Category: Table Top Gaming With Students

Meandering around on drivethrurpg.com can often lead to random and fabulous resources for game masters. Although the youngest students I work with are about 14, I’ve found value in exploring games aimed at younger demographics. Since roleplaying is, in the end, “make-believe with numbers” we can sometimes gain a new perspective from pondering a more child-like approach to gaming. Stumbling upon Hero Kids, I unexpectedly found the answer to a question that I didn’t realize I had: “how do you run an rpg with a 4-year old?”

Hero Kids is a simple, clever, charming, forgiving, and adaptable fantasy system that appears to achieve this goal!

Type of Game: Role-Playing 

Cost: $6 digitally at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/106605/Hero-Kids–Fantasy-RPG

Plus the cost of 6-sided dice, postcards, battle maps, simple tokens… and candy?!

Recommended Age: Ages 4(!!!) to 11

Group Size: Ideally between 3-5 players (so everyone gets a chance to shine!)

Time: 60-90 minutes, probably the limits of the young attention span

Developed Skills:

• Confidence
• Focus
• Simple Number Skills
• Decision-Making

The Game

“When playing with younger players have defeated enemies scamper away at the end of combat.” Hero Kids pg. 26

The book is littered with statements like this to aid older people into running a game that kids can really enjoy. Hero Kids keeps everything as simple as possible while still maintaining the role playing experience. The rules start extremely simple and can be made more advanced for older children. Some things I enjoy:

• All of your character information can fit on a postcard. Indeed, the core rules include pre-made hero cards that fit some archetypical D&D classes.
• Rolling is simple. The player rolls the number of dice that they have listed on their card (usually one or two, sometimes three) and only look for the highest number they rolled to see if they are successful. Attacking vs. defending is also a simple contested roll for the highest number.
• As players age, the game gives options for more advanced skills, equipment, challenges, and mechanics, although the complexity still falls far short of a D&D or other major mainstream game.
• The game provides fully-formed monsters and enemies to fight, complete with cutout figures to use as tokens.
• The book goes out of its way to include reminders about helping young players maximize their enjoyment and methods to accomplish this task.
• Health is tracked by placing candy on the hero and monster cards. Hurting a monster means that the player gets to eat the candy off the evildoer’s health bar! 

Making it Work for Class

In Hero Kids, I think I’m seeing a system that could work as a general learning tool! Imagine a classroom that utilizes these simple character cards to help players interact with content based challenges in a story. “Find the pieces of the mystic equation to unlock the door of X…” I’ve known teachers who have employed a class-wide gaming structure which included unlocks and upgrades. This seems like it could be the framework for something like that!

Beyond that, I enjoy the spirit that Hero Kids brings to working with young people. If nothing else, it can inspire classroom activities to use the same adventurous attitude. 

An Educational Use

• Once kids have a handle on the games concepts, you could have them make  hero cards for fictional characters in a story that you are reading! “What kind of abilities does Bilbo Baggins have? What are his attack, special action, and bonus ability details after he gets the ring?” Have them explain their choices to show they understand the character and the story.