My old school roots in RPGs

While I know that it probably sounds like I am only interested in avant-garde role-playing games, the truth is that my basic grounding was very traditional games. The three games that really helped me get into role playing games were second edition Dungeons and Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, and the original Marvel Superheroes Role-Playing Game.

Of course, I had played role playing games before then, like first edition Dungeons and Dragons. However, those three games were the first really serious campaigns I was in and really made role playing games a serious hobby for me. Of course, the groups I played with get the real credit but the systems still help.

Dungeons and Dragons is the bedrock of role playing games. It's the game that got the industry started and I don't think role playing games would have inevitably, spontaneously come to life. They needed a spark and it turns out that a dragon is a pretty good spark.

I do know some gamers who actively dislike D&D. I think it's because D&D is the Man of role playing games and it's hip to hate the Man. And, as litigious as TSR would be, sometimes they really did act like the Man.

However, decades of development and changes and ideas has given Dungeons and Dragons one of the richest and most genuinely diverse contents out there. It has so much to offer. For a game that isn't designed to be a generic system that you can apply any theme to, it has a wealth of sandboxes to play in.

If I could only play one game for the rest of my life, it would be a tussle between Dungeons and Dragons and Go. Mind you, I'd argue I could play every edition and make a monk who plays Go and insist on playing Go, just in character.

I have to admit that reading the second edition of Call of Cthulhu's rules in middle school was my introduction to H. P. Lovecraft and I have been reading his works and the works he inspired. It's been a lifelong enjoyment and not a year goes by without me rereading some of his stories.

If you somehow don't know what Call of Cthulhu is about, it is a horror game inspired by the guy who helped define cosmic horror. You play relatively ordinary people trying to make it to the end without dying horribly or going insane.

Call of Cthulhu, particularly when it first came out, was really the role player.s role playing game. An investigator with a Bowie knife, a tommy guns and some dynamite will probably take out some deep ones. But against anything real monsters, let alone Great Old Ones, you will just die horribly. So you have to focus on playing the character, not fighting.

Back in the day, I was a little sheepish about playing Marvel Super Heroes, since it was such a simple system where one chart did most of the work. But I have had years of fun with it and even occasionally play it now.

And with such a simple system, it was easy to hack the system and play with the mechanics. (My primary GM didn't use the Marvel setting, just the rules, so we populated it with all of our own heroes and villains) I didn't really do that seriously until the third edition of Dungeons and Dragons but Marvel Super Heroes gave me a good start.

And, frankly, it was all such comic book silly fun :)

I've played and researched a lot of indie games in the last few years. But I really owe my grounding in the hobby and my love of the hobby to these old school games. 

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