>>25064084

>permafrost characters

In case this wasn't clear I typed that from a smartphone and autocorrect messed with the word "premade".

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>>25064163
...annnd now you ruined it.

Seriously though, I can imagine a game with kinds would be pretty damn interesting, if exhausting. Good job giving it a try and not just pulling out Snakes and Ladders or something.

yeah, op, i've got two little brothers who are 11 years younger than me, and they invited me to a board game day they had at the end of their 2nd grade class. i ran heroes of hesiod for them from wotc's site, and the kids who played loved it. very similar observations so i wont bother relisting them. they're 11 now, going on 12, and most of your observations still apply

>>25064262

Should that make me proud of my brother's friends or worried about yours? You'd think that with people so young each year would make a huge difference in terms of knowledge and maturity...

>>25064446
I'm back to desktop now so I can give you a better answer. Typing on smartphones is dildos.

>- Five year olds can't read fucking dice and can't add to save their lives.
This is less true now. Some of them are still bad at math. They can manage more or less.

>- They're emotionally volatile and will try to kill each other for giggles if you don't hold them by the collar.
Well, I guess now I have to tell you about my "playgroup." I've got two brothers: one is a real scheming bastard type of guy, but not bent on evil: he'd play a dick-ass rogue and steam to give to the poor; the other is a straightforward kind of guy: his character is a dwarf wizard. They've got two friends who play too (well, I've been too busy to run more than two games for them, really). One of them is straightforward and likes to play knight-types. The other one is fucking crazy and loves to kill things, chaotic as fuck with a side of munchkin. The only one that will wantonly kill is the last one. Most of them get upset when they roll like shit, though, so there's that.

>- They're surprisingly imaginative.
This is still true.

>- They love to make up shit on the fly
Less true, but still happens. The stuff they make up is more coherent.

It's still fun. Once I get more time I intend to run a campaign for them.

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>>25064163
>In case this wasn't clear I typed that from a smartphone and autocorrect messed with the word "premade".

Why does your phone autocorrect words to "permafrost"?

Are you some 4e CharOp board faggot?

I ran a Harry Potter-esque game using GURPS Lite for my Niece and her two friends one summer. At the time they were 9-10 and did pretty well with it. I kept it simple by giving them a set amount for each area of their characters, like I said they had 6 points to raise attributes with each point raising an attribute by 1 and for Skills I did the same sort of thing and had them just make up skills and I assigned them as easy/average/hard. For spells I just doled them out as lessons at their Wizard School, but gave each one a few extra ones to separate them.

The three characters they came up with were:

Mindy, a tomboy who liked sports more than spells. She really wanted to learn to fly and got a magic carpet as a present from her long lost grandfather. She also was good at raw elemental spells like shaping earth and freezing water to ice.

Theresa, a brainy girl who loved animals and photography. She could even talk to some animals, though the wilder they were the less likely they could understand her. She was super focused on spells that worked on animals and wanted to be a veterinarian.

Sierra, her father was a Vampire so she was a half-vampire. She was a bit of an outcast, but really wanted to have friends She could turn into a bat at night and discovered she was talented with charms and potions.

I was really impressed with Sierra, her player understood that being a vampire was powerful and had no problem with getting a vampire weakness. She did not want to drink blood or be hurt by holy things she suggested that the sun hurt her eyes so she had penalties in the sun, and creatively came up with the social penalty from not being able to groom herself properly because she could not be seen in a mirror.

Their main antagonists were as my niece called them, "The Mean Girls," a clique that ruled the kids at the school with an iron fist. They eventually put them in their place and were the heroines of the student body.

I had a similar experience (oddly enough) running a game for my father and his friends for his birthday a couple years back (since all of them were just as clueless about RPG's as little kids). He just finished the first vidya game he ever enjoyed (Deus Ex) so I ran a cyberpunk game with GURPS lite. It was very funny and interesting seeing four of the most uptight, serious businessmen you ever saw (my dad's a CEO and pretty much a walking stereotype) getting into the mindset of mercenary infiltrators sneaking into corporate headquarters to steal data. (Than they got double crossed and flew to Delhi to get revenge on their client by sneaking into his penthouse looking for blackmail material)

Best line from the game: "Do you think we could convert the reflex enhancer into a makeshift bomb?" (They could)

>>25064740

How did you handle magic? GURPS is a bit complex, isn't it?

>>25064592
that's an edgy asshole right there

>>25066239

What does permafrost have to do with 4e CharOp?...

>- Five year olds can't read fucking dice and can't add to save their lives.
>- They're emotionally volatile and will try to kill each other for giggles if you don't hold them by the collar.
Sounds like everyone else I've ever played with, honestly.
>- They're surprisingly imaginative.
Oh, n/m.

>>25064740
It's just like my japanese animes. Sounds like a fun time.

>>25066589

If it was an anime a premise like that would include more lesbians. Which I assume (and hope) Anon's game didn't have.

>>25066815
Actually it is fairly common for girls of that age to find boys gross, so if it actually came up in the game...

>>25064740
>creatively came up with the social penalty from not being able to groom herself properly because she could not be seen in a mirror

That's so simple and golden at the same time.

>>25066868
Are you kidding? The girls in my kindergarten formed kiss-rape gangs and patrolled the playground for cute boys who would be held down and smooched against their will.

Back when I was at school I used to make extra money by running games for a bunch of local kids with rich parents. They were all around 10-12, so I felt relatively safe to run a more streamlined version of Pathfinder and let them make their own characters.

We had an Elf Fighter, prince of an elf tribe out on a quest to prove to his father that he'd be a worthy heir to the kingdom.

Another one played an Elf Druid, the prince' teacher and mentor (why the mentor was the same level as the mentee never occurred to them)

A third player was a Half-Orc Monk, originally a slave released by the above pair and indebted to them.

Last one was a Human Paladin, captain of a Duke's army who went rogue when instructed to kill innocents (the game took place during a civil war).

Campaign lasted about a year and was actually really, really good. I had few adult players as good as those four.

Than I tried running Exalted for them in a special occasion and they all killed each other and ended the evening crying.

>>25066916

I also had planned for them a short science fiction game but the group broke up after the Exalted incident. I really have no idea what got into them that evening.

>>25066916
>Than I tried running Exalted for them in a special occasion and they all killed each other and ended the evening crying.

That's beautiful, in a way. Even children can enter fey moods.

>>25067092

>Timmy Johnson has locked himself in his workshop to work on a mysterious project...

>>25064084

They don't know what a "griffin" is

What!? What do your preschools teach these days?

In all seriousness, I'm glad you had a good time. Kids can be a lot smarter than people give them credit for if given the chance.

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>>25067140
Saerbg awgg
This is a ball of dirt. ALL craftsmanship is of the highest quality. it is encrusted in gummybears. This object menaces with forks of steel. It is studded with lego pieces. On the item is picture of dwarfs face. The dwarf is frowning.

>>25064084

I wonder if I can make this into some kind of lite fantasy "all ages" dungeon crawler. Call it "DwarfQuest". The next generation of little roleplayers will yet grow to hate the elf, fear the dragon and crave the gold. As they should.

>>25067321

I am now imagining little kids on fire running around... My shrink won't like this.

>>25066214
All of GURPS' complexity is front loaded in chargen. I simplified that, and away we went.

Magic works the same as anything else in GURPS, it is just another skill check. I did just dump the prerequisite trees, but I also kept a tight leash on what spells they learned. That method would likely not work with "adult" gamers that understand the game more fully but it worked fine in the context of a magic school.

I explained fatigue and told them using spells is tiring like running a long time. I also explained that practicing a spell is like working out, if you practice enough you get stronger and thus that spell will take less and less fatigue to use.

>>25066589
>>25066815
>>25066868
>>25066902
It was kinda like a slice-of-life anime with the addition of magic. They were old enough to be a little bit interested in boyfriends and the like. I did an arc with a school dance and they were giggly as hell trying to decide which fictional boy they were going with. It was all pretty innocent.

>>25066878
Yeah, it really surprised me. When we went through vampire weaknesses, it was amusing because she was on board with having one, but really did not know a lot about vampires. She didn't want to drink blood because that was gross, and she was insistent that her character's father was not a bad vampire so holy stuff should not hurt her. She did not really get the whole "must be invited in" thing, and when I explained all the stuff that had garlic in it she was adamant that her character be able to eat spaghetti without getting sick.

I did not want to have her be strictly nocturnal as it would gum up a school time game, she suggested that direct sunlight hurt her eyes and bothered her, so I gave her a scaling penalty, if she was inside it was ok, outside during the day if it was cloudy or in the shade was a small penalty, if she was in the sun without sunglasses and hat it was a medium penalty, and if she was caught without her glasses and hat it was a large one.

She liked the idea not having a reflection and came up with the idea that the other students teased her about her hair or clothes being messed up. That sort of thing is totally something I can see kids teasing another kid over so it worked quite well in the context of a school based game. I also pulled a bit of a Ally Sheedy in the Breakfast Club when we did the school dance. She got someone to do her hair and help her get ready, I inverted her normal social penalty, kinda like how Ally Sheedy's character went from being messy to cute when Molly Ringwald's character helped clean her up. They had never seen The Breakfast Club so the idea completely blew them away and breakthrough moment for the character.

I love these rules-lite systems. I'd like to find one that's both comprehensive and simple, for all ages.

>>25069630

Which one are you referring to?

>>25070604
OP's d6 system.

>>25066391
Some fucked up combo where you'd auto deal frost damage to slowed characters, auto slow when you hit with frost damage, give vulnerability to frost damage when hit and a billion other layers of shit.

Long story short, a handful of feats and a frost weapon and you could gib almost
anything.

And because the frozen condition never went away as long as the target and player lived... it was Permafrost.

>>25071184

I kind of want to combine it with the upper idea and create DwarfQuest. Who's with me?

>>25071184

Add an advantage/disadvantage mechanic and a spellcasting mechanic and it's basically set.

>>25067487
>implying elves aren't superior to humans and dwarves

>>25072701

But trolls are better than all of them.

>>25072786

I'm sorry, the half-Orc master would like a few words with you...

>>25067487

This sounds too beautiful....

>>25072661

We'll leave that for GiantQuest, the "ages 10-12" focused expansion pack.

>>25064740
>and creatively came up with the social penalty from not being able to groom herself properly because she could not be seen in a mirror.
Daaaaamn...

>>25064084
You know, I could replace "Five year olds" by "military buds" and change almost nothing of your list. Except well, they're not that bad at math.

are there any existing systems designed for running RPGs with children?

>>25073372

A Faery's Tale comes to mind. So do Monster Island, Toon, Cats, Heroes of Hesiod...

>>25073443

Wasn't there a blog once about rolaplying games for kids? I think it was pretty famous.

I don't see why children being imaginative is surprising.

>>25073844

These days, I'm surprised you can find them not staring into an ipad.

Kinda reminds me of the time a night in with my girlfriend turned into the two of us babysitting four kids. Three girls and a boy, ages 7, 8, 8 and 9(the boy). Keeping in mind, my girlfriend is AMAZING with kids... 1 or two at a time and if she's prepared. This night, we had four of them dumped on us with less than an hours notice.

So, here we are, house full of screaming kids, knowing full well their parents won't be back until 2-3am at the earliest. It's only 7 pm and we're already at the ends of our ropes. Suddenly, I remembered I still had some of my LARP gear, dice and books in the car.

>lightbulb.jpeg
>Go to car, put on wizard outfit (with light up staff), grab PnP stuff.
>re-enter house through garage, kill power to house at the breaker box.
>sneak into living room, where GF has the kids. Light up staff and begin speech:

"Darkness has fallen on the land of Adrastia. I have come to seek four brave souls to help me return the light.."

After a brief explanaton, we ended up lighting a bunch of candles and running a simple, mostly freeform crawl to "return the light of Adrastia" The kids absolutely loved it. Con't later...

>>25073854
and i was attached at the hip to my gameboy when i was that age.
still turned out just fine.

>>25074076
...why did you have a wizard outfit with you?

>>25074425
>...why did you have a wizard outfit with you?

>>25074076
>Suddenly, I remembered I still had some of my LARP gear

Presumably...

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>>25074499
fffuuuuck me i always do this

>>25074425
>>25074499
The GF and I had a game in the morning. The plan was to go over her house, eat, watch tv/movies, sexytimes, sleep, wake up, more sexytimes, eat again then shower (optional sexytimes) and head off to the park. Turned into no sexytimes, but got a new generation fired up about rp, so it wan't a total loss...

>>25074924
That's pretty cool, anon. I think you just gave me an idea.

>>25074924
Please tell me you found some way of converting the kids into a roving pack of bandits for your game and set them on other players fully armed.

>>25075059
No, sadly. Mommies and daddies had spirited them all away around 3 am. Although I had thought about using them as goblins in the LARP. The other players are big softies, and my GF and I are the only ones that don't have kids, so it probably would have been fun to watch, especially Kenny. Imagine a guy, 6'4" 310 lbs, flaming red hair an beard, both about mid-torso length, in full garb, getting tackled by a bunch of kids beating on him with foam swords...

>>25075249
Hnnnnnnngh.

You must get the kids interested in the concept, and then convince their parents to let them come along. It's outdoor social activity, so it's totally healthy fun!

And what kid that age -doesn't- love the idea of getting to run around and be a wizard or warrior or other fantasy archetype for real, with adults who'll play along?

>roleplaying
Pig disgusting, you should be ashamed for corrupting those poor children.

>>25075339
Working on it, we've already become the go-to babysitters for this group of wee ones, which kinda sucks in a way... Fewer nights alone with the lady...

>>25075374
Anybody got any fireballs or Acid Arrows memorized?

>>25072836
Excuse me, "half"? Don't be polluting us with your human bullshit.

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>>25064084
>1d6+trait roll over 7

Alright, how do you determine Trait numbers (rolls, point buy, etc)? Also, when you say over 7, do you mean it has to be over 7 to succede in general, or something else? Anything else about the system would be awesome to know.

Seriously, this is now greatly relevant to my interests...

>>25064084
>1d6+trait roll over 7.
>Five year olds... can't add to save their lives.
If you're going with a static target number, it'd be really easy to simplify. Just change things around a little and have them roll their stat or under. That allows you to skip the whole addition step, and will probably double your speed. You can do better of two rolls / worse of two rolls for bonuses and penalties, or you could hand them a d4 or d8 to roll instead.

>>25066239
I thought it was because the girl was sitting on a crystal.

>>25078699

I gave them premade characters so they won't have to handle any maths. Behind the stages, I did point buy. Spread 10 points between 4 traits.

>>25081110

But this way you can never have more than one advantage or disadvantage at a time. It basically becomes a trinary thing: when you roll, either you're disadvantaged, you're normal, or you're advantaged, no other states possible inbetween.

>>25076882

Orcs are all about race mixing.

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>>25083545
Well, there's always the best/worst of 3 rolls. You can get up to about 4 dice until it starts to get silly. Alternately, the DM can roll a separate difficulty-die. Basically, if the d-die succeeds on an easy task, then the player succeeds, regardless of whether or not they make their roll. If the d-die fails on a hard task, then the player fails, even if they make their roll. (There is no difficulty-die on a standard task.)

>>25086412

In the interest of making the game more accessible to children and the mathematically challenged I think the "Best of/Worst of" option is preferable. Kind of like in Little Fears.

I've been thinking about RPGs that are simple/fun enough for kids to have fun with. All I've come up with so far is Toon and Mouse Guard.

Can anybody think of any more?

>>25064084
You sir are officionally an awesome elegan/tg/entleman and an awesome brother.

>>25088055

Dwarf Guard?

I can see something like that working.

>>25088639
Maybe West End Games' Star Wars d6, just so they have a sci-fi system to play with?

>>25089078

How exactly is this system in any way kids friendly, beyond using d6's?

>>25073443
I cant hink of a few games which are made for kids, but it's kind of a niche market. In addition to the other ones mentioned (Fairy's Tale is especially good for the wee ones, IMO - they grok fariytales instinctively):

Fuzzy Knights - I'm not the only one getting a Small Soldiers vibe, right?
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/15279/Fuzzy-Knights%3A-The-RPG?it=1

Hero Kids:It's a standard fantasy written up in an easy-to-digest manner
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/106605/Hero-Kids---Fantasy-RPG

Cat: A little game about little heroes: John Wick was involved, that's a pretty good sign.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/92647/Cat-%28Revised-%26-Expanded%29?term=little+heroes

>>25089963

>John Wick was involved, that's a pretty good sign.

Well, it is from before his ego imploded and he became convinced of his own divinity, so it's not utter shit. Just slightly pretentious and poorly edited.

>>25071824
I'd enjoy that!

>>25089533
It's pretty simple, and kids love Star Wars. Admittedly, I've never played a game with kids, but I imagine they'd enjoy it.

Maybe I should try running Dungeon World for my 11 year old sister.

The problem is finding other players, I am not comfortable enough running for her friends who I do not even know.

>>25092420

Well, what do we know so far about the system?

Roll+trait over static target number of 7 (suggestion: change to roll under system and use bonus or penalty dice to represent advantages and disadvantages).

Traits are Strong, Fast, Clever and Brave, which is pretty straightforward.

There's a Life Points traits based on Strong+Brave+Racial Modifier which implies that there is some kind of damage system in place, but it isn't described so you can't know (suggestion by me: simplify things even further by taking a cue from Kill Puppies For Satan - damage directly reduces your strong/brave attribute and whenever you take it you need to roll or be knocked out of the fight).

There are bombs and no magic system.

>>25093946
The system should be able to cover non-combat challenges and NPC interaction too, preferably with the same system.

>>25064084
>- Five year olds can't read fucking dice and can't add to save their lives.
To be fair, I couldn't count when I was five. We started math when school began when we were 7 years old.

>>25096912
Where do you live that school begins when you're 7?

>>25093946
What exactly is Brave?

>>25102643

Some kind of charisma/wisdom hybrid stat?