Our son's first movie

When my in-laws visited, we decided to be braver and try somethings we'd never dared try before. We decided to take our toddler to a movie, with the backing of Grandma. 

The movie that we chose for this momentous event was Finding Dory. We figured that it was our best bet, between the bright colors and the knowledge that it didn't have too many scary moments. (Sorry, Don Bluth. We will save cartoons with nightmare fuel for when he's older)

We figured that the best thing that could happen would be he would be enraptured by the colorful adventures of the Pixar fish and sit in awe throughout the film. The worst thing that would happen is that he would freak out when the lights went out or from the crowd or something startling him in the movie.

Instead, we ended up with a middle ground. After ten minutes of trailers and twenty minutes of actual movie, he got bored and tugged on Mommy to take him out into the mall that cinema is attached to. No screaming or crying or temper tantrums. Just 'All done'

Mommy took one for the team and let Daddy and Grandma watch the rest of the movie. Which I was appreciated, since I've enjoyed most of Pixar's work. (The one comment I'll make about the movie is that the way they cashed the check they wrote with the trail of shells was beyond heart warming)

I've decided to take this as coming out ahead. He didn't make it the of most of the movie. However, it wasn't a trauma or negative experience for him. He enjoyed the time  he had in the cinema. It's something to build on.

Matching and stacking before Candy Land

I had expected that counting would be the first steps in teaching our son about board games. Instead, it has been stacking and matching.

I've heard that Candy Land is a child's first game, mostly from other gamer parents who couldn't keep the grandparents from buying it. Being colorblind, I've never liked Candy Land and, as a gamer, I dislike how it offers no choices unless someone decides to stack the deck, which I view as a valid choice.

But it has been pointed out to me that Candy Land not only teaches colors and counting but also teaches kids to take turns and that pawns can represent them on the board. And that if my son rips the board in half or shreds the cards, I won't care :P

However, what was really my son's first exposure to games has been Animal Upon Animal and My First Animal Tower from Fisher Price, both stacking games. I may someday find all of the animals from Animal Upon Animal :D

Matching games have also been a good success. He hasn't yet twigged to the idea that Mommy or Daddy should get a turn but he understands looking for matches. Still, understanding how to look for matches is a big step.

(We've also let him play with Cooties but just as a puzzle. We would never be so cruel as to ask him to follow those rules)

Honestly, identifying pictures and motor skills like stacking are basic building blocks for a toddlers understanding and relating to the world. It's only natural that those should be their starting games.

How Chloe's Closet blew our minds

Over the last couple years, we have watched a lot of kiddy cartoons. It's a side effect of being parents and trying to figure out what we're okay with what our son watching.

And we have seen some strange ones. Although it's not like the cartoons of my childhood were that normal. A talking dog and some teenagers thwarting white collar criminals who insist on dressing up like monsters really doesn't sound like it came out of a rational mind.

So far, our single strangest experience has been Chloe's Closet. It didn't help that we missed the beginning of the first episode we watched. We found ourselves watching a trio of small children meeting a talking lion who was a wheelchair-bound paraplegic who was obsessed with frogs and also the king. They then proceeded to cheer him up teaching him about hip hop music. In this case, that means singing the words hip and hop to the tune of Old McDonald.

Absurd really doesn't cover it. To this day, that is the high water mark of bizarre for us.

Later, we learned that the premise of the show was that a little Welsh girl was playing pretend with her friends with a great big closet of dress up clothes. In other words, a world of talking animals and cars made out of craft supplies and tyrannosaur rexes on roller skates all makes perfect sense.

While we now understand why so many fantastic things are happening in Chloe's closet, and I do have to say that it does resemble the imaginary world that four -year-old might come up with, it is still a pretty strange place. Then again, a four-year-old's imagination.

It has not become a show that we watch on a regular basis, just on the odd occasion. However, I do like the idea of a pretend world where nothing is dangerous because a little girl wants it that way.

It's a gentle and harmless romp with a lot of creativity but we will never ever forget that first experience.I'm 

Why Marshall of the Paw Patrol is one of my heroes

With a toddler in the house, we have watched a lot of cartoons, sometimes with him and sometimes to see if we're okay with him watching the show. One program that has become a regular at our home is Paw Patrol, which is about a boy who is apparently a wealthy orphan using talking dogs as an all purpose rescue service. Seriously, it's like Bruce Wayne had more pets and much better therapy.

The show has grown on me as we have watched more and more of it.  And the klutzy but determined Dalmatian Marshall has grown to be my favorite character. And, of course he's the one who drives the miniature fire truck since he's a Dalmatian. He has become my Han Solo to Chase the police dog's Luke.

The show's writers certainly have done a good job making Marshall endearing. His clumsiness gives him the most visible flaw of all the pups and makes his perseverance all the more heroic. However, it was the episode 'Pups Save an Adventure' that cemented him as my favorite.

It's actually one of the least exciting stories in the entire series. Marshall teaches fire safety to little boy Alex when he goes camping with his grandfather. It could easily work as a public safety announcement and it doesn't seem to get as much airtime as many more thrilling episodes.

But the reason why the episode has stuck with me and won Marshall to my heart is that, in his area of expertise, Marshall is 100% competent. It's abundantly clear he didn't get his job just because he has spots. You need someone who is an expert on fire safety and fire prevention who is also a talking dog? First of all, you're really specific in your demands and, second, you're looking for Marshall. 

He doesn't get the job done by being lucky. He gets it done by knowing what to do, even if he is comic relief. Marshall may be a hero because he's determined but he's a good rescue dog because he's got legit skills.

It really feels like cartoons that bridge the gap between education and entertainment are doing a better job at creating interesting role models. Thirty years ago, Marshall would have been a goofball and a load. Now he's a clumsy professional.

You know, Toon is another great RPG for kids

For over a year, both on this blog and my other blog, I have been looking into role-playing games that are suitable for younger players. Even though, I'm pretty sure that our toddler is probably going to be more interested in T-ball then Dungeons & Dragons. :P

There have been a lot of games that of come out in the past five, ten years that have been aimed at younger players. And, I mean as young as four years old. There's a whole genre, and I'm willing to bet a market, for role-playing games that are aimed at people who are still in their single digits.

However, it was pointed out to me recently that there is at least one much older game that is perfect for younger audiences. One that I have played now and then over the years and even ran. A game that I have described as being the perfect introduction for non-role players, in fact. But not one that I considered for small children.

That game is, drumroll, Steve Jackson's Toon.

The game of 'we really wanted to get a Looney Tunes license', the first edition to Toon came out way back in 1984. Seriously, every time I find myself thinking how brave new ideas are breaking into gaming, I find that the seeds for a lot of innovative ideas are much older than I thought.

I remember how Roger Ebert, who was a vocal supporter for animation as a serious medium, would complain about how every time a new animated movie came out that was either aimed at adults or at least offered a lot for adults, you would see headlines talking about how cartoons weren't just for kids anymore. (Grave of the Fireflies came out in 1988, for crying out loud!)

Which isn't to say that new content and innovation are undercut because you can find older examples. It means role-playing games are actually a vast interconnected network of developing ideas, with nothing growing in isolation. Which is pretty cool.

And I just rambled my way completely off-topic. OK, back to looking at Toon.

Toon is the game of playing a cartoon. And by cartoon, I don't mean action adventure cartoons like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or the Transformers. I mean Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Slapstick silliness where the rule of funny is the most important one.

Designwise, Toon definitely reflects the time what it was made. The characters have stats and hit points, just like Dungeons & Dragons characters.

However, it is still mechanically light system that will be easy for kids, probably even as young as six, to handle. It uses a point build system, so you can make the character just the way you want. And, even though you have hit points, no one ever dies. If you get crushed beneath the grand piano that fell out of the sky, you just take three minutes timeout.

And the mechanics are really simple too. You just roll under your combined stat and skill on two six-sided dice to do something. So snake eyes is totally awesome and boxcars means you failed on an epic level.

While Toon fits the mold of being a traditional-style RPG and simulation driven rather than narrative driven, the mechanics are light enough AND intuitive enough that I don't think non-role-players, young or old, will have any problem understanding them.

Of course, what makes Toon really work as an introduction to role-playing is the theme. I'm not sure if there is anyone who isn't living in a cave who hasn't seen Sylvester and Tweety and the Roadrunner and Daffy Duck. And those people who are living in a cave under a rock, even they've seen Bugs. People understand how these cartoons work.

More than that, you don't have to worry nearly as much about consequences or doing something wrong. If Frodo tried to give one of the ring wraiths a noogie or Luke challenge the emperor to a thumb war, I'm pretty sure we'd be looking at a total party kill, not to mention some serious tone derailment. But in Toon, you can do that and it fits.

It's okay to make silly or stupid decisions. That can be a tough lesson to learn, in RPGs and out of them as well. 

Toon is over thirty years old. I haven't seen the latest edition but I don't think much has changed. And I think it would make a dandy game to play with a bunch of kids getting ready for kindergarten.

No Thank You Evil: powered by pure make believe

After I wrote about Hero Kids, a role-playing game that is specifically aimed at very young children, an old college friend recommended that I look into No Thank You Evil.

No Thank You Evil hasn't come out yet, unless you're reading this a month or so after I posted it. It's being published by Monte Cook Games, which is an awfully good pedigree. I don't know if Mister Cook himself worked in the game but the fact that he put his name behind it is a feather in its cap.

The previews give me a decent idea of how the game works and what kind of stories you're probably going to come up with using the system.

It's very mechanics light, which is really what you would hope for in a game aimed as young as five-year-olds. Character creation consists of coming up with a sentence with up to three characteristics for your character. For instance, your sentence could be I am a thoughtful prince who likes sailing. 

You also have trait pools, a certain number of tokens that you assign to tough, smart, fast, and awesome. The pools act like stats in Robin Law's Gumshoe system. You spend them to get bonuses in the appropriate action.

(There, I have compared a game that five-year-olds can play to Trail of Cthulhu. I feel proud of myself)

As for actually resolving decisions, the GM sets the difficulty level and you try to roll under with a six-sided die.

The preview hints at other rules, like having pets that do tricks. Obviously, you're going to have to actually buy the game if you want to get all of the good stuff.

Oh, the preview does mention a special rule for very young players. They get a No Thank You Evil token, which can be used to get out of jail for free. If the game ever gets too intense or too difficult, they can just give that to the GM and the GM will sort things out.

The game is set in Storia. It is the land of make-believe, no brakes applied. Is your kid into dinosaurs or robots or fairies or ghosts? Well, then they will be there. Peter Pan's Neverland has nothing on Storia.

Obviously, since the game hasn't come out yet and I haven't been able to actually read all the rules or see all the things that come with it, it's hard for me to really judge what No Thank You Evil would really be like. 

It definitely stands on the other side of the line from Hero Kids as far as design philosophy is concerned. Hero Kids is a very mechanics driven game that you're even supposed to play on a grid. The base game is very solidly set in the Sword and Sorcery genre, although there is a science fiction setting as well. It creates a very concrete, dare I even say rigid, structure for the game.

No Thank You Evil, on the other hand, is much more free-form and built on the imaginations of the players. It takes the games of make-believe all kids play and adds a few rules to them so that there is some suspense to what the heroes are doing.

Which one is better? Honestly, I think that all depends on what your kid likes and what they need. I like the fact that there is a game out there like Hero Kids that has a strong rule structure. I think that is a good tool to have in your gaming bag. On the other hand, I can also easily see the kids might respond much better to the more imagination-based and whimsical No Thank You Evil. I think the way that it fully embraces make-believe opens up a lot of potential story doors.

So, if you are looking for role-playing game for very small children, I like the fact that there are good options out there. You know your kids. You know what they need and what will work for them. I'm just highlighting what seems to be some good options to my mind.

I will say, one thing that I really like about No Thank You Evil is the title tokens. I think firmly establishing a way for kids to say I'm scared or I'm frustrated or I'm unhappy is a really good tool to communicate where they are at with their parents or whoever is running the game.

http://www.nothankyouevil.com

A dungeon crawl for toddlers

A little over a year ago, I discovered a role-playing game called Hero Kids. While the theme of medieval fantasy heroes was about as standard as you can get, what really attracted my attention was that it was for kids ages four to ten.

Part of what still amazes me about the existence of Hero Kids is a can remember when Dungeons and Dragons was getting banned at schools and libraries. And now it's okay in preschool. Wow.

And it really is Dungeons and Dragons for little kids. European, medieval fantasy with dungeon crawls. Heck, the simplest way to play Hero Kids, and the way recommended for the littlest ones, is as individual fights, effectively a small scale war game, which harms a back to Dungeons and Dragons' own origins.

Mechanically, the game is very simple. In fact, you don't even need to read to understand the player character sheets. All the abilities are in obvious icon form. Fights are Risk-style dice pools with the high dice winning when attacking and defending.

Hero Kids is one of the few RPGs I've seen with an age cap. But I think that's pretty reasonable. The mechanics are so simple that I'm pretty sure older kids, let alone adults, would be quickly bored by them.

The real impact that Hero Kids has had on my life so far is that it got me interested in reading role playing games that are designed for younger audiences. By that, I mean games that are aimed at kids before they become teenagers. Again, that such a huge change from when I first got interested in role-playing games.

I will say that, even after reading a whole bunch of them, Hero Kids still stands on its own. While much of what I read were story-driven games, Hero Kids is an old-school, mechanics driven engine, even if the mechanics are super easy.

And I honestly wonder if that really is the right way to introduce toddlers to RPGs. You see, I've seen adults struggle with improvisation and playing make believe but they understand structure and rules.

Kids, though, they got make believe down. My two-year-old, I see him playing with dinosaurs and trucks and Olaf and Minnie Mouse all at the same time. What they might need is the framework of rules. In that case, Hero Kids is perfect.

I have a couple years before my son is old enough for Hero Kids and I'll be surprised if he is actually interested in pencil and paper RPGs. I figure video games will be his RPG introduction. But, all my choices for an RPG for a toddler, Hero Kids is the top choice.

http://herokidsrpg.blogspot.com/p/hero-kids-overview.html?m=1

Kids shows sure seem to have come a long way

Since becoming a parent, I have watched a lot of children's television. Some of it because our son watches it and some of it in order to figure out what we will feel okay letting him watch.

Boy, has the world changed since I was a kid. But I don't mean that in a bad way. Children's shows seem to be a lot more effectively educational and also a lot more socially aware.

My big TV remembrance of being a toddler featured Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers and the Electric Company. After that, we're talking about Saturday morning cartoons that were designed to sell toys and keep us out of our parents' hair for a few hours.

For both my wife and I, one of the defining moments of how children's television has changed was when we were vetting the show called Blaze and the Monster Machines. It's a Nick Junior show about a boy and his sentient truck in a world of other talking trucks, teaching kids about physics and technology.

Neither one of us was particularly impressed with the show as we watched Blaze and his human try to save a friend who was stuck with bouncy tires. And then they talked about how they were going to have to use the power of adhesion to save him and then proceeded to define and discuss adhesion.

Wait a second? Is a cartoon for toddlers talking about adhesion? Seriously? 

Actually, that paled in comparison to a Brazilian cartoon called Earth to Luna that did things like accurately depicting a banana rhizome and the Mars Rover Curiosity. Admittedly, Earth to Luna (a five-year-old scientist who uses the entire world as her laboratory) is a PBS-style educational show but we were still impressed by it. 

I've basically skipped about three decades worth of development in children's entertainment. The whole concept of edutainment, shows that are supposed to be fun and teach stuff, seems to come a long way. Frankly, on both levels.

Maybe, and this is something for an education expert or a child psychiatrist to actually determine, being able to integrate the entertainment aspect of the show in the educational level of the show allows you teach things better.

Between what our two-year-old will actually pay attention to and what we want to show him, there's a whole mess of shows that don't end up on our television set. But still, it really feels like we still have a wide selection of quality shows that actually teach him something.