Advice for a 1 on 1 Pathfinder game for a 9 year old.


Advice


Hey Guys!

Just ran the beginners box with my 9 year old brother. I just chucked in an extra 2 PC's and off he went. To my surprise he seemed to love the whole experience and understood the basics of the game. He's really keen on playing again, which makes me a very proud brother :D

My question is what is the best course of action? I'm all for starting an adventure path but things that worry me are scaling and the suitability of a campaign for a 9 year old.

Any help will be much appreciated :D

Kalacha


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0One games has a line of adventures for the begginer box basic paths if you want to stick to the simplified rules for a while. I would be concerned at trying to put a 9 year old into the complete ruleset, even if he is comfortable with the begginer rules, just because once you lose the visual nature of how things are laid out in the begginer box character sheets and rules, they might struggle. But ofcourse you know your brother better then I do.

There is also a line of adventures designed for a single player by expeditious press here. You might want to have a look at that if you are worried about scaling.

In terms of content, most adventures have at least something that is a little adult for a 9 year old, so I imagine regarldess of the adventure you are going to have to go through and sanitize any published adventure you run. That said, I would specifically advise against rise of the runelords, as it has some fairly key events that would be hard to present to a young audience without issue.


Totally agree, maybe something homebrew with the simplified rules would be better.


Run him through We Be Goblins, it's delightful.

If you think he can handle it put him in charge of all four goblins, or maybe just two or three.

Silver Crusade

I would echo the sentiment for off the cuff or "homebrew" adventure. Keep it simple and fluid. Making it up as you go along

I've had my sons playing D&D since they were little... my youngest DM'ed his first game when he was 8 and we played that game for 3 years and finished it around 15th level. In the begining I would guide the story through my character a bit but as time went on it truly became his world and his story. Never have you had adventure until you travel down the road presented by an 8 year old. ;)

Now the three of us typicaly have two games we are running a piece for the other two and we just bounce in between them.


I have a game with my daughters (7 and 15) where they are the king's royal naturalists. They travel around, National Geographic style, and discover new exotic species of animals and humanoids. It has a very Frank Buck, Bring'em Back Alive feel and I sometimes have an npc that is Indiana Jones meets Steve Irwin mentor them. We down play the slaughter of other humanoids and mercenary nature of most games and emphasize the things that they like. I haven't had any lack of adventurous moments and I get to get them thinking about our family's values/interests in a fun way.

They are both playing simplified summoners. I selected their spell lists, feats, and traits so they each have a different feel and need to depend on each other. They have had great fun building and drawing their eidolons and i have had fun making their unoptimized choices relavent (the youngest had to have a tentacle on her cat at 1st level which would have stunk as an attack but has become "Indy's whip" ).

I would be interested in other adventure ideas for young gamers and will check out the links mentioned in the thread.


I have been running a game for my 10 year old for about a year now. We used the beginner rules at first but once he out got to level 4+ I started using a kind of mash up of the normal rules and beginner box and have been adding normal rules mechanics as I go until we fully transition.

For adventure prep I found using the KISS method was best. I simply make up a few quest hooks and very basic plots and present him with them on a job/bounty board, let him pick which one he wants to do, give him the particulars and what his job or quest is, and let him run wild (making up bits as needed 9-10 year olds can really think outside the box).

This keeps the sessions realitivly short (2-4 hrs normally) and I try and keep it to 1 story/quest/job per session so he dosen't lose interest or get confused.

Also his (and most every childs IMO) ability to think outside the box and find solutions to problems that I hadn't thought of is great GM training in ad libbing.

Grand Lodge

So are there any adventure paths that are good for younger kids? I dont have the time anymore to write my own stuff.


Stay away from Shattered Star, it has some extremely adult elements.

Kingmaker should work, you can deal with the kingdom building stuff yourself or ignore/abstract it. The rest of it, until the end is mostly just exploration and fighting or making allies.

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