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My nine year old daughter wants to start playing RPG's with me. I tried to start her on 4th ed and she seemed to get confused a little easier than I would have liked. So I figure I would ask the esteemed members of the fraternity what they thought would be a good starting point.

Steve Jackson (the British one, not the American one) put out a load of "choose your own adventure path" books under the Fighting Fantasy label. The mechanics are very simple - far too simple for my tastes - but the plots are very interesting and they're a fun way to pass an afternoon. Sadly these are only single player.

In the early 1990s I came across a set of Fighting Fantasy adventure books for group play. I seem to remember several books for it called "Dungeoneer", "Blacksand", and an adventure called "The Riddling Reaver". The rules again are very simplistic and it will probably not be very long before your kid is ready to move onto more sophisticated stuff (or not... I was playing OD&D at age 8 and then stuck with Fighting Fantasy for a good 3 years after that before going to AD&D 2nd ed.).

IIRC, each character has three basic attributes: Skill, Stamina, and Luck. The game only uses d6, and the usual dice roll is 2d6, trying to roll under your relevant attribute. It's very simple and frees up the brainpower to focus on the much more fun stuff of role playing - scurvy pirates, fleabitten werewolves, and crotchety old men at the pub

This link may help: http://www.fightingfantasy.com/index.ph ... &Itemid=66

What about the original [ was it red?] D&D box. I seem to remeber that as being easy enough. You can get them on ebay I am pretty sure, for not too much $$. Whatvdo you fellas or gals think?

I got my seven year old daughter started with 3rd edition and as far as adventures I used combat encounters as "rock throwing" contests against goblins or dart games. Magic items I gave her a wand of sleep to get by certain monsters like a dragon who was guarding a unicorn baby she had to rescue. as for feats went with stuff like alertness or improved intiative.

My friend runs his kids(ages 9 and 6) through D6 fantasy. It may be difficult to find this stuff these days though, I am not sure if it is still in print.

Or you could take the horror out of the Grimm game. That has a very easy rule set.

D6 is still around, I hadn't thought of the Grimm game but that is a great suggestion.

tarlyn wrote:What about the original [ was it red?] D&D box. I seem to remeber that as being easy enough. You can get them on ebay I am pretty sure, for not too much $$. Whatvdo you fellas or gals think?

The Basic D&D red boxed set is a great starting point for a 9-yr old interested in RPGing.

Intrepid wrote:My nine year old daughter wants to start playing RPG's with me. I tried to start her on 4th ed and she seemed to get confused a little easier than I would have liked. So I figure I would ask the esteemed members of the fraternity what they thought would be a good starting point.

Have her play a monster.

It's simpler and she just needs to a smaller, condensed statblock.

Try Hero Quest or the TSR embarrassment Dragon Strike if you can find them.

If not try Hero Scape. Its just like Hero Quest but without a plot. Plus it has quick start AND advanced rules.

The starter set for D & D mini could also work.

Or you can just create a simple Character sheet for her and just let her roll the dice whenever is needed, no matter what the result, you will know the outcome (you are the DM after all). When she gets used with the basics you can"upgrade" the rules so she gets more an more control over her character.

I tried this once with my nephews (10 and 9) and the caught up really fast. Only problem was that, eventually all they wanted to do was attack and smash everyone and everything the met in the game.

Ancalagon wrote:

tarlyn wrote:What about the original [ was it red?] D&D box. I seem to remeber that as being easy enough. You can get them on ebay I am pretty sure, for not too much $$. Whatvdo you fellas or gals think?

The Basic D&D red boxed set is a great starting point for a 9-yr old interested in RPGing.

I agree. IIRC, it also includes several low-level monsters (living statues, plants, oozes) that a child's PC can do battle with, without combat getting gory or involving violence towards humanoids.

Rotipher of the FoS wrote:

Ancalagon wrote:

tarlyn wrote:What about the original [ was it red?] D&D box. I seem to remeber that as being easy enough. You can get them on ebay I am pretty sure, for not too much $$. Whatvdo you fellas or gals think?

The Basic D&D red boxed set is a great starting point for a 9-yr old interested in RPGing.

I agree. IIRC, it also includes several low-level monsters (living statues, plants, oozes) that a child's PC can do battle with, without combat getting gory or involving violence towards humanoids.

I also think that the younger player has an easy time learning with this box set Also, reading the Hobbit & LOTR helps any new D&D player at a young age I found. Though now they can just be lazy and watch it heh!

I played regular D&D with my kids and their friends when they were 7-10 years old. It was requested as the coolest thing to do on a birthday

I just did their player sheet and simplified the stat block a lot. There were mostly hit points, IIRC, weapons they can use (damage dice), spells for caster (name, and damage or duration), and a few other things such as running speed per round.

At the start, game mechanics was also extremely simplified: 10 or more on the d20 is what you needed to hit.

Initiative was the highest d20 around the table starts, and then it ran clockwise around the table.

The goal was to interest them to explore and most importantly, have fun.

Then as they got used to it, I introduced slowly one new rule at a time - armor, etc.

They saved a princess in a tower (most Disney-like stories can be turned into a kid RPG scenario), found and neutralize a candy thief, etc.

Then they came into the mists ...

Joël

I can't believe this did not dawn on me before!

WARHAMSTER

Warhamster is a fantasy rpg parody from the creators of the Dork Tower comic book series. Its 8 pages long, easy to learn and a lot of fun.

Look it up. You can download the complete rules pdf for free.

I highly recommend Tunnels and Trolls, the zany 1974 fantasy RPG.

The rules are extremely simple and the solitaire adventures are simply a blast. I began playing T&T when I was nine years old and still use it occasionally.

Here are the basic rules (Free)

Here is Trollzine 1 With Solitaire Adventure(Free)