Olaf the Stout
Legend
I've got 3 children, aged 7, 4 (very nearly 5) and 9 months old. The oldest two like to sit at the table and watch when I have a game session and I let them roll the dice for me when needed. Since they showed an interest, I thought I'd have a go at running an RPG for them. The trouble was, I never knew what to run. A few weeks ago I saw that DriveThruRPG had a sale during Teach Your Kids To Game week. One of the RPG's that caught my eye was Hero Kids. It's a fantasy RPG with pretty simple rules.
So over the weekend I ran my two daughters Miss 7 and Miss 5 through the introductory adventure, Basement O Rats. The set up is fairly simple. The PCs are having dinner with their parents when they find out that the innkeeper's son, Roger, has been taken by giant rats. So the PCs need to rescue him.
I let my girls pick and name their characters. Miss 7 played Fearly the Rapunzel lookalike (the Hunter), while Miss almost 5 played Rosie the Healer. They decided that they were sisters. I cut out their characters for them and they coloured them in (each PC comes with a paper miniature for you to use). They also coloured in the 4 rats and the King Rat that were the baddies in the adventure (there are paper minis for the bad guys too).
Fearly used her long hair as her ranged attack weapon, hitting rats, tripping them up or even grabbing them and throwing them with her hair. Rosie used her magical staff to set fire to the rat’s fur, or to soak them with water, or to blow them away with wind. I narrated some of the attacks for Miss 7 but, after describing a few attacks, she started deciding for herself what she wanted the attacks to do. I narrated all of the attacks for Miss almost 5 as she wasn’t quite up to describing them herself.
I kept things very simple for the first time out, not worrying about the extra abilities that come with the PC's. So each turn they could move 4 squares and and take an action (in any order). The Hunter had a 6 space ranged attack, the Healer had a 4 space ranged attack or could heal someone 1 point of damage. The other option was to drink a potion to heal (they had 2 potions each). Similarly, I didn’t worry about special abilities for the baddies either. They just had their move and attack.
I kept the violence level at a G rating. Instead of being knocked out (the default as per the rules), the rats ran away after being hit, tripped, having their tail scorched, etc. The King Rat had taken Roger because he didn’t have any friends and he just wanted someone to play with (although my girls were still a little young to fully understand the moral grey area that created).
Overall they both had a great time. I made sure to have all the rats banter with them during combat. They taunted them telling the girls that they had their friend and they weren’t giving him back, NYAHNYAHNTAH!!! When the rats got hit by the girls they told them they were mean as they ran off, or I had them act really scared as they ran away, whatever seemed to fit best. Miss 7 started getting into it and was yelling things back at the rats.
There is an “empty” encounter area in the adventure that you can adapt how you like. I decided to make it a bit of a roleplaying encounter/problem solving. I had them find and rescue old man called Harry. He told the girls that he had some gold that he could give them, but it was at the bottom of the pool of water in the room. Miss 7 had a good idea to weave her long hair into a basket to scoop the coins up (it’s super long, like Rapunzel). Unfortunately she failed her roll. I then suggested Miss almost 5 could use her magic on the water to get the coins out, which she succeeded at. Miss 7 also used some good problem solving earlier in the adventure when they had to climb a ledge. Fearly the Hunter is very dextrous, so she was able to scale the ledge and then use her hair as a rope for Rosie the Healer to climb up.
They didn’t have too much trouble defeating any of the encounters. They did need some potions and healing magic to beat the King Rat (boss fight) but, apart from that, they beat the regular rats with ease. That was fine though, as I wanted their first adventure to be a bit on the easy side.
I realised afterwards that I made a couple of rules errors, but the girls had fun, so it didn't matter. So much fun that they both asked me when we were going to play again. So it looks like we'll be playing again soon!
Running time was meant to be 30 minutes, but it ended up being over an hour for us. That included me running them through a quick example combat so they understood how the mechanics worked. The length definitely wasn’t an issue for my girls though. They were both focused for the entire game. I was a little surprised by that as Miss 7 is normally pretty quick to get bored with something, lose focus and want to do something else. Not this time though!
So if anyone has young children, I’d definitely recommend having a go at running them through HeroKids.
So over the weekend I ran my two daughters Miss 7 and Miss 5 through the introductory adventure, Basement O Rats. The set up is fairly simple. The PCs are having dinner with their parents when they find out that the innkeeper's son, Roger, has been taken by giant rats. So the PCs need to rescue him.
I let my girls pick and name their characters. Miss 7 played Fearly the Rapunzel lookalike (the Hunter), while Miss almost 5 played Rosie the Healer. They decided that they were sisters. I cut out their characters for them and they coloured them in (each PC comes with a paper miniature for you to use). They also coloured in the 4 rats and the King Rat that were the baddies in the adventure (there are paper minis for the bad guys too).
Fearly used her long hair as her ranged attack weapon, hitting rats, tripping them up or even grabbing them and throwing them with her hair. Rosie used her magical staff to set fire to the rat’s fur, or to soak them with water, or to blow them away with wind. I narrated some of the attacks for Miss 7 but, after describing a few attacks, she started deciding for herself what she wanted the attacks to do. I narrated all of the attacks for Miss almost 5 as she wasn’t quite up to describing them herself.
I kept things very simple for the first time out, not worrying about the extra abilities that come with the PC's. So each turn they could move 4 squares and and take an action (in any order). The Hunter had a 6 space ranged attack, the Healer had a 4 space ranged attack or could heal someone 1 point of damage. The other option was to drink a potion to heal (they had 2 potions each). Similarly, I didn’t worry about special abilities for the baddies either. They just had their move and attack.
I kept the violence level at a G rating. Instead of being knocked out (the default as per the rules), the rats ran away after being hit, tripped, having their tail scorched, etc. The King Rat had taken Roger because he didn’t have any friends and he just wanted someone to play with (although my girls were still a little young to fully understand the moral grey area that created).
Overall they both had a great time. I made sure to have all the rats banter with them during combat. They taunted them telling the girls that they had their friend and they weren’t giving him back, NYAHNYAHNTAH!!! When the rats got hit by the girls they told them they were mean as they ran off, or I had them act really scared as they ran away, whatever seemed to fit best. Miss 7 started getting into it and was yelling things back at the rats.
There is an “empty” encounter area in the adventure that you can adapt how you like. I decided to make it a bit of a roleplaying encounter/problem solving. I had them find and rescue old man called Harry. He told the girls that he had some gold that he could give them, but it was at the bottom of the pool of water in the room. Miss 7 had a good idea to weave her long hair into a basket to scoop the coins up (it’s super long, like Rapunzel). Unfortunately she failed her roll. I then suggested Miss almost 5 could use her magic on the water to get the coins out, which she succeeded at. Miss 7 also used some good problem solving earlier in the adventure when they had to climb a ledge. Fearly the Hunter is very dextrous, so she was able to scale the ledge and then use her hair as a rope for Rosie the Healer to climb up.
They didn’t have too much trouble defeating any of the encounters. They did need some potions and healing magic to beat the King Rat (boss fight) but, apart from that, they beat the regular rats with ease. That was fine though, as I wanted their first adventure to be a bit on the easy side.
I realised afterwards that I made a couple of rules errors, but the girls had fun, so it didn't matter. So much fun that they both asked me when we were going to play again. So it looks like we'll be playing again soon!
Running time was meant to be 30 minutes, but it ended up being over an hour for us. That included me running them through a quick example combat so they understood how the mechanics worked. The length definitely wasn’t an issue for my girls though. They were both focused for the entire game. I was a little surprised by that as Miss 7 is normally pretty quick to get bored with something, lose focus and want to do something else. Not this time though!
So if anyone has young children, I’d definitely recommend having a go at running them through HeroKids.
