Essentials more suitable for children?

[Pickles JG]

Gamma world (that's D&Dtm Gammaworld) features trimmed down rules & might make a good introductory game. It's also very funny.

I think essentials might too but there is still a lot of it - I can' seem many people coping with it without coping with the full thing.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

About as much as OD&D, I suppose.

It has "simple" Fighter and Rogue classes with limited options, and complex classes like Cleric and Wizard. (Yeah, I know that OD&D didn't have all that or used different names. Not relevant for this ).

I think the trick to introducing young kids is not to expect them (but offer it if they want) to read the rule books. Prepare an adventure, guide them through character creation, and roleplay and rollplay a bit with them using the rules.

The Red Box does this in a neat way with the solo adventure. But that's not necessarily an "Essential"-related feature.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Okay, thanks for the comments. Even should we still doesn't to go with this, at least it'll help manage our (and the kids') expectations.