"I love Paul's idea of assigning dice to 3 key abilities for a 'rules light, kid friendly' RPG. Super quick, easy, and understandable. I may try this with my kids."
I figured I'd save Benoit the trouble and just send him a copy of Hero Kids instead! Luckily, Benoit has taken the challenge, played Hero Kids with his family, and posted a comprehensive review of the game on his site:
Hero Kids the new RPG for kids
Quotes? These are quotes:
"The game is smooth, simple, fun, and definitely geared towards kids. But that doesn’t mean 'dumbed down.' It just means 'not overly complicated.'"
"I had a chance to sit down with my kids and wife last week to play a couple of sessions, and we had a blast. We used the adventure that comes with the base RPG (Basement O’ Rats)"
"Each character also has some special attacks or benefits that are situational, but if you’re playing with younger kids, they’re completely optional. My two youngest (3 and 5) played just with their dice pools, and had a blast. My wife and oldest daughter (12), on the other hand were able to use the special options on their character sheets, which made the game more interesting for them. The game did not break from either ignoring or using the special abilities on the character sheets."
"Most of the monsters that come with the modules are 'minions' (one hit and they’re dead), with the bigger bosses having 3 hit points. This makes the combats go quickly. This is an advantage not to be underestimated when playing with kids."
"Finally, the production values of this game are top notch. Each character is fully illustrated in a kid-friendly cartoony style, and many of the statistics on the character sheets (stats, skills, and inventory) are symbols so that even the younger non-reading kids can understand their character sheet."
"Every adventure module comes with print out maps and monster standees included. And bonus: the maps are all interchangeable! The entrances and exits to cave maps are all in the same place, so pieces of the 'Basement O’ Rats' maps can be used with map pieces from 'The Lost Village' adventure, which are interchangeable with the 'Minotaur Maze' map pieces."
"All in all, I highly recommend this game. It is a great introduction to RPGs for kids, and the simple smooth mechanics guarantee that it will also be a staple on your gaming table for a long time to come."
Nice!
Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:
Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG
