Crafting the next generation of role players starts with rpgKids
Let me start by saying up front that rpgKids is probably the best 3$ you can spend in beginning to foster the love of RPG’s in a child. Mr. Enrique Bertran (aka @NewbieDM) sent a call out to fellow gamer dads on twitter a few weeks ago, so I felt complied to answer him. After speaking to him I was given the honor to play test some of this delightful project before it came to the masses. I had been familiar with his rpgKids system only vaguely before this, having glanced over it a time or two. When it came to “playing D&D” with my son before it had always been some malformed abbreviated form of 4th edition I hacked up on the spot, no consistency. Thankfully with rpgKids that’s now a thing of the past and he has a simple yet understandable system to play with rules anyone can pick up within minutes.
This evolution of the system (1.5) is somewhat of a re-vamping of his rpgKids system he’d release a year or so ago. He’s made additions, changes, and clarifications as well as extra optional rules for magical items and bonuses/penalties during combat only to name a few. Also added in are special non-combat abilities for each of the 4 class archetypes which are the Sword Fighter, Healer, Archer and Wizard. The system is so simple and so easy to pick up I believe it could be used as a gateway not only for kids but even those non-gamer adults we all have in our lives.
The rpgKids rulebook is 24 pages, comes with everything you need to begin playing immediately and also provides printable grids for creating your own maps and tokens for heroes and monsters. Therein he’s also included a full blown adventure entitled “The Lair of the Frog Wizard” which is a sizable little adventure complete with flavor text and ready to print maps of the locales within the story.