How to Get Started

Set Up an Adventure!

Call 208-206-1206 to Reserve a Time to Play

We'll teach you how to play the games, so don't worry about a thing. Just come and enjoy a fun time!

What to Expect

Septimus Jack or J.R. Casimir will greet you and help you get familiar with the location and The Grey Tavern.
The Grey Tavern location is tavern-themed. It serves food and non-alcoholic drinks. When you call to reserve a time, you'll be asked if you'd like some food and drink to enjoy while you play your games.
Septimus Jack or J.R Casimir will get you started on the games and teach you what you need to know. The first game is called Character Hunt. You can learn the rules ahead of time, if you wish. (More details below)
You will be asked to start an Order. Orders are simply what we call a family or friend group that has joined The Grey Tavern, and are used to help us facilitate games and in-game rewards for your family or group. The Grey Tavern is all about doing things together!

Adventures and Games

Foundational Games

Foundational games should be done before participating in other games for the reasons described with each game.

Game 1: Character Hunt

Character Hunt is a fun, introduction game into:

Grey Tavern Terminology
Items and information that are essential for other Grey Tavern games to run smoothly and be optimally educational and beneficial for you and your family
Characters and Hakim- the core educational and goal setting facilitation elements of Grey Tavern activities

What to Expect from Character Hunt

As Guardians (the combined term for parents or legal guardians of a child) are the powerful and grand rules in Grey Tavern lore, the Character Hunt will begin with a short, fantastical questionnaire activity focused on Guardians
Next, you'll adventure into the community. You'll be given riddles and clues to help you find Characters, symbols of magical powers, around the local community (all within walking distance of the Grey Tavern location).
There are 8 Characters to find at 4 locations (2 per location)
At each location, there are QR codes to descriptions of the Hakim (the magical term for the powers within each Character). Read them at the location you found them in.
After reading about the Hakim and before leaving that location, there is a link to 2 questions that Guardians should ask each of their children individually. (Children are called Bixis) This is the most important part of this activity! Please follow the instructions to the letter for the best experience for you and your family!
After finding all 8 Characters and answering each question with each Bixi, return to the Tavern.
At the Tavern, you can receive a Bixi Totem for each of your Bixis. However, we can only offer 1 for free. We can only give more to those that contribute. Check out this Contribution Path for a cheap way to give your Bixis this cool presentation of their personalities!

For Character Hunt Game Rules, Guardian descriptions, and Bixi descriptions, check out the online or PDF versions here.

Game 2: Spells

Spells are where you are first able to utilize the Characters and Hakim discovered during the Character Hunt to incentivize, facilitate, and reward Bixis for setting and keeping good goals.

Spells are:

Tools for Guardians
Reward and incentivize children to do good activities
Motivational elements for children to accomplish what you would like them to accomplish
A practice for opening dialogue between parents and children about activities children participate in, what children enjoy and value about them, what parents value in the activity, and where both viewpoints can overlap for increased personal and family growth.

What to Expect from Spells

Choose an activity a child participates in.
Beginning at Start Here (Physis on the Spell Sheet above), you ask your child questions specific to that Hakim category to see if activity has those Hakim powers. Suggestions for questions can be found in this Question Guide.
Guardians can rank a Hakim for how beneficial or how negative it is in that specific activity. This depends on how in depth a Guardian would like to go into the Spell activity.
Spells are taken home along with a Creature Tracker page that can be put on a fridge or somewhere the children can have easy access to it. Whenever a child does the activity that a Spell was made for, they get to fill in their bonded creature's ranks. We'll go more into detail on this in the Bonding game below.
A Spell may be done for as many activities as you like to help children see and measure the value of their activities.

For specific instructions on how the Spells game is done, check out the rules and instructions.

Game 3: Bonding

Bonding is how Spells become incentivized.

This is how this is done:

Take the Spell and the Creature Tracker Home.
Each time a child does the activity attached to the Spell, they can fill in the circles on the creature chart according to which Hakims are marked and their Ranking.

For example, if the Spell activity is Minecraft and when creating the Spell you marked Memor, Percipere, Karo, Quaere, and Socialis as Hakim principles taught in the activity and you ranked each as a 2, then each time a child plays Minecraft for an hour, they can fill in 2 circles on their Creature Tracker only in the categories you marked.
At the end of the week, families submit a form to the Grey Tavern based on this Creature Tracker. What a child is able to accomplish significantly influences their bonded creature's game statistics and abilities for the following week. So good, productive behavior is rewarded with good and fun games while poor or unproductive behavior can lead to a poor experience the next week.
The Grey Tavern's goal is to create games that are Ranked 4 in benefit for at least 1 Hakim.

What to Expect from the Bonding Game

The Bonding game is simply a story told to the family about the creature a Bixi has just bonded to.
The story is based on the answers given during the Character Hunt game. It shows in a fantastical way that child's personality through the actions of their bonded creature.
Sit back. Enjoy the story. See if it matches your child's personality
A child can bond with multiple creatures, but the child must be able to do a fulfill enough Spell Activities and Creature Trackers to maintain the creature.

In other words, Spells are attached to certain creatures and the child should be able to fill up their creature's Tracker on a regular basis to maintain the creature though those activities Spells have been attached to.
Multiple Spells can be attached to one creature. This is encouraged to help children fill their Bonded creature's Tracker.

For Bonding instructions and rules, go here.

Now You're Started!

For more games, check out All Bixi Games.

For information on Hakim and what the educational value of Hakim, check out this Hakim page.

Contributions

Why Contribute?

Contributions are essential for The Grey Tavern to continue creating and delivering exciting, educational, and uniting adventures for families and for communities.

The Grey Tavern offers:

Fantasy adventures that encompass behavioral education and goal setting in a truly good and exciting manner
Fun, meaningful, and truly enjoyable adventure parents can do with their children

What Contributions mean for You:

We'll release more fun, family and community adventures that bring your family closer together at a faster rate
Parents will be nurtured and uplifted through family-centric adventures and behavioral education resources
More exciting, meaningful, and educational content and activities the whole family will enjoy

We ask for your patience.

Blending education on behavior, goal setting, and fantastical adventure is hair-pullingly difficult. (Yes, our heads will testify to that)
Contributions are essential for allowing us to create and deliver fantastical and educational family adventures