Ode to my dead family (It's just a small dragon!)

My family has given me the joy of going along with my gaming habit. My wife and three of my kids are the adventurers (or rather, were) and I am the cold hearted DM. We have been playing from the 3.5 basic set. It is okay for the price (it was a good deal from someone on Amazon) but I am still kind of getting used to some the of the 3.x things. I have not DM'd a lot but as this was the first time for my family, I decided to really help them along with advice and tips, you know, to get the game down and get a rhythm going.

It was going along rather nicely, a litte co-operative play had kept them alive despite a botched encounter with a glyph of warding trap and a very close saving throw against some poisonous blue spores. This was the third session. Their characters were picking up loot and some XP. All was going well, until the dragon.

I had warned them that an encounter with a dragon, even a small, young dragon would be deadly, especially so for first level characters. They ignored me. The mountain of gold coins he was sleeping on was just too intoxicating. They made the rolls and got the drop on the sleeping worm. My daughter (after rolling the best initiative) decides to do what seems best to her in this incredibly deadly situation, where she has a free shot on the serpent, NOTHING! The beast is asleep! Do something! Aw well, she lived through the first round. Baby steps. I was suppose to have the dragon do an acid attack but I decided to opt for a few biting attacks at first, after all, he was still waking up! Finally after seeing their numerous (all 11 of them) hit points vanish, they do the smart thing and run. I was relieved! Running is smart, especially with a dragon on the other side of the equation. That stroke of brilliance lasted all of two rounds and they went back for some strange reason...right after I applauded their smart move in being conservative with their lives. I guess they just needed some change (it is going around you know). I decided that the dragon was a little miffed by now. They had failed to land a single blow but the dragon at this point, well, he was probably trying to get back to that recurring dream he has about Oprah and the rusted out 57 Chevy and so I launched his full attack. Total party wipeout after one shot. Who saw that one coming?

There is hope. My son cried when his beloved cleric bit the dust. He has true gaming blood in him after all. He has recovered and we are rolling up a barbarian half-orc for our next adventure, a little trip into the realm of the Rat King. Maybe next time he'll run from the dragon, even if it is just a little one.