RPGs for 4 year olds?


Gamer Life General Discussion


One of my friends wants to introduce tabletop roleplaying games to her 4 year old. Is there anything suitable?


The only thing I can think of would be something like Toon with a highly simplified mechanic.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
ericthecleric wrote:
One of my friends wants to introduce tabletop roleplaying games to her 4 year old. Is there anything suitable?

Not really. It's really hard to imagine 4 year olds that have the attention span to sit down on a table for 4-8 hours straight. And quite frankly, I'm sure that even if you could, that's far from the best place they should be. Kids that age are energetic, they should be kept physically active.

The game is written for someone who's at least around the middle teens, pretty much.


Beginners Box or maybe Ponyfinder, they won't grasp many of any rules but the hours they play with pawns and the map are worth it, also teach one aspect at a time, my four year old doesn't really grasp what he's doing but he sure does love to yell "Shocking Grasp!!" Whenever someone asks what his wizard does :-)


Sidekick Quests.

It's made for kids, and his art and character sheets are fun. And it's a great price.


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Take a look at Hero kids


Last I heard Tacticslion was teaching his four-year-old about RPGs.
CALLING TACTICSLION!


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[Insert 5,000 word post about gaming with kids here]


Coming Feb 2016: "No Thank You, Evil!"

Pretty much exactly what you're looking for, albeit in a few months.

Liberty's Edge

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Most RPGs can be 'suitable' for little kids with a little thought. Don't try to teach them all the rules... just the procedures of playing (e.g. listening to the GM, rolling dice, moving figurines) are 'rules' enough for them. Also, play up the emotional angle... scary monster voices, crowds cheering the heroes, et cetera.

All that being said... Bunnies and Burrows. :]

Liberty's Edge

Toon!, maybe Little Wizards or Golden Sky Stories.

I think four might be a little young for most role playing games. I'd probably just play the ultra rules light folk RPG, Make Believe.


Little Wizards

I ran 2-hour solo session for a 8 y/o today. We did character creation and got half-way through a mystery where some mischievous brownies have been adding magical pine sap dust to chocolate and it's making people act goofy. I'm running it straight out of the book.

I would say a 4 y/o is probably still too young for an actual RPG. They can listen to a story and tell very simple ones, but there's brain development that hasn't happened yet that's going to make it difficult. I'd recommend just continuing unstructured "pretend" for now. 6 y/o would be the earliest I'd say to try to start introducing RPG's and I'd go with one specifically designed for kids.

An RPG written for use with kids is going to have already done some of the work on adapting the rules and making sure that they feel simple and easy to use. Little Wizards, for example, has simple rules, plus it's full of examples and text that is very "kid friendly". Not just in it's content rating, but text that is specifically geared towards being interesting to kids.


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My five year old likes to "help" when we play Pathfinder. While he doesn't have a firm grasp on most of the game, he tells us what he wants to do and we translate that into something a little more useful to the rest of the players, which are his older (11 year old) brothers. After a bit he'll leave and just float back and forth, asking to move his character but otherwise letting the game move without him.


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Just make something up.

Rolling dice and telling stories together is the main point, right?

Get them hooked on that part, leave the actual systems for later.


Epyllion

This is another decent one, but I'd again recommend slightly older. 5-8 y/o could get the game, but I think 10+ will get into the long term themes better. The game is inspired by My Little Pony, but it follows something of a Harry Potter arc. It's easy to start out lighthearted, but it starts to add more serious content pretty quick and moves on to a darker tone.

It's "Powered by the Apocalypse" (it uses rules based on the Apocalypse World game), so the rules are pretty simple and help to actually create a story on the fly. It also fits well into mini-campaigns that last around 40-60 hours of play.

I personally haven't played it with kids, my group for Epyllion is all adults. My GM ran it at a micro-convention for a group of 5-10 y/o kids and they had a lot of fun with it. These were all kids of gamers and had at least watched their parents play games before.

It isn't released yet, but the kickstarter was successful and the company has finished their previous projects.

Sovereign Court

I'd try and snag a copy of Heroquest off ebay.


Hi all,

Thanks for the replies!

My friend has decided to look into Ponyfinder.

Grand Lodge

ericthecleric wrote:

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies!

My friend has decided to look into Ponyfinder.

I hope it turns out well! I'd love to hear about it, feel free to drop me a message at david@ponyfinder.net

The Exchange

Just play pretend....foam swords and shields, magic wands, dress up costumes, someone plays the bad guy....basically LARPing with a child.
Worked for just about every 4 year old ever....

Silver Crusade

Mermaid Adventures. Never read it, never mind played it, but it is supposed to be very kid friendly.

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