Great Kid-Friendly RPG = Hero Kids!

Someone possibly called CJ Chand at the Chandland blog has posted an epic review of Hero Kids:

Great Kid-Friendly RPG: Hero Kids

The review is huge, and looks at many aspects of our little engine, so here are some quotes from this extensive review:

"Hero Kids nails its target demographic perfectly."

"Hero Kids is exactly what you would expect it to be: Cartoony, but not overly so, young kids tackling big challenges."

"Both sides roll their pools worth of d6s, and the side with the highest number shown – not the highest sum – wins (with ties going to the attacker).  This means even the really young ones can count the pips on each die and get what’s going on.  No modifiers, no addition. Given the target audience, Justin has designed this well.  It is quick, simple, and fun."

"These (the combat mechanics) are all gentle, yet very 'big-boy', concepts that will help your kiddo transition from Hero Kids to other, more complex RPGs when the time comes."

"Best of all, each adventure comes with full-page 1″ grid maps for that adventure, ready to be printed.  It also comes with character sheets for the various types of bad guys, each with their own cutout pawn."

"I could go into a lot of details, but the best way to put it is this: My son has never done his chores and expectations as quickly – and without prompting – as since we started playing Hero Kids.  He wants to play a new adventure each night."

But it's not all perfect, the reviewer picks up on one of the issues I've talked about in this blog post, that Hero Kids is not suited to traditional advancement techniques (adding modifiers or extra dice):

"On the downside, this system does not leave much in the room for character advancement.  As discussed on the link immediately above, simply adding a +1 modifier significantly affects the success rate, much less adding a die to the dice pool.  That said, while I am not a game designer, I have some ideas for how we can add some character growth that I will bring up in a bit."

My solution to advancement in Hero Kids was the inclusion of Equipment Cards, which the review notes here:

"There are some limitations with character development that do crop up.  Namely, there is no real character development.  There is no leveling.  There is no XP.  There is no ability to change your dice pools, gain modifiers, etc.  (at least not without the Equipment cards, which I’ll try to use as salvation for this limitation in a bit)."

In the end, the discussion about advancement doesn't prevent the reviewer from giving Hero Kids a sensational review:

"Two thumbs up, 5/5, goes to 11… whatever you want, but it’s a must-buy if you’re in the market."

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG