Tabletop RPGs with Kids

So on Friday, I finally decided to introduce my kids to tabletop RPGs. It's a day I've thought about since they were born. My daughter Alice is 7, and my son Gabriel is 4.

I decided to use Adventures in Middle Earth, because I recently got the book and I've been drooling over it since. We made some simple characters. I skipped most of the special abilities, skipped the starting equipment, and instead of backgrounds I just gave them two more skills that made sense. Alice decided to play a Dunedain Wanderer (read: Ranger) named Ioreth and Gabriel settled on a Beorning Slayer (read: Barbarian) named Gerold, though he wanted to be named Gabriel for a while, and then wanted to be named The Hulk a few times more. When I gave him a list he liked the name that sounded most like the helicopter from Thomas and Friends.

Gerold wanted to be a "Sword guy," and so Ioreth (since there wasn't a wizard class) wanted to be an "Arrow guy." Gerold saw the picture of the Beorning in the book with an axe, and quickly said that he wants a sword and definitely not an axe, cause he doesn't like axes. He settled on a hammer because I convinced him that The Hulk has "hammer fists."

As the game started, I gave them a quick introduction to the town of Bree. Gerold interrupted me, and as the first action of the campaign, he said, "I want to attack Alice," referring to Ioreth. I was surprised, and I said, "Why?"

"Yeah, why, Gerold?" Ioreth asked calmly.

"No," he corrected, "I want to attack Alice's character." After a laugh, I asked him why again, and he explained that it was because Ioreth has an axe. "But she doesn't have an axe," I told him, "She has a sword and a bow and arrow."

Then Gabriel wanted a sword, and so he had a sword.

The game got underway after that, and Ioreth and Gerold met a merchant named Milo who said he'd been robbed of his precious spices by some orcs on the road. Ioreth quickly volunteered to help, and even added that if they couldn't find the spices, they'd pay him all of the money he'd lost. "Wow," he said, "You can afford that?"

"I'll get a job!" Ioreth said proudly.

Then they were off, marching down the road and passing other travelers like themselves until they came upon the scene of the attack. They found a broken cart that was on fire, no horses to be seen, as well as no spices. They quickly wanted to find some water, and after some simple survival rolls, they managed to get some water from a nearby creek. "Water plus fire makes steam!" Gerold announced, dousing the fire.

Without the light of the flame to distract their eyes, they spotted some tracks in the mud. Alice said, "I want to pull out my nature book and look for Orc tracks to see if these are the same!"

Once confirmed, the heroic duo set off, following the tracks and chasing down the orcs. It wasn't long before they were investigating a dark cave and happening upon the thieving orcs. Three orcs were there among boxes of spices, and they roared and charged. Gerold quickly took punch. Gabriel replied, "I'll smash him!"

"Smash him with your sword?" I asked, fully expecting him to say yes.

"No, with my hammer!"

"You have a hammer?" I asked.

"Yes, and a bow and arrow."

Ioreth was able to shoot one of them with her bow, and danced around the enemy's attacks.

"You know what I want to do?" Alice asked.

"What's that?"

She paused, "Well, are these orcs naked, or do they have clothes on, or just shirts?"

"Well," I said, "They have armor."

"Oh," she replied.

"Why?"

Deviously, she explained, "I wanted to shoot them in the butt."

Eventually one of the orcs had fallen victim to Ioreth's precise shots. Gerold, in the meantime, was still having trouble.

"Gabriel, is Gerold getting angry?"

"Yeah!" He replied.

"Is he getting real strong?"

"Yeah!" He said louder.

"Is he gonna smash?!"

"YEAH!"

And so Gerold raged, in complete barbarian fashion, and as Gabriel flexed his tiny arms in between each die roll, the orcs fell in quick succession, dropping into a deep, non-lethal slumber.

They found themselves alone in the room with the recovered spices. I had thought that the mission was now over, but Ioreth said, "Gerold, now we need to find Milo's horses!"

I'd forgotten about the horses, and so I leaned back and said, "We'll see if Ioreth and Gerold can rescue the horses in chapter 2."

The kids called out, "Yay!"

-------------------------------------

It was tons of fun for me to run a game like this for them. I was wondering if anyone else had any experience or funny stories to tell about running Tabletop RPGs for kids?

I ran Dragon Warriors, a very basic RPG for some you kids some years ago. 10, 11 and 6. The older kids loved it but the younger would cry every time something bad happened.

I've been thinking about when to start my own (now 5 year old) daughter into gaming. The forthcoming Triniton looks ideal for young kids so that might be the one.

A coworker of mine started playing No Thank You Evil with his kid (and wife a bit) and has had similar, hilarious stories. The idea of introducing kids to RPGs is just fascinating to me.

My daughter seems to be at the perfect age for it. She quickly jumped into talking in-character, she calls Gabriel by his character's name, she comes up with a lot of different ideas, and being able to do math to add up the numbers helps, I'm sure. And this was her first experience with it ever, so I consider that really good.

Gabriel is probably too young to grasp how to play, but he can retell the story later, so I think he's still having a lot of fun. Plus he loves rolling dice.

Wow, that was an awesome AP, well told!

*thumbs up*

I run D&D for some middle schoolers at the library where I volunteer. It's been fun, but I hadn't really thought of how describing the kids' OOC behavior as they played part of the story. Telling about your daughter being devious and your son flexing made that story awesome. I'll have to actually starting journaling so I don't forget those details.

I want to use Mouseguard and Cheat Your Own Adventure with my students (4th gr) for a collaborative writing activity at some point this year. And maybe Monsters and Other Childish Things char gen for a Halloween activity this month.

Haha, I've already run Chapter 2 for them yesterday, and they've been begging me for Chapter 3 tonight. I've created monsters. I don't think anything in our 2nd game was as good as the highlights in the first game. Alice did say that it's her favorite game ever, and spent time after the game to draw their characters. I can post more on it when some good stuff happens, but it's been a real treat so far. It's easy, too. It's very easy to improvise simple story elements or stereotypes for them to play through, so there's no planning. The first two games have been about 30-60 minutes a piece.

"I'm as stealth as an elf" is what that is meant to say.

I haven't heard of Cheat Your Own Adventure, but I'd love to run Mouseguard sometime, too. I love those Redwall books.

There are several games which have been made for kids. Mermaid Adventures, Castle Attack, Dice Match System, Firstfable, Hero Kids, Lazer Ponies, MLP Roleplaying is Magic, RAWR!, Witch Girls Adventures, etc.

My favorite moment from my then 9yr old's first D&D game. The DM announced that we were being attacked by giant spiders. I told my son, "Imagine a spider as big as our cat. What would you do?"

He paused for a moment and said. "I would kill it." He paused again. "With fire." Parenting. I'm doing it right. :)

Haha! Those are the things that have made this really enjoyable.

My daughter has been begging to play D&D with us, and even has her own dice set (all in pretty tones of purple and pink). So I picked up Hero Kids and ran through it with her once, and she was enthralled. Her grandparents joined in, and were pretty into it even though they'd never played anything like that before. The best part was at the end when we had to roll a die to resolve a pivotal moment, and my 2-year-old said "I do!" and grabbed the d6 and rolled it. She got a 6.

Anita Sarkeesian would not approve... :P

I have no experience with gaming for kids yet, but this is a great thread.

I should be able to post up some more of my own experiences soon. :)

I have a seven year old and a 2 year old and have been debating when would be a good time to introduce them. I heard good things about hero kids. Definitely love to hear these stories and good ideas about how to run games with kids.

As if on cue, drivethrurpg is having a sale on games catered to kids

link

I almost jumped up and said "What a coincidence," but then I remembered my son hasn't been 2 for a couple years now. Augh, my brain.

My seven-year-old totally got it, when we played. She was roleplaying and adding up the dice and seemed really invested in what was going on. I think seven is definitely a good age. My four-year-old probably didn't get it quite as much, but he got excited when we got excited, and kind of went along with what was going on and seemed to have a good time.

Also great! I'll have to look at some of these games on sale. Right now, the simplified D&D that we've got going is working out pretty well, but maybe they'd enjoy something like this even more.