Introductory RPG for a 5yr. Old

[Katharine Williams]

So I'm interested in introducing my 5 yr. old to RPGs, and would be interested in some input from the community. What rules system might be the most play friendly for a 5 year old with beginner reading skills (can't read independently yet) and fair math skills for his age (can perform very basic addition in his head)? I'm most familiar with Pathfinder and 4e, but they're pretty rules heavy. Also, any tips and advice for introducing a young child to RPGs would be most welcome. Thanks.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm in the process of working on this myself, specifically for my soon-to-be-seven year old, his six and nine year old cousins, my brother and our father.

I'm probably going with Labyrinth Lord or Beyond the Wall. Both are simplified rulesets (LL emulates the BD&D of the early 1980s, including non-human races effectively being their own classes, while Beyond the Wall is meant to emulate young heroic fantasy novels like the Black Cauldron or a Wizard of Earthsea).

Since my boy views Minecraft as the lens through which all games (and all of real life) is viewed, I'm picking up some rhinestone crystal hearts this month to serve as markers for hit points (my brother first played AD&D at age 8 and freaked out when he died -- I want the boy to have a visual reminder of how healthy his character is) and another sort, maybe diamonds, to be used to show magical resources.

I'm also picking up some plastic Reaper Bones minis and getting the old Dungeon Tiles while they're still available, as playing the Dungeon! board game with him has shown me how valuable to him seeing the map and monster miniatures has been to help him visualize what's going on.

For kid players, I recommend printing out, and possibly laminating, pre-made characters ahead of time, maybe just leaving a spot for a name and a picture blank for the kid to customize the first time out. (My boy's older and ahead of where your kid is.)

I'd also come up with some adventures that don't necessarily involve combat: Finding lost animals, children who've been "kidnapped" when they went off to play with fairies or discovering where a lost treasure is are all a lot less frightening than many D&D adventures are, while still being fun.

I'd also figure out what monsters and perils are too much for the kiddo -- my kid isn't scared of zombies, thanks to G-rated computer games featuring them, but monsters that seem like scary people (orcs, etc.) are too much for him. I'm likely going to have cartoonish frog men be the foe in their adventure while on vacation this summer, for instance.

 

[Katharine Williams]

The use of tokens to represent health is a very good idea. Hmmm, as far as mobs go, I think I would probably go for PF-style gobs, WoW style-kobolds, and such (I guess I would fall on the cartoony side for now). He's not easily frightened, but I would probably want to stay away from anything on the grisly side - some of my favorite zombie representations are a bit on the gory side. Pre-gen characters representing a few classic archetypes is also a good idea. As soon as I mention this idea to him, he's going to go from zero to 60, and won't have any patience for character creation.

 

[Obryn]

I think Fate Accelerated would work very handily.

Alternately, roll with the D&D Basic set or one of its many clones.

 

[GreyLord]

The one that seemed the best one I've found more recently which is still available is Harvesters.

http://www.trolllord.com/siege/8901.html

The aspect of the animals and other items seems to have a high appeal. If you want it to have a more fantasy feel with being mice, rabbits, badgers, etc, you can also use Castles and Crusades (which is completely compatible) Monsters and Treasure or other rules with the system.

Not only does it have a them that seems more kids enjoy, it also utilizes a relatively simple system that is easy for them to grasp. It uses the D20 maths, but it doesn't have all the feats or skills for them to memorize on what does what...relying more on their six basic statistics for actions and doing things.

Think...Pathfinder Extremely Light and it can give you a sort of idea of the system...but with animals and such (aka Redwall, Wind in the Willows, Watership Down...etc.).

 

[Richards]

I actually started my boys on the RPG path with a board game, HeroQuest. It taught them the basics about fighting monsters, casting spells, and searching for secret doors, treasure, and traps. Then, about a year or so after we had started with HeroQuest, the leap to AD&D 2nd edition (the current edition at the time) was a fairly easy one. (They were ages 10 and 8 when we made the leap from HeroQuest to AD&D.)

Johnathan

 

[GMMichael]

I actually started my boys on the RPG path with a board game, HeroQuest.

This is a really good idea. So is this: Far Away Land.

 

[Dethklok]

So I'm interested in introducing my 5 yr. old to RPGs, and would be interested in some input from the community. What rules system might be the most play friendly for a 5 year old with beginner reading skills (can't read independently yet) and fair math skills for his age (can perform very basic addition in his head)? I'm most familiar with Pathfinder and 4e, but they're pretty rules heavy. Also, any tips and advice for introducing a young child to RPGs would be most welcome. Thanks.

On a road trip with my five-year-old, we played an rpg consisting of a map drawn with dry erase marker (with two spaces for two hit points), and a die. He rolled whenever I thought he shouldn't immediately succeed; hard actions required a 5, easy actions required a 3. All attacks dealt one damage, and when he got more armor he added another hit point.

The four-day game consisted of a foray into medieval China, where, with the help of a cricket and a pretty girl with a sword, he fulfilled the prophecy, defeated the evil emperor, and saved the people of China. The 5-year old in question had so much fun that he cried when the game and road trip ended, and followed me around for an hour begging to play more. Trust me on this: you can't do better than a dry erase board, a marker, and a six-sided die.

 

[phil62]

I've found the Labyrinth Lord rules to be fairly accessible to those a bit older than 5 (7 and 10). They had also discovered the old Fighting Fantasy rules: if you have access to those, they're simple enough and fairly good fun.
One that I bought but never tried was RpgKids -- but it seems nicely written.

 

[Lwaxy]

PF works well enough if you don't use all the rules right away, as in less focused on numbers. Instead of "you lost 5 HP" it would rather be "you get knocked on your head and feel a bit dizzy for a moment" as it should really be all the time