RPGKids

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Fri May 18, 2012 6:10 pm

So yeah. I heard there was this great RPG for ages 4+. What?!!? I figured my daughter (a precocious 3, you know what I mean if you read my facebook posts) can only yell "FUS RO DAH" so many times at the cat before I needed to get her into some real old school RPG. And since I don't think I'm going to be assembling a local gaming group anytime soon...

http://newbiedm.com/rpgkids/

I downloaded the adventure bundle this morning, and will try to play it with her over the weekend. First impressions: looks like it will do exactly what it's supposed to, i.e. let very small children roll d12s and stab people in the face knock monsters out and take their stuff. The art is cute in that half-assed Tracey-Ulman-era-Simpsons sort of way. While I understand that the maps and such are meant to look like a kid drew them drawn by a little kid, and supposed to encourage your little ones to do their own worldbuilding, it makes the whole document look kinda sloppy.

Will post more of a review once we do some playtesting.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri May 18, 2012 7:18 pm

Well, it looks interesting, and if it gets kids into RPGs, and gives nerd parents something to do with their little ones, that's awesome. I'd respect it more with actually good art, though. I understand they're trying to present it in a way that kids will like, but it's entirely possible to draw something cute *and* well. It would also encourage kids to better their own drawing skills, rather than encouraging scribbling on a piece of paper and calling it a creature token, or something.

Hell, they could talk to Aaron Williams or Rich Burlew, and try to get well done art that would be perfect.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Sun May 20, 2012 5:00 pm

Her adventuring party, who she named Amelia the Bat, Princess Star, and Dr. Who. They managed to defeat ghosts, gnolls, and a lizardman.

Session notes: 1.She insisted, INSISTED, on playing a bat, instead of one of the 4 character choices. A 3-year-old girl insisting on a monster PC? Somewhere Gygax is crying. 2. She resolved an encounter with orcs by scaring them instead of fighting. 3. She insisted that Princess Star(the wizard) would be sniping at the monsters from a hiding place off the map. My daughter, the munchkin? ‎4. When I explained to her that a Healer was like a magic doctor, her first thought was of Doctor Who. Am I the luckiest dad ever?

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Sun May 20, 2012 5:21 pm

Indeed.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun May 20, 2012 7:39 pm

Hope you both had fun.

unnamednpc · Post by **unnamednpc** » Tue May 22, 2012 7:11 pm

First, props to you, sounds like you and your daughter had a great time. My cub is murat 6 weeks old, but I'm already stockpiling up on indoctrination...

Second, could you go into mechanics just a bit? As I understand it, the system is basically opposed rolls on a d12? Is there more to it? How is damage handled? Are thee any stats?
I have a bunch of Star Wars, Harry Potter and generally Fantastical Things That Go Boom crazed elementary schoolers at work that I think might really make great gamer material, but I'm still searching for an easily accessible hook.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Tue May 22, 2012 7:24 pm

I hate to go into too much detail, I could give the whole system away in a couple of sentences, but yes. Opposed d12. Different classes have different modes of attack- melee, ranged missile or ranged magic. The different classes each have a set of MTP skills like "Memory" or "Animal Friendship". Every character (except for certain tougher bosses) has two wound levels, either Hurt or Knocked Out. There are some rudimentary flanking and magic weapon rules. Not much else. It's definitely simple enough. My daughter is below the recommended age, and she didn't care too much for the combat rolling. Since she had chosen to be a bat, I gave her the special ability of being able to terrify the opponents and end combat once the monsters were down to one combatant.

As far as the future of the game, I know that they have proposed a level advancement system- I suggested that it be something simple like FF1, where you go from Swordfighter to Knight. It would be easy enough to MTPhouserule anything you wanted to do, but it might be nice to see a BECMI version, going from MTP with 4-year-olds all the way up to "worldbuilding with your teen" or something.

EDIT: I've invited Enrique, the designer, to this thread. Let's see if he has anything to say.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed May 23, 2012 7:58 am

JigokuBosatsu wrote:I figured my daughter (a precocious 3, you know what I mean if you read my facebook posts) can only yell "FUS RO DAH" so many times at the cat

This needs to be on YouTube.

unnamednpc · Post by **unnamednpc** » Wed May 23, 2012 8:18 pm

You can tell Enrique he has a sale.

ebertran · Post by **ebertran** » Fri May 25, 2012 12:44 am

Hey guys!

Glad to see somebody having fun with rpgKids

So yeah, it's a really simple system, opposed rolls, and then the gm can give you a couple of pluses here or there to try and raise your rolls (magic swords, special powers, etc).

I wrote the game for my little girl who at the time was 4, almost 5, and she was really curious about our gaming at home.

One of the things I learned early on is that using the Dora the Explorer formula works really well. Go to three places, then reach the end. That's why the game has just 4 encounters per adventure, because attention spans at that age aren't really all that great...

Thanks for taking the time to check it out, I hope your kids like it.

Oh, and my kids didn't draw the art on there. Sad to say it was all me. I'm not much of an artist.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Sun May 27, 2012 3:43 pm

Chamomile wrote:
JigokuBosatsu wrote:I figured my daughter (a precocious 3, you know what I mean if you read my facebook posts) can only yell "FUS RO DAH" so many times at the cat
This needs to be on YouTube.

Cat not available.

http://youtu.be/2aEvhdmBZWg

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun May 27, 2012 8:08 pm

Hm, what do the parents here think of the idea of letting your kid play the familiar or animal companion or such of a character in your normal group? It seems, to this single, childless 25 year old, like a good way to let them play with the group, but also work with their attention span and personalities.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Mon May 28, 2012 6:43 pm

I think that would depend on the maturity level of all parties, Prak.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon May 28, 2012 6:51 pm

JigokuBosatsu wrote:
Chamomile wrote:
JigokuBosatsu wrote:I figured my daughter (a precocious 3, you know what I mean if you read my facebook posts) can only yell "FUS RO DAH" so many times at the cat
This needs to be on YouTube.
Cat not available.

http://youtu.be/2aEvhdmBZWg

Adorable.

Also, I wish I'd had this stuff when my younger siblings were...Younger. They're old enough to get started with regular RPGs, now.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon May 28, 2012 8:33 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:Hm, what do the parents here think of the idea of letting your kid play the familiar or animal companion or such of a character in your normal group? It seems, to this single, childless 25 year old, like a good way to let them play with the group, but also work with their attention span and personalities.

I think that this depends entirely on the child. If they can

Pretend
Understand what's happening
Understand what actions are allowed and what's not
Work together with others
Sit still relatively quietly for 15 minutes and wait for their turn

then they might not do too badly.

For my son, at least, as the nearly useless sidekick of a full-fledged party member, he isn't in a position to be a helper (move my piece here, roll my dice), or be in control (I wanna bite the monster's arm off! No, go flank). It's sort of a limbo that he wouldn't tolerate for more than a few minutes.

But if I wanted to let him participate, I'd let him be in charge of a monster. It seems REALLY important and gives him a sense of control, but absolutely nothing rides on it at all.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 28, 2012 11:43 pm

Hm... and once they are able to do all that, they probably would want to play a full character, wouldn't they?

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue May 29, 2012 12:35 am

I don't know. Mine's not old enough yet, so I'm guessing based on similar experiences with my siblings and Vygotsky's learning theories, that there's an intermediate stage where the fundamental skills might be present, but putting them to use requires assistance. Your scenario would certainly fit that developmental stage but I'm gonna estimate that - in Giovanni's case - he'll hit that mark somewhere around 8 years old.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Tue May 29, 2012 1:09 am

Off topic, but is Giovanni named after the Pokemon villain or the infamously ruthless Italian aristocrat?

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue May 29, 2012 2:54 am

Giovanni is a name that's belonged to some cool people (Pergolesi, Belzoni, Verrazzano), people in my family (my grandmother's from just outside Genoa - she came through Ellis Island), and it just sounded right. He looked like his name was Giovanni.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:40 am

NECRO: On my way down to vacation I started an as yet unofficial expansion. I'm basing it around a ridiculous version of "Keep on the Borderlands" and have come up with some interesting character advancement options and such. I'll post in IMOI once I'm at the point of wanting some advice.

codeGlaze · Post by **codeGlaze** » Sat Nov 24, 2012 11:59 pm

JigokuBosatsu wrote:NECRO: On my way down to vacation I started an as yet unofficial expansion. I'm basing it around a ridiculous version of "Keep on the Borderlands" and have come up with some interesting character advancement options and such. I'll post in IMOI once I'm at the point of wanting some advice.

Having a little guy who loves making up new games to play, I'm super interested in this.
Update here if you post in IMOI (if you're willing)... I always forget to look through there, unless prompted.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 12:00 am

Will do!

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 2:25 pm

I noticed this post on paizo:
http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5le ... mmunity-GM

The second part seems to be about kids playing RPGs. Does this in any way look decent? I don't have a paizo account, so can't download it myself and haven't seen any other places upload it yet.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 5:37 pm

Just downloaded it. It's basically a very tedious step-by-step method for running some kids through the Pathfinder "Beginner's Box". For example, the first adventure you play nobody has any skills or feats, to keep it simple.

After having scanned through it all, I would say this would be useful if you were going to be using Pathfinder/D&D as part of some sort of educational presentation, or if your kids were really having trouble getting the concepts.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 2:53 pm

So, I still haven't heard back from Enrique, and I'm still working on writing up the module and new monsters, but here are a couple of mockups I made for a cover

and some prestige class tokens:

I'll be starting that IMOI thread soon.

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