Fun and Games; Running D&D with the Family

This past weekend I broke out the books (and laptop) and Game Mastered the boys in two sessions of Dungeons & Dragons goodness.
I used to play in my late teens and twenties. 2nd Edition. That was a lot of fun. I like all the rules and possibilities. I could literally spend a week building a character (most of which rarely made it past a few levels, I blame Tony).

I have, however, bought into the new: 5th Edition. And it is a lot of fun. And probably easier to GM/DM. I spent a lot of time recently deciding how I was going to approach it. Have the core hardback books. Downloaded some stuff on Fantasy Grounds. Purchased some low-level adventures from the Dungeon Masters Guild. And printed out some helpful info for me and the boys.


I think I have ultimately decided on D&D Beyond as my centralized electronic source for D&D goodness. It is in its infancy, but is fairly polished and I can get to it from practically anywhere as a webapp, plus they have just launched an app on Google Play for my HTC 10.
I will still maintain some hard copies (already have the Player's Handbook, DM Guide and Mosters Manual) and printouts for adventuring, but I like being able to SAVE the majority of things somewhere accessible that won't get lost (like my aasimar holy avenger from so many years ago (cry!)).

We had such a great time, and the boys were so excited about using their imagination and trying to make decisions based on their 'character' and learning to 'think like an adventurer'. 

They kept coming back for more, but unfortunately I had only prepared for two adventures, so we got about a total of 4 hours in on Saturday. We will definitely be doing more in the coming weeks (I bought them their own Player's Handbooks and colored dice!), plus my wife is going to join in (we built her character this week).

Note: We went and ate at P.F. Chang's on Sunday and my fortune cookie said: You will have success in a new hobby

I think it was right. :)