Forked from: No 5e threads for now, please
I've always thought it would be a great idea to have a non-violent, more "cutesy" D&D edition for children. The elements are all there: gnomes, trolls, pixies, halflings, toy soldiers, magic and big adventures...
If it was supported by colourful, easy-to-grasp modules it could be an excellent education tool and something fun for parents to do with their kids, and would boost the future market substantially.
D&D used to be aimed at kids (exhibit 1: the old cartoon show), but the target audience aged during the game's progression through editions. Hasbro already makes children's games, so it would seem like an obvious addition.
Why not?
I concur. It could be used for numerous applications and as far as age could continue from the point of initial exposure until even after one has started playing more adult D&D because the aims of the game would be different.
I think Merc is onto a good start.
(By the way Merc, I'm not one much for modern poetry, I'm a classicist myself, but after reading
Abandoned Chair, which wasn't half bad, I'm gonna look into your book of poetry. )
Aside from running away (one possibility) children could also learn that not all monsters are monstrous just because they look ugly, scary, or horrific. In other words learning "not to necessarily judge a book by it's cover" could be an important aspect of social and cultural education (how to deal with human interactions with others different or even scary to one's initial assumptions).
Though I'm not against fright or horror being used in children's games, as that would also be an important aspect of security training. For professional reasons I started my children in with good security training almost from the time they could walk and speak. I've often used D&D scenarios (and other gaming scenarios) to reinforce the importance of good security training and practices, and used it as a vehicle to reinforce the idea of thwarting and avoiding security threats rather than falling victim to them. So I'm not against a certain "level of violence" to teach important security lessons and anti-victimization lessons either. Nor am I necessarily a multi-cultureless, but I think such a game could be good exposure to other cultural ideas, even languages. I use that in my normal D&D setting as well.
For instance (regarding the monster is not what he appears), even though a monster in the game seemed extremely scary or alien or dangerous, one could through nocturne and interaction, communication and negotiation discover that the monster is very different than he appears or that he has an unexpected and benign "secret life." That the child's character and the monster indeed have some things in common. I already do this in my normal D&D setting (and with most all of my other non-fantasy related games). Then again for security purposes you can teach the opposite idea, the guy who seems very nice and normal looking might just be the real monster in disguise. An important lesson in our age, or at any age of childhood.
Such a game could also be used to teach numerous other subject matters, like geography, cultures, history, math, basic science, economics and finance (not to mention savings and wise use of money, maybe even basic investing), literature (folk tales, fairy tales, etc.), even religious and moral concepts, and myth.
Not to mention ideas like cooperative action and even invention. Story writing and poetry and rhetoric could be attached to the game, as could any number of secondary or related products, services, and ideas.
It's a very good idea HF and I think Merc has made a good beginning.
The ChattyDm has a whole section on his blog dedicated to RPGs with Kids: Gaming With Children | Musings of the Chatty DM
I'm gonna look into that.
I only know of the game from some postings about it when the game was first released- could of been the S&W boards, or maybe Dragonsfoot- I don't recall- I just know that its a D&D style game for young kids.
