous quests and mythical monsters! It’s been a family favourite (including my completely non-gamer wife) for a number of years, so we’re quite upset at the announcement that this is to be the series finale, although I’d had my suspicions given some of the fore-shadowing of Arthur’s death (at Mordred’s hand) that we’ve had glimpses of. All good things come to an end I guess … and we can always start again from the Series 1 DVD 🙂

When my daughter (and wife) are off competing horses, my son and I aren’t allowed to watch Merlin! 🙂 We have to wait until the whole family can watch together! The solution? A game of Castle Ravenloft! This is a great way to spend a couple of hours, with never the same results. We’ve played twice recently and the first time we got roundly defeated by some (pathetically low level…) monsters; the second time we triumphed, although one more round and I think we’d have gone down. It’s a good D&D ‘fix’ alternative…

Who remembers this series? My kids are young teens now, but they still love being read to – it’s just that the stories have changed a bit! For the past year or more, I’ve been reading them installments from the Belgariad 5-book saga … and we’re now approaching the final climax where Garion (the main protagonist) gets to fight the evil god Torak. This series has all the trappings and tropes of classic fanstay – and snappy intelligent dialogue and hilarious stereotypes and characterisation all the way through that really appeals to my kids.

And of course, its only another couple of weeks until this comes out – required family viewing!! 🙂

So whilst it’s definitely a bad thing that we’ve haven’t been able to schedule a proper D&D session, you can see we’ve had plenty of fantasy related fun instead.

Still, roll on the Xmas holidays – I’ve got definite plans for a role-playing binge – the Amber Tower campaign is starting to hot up and there’s plenty of adventure to be had …