Think of the children!

So, yesterday I saw that it’s “Introduce your kids to gaming” week (or some such) at RPGNow. I have a 10 year old daughter who has already gotten a taste of D&D with 3.5 (run by another 10 year old), and a 4 year old son (who turns 5 in 10 days) who has a pretty good imagination already. I also have an 18 year old daughter who might take part in something, but I doubt she would ever become a “gamer” like her dorky dad.

For the 10 year old, I plan to hopefully run her and her mom (and maybe her older sister) through a few modules using the B/X rules, with some added stuff (like Basic Arcana, of course). In fact, the “from the bottom up” module I am preparing to write is geared for that as well. I know she’ll enjoy it, as she has a pretty good imagination too, and really liked her small taste of 3.5.

For my son, I was looking into some rules and games that he could play. I know there is one out there where you basically use their toys, and a simple mechanic, to re-create a “dungeon crawl” type of adventure. I love that idea. I had the rules, but can’t seem to find them, or remember what they were called. But I do recall that I was unsure about the mechanic part. He’s already kind of advanced in math for a Pre-K kid (his teacher told us so just yesterday at PT Conference).

Of course that means I have to write my own rules. So, I did. Yesterday was a slow day at work, and I found myself with a lot of free time on my hands. As a result, I was able to write a complete 5-page RPG geared for kids ages 5-10, based on the idea of using an action figure to fight possessed stuffed animals. I call it Attack of the Furryons!.

I’m going to do some more fine-tuning on it, and then play test it with my son. When I get it just right, I’ll probably put it up at RPGNow as a PWYW game.