Soon to intro my son to the sport

[vagabond]

My 5 yo son (6 in a few months) has a love of dinosaurs and dragons. A while back I gave him hints about

a "game that uses you imagination", where one can explore pyramids, fight mummies, ride dragons, see

dinosaurs, etc. Lately, he has been thinking about it more and more.

So, I am working up a quick and dirty conversion of some old D&D modules (Keep on the Borderlands/Caves of

Chaos, In Search of the Uknown, Isle of Dread) to BRP, but using only Elric! rules for now (to keep things

simple - no demon summoning, just Battle Magic) and even doing a quick divide by 5 set up to keep things

on a 1 to 20 scale (reading percentiles can be tricky for the young uns, and really, no need for that level of

granularity at this stage). He has a schoolmate (who just turned 6) with twin older brothers (7) who are all

into the same kinds of stuff (the schoolmate and his brothers are huge on Star Wars as well). So, I hope to

guide all four of them through a set of adventures and see how it goes.

Wish me luck, and I hope to have a glowing report posted when it actually happens ...

Ian

[frogspawner]

Very best of luck!

Don't worry if it doesn't work out though. They're still a bit young imho. Plan too much and you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. And I doubt they'll appreciate it. I remember myself at that age, playing up at the back of the class while the poor teacher was trying to read us The Hobbit. I wasn't interested, just a naughty kid. A few years later I was totally different (I hope!) and loved it.

[Atgxtg]

I've got one or two RPG projects I threw together for a 6 year old. Let me know if you want to take a peek.

[Rob Thomas]

Good luck to you. I tried something similar a few years ago and had the kids going for a couple of years until video games sucked away their imagination and attention span. Of course, I rally cannot talk since I will shortly be surrendering my soul to Mass Effect 2.

[threedeesix]

Good luck to you. I tried something similar a few years ago and had the kids going for a couple of years until video games sucked away their imagination and attention span. Of course, I rally cannot talk since I will shortly be surrendering my soul to Mass Effect 2.

Me too. I cant wait to see how my actions in the first one effect events in the second.

Rod

[GianniVacca]

Been there. My kids are 12 & 10 now and play regular role-games, but here's what I did when they were younger

- PCs: cardboard character sheets with big picture of character and two side tracks to keep track of Hit Points and Power Points with two colour stones

- three or four characteristics written below the picture: "knows how to fight with two weapons", "may cast spells", "may use magic items"...

- weapons and spells are separate cards that kids put on the side of the cardboard character sheet

[frogspawner]

Been there. My kids are 12 & 10 now and play regular role-games, but here's what I did when they were younger...

Sounds very like the D&D board game.

[threedeesix]

I was over at RPGNOW.com and saw this the other day. It may be something you may be able to use.

Kids, Castles & Caves

$5.00

How many gamers have heard this from their children? Your kids see all your gaming material and are fascinated. They want to play too! But what if they aren't old enough to read? What if they can only count to 10 or 20? And they do always seem to ask when you are the least prepared.

Kids, Castles & Caves is a very simple rpg that allows children to take the role of a Hero – a Knight, Wizard, Elf, Dwarf, Fairy or Halfling. The entire game is based upon a d6 and includes easy suggestions for using miniatures as well! A good selection of traditional monsters is included as well as tables and descriptions of magic items.

Kids,Castles & Caves is designed to provide gamers with an easy and quick way to role play with their children. In only a few minutes of preparation or even on the fly, you and the kids are having fun! Included are the Rules for playing, the Heroes you can play, the Monsters you can fight and the Magical Treasure you can find! Also included are three sample adventuring maps: A set of Caves, a Tower and a Dungeon.

Be sure to pick up Arion Games' bonus pack with 21 hero paper miniatures, 20 monster paper miniatures, 15 battlemats and 10 pages of illustrations for use as handouts!

I almost picked it up myself just out of curiosity.

Here is the link...

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=58575

Rod

[GianniVacca]

Sounds very like the D&D board game.

Yes, that's what I've initially built upon.

[seneschal]

For my kids (now 9 and 13), props are essential. HeroClix (or other) maps for colorful terrain; household toys for characters, monsters and vehicles; lots of opportunity to roll those colorful dice whether it is really necessary or not; they need to SEE it to imagine it. It may be heretical to say so, but BRP wouldn't be my first choice for introducing children to the hobby. Something rules-lite with only 3-4 stats and few skill/power options would be better: Monster Island, the Buck Rogers Adventure Game, Mini Six. But if you're holding their character sheets and narrating/hamming it up a lot I suppose any system could work. Fudge the rolls for them if necessary and keep the narrative moving, don't worry about exhaustion or hit points (or locations). Once they got into it, my kids surprised me with the creative solutions they came up with when brute force failed.

Good luck. Hope they enjoy it. My kids have participated in two or three one-three session "campaigns" that they say they've enjoyed but they haven't gotten hooked yet.

[threedeesix]

For my kids (now 9 and 13), props are essential. HeroClix (or other) maps for colorful terrain; household toys for characters, monsters and vehicles; lots of opportunity to roll those colorful dice whether it is really necessary or not; they need to SEE it to imagine it. It may be heretical to say so, but BRP wouldn't be my first choice for introducing children to the hobby. Something rules-lite with only 3-4 stats and few skill/power options would be better: Monster Island, the Buck Rogers Adventure Game, Mini Six. But if you're holding their character sheets and narrating/hamming it up a lot I suppose any system could work. Fudge the rolls for them if necessary and keep the narrative moving, don't worry about exhaustion or hit points (or locations). Once they got into it, my kids surprised me with the creative solutions they came up with when brute force failed.

Good luck. Hope they enjoy it. My kids have participated in two or three one-three session "campaigns" that they say they've enjoyed but they haven't gotten hooked yet.

I agree, I first introduced my daughter to role playing through Toon when she was about 7. As cartoons are a subject that all children are already familiar with it was an easy fit.

Rod