Bea and Elliot's Version of The Black Fox

My daughter Bea, age 8 and her friend and neighbor Elliot, age 7, told the true story of The Black Fox (Hunting the Devil). While not a murder ballad, it's a fine contemporary ballad based on a Yokshire folktale. I got it from The Book of Ballads. Bea did not want to play a game with romance, and while it had no ninjas or pirates (another of her criteria), and it wasn't Parchesi, it made for an acceptable alternative.

As Bard/Dealer, I asked them more questions and laid out the conflicts for them. Bea has never really played a role playing game with dice or cards, but she's quite familliar with free form pretend. In fact, Bea, Elliot, his brother Sebastian, and Bea's friend Loreena played pretend all day. In the evening, I cornered them with food and said, "want to play a game with me?"

First I read through the song. We named possible characters, then Bea and Elliot picked and fleshed out their characters. Bea played the Fox/Devil. She named him "Death". When not in the form of a fox, Death had horns, was all black, surrounded by flames, and wore a cape. Elliot was the lead huntsman, named "The Chaser". He carried a magic bow and arrow and a compound bow, and he rode a magic horse. He was the most powerful hunter in the world.

Here are the highlights of their story...

We opened the game with The Chaser gathering his hunters and hounds. One of the hunters tells him he has a bad feeling about the hunt. Meanwhile, Death eavesdropped from outside the window, laughing and plotting to herself. I asked Bea and Elliot, "Does The Chaser notice or hear anything outside?" Elliot said yes, Bea said no. We threw cards. As the Bard, I went bust, then Elliot went bust, and Bea got 20. She won the conflict. I guided the narration a bit. Death kept quiet and hidden, but was suddenly distracted by a chipmunk--a fairy chipmunk. She gave chase and rustled the bushes. The hunter asked The Chaser if he heard it. "Heard what?" He said...

The hunt begins. The hounds seem to follow the scent of a fox, but they never catch sight of one. I asked Bea if this was part of Death's magic? She said that the hounds were following a fox scented fairy chipmunk, who worked in cahoots with Death. I asked Elliot what he thought the hounds followed. He liked Bea's telling, as did I, so we left it at that.

We followed the ballad pretty closely until the end. They enjoyed acting out the story and throwing cards to answer their initial questions.

And then we came to the end: the interaction between The Chaser and Death. I gave very little guidance here. I set it up that they were face to face and Bea and Elliot came up with this together. All the hunters and hounds run off in the other direction when the Black Fox transforms herself into a Devil. Everyone except The Chaser. He finally understands that he's facing Death. She is immune to his magic arrows. And she is not evil. She is a merely the demon who protects the forest. She tells The Chaser that he may walk into the forest but he may not harm or use anything in it. If he kills an animal, all the other animals will attack him. If he picks a flower, he'll never see anything beautiful. If he takes any water from the forest, he'll never find water anywhere. The Chaser, the most powerful hunter ever, agrees never to harm anything in Death's forest. He leaves. As soon as he turns around he forgets the whole encounter. All he knows is that he must never harm anything in the forest. He gives up being a hunter and becomes a farmer.

I was speechless. That was some beautiful story telling/role playing.

At the beginning of the game, they came up with the following questions:

• Why is the Devil trying to scare the hunters? To run them out of the forest?

   

• Does The Chaser know the Devil? Not at first when she appears as a black fox, and not personally.

   

• Is Death/Devil/Black Fox evil? No. She's the protector of the forest and she wants to protect her forest from the greatest hunter in the world, The Chaser.

   

• Why are the hunters trying to get The Fox? When Death is in the form of a fox, she is a rare looking animal, with a black shiny coat, glowing red eyes, and the tip of her tail is bright red. Her coat would fetch a high price.

   

• Why are the hunters scared when they're hunting with the greatest hunter in the world? Death is just that scary looking!

   

• Why does The Chaser want to chase the Black Fox? Same reason the hunters want her.

   

Some of the questions were answered by resolving conflicts, some never came up as questions but we answered them anyway. I threw more questions to them to propel the game.

Bea and Elliot grasped the concept of conflict resolution using the cards. In a couple of conflicts they agreed for an outcome and played against me, and I tried to give them as many conflicts as I could, but their ideas were so awesome there were a few times I didn't want an alternative outcome! And that final scene where they sat facing each other as The Chaser and Death was just magic. I didn't really play with them to test mechanics, and I used the simplest rules of blackjack. I really just wanted to see how the game played with children, and it obviously does just fine. I'm not sure if most kids are as imaginative as Bea and Elliot, but kids who like roleplaying and pretend, the game worked well. Elliot wanted to find another ballad to play. Bea wanted to save the game for another day. When I asked if they wanted to play a game she was hoping for Parchesi, and while she really enjoyed playing, and got into playing a her character, she was really hoping for Parchesi.

(Apparently, Bea and I like playing the same kind of characters!)