I Want To Run a TTRPG For My Kids
I plot to indoctrinate the children into a lifetime of fun tabletop gaming...part 1
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Introduction
I've had the ambition of playing tabletop roleplaying games with my kids ever since they've been able to speak. In these years of waiting, I've been introducing them to elements here and there - dice, monsters, maps and the like. Testing their readiness with kids boardgames and exploring interactive storytelling when we get the opportunity. Both kids seem to take to fantasy and fairy tales, My daughter in particular has always expressed excitement when she sees interesting creatures like owlbears, goblins, dragons and unicorns and I look forward to seeing her light up as she realizes when you’re playing these kinds of games - you’re writing the story.
Having spent years building up my repertoire introducing new players to tabletop roleplaying, I have seen where hurdles can present themselves and I want to remove any barrier that might keep them from loving these kinds of games. I believe we are approaching a point where we could try it, so this entry will be devoted to reviewing where I'm at in my preparations.
The Thing
My favorite game for some time has been Shadowdark with its OSR/NSR stylings in putting front and center tactical infinity and simplicity. It does a great job of reducing barriers to play. In exploring other modern "traditional" tabletop roleplaying games, there is entirely too much focus on the system and gamifying it. That might work for older kids that are really into the nuts and bolts of mechanics for games, but we need to plug these kids right into the good stuff. I am looking to guide some young minds into discovering their own heroic story of adventure. I want to promote the most fun with the least amount of mechanics, while also not dumbing things down too much. I like my polyhedral dice. There’s plenty of D6 based games, but I want to introduce them to the weird magic of rolling D4’s, D12, D20s first.
One hurdle with Shadowdark out of the box is it can certainly be deadly. The random encounters living the life of an adventurer can spell death with a couple rolls and I want to give them enough plot armor to get through a mystery of some length. One of the ways Shadowdark's rules tweak for keeping the characters alive is to adjust the dispensing of "luck". Personally, I don't want to just give them a pile of luck points and have them re-roll bad rolls over and over. We need to see consequence from the decision and the rolls for things to have weight. I think it will be far more interesting to use the setting as an excuse to ply the hero's with healing items and maybe tweak character generation to give them more HP than would be typical of level 1 Shadowdark characters. The decisions will feel weighty and they wont’ notice the mechanical fluff of extra HP because they won’t know any better.
The fact that these kiddos are five and seven years old means there is also a sweet spot to find here with theme, mechanical simplicity, and whimsy that I feel will hook and entertain in a nice loop. In keeping my eye open for something to fit these tenets, I've explored or backed a couple projects that have come down the pipe. Hero Kids, Land of Eem, and the one I am thinking I will use here is "Dragon Town and The Darkness Below" - by JP Coovert - This won't devolve into a full review of any of these but since I’m going with Dragon Town, i’ll be exploring the first chapter of what’s been released here.
Dragon Town And the Darkness Below
I backed it on KS, and I've got the digital PDF, but haven't received the physical book yet. I believe it is at the printers. A rather cool unlock of the Kickstarter for Dragon Town is there will be a full Shadowdark conversion done on it, but I'm not thinking to wait for that as I enjoy creating Shadowdark creatures myself.
There is even a Shadowdark conversion preview all laid out like a shadowdark supplement it’s pretty cool - this is linked directly from their Kickstarter page:
The creator doing the Shadowdark conversion has their own Kickstarter that has 3 days to go which is worth looking into as well:
The fact that there’s Shadowdark conversion stuff coming for this already feels like i’m in the right place here.
A Good Hook
The book opens up with a cartoony comic book from the perspective of a halfling the author uses as a fun personality that he follows around and is his persona in the story. In the context of getting two younger kids to be open this kind of game, a short comic book that shows and explains the stakes of the backstory is fairly genius.
The first thing I did when I decided to go in this direction was to print this out so I walk the frames with them and have them feel like it's one of the shows they love that uses the same tropes as are great fodder for tabletop roleplaying.
The comic reveals a reason for Dragon Town existing as part of the rooted backstory, and has a simple context-rich reason for existing in the present of the story. A reason to be here, and a reason to explore into the past of it.
Creature and Adventure Design
The system agnostic stat blocks provide some rating for health, armor, speed, damage, and special abilities that are described, which seems simple to convert into a Shadowdark stat block - give it some stats and let it do the cool special abilities, figure out the hit dice and it should work out. I’ve seen many interpretations of “system agnostic” or “system neutral” and this is one of the better ways to convey relative strength to the game master/reader without explicitly giving it a stat block.
The town and dungeon(s) designs are simple but very effective and serve as a complete example for my own designs. One of the blind spots in my game design for prepping and running TTPRGs is scoping the right amount of content and to keeping stakes low when the game is in its lower levels. I've had some fun games I've run that had huge stakes right away, but I am trying to expand my skillset to make excellent play experiences across the spectrum of story tiers. Here, there is not just a pile of NPCs and locations on a map - there is interconnectedness and an underlying narrative pull bringing the players towards the Malumir Castle to allow them plenty of room to explore, but have a gravitational center towards advancing the story.
Dragon Town Proper
Dragon Town sits within the larger Malumir Valley, so the first thing presented to the GM is one-page area map and random encounter table. The random encounters give a flavor that bends to a kids’ cartoon rather than what you’d expect from a typical shadowdark setting:
This little tidbit with a named Troll that is lost and distraught that could be helped by passerby, combined with the visual stylings of this connected dots for me to the kid’s show Hilda. If you’ve never seen it, you’re missing out:
I know my kids loved watching this show and it will serve as an excellent touchstone in getting them interested in the game, I plan to steal plot points straight from the show if I need to.
A couple reference lists of adventure hooks and persons of interest to know about within the town, short list of common knowledge bullet points, and then there is a page devoted to a simple GM fiat support for the kids in the game: Magic Apples. This hits on theme and allows me either use the growing of magic apples in the area to give them some help if they need it or to make up my own effects and inject them into the game. As written, there’s 13 types of apples with different effects and existing in different rarities. So many different types of apples, means so many different apple farms in the area surrounding the town. Magic is certainly apparent here.
Conclusion
I will be spending some time absorbing chapters 1 & 2 and preparing to run this for the kids with my own tweaks. As I do so I will also be paying close attention to the design of this book and will include my thoughts.
More to come on this!
Till next time!
Thanks for Reading!
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I love JP’s stuff! Great choice for kids.