Troll Lord Games

I sometimes run a very, very rules light D&D variant at a daycare for 10-12 year old kids. Let me tell you some lessons the kids have learned from this:

1.) Teamwork is better than Competition. If a bunch of goblins can work together, so can heroes.
2.) A good plan is better than all the might in the world. Even if you're a warrior. Sometimes a good plan is running. Especially when a dragon is involved.
3.) Don't steal your wizard's owl familiar. Just don't. You might succeed in taking it. But then you have an angry owl far, far too close to your face.

What have I learned from this?
1.) Kids are great at coming up with random stuff and going down that road.
2.) Don't bother deep plotting when running for kids. See Point 1. This is sometimes a bit of a personal struggle with me.
3.) Kids LOVE those fancy dice. So hard.

The rules I use basically run as follows:
You can be a Human, Elf, Dwarf or Hobbit (Kids get confused by halfling, so it's a hobbit for them)
You can be a Wizard, Warrior or Thief.
The attributes are: Strong, Smart, Sneaky
The attribute points translate directly to dice bonuses from +1 to +4 potentially. Characters have six points to put between the three attributes and must have at least 1 point in each attribute.
Health is 2x Strong. Or 3x Strong if you are a Warrior.
Defence (AC) is 10 + Sneaky.
Level Progression is mostly arbitrary. Health increases by Strong score each time. Wizard's spells get more powerful. Warriors get better at fighting. Thieves get better at thieving.

Wizards get to cast spells, but can't wear armour or shields and do only d4 damage when they attack. Wizards get a number of spells to start with equal to their Smart attribute. They have to learn any new spells. I usually pick spells randomly from 1st or 2nd level spells I know from the book.

Warriors get to use all sorts of weapons and armour. They get 3x Strong as their Health. They do d8 damage with attacks.

Thieves can use light weapons and armour. They cannot cast spells directly but can try to cast spells from scrolls. They do d6 damage with attacks. If they catch an enemy totally unawares, they do double damage.

Every character gets to take up to four items along with them. If the item is magical or unlikely, a roll of percentage dice is used to decide, with the target determined by the DM. Warriors always get light armour and a weapon. Thieves get thieves' tools and a weapon. Wizards get a wand/staff and a familiar.

Humans get to take one extra item with them. Dwarves see in the dark (darkvision), can't get scared (immune to fear) and can always sense depth and direction underground. Elves see and hear better than humans (+2), can understand the language of one kind of animal and can always use bows (even wizards). Hobbits see and hear well (+2) and are good at hiding (+2 as well).

Initiative is group initiative by d6. Partial surprise is a +1 bonus. Total surprise is a +2 bonus.

A lot of things are deliberately left fluid, and the idea is to craft an adventure more than anything else.

That sounds really solid. So, is AC = 10 + armor bonus + sneaky or just AC = 10 + sneaky? How does light armor factor in?

I like your attributes - reminds me of Fate Accelerated:

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/1 ... ccelerated

It also depends on the kids. My kids starting gaming with me at 7 to 8 years of age. All they knew back then was to roll a D20, D8, D6, D4, etc... and I worried about the rules. Then as their interest grew so did their attention span, and by the time they were 10 they were reading the rule books and often knew the rules better than my adult players.

Kudos on running D&D for kids. We've (hopefully) come a long way from the satanist panic days. I also think there's a lot of opportunities for teaching social skills through RPGs, so as part of a regimen of a daycare program, seems like a really good idea. Also, if you're looking for kid-friendly RPGs, I recommend Little Wizards. It's an RPG designed specifically for children, but with opportunity for all of the storytelling of the 'adult' RPGs.

Buttmonkey wrote:That sounds really solid. So, is AC = 10 + armor bonus + sneaky or just AC = 10 + sneaky? How does light armor factor in?

Defence (AC) = 10 + sneaky + armour bonus

Broadly, light armours are worth 2, medium armour 4 and heavy armour 6. Might not sound like a lot, but since there aren't a lot of attack bonuses on the table, it adds up pretty fast.

I also broadly use 'swarm' monsters as well as regular ones.

Swarm monsters have only one hit point. All other stats are variable. The idea is that they can be used in much greater amounts than 'regular' monsters. As we get on a bit, I might let Warriors get bonus attacks against Swarm monsters.

We have gone a lot way from the ridiculous satanic panic. It also gives the older kids in particular something to do that actually uses their brains and social skills, which is good. Teamwork is essential for successful gaming. So is the ability to think on one's feet.

Sounds cool!

If the kids want to try pirates, there's always Yarr, you know.
[/shameless plug]

But seriously, it's really really awesome what you're doing and it sounds like a solid rules set.

I was just looking at the Moldvay basic set. Not exactly the way I want to play D&D (I can't abide the whole race-as-class thing ... ), but it's still a damn good game, and fairly kid-friendly as well.

Yeah, I just kinda made some stuff up because I'm wary of bringing potentially valuable books to a daycare. Just in case one of the smaller kids decides to get rippy with it or spill some juice on it or something.

There's definitely a few kids in the lot that I think would be just fine with C&C. The biggest problem is that I rarely have more than 30-45 minutes or so to play with them at a given time. I'm kinda hoping to convince some folks in the summer to maybe let me take 5-6 of the older kids for an hour or two once a week or something.

That's sort of how I got into the hobby. It was the Aliens board game an older kid ran at 'rest hour' every day at camp one summer. My first exposure to "funny looking dice" and it planted a seed....

good stuff!