Hero Kids Encounter Difficulty

In putting together the Hero Kids Brecken Vale Gazetteer, I (finally) correctly organised the adventures into tiers of play.  

In the Gazetteer, these are arranged geographically, beginning with the Adventures in Rivenshore, then Skritteland, then adventures Across the Vale.

The Adventures in Rivenshore tier are introductory adventures and will be adjusted to have Easy difficulty.

• Basement O’ Rats
• Fire in Rivenshore
• Tomb of the Lost King
• Darkness Neath Rivenshore

Adventures in Skritteland are slightly more challenging and will be adjusted to have Moderate difficulty:

• Twilight Watchtower
• Curse of the Shadow Walkers
• Mines of Martek
• Maze of the Minotaur

Beyond those adventures, the rest will be Hard difficulty.

• Wizard’s Tower
• The Lost Village
• Glade of the Unicorn
• Yuletide Journey
• Escape from the Ghost Pirates
• Reign of the Dragon

Which begs the question, what does it mean for an adventure to be Easy, Moderate, or Hard.

Until now, the difficulty of Hero Kids adventures has been a factor of their duration (the number of  encounters) and the challenge posed by the enemies in each encounter.

However, the difficulty of each combat encounter is difficult to calculate, due to the multitude of factors that goes into it:

• Number of heroes (and which heroes are used)
• Enemy array for each hero
• Arrangement of heroes and enemies on the encounter map
• Hero equipment or advancement.
  

Those of you who've played any Dungeons & Dragons, will know that there's no easy or reliable way of calculating the strength of a monster, or the strength of a party of adventurers.  And it would be foolish to think that Hero Kids is simple enough to afford a simple calculation.

But Hero Kids is simple enough to estimate encounter difficulty.

To estimate the difficulty of an encounter, we need to establish a baseline.  For this, I propose that the baseline is derived from a single hero, basically factoring in that heroes abilities, armor, and health boxes (but not their Special Action and Bonus Ability).  

Luckily, all heroes use the same rules to calculate their abilities (strength, dexterity, and intelligence), armor, and health.  Heroes have 4 dice to assign to their abilities and armor and they have 3 health.  The 4 dice arranged between abilities and armor reflect a hero's power, and the 3 heath reflects their longevity.  Together, their power and longevity reflect their overall power.  

This gives us a baseline of 12 power (4 times 3) for each hero.

For heroes that use ranged or magic, which cost extra dice to assign, I'm going to assume that their longer ranged attacks (and other abilities) are balanced out by their lower dice of ability dice.  So all heroes have the same 12 power.

Enemies, comparatively, do not follow preset rules for their creation, so their power varies a lot.  But we can use the same rules to estimate their relative power:

For these enemies, we have:

• Bat: 3 abilities x 1 health = 3 power
• Pirate Archer: 4 abilities x 2 health = 8 power
• Giant Rat: 1 abilities x 1 health = 2 power
• Skeleton Warrior: 4 abilities x 2 health = 8 power

Comparatively, a 'boss' creature is more comparable to a normal hero:

This King Rat is a boss creature, and is the same power as a single hero:

• King Rat: 4 abilities x 3 health = 12 power

Now that we have a baseline for a creature's power, we can estimate encounter difficulty.

For this, I'm using the following (rough) calculations for the difficulty of each encounter:

• Easy: 6 power per hero
• Moderate: 8 power per hero
• Hard: 10 power per hero

There are several caveats to this estimate.  

First, the bosses clearly outmatch single heroes.  For this, we will rely on the heroes' health potions to give them enough advantage to survive climactic battles.

Second, magic and ranged abilities cost 2 dice, but only give 1 dice for those attacks.  We'll assume that these heroes are roughly the same power as baseline 4 dice ability heroes.

Third, when there are 3 or 4 heroes, their abilities reinforce each other (Teamwork, split attacks, etc), significantly increasing their collective power.  In this case, some increase in the power of enemies can be accommodated.

Let's take a look at a Moderate encounter.  As you recall, this encounter should have 8 power for each hero.

Based on these monsters, the combat has the following difficulty calculations:

• 1 hero: 6 power (6 power per hero)
• 2 heroes: 18 power (9 power per hero)
• 3 heroes: 24 power (8 power per hero)
• 4 heroes: 36 power (9 power per hero)

As you can see, the exact difficulty varies for each hero due to the granularity of the underlying monsters.  But even with that variation, this encounter generally adheres to the 8 power per hero difficulty expected of a Moderate difficulty adventure.

So there you have it.  Is this workable in practice?  What's your experience been with individual encounter difficulty?  Will this help?  Is it close to 'correct'?

This difficulty calculation revision will be incorporated into all of the Hero Kids adventures over the next few months in the lead up to:

HERO KIDS' 10TH ANNIVERSARY THIS OCTOBER!!!!!!!! 

Check out the Hero Kids Complete Fantasy PDF Bundle at DriveThruRPG

Hero Advancement Cards

Phew!  That was harder than it should have been.  The Hero Advancement Cards for Hero Kids are done, dusted, and released:

Hero Kids - Hero Advancement Cards

The Hero Advancement Cards expansion includes 120 cards, and allows players to improve all aspects of their heroes:
• Improve abilities (melee, ranged, magic, or armor)
• Gain new abilities (melee, ranged, magic, or armor)
• Add an additional health level to their hero
• Learn new skills
• Train new special actions
• Master new bonus abilities

Here's a look at the cards in the pack (warning; there's a lot!):

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Check out the Hero Kids Complete Fantasy PDF Bundle at DriveThruRPG

Hero Kids YouTube Actual Play - Darkness Neath Rivenshore

People who've never played RPGs before often ask, "How do you even play Hero Kids?" This is a great question.

So much of playing RPGs is learned through participation and tradition. Which makes it hard for people to get started outside of that tradition.

For those out there who want to know how to play Hero Kids, I recorded a playtest of Darkness Neath Rivenshore with my kids:

This was my first shot at recording video and audio, and comes with a bunch of embarrassing qualifications and apologies.
• The exposure fluctuates a bit at the start, I kept moving the papers.
• I read too much of the adventure text verbatim (when you're running Hero Kids it's best to internalise the gist of the text blocks rather than read them like I did).
• Dash was sniffing at the start (you can see me looking at him sternly)...  :-)
• The video gradually progresses into potato quality as we lost light (it's not terrible, but it's a bit grainy). :-)
• I forgot to use some of the monsters' special abilities...
• Any rules mistakes are all my responsibility.
• The adventure changed slightly after this paytest; I added another puzzle in the encounter with the dire rats.

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Check out the Hero Kids Complete Fantasy PDF Bundle at DriveThruRPG

Advanced Combat in Hero Kids...

Following the recent update to the Hero Kids core rules, my nemesis Robert McGovern pointed out that many of the game terms covered in the Glossary weren't well covered in the main text.  Instead of trying to cram those explanations into the main text, I've added a whole new Advanced Combat section to the game.  Below you can find the text of that section, for comment and discussion before I update the rules again.

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Once you and your players have conquered a few encounters, you’ll likely be ready to explore the characters’ special actions and the further scope of Hero Kids’ combat system.  The depth of the system is encompassed in the unique actions and abilities of the heroes and monsters that allow them to interact with each other and the world around them, shaping combat and creating advantageous situations.

Additional Attack Effects

Some attacks have additional effects that trigger regardless of the success of the attack, indicated with ‘also’ in the attack description.  In this example, the swashbuckler’s attack moves the target back and the character moves into their square:
Melee attack at an adjacent target using 1 fewer dice; the target is also pushed back and you move into its square.

Alternate Attack Effects

While additional attack effects happen in addition to damage (remember, all attacks deal 1 damage), some attacks effects instead of dealing damage.  For example, the mancer can attack with 1 extra die, but the target is moved without taking damage:
Magic attack at a target up to 4 squares away with 1 extra die; if the attack his it deals no damage but you can push or pull the target up to 4 squares.

Attacking Engaged Targets

To encourage players to coordinate their characters’ actions, many characters gain benefits their targets are engaged. Engaged targets have an enemy adjacent to them, or have been the target of any attack since the attackers last turn.  Some characters have special attacks only usable against engaged targets while others, such as warriors, automatically gain benefits through their Teamwork bonus ability:
When a target is engaged, your attacks against that target gain 1 extra die.

Combining Effects

Combining multiple attack effects is a great way to maximize the effectiveness of characters, especially in the face of difficult enemies.  This involves finding synergies in actions and bonuses.
For example, a warrior with two adjacent enemies could split their melee dice to attack both:
Split your melee dice to make melee attacks at multiple adjacent targets.
However, if both of those targets are engaged, then each of those attacks gains 1 extra die:
When a target is engaged, your attacks against that target gain 1 extra die.
As you can see, combining these actions and abilities effectively doubles the attack strength of the warrior.

Improvising Actions

Players often come up with unexpected ways of dealing with enemies and obstacles, whether it’s swinging through the rigging of a ghostly pirate ship, distracting an enemy with a well thrown chicken drumstick, or fashioning a tripwire with a length of rope.  This creative improvisation by players should be encouraged and rewarded.

Knocked Down, Prone, Get Up

When characters are knocked out (KO’d) or get knocked down, they become prone, which means they are lying down on the ground.  When characters are prone, they cannot perform their normal actions, and melee attacks against them gain 1 extra die.  To stand up, prone characters need to get up, which costs 2 squares of their movement.

Line of Sight and Cover

Ranged attacks require line of sight to the target, which means that there cannot be any solid walls between the attacker and the target.  However, targets can gain cover from objects or obstacles that partially block line of sight.  For example, low crates or walls can provide cover without totally blocking line of sight.  When a target has cover from their attacker, that target gains 1 extra armor die.

Moving Around

Moving around during combat is relatively straightforward, but there are a few areas for clarification.  Characters:
•  can normally move 4 squares
•  can move diagonally
•  may be able to move farther or less far
•  can move through their allies
•  cannot move through enemies
•  must end their movement in an empty square
•  cannot move diagonally around corners
•  require extra movement squares to pass obstacles

Ongoing Effects and Conditions

In addition to simply damaging or moving their targets, many characters (especially those capable of magic) can alter the battlefield, or hamper their enemies.  The warlock’s Freezing Strike bonus ability locks enemies in place:
When you roll a 6 on an attack die, your target cannot move during their next turn.
While the stonemaster’s Wall of Stone action allows him to raise stone walls that block enemies or provide cover to the stonemaster and his allies:
Create an obstacle or impassable wall for each die in your magic pool on empty squares up to 4 squares away.

Pushing and Pulling

Some attacks have alternate or additional effects that allow the attacker to move the target by pushing them further away or pulling them closer.  When pushing or pulling, the target must move in a straight line, cannot move through characters, can move through obstacles if they can pay the extra movement costs, and must end up in an unoccupied space:
Ranged attack at a target up to 6 squares away (but not adjacent); if the attack hits the target takes no damage but is pulled to an empty square closer to you.

Splitting Attacks

Some characters can split their attack dice, which lets them attack multiple targets with one action, such as warriors with their Whirlwind Attack:
Split your melee dice to make melee attacks at multiple adjacent targets.
Warriors normally have 2 dice for their melee attacks, allowing them to attack one target with 2 dice, or to use their Whirlwind Attack to strike two targets with 1 die each.  However, if a warrior gained 1 extra melee die, such as through a piece of equipment or an item, then they could attack up to three adjacent enemies (or even direct 2 dice against one target and 1 die against another).

Hero Kids Updates Live...

Previous Hero Kids purchasers should by now have received an email about the updates to almost all of the game's PDFs which are available from DriveThruRPG.

Here's the changelog:

•  Updated all hero and monster cards with filled artwork and for consistency in special actions and bonus abilities
•  Improved Ability Test examples in core rules
•  Updated Glossary in core rules
•  Updated Skills section in core rules to add dark vision
•  Added rules for Equipment and Items to core rules
•  Added extra monsters from print edition to the core rules PDF
•  Added printing authorization to core rules and expansion PDFs
•  Changed definition of Engaged to include 'targeted by an attack or with another adjacent enemy'
•  Updated artwork for giant rat and king rat in Basement O' Rats and core rules

This has been a pretty major piece of work to update all of the artwork and PDF files, so errors could well have slipped through. Don't hesitate to let me know if you see anything that needs to be fixed.

If you didn't get the email, you can get the updated PDFs by logging in to DriveThruRPG and downloading all of the updates through the My Library page.

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

Riotous GM's Hero Kids review

The titular Riotous GM from Riotous GM posted a long piece on running Hero Kids for his 8 and 15 year-old kids:

Riotous GM: Kids – Heroes, etc

Quotes:

"I decided that Hero Kids was worth picking up, at the ridiculously cheap price for the complete bundle even if I didn't like or run it I wouldn't have lost much."

"What I found quickly was how much of a joy the published adventures were to run. The layouts are very simple and each encounter simply lays out what changes are necessary depending on the number of players, anything from one to six is a doddle."

"While my fifteen year old (who plays in my regular Pathfinder campaign) unsurprisingly wasn't a huge fan the eight year old loved it."

"While we were on holiday my eight year-old not only reread the rules but also (at my prompting) Basement O Rats so that he could GM it while I played. While he still needed some guidance on the mechanics he improvised an attack by a giant lobster (which he reskinned from the character sheet and mini from a giant scorpion) at an appropriate point and messed around with the ending so that I got a bit of a surprise."

"We've loved boardgames and been playing lots but Hero Kids has really made me rethink my approach and I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes."

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

Hero Kids review from Engaged Family Gaming...

Dustin Crewell from Engaged Family Gaming has just posted a review of Hero Kids:

Tabletop RPG Review: Hero Kids

Quotes:

"Like any good roleplaying game (RPG), there are plenty of supplements available: extra adventures, new characters, the ever-important loot, and even pets. Or, for those feeling adventurous themselves, you can create your own material, using the information that comes with the basic rulebook as a guide. This will likely come in handy later, as some kids may chew through the available pre-made missions faster than new ones come out."

"The most critical skill, though, is imagination and problem solving. Beginners can be guided and prompted, but there’s a good chance that parents will find themselves surprised by how fast kids pick up on this form of make-believe. As gameplay progresses, concepts like tactics and teamwork can be stressed, helping the young heroes face ever more difficult challenges."

"As with many independently published RPGs, Hero Kids does have some grammatical and spelling issues that you might need to watch out for."

Hmmm. I wish people would actually tell me what these errors are, 'cos I'd fix them! :-)

"For gamer parents wanting to introduce their kids to tabletop RPGs, at $6-$15 ($6 gets you a PDF rulebook, while $15 gets you a PDF rulebook, coloring pages, extra features & 9 pre-made adventures), Hero Kids is a fantastic stepping stone to future gaming."

"For non-gamers looking for a good outlet for their kids’ imagination, this system requires very little additional investment (just a couple of standard dice), and will give your kids hours of creative entertainment!"

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

Hero Kids errata...

I've just updated all of the Hero Kids PDF files on DriveThruRPG to address all of the known errors and updates.  This also includes a small update to the Rogue to simplify her attacks and dice pools.  The rest of the changes are listed below.

Old Rogue:

New Rogue:

Hero Kids - Fantasy RPG:
•  Updated text, heroes, and monsters to change singular 'dice' to 'die'.
•  Removed reference to 'advanced play' in the Glossary.
•  Updated metadata to list full document details.
•  Changed Rogue character to simplify attacks.

Hero Cards II:
•  Fixed Storm Mage's standard attack to be a 'Magic Attack', not a 'Ranged Attack'.
•  Updated metadata to list full document details.

Equipment Cards:
•  Fixed spelling of 'Siege Longbow'.
•  Updated metadata to list full document details.

Pet Cards:
•  Updated metadata to list full document details.

Basement O Rats:
•  Fixed missing 'of' on page 3 of adventure.
•  Updated monsters to change singular 'dice' to 'die'.
•  Updated metadata to list full document details.

Curse of the Shadow Walkers:
•  Updated monsters to change singular 'dice' to 'die'.
•  Updated metadata to list full document details.

Escape from the Ghost Pirates:
•  Updated monsters to change singular 'dice' to 'die'.
•  Updated metadata to list full document details.

Glade of the Unicorn:
•  Updated monsters to change singular 'dice' to 'die'.
•  Updated metadata to list full document details.

Maze of the Minotaur:
•  Updated monsters to change singular 'dice' to 'die'.
•  Updated metadata to list full document details.

Mines of Martek:
•  Updated monsters to change singular 'dice' to 'die'.
•  Updated metadata to list full document details.

The Lost Village:
•  Updated monsters to change singular 'dice' to 'die'.
•  Adjusted the orientation of the Brecken Vale map.
•  Updated metadata to list full document details.

Tomb of the Lost King:
•  Removed parchment background from some pages in printer friendly version.
•  Updated monsters to change singular 'dice' to 'die'.
•  Updated metadata to list full document details.

Yuletide Journey:
•  Adjusted the orientation of the Brecken Vale map.
•  Updated metadata to list full document details.

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

Vote for Hero Kids at the ENnie Awards!

Hey all, please take 30 seconds to vote for Hero Kids, which has been nominated for Best Family Game in the ENnies:

2013 ENnie Awards Voting Booth

Voting's dead easy, just follow the link above, select 1 from the dropdown next to Hero Kids (in the Best Family Game category), then hit the big Submit Ballot button.  You don't even have to number each game in the category, but you can if you want!

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

Hero Kids nominated for Best Family Game ENnie award!

Hero Kids has been nominated for a Best Family Game ENnie award!

Congratulations to the rest of the ENnie nominees (especially all the Best Family Game folks):
http://www.ennie-awards.com/blog/2013-ennie-awards-nominees/

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

The people have spoken: Equipment and Items!

Based on your feedback, the next Hero Kids expansion will be Equipment and Items.   This expansion will feature over forty pieces of equipment, including: Armor, Potions, Melee Weapons, Magic Implements, Charms, and Ranged Weapons.

As you can see from this example, I've decided to remove the price from the equipment, so you can hand them out or price them at your absolute discretion:

Items are one-use consumables like potions that can be carried in conjunction with equipment.

They'll be up on DriveThruRPG in the middle of next week.

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

Working on Pets...

I'm currently working on pets to include with the new set of heroes, and they're raised some questions and quandaries!   Simply put, pets can work like extra heroes (with all of the usual actions and abilities) or they can work as an extension of the hero that they 'belong' to.

Here's an example pet that would be an extension of the hero it belongs to:



The reason for the difference between pets with full sets of actions and those that are extensions of their heroes is to do with the 'action economy'.   If the heroes of some players have pets and others don't have pets, then the players whose heroes do have pets will have much more stuff (more actions) they can do on their turn than the other players.   This will make the other players sad.   Which makes me sad.

However, if solo kids are playing with pets, then they would probably prefer to have a full set of actions for both their heroes and their pets...

Dilemma.

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

Uber-Discount Bundle Available!

Don't tell anyone, by there's a special temporary Hero Kids bundle up on DriveThruRPG. This bundle includes all the PDFs: Hero Kids core rules and introductory adventure, six normal adventures, and the one premium adventure.

The price is a rock bottom $9.99, which is a massive 67% discount over the full price for all of these!

Grab it here (while it lasts):

Hero Kids - Uber-Discount Bundle!

Hero Kids review at Roving Band of Misfits

Several moons ago, while listening to a Dice of Doom podcast, I came across this comment by Benoit from Roving Band of Misfits:

"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!

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

Hero Kids review on Wired GeekDad

My sophisticated analytics graphs tell me that something happened yesterday.   That something is an awesome review of Hero Kids over on Wired's equally awesome GeekDad site:

My Kids' First Role-Playing Adventure: A Hero Kids Review

The review, which is by +Ryan Carlson, takes a good look at Hero Kids, so here's a few quotes:

"As soon as I had read through the beautiful 20-page PDF I knew without a doubt that my daughters (ages 4 and 6) could easily understand the basics of the game."

"Amongst the four base classes for Hero Kids, there are male and female versions of each class (although there was no female thief), each allowing for a variety of play styles and specialties."

Correction: There are ten heroes in Hero Kids, four girls and five boys.   Wait, that doesn't add up to ten!   It doesn't add up because the Rogue's gender is ambiguous.

Pop quiz, boy or girl:

"The character sketches of each pre-generated character are age-appropriate, and made it really easy for my kids to identify with the characters.   My 4-year-old daughter instantly snatched up the Rapunzel look-alike with her long hair whip-attack..."

"I will admit that there are times I barely have time to prep for my regular role-playing campaign, and to have half a dozen pre-written adventures available for Hero Kids is fantastic."

"The quality of the maps and the provided figurines is as high quality as I find in mainstream pre-written adventures."

"In conclusion, Hero Kids hits the mark in both quality and ease of use for parents that have been looking for a new family-time activity.   A great start for young role-players that are ready to take their first steps into a life long story fueled by their own imaginations."

How 'bout that!

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

Solid design elements in Hero Kids

+Peter Schweighofer has taken a great look at the underlying design, mechanics, and presentation of Hero Kids.   Check it out:

Schweig's Gaming Journal: Solid Design Elements in Hero Kids

Here are a few quotes:

"The very basic system in Hero Kids offers a simple yet intuitive means of resolving conflicts kids can understand without all the complexities of other roleplaying game systems."

"The character sheet summarizes all relevant information for players using easy-to-remember icons and quick summaries of combat actions.   The use of icons for stats, gear, and skills makes room for the concise summaries of what they can do in terms of a general attack, special actions, and bonus abilities."

"The landscape layout makes the rules easy to view on a notebook or tablet device."

"An entire page offers “Hints & Tips” for running the game with kids, useful both from a general gaming perspective and specifically geared toward rule elements in Hero Kids.   Another page covers special considerations for gaming with kids, including pitfalls regarding violence, language, religion, and morality."

"On the preceding page sections entitled “Pint-Sized Heroes” and “Big-Sized Problems” help demonstrate the kinds of adventures kids and their heroes might undertake.   The setting is tailored specifically to kids, including playing heroes who are kids facing reasonable challenges."

"These visually based encounters on a gridded play area help younger gamers make the transition from more traditional board games to the more freeform roleplaying games."

"Although Hero Kids still requires a knowledgeable adult to run the game with young players, it remains completely focused on being a roleplaying game for kids without being diluted by any other agenda of simulating an old-school, retro-clone or promoting a particularly ground-breaking campaign setting.   It’s a well-developed game (as are its several adventure supplements) with appealing layout and practical utility in running games for kids."

Thanks to Peter for taking to time to write up this analysis of Hero Kids!

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

Equipment, races, hero classes, and probabilties

+Josh Tapley added a comment on one of my earlier posts about adding racial modifiers to some of the heroes:

"Thanks for the response, and a great point. I've been thinking about minor pluses for most things.   Like -1 Melee / +1 Ranged for a halfling."

I hadn't thought about racial bonuses before, but it's obviously easily done in the style of the equipment cards that the heroes are given at the end of the Tomb of the Lost King adventure.

But before we get too deep into discussion, let me just lay out a few of the basic mechanics on which Hero Kids is built:

•   Ranged attack distance is longer than a hero/monster can move in one move action
•   Magic attack distance is equal to the distance that a hero/monster can move in one move action
•   Heroes (generally) attack with at least two dice, and can usually also increase this to three dice in specific circumstances
•   Enemies generally have only one or two dice for their armor defense

Back on my Heroes Against Darkness blog I ran the probabilities for the opposed dice pool mechanic on which Hero Kids is based.

Here are the results for the opposed checks, with ties resolved in favor of the attacker.   The bolded areas show the expected probabilities for heroes attacking monsters, while the italicized probabilities show what happens when the heroes get up to four six-sided dice for their attacks.

Attacker's pool (down the left)	1d6	2d6	3d6	4d6
1d6	58%	42%	34%	30%
2d6	75%	61%	53%	48%
3d6	83%	72%	65%	60%
4d6	88%	79%	73%	69%
5d6	91%	84%	79%	75%
6d6	93%	87%	83%	80%

As you can see from the probabilities, Hero Kids is quite generous in that the kids' heroes are generally successful in their attacks ~60%-~80% of the time.   The 61% success probability represents a hero's normal attack (two dice) against a strong enemy (an enemy with two dice for armor).   At the other end of the scale, the 83% success probability represents a hero's strong attack (three dice) against a weak enemy (one with only one dice for armor).   So far none of the enemies in Hero Kids have three dice for armor, however the ghost at the end of Tomb of the Lost King can only be hit with a natural six.

Increasing the heroes' attacks to four dice increases these probabilities to 88% against weak enemies and 79% against strong enemies.

At this point you're probably asking; "What is the point of all of this discussion of probabilities and mechanics?"   My point is basically that offering a flat +1/-1 dice for a racial bonus is a significant increase in the already high likelihood of success for the heroes' attacks.

With this in mind, I would recommend against offering a flat +1/-1 bonus for racial modifiers as these skew the probabilities too far in favor of the players, and lead directly to the sort of min-maxing that they're too young to have to endure... :-)

Instead, I would recommend coming up with situational bonuses that reflect the race's strengths and weaknesses (or just their strengths) or intermittent bonuses that the players can activate sometimes.   Here are some ideas:

•   If you've been attacked by two enemies since your last turn, you can attack with 1 extra dice.
•   You can move up to 5 squares in your move action.
•   Once per adventure you can ignore 1 damage.
•   Once per encounter you can swap places with an adjacent enemy.
•   You are sneaky and gain 1 extra dice when hiding.

All of these examples offer situational benefits, rather than flat bonuses.   They reward players who are paying attention, and they prevent excessive power creep in the game.

"I also saw that you added some magical equipment in the modules, which is something that I was planning to do as well."

Persistent equipment was something that came up in the playtesting, but it wasn't until one of the later adventures that I managed to include it in a meaningful way.   As I've discussed above, I've avoided flat bonuses for the equipment and favored situational bonuses which help the players, such as in these examples:

•   Once per encounter you can reroll 1 dice of an attack or defense.
•   Once per adventure you can add 1 damage when you make a successful melee attack.
•   The first time in each encounter that this weapon hits with a melee attack it deals 1 extra damage.

Let me know if you've got any ideas for more equipment with cool abilities.

"Do you have any forums setup to talk/share custom character classes?"

While I don't have a forum set up, there is a thread for Hero Kids over on RPGnet:

[Hero Kids] A D&D-like fantasy RPG for 4 to 10 year olds

I think I've covered most of the mechanical distributions of dice using the guidelines for creating heroes with the four dice method (page 17 of the PDF rules).   However, there's plenty of room to explore in the Special Actions and Bonus Abilities, as well as the possibility of introducing heroes with less or more health to compensate for having more (or less) dice to distribute for their abilities.   For example, a hero might have only two health levels (Hurt and KO) but would have five dice to distribute for their abilities (remembering that the first dice in magic and ranged abilities costs two dice).

Feel free to discuss hero ideas over on RPGnet (make a new thread if you like), or even here on the blog.

Printer friendly PDFs uploaded

Following a request from +Stephen Farquhar, I've updated all of the Hero Kids rules and adventures to include printer friendly versions along with the normal PDFs (which feature my patented parchment background).

If you've already downloaded your PDFs, you can download them again from DriveThruRPG and you'll get the new Printer Friendly PDFs alongside the normal versions.

Answering some Hero Kids questions

Over at Google+ (where I lair) Stephen Farquhar posted a fairly long write-up and a few questions about Hero Kids.   I answered them there, but I think it's worth reposting here for the non-Plusers.

Stephen's original post (my responses follow):

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Hero Kids.   TLDR: It was good.

This is a first on many fronts:
First time I have GM'd in 25 years.   First time I have RPG'd in 25 years.   First time my kids have ever played pencil-and-dice RPG.

Players: 10 yo Girl played a Rogue.   6yo boy played a Knight.   Mum played healer so the kids could take the battle focus.

Comments: We played the very simple and enjoyable first scenario Basement O' Rats and it was a great introductory setting for both me and them to get into the swing of things.   The professionalism of the presentation of the scenarios was a major contributor: good maps, good environment descriptions targetted for the kids amusement (they didn't believe me that the text actually read "and the whole place smells like a giant rat’s toilet." and I had to show them.)

Minor balance issues:
The Knight seemed both underpowered and indestructible with 3 dice of armour - looking to test this in a more advanced scenario.
The Healer, with 2 dice of Searing Light, killed almost every rat she attacked, which is a bit of downer for the kids who only had 1 dice of attack.   We made the Healer (Mum) always attack last, and always healed instead of attacking, if that was an option.

PROs: All good, however I reduced the number of rats.   Being the first game, the gameplay was a little slow and we ended up taking almost 2 hrs.

CONs: These aren't really cons, more just things I had to deal with:
- Should I reroll initiative at the commencement of each turn? This was relevant because it could seem that the wording of some abilities make them conditional on whether or not the player had been attacked this turn or not.   e.g.   The Knight's Strikeback Special attack which reads: If an enemy has attacked you since your last turn, you can attack that enemy with 1 extra dice.   If heroes gained first initiative at the start of a battle, and that initiative is maintained through every turn of the battle, then it might seem that this attack can never be used.   The difference though is interpretation of "since your last turn" as opposed to "since the last turn." We played the rule to be the former rather than the latter.

- Should I roll for player attack/move order during the turn, or should I let the players decide, or should all attack be considered simultaneous? This question arose when considering the Warrior Bonus ability Teamwork: Gain 1 extra dice to attacks against targets than an ally attacked since your last turn.

How did I deal with these: Hey, we're playing with kids! We winged it and just used abilities when it seemed appropriate and I frequently manoeuvred bad rats into convenient positions for the hero's to inflict maximum fun damage.

Recommendations:
1.   Create some example clarifications on how to treat scenarios above.
2.   Clarify the Ability Test (p.15) - it's not clear on initial reading that a number has to be rolled higher than one of the difficulty numbers (4,5, or 6), or if it's meant to be equal-to or higher, or just higher.
3.   Create scenario PDFs, especially maps and character sheets, that don't have background shading.   Printing all that yellow background was murder on my ink cartridges.

Conclusions: We can't wait to play the next scenario!

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Thanks for the long post with great feedback.   I've tried to answer your questions and observations below.

"The Knight seemed both underpowered and indestructible with 3 dice of armour - looking to test this in a more advanced scenario."
For those reading at home, all of the characters have (basically) four dice shared amongst their melee, ranged, magic, and armor characteristics.   When creating characters (as opposed to using the pre-gens), the first dice in ranged and magic costs two dice, but all of the rest cost one.   So the Knight has only one dice for melee attacks, but three dice for armor, which means that he trades off attack power for excellent defenses.   The opposite of the Knight is the Brute, who has three dice for melee attacks but only one dice for armor.
The Knight is a character that requires some attention to play.   He can gain an extra melee dice when using Strikeback Attack to hit an enemy that has attacked him.   His combination of three armor dice and his Defender ability (the Knight can choose to take damage dealt to an adjacent ally) means that he is usually able to choose when he takes damage.   So, yes he is nigh-invulnerable but not usually very powerful when attacking unless retaliating against an enemy attack.

"The Healer, with 2 dice of Searing Light, killed almost every rat she attacked, which is a bit of downer for the kids who only had 1 dice of attack.   We made the Healer (Mum) always attack last, and always healed instead of attacking, if that was an option."
I think the choice of both the Rogue and the Knight for the kids is tricky, because they both only have one dice for attacks.   However, as explained above, both of these characters have ways of gaining an extra dice to attacks.   In the case of the Rogue, they can gain an extra dice to both melee and ranged attacks by attacking an enemy that has been attacked by an ally.
The healer is a good support character, but they can end up spending every turn healing their allies.

"All good, however I reduced the number of rats.   Being the first game, the gameplay was a little slow and we ended up taking almost 2 hrs."
If the game is going slow, reducing the number of enemies is always a good idea.   Once you've got three or four players the adventures can get long.

"Should I reroll initiative at the commencement of each turn? This was relevant because it could seem that the wording of some abilities make them conditional on whether or not the player had been attacked this turn or not."
Nope, once you've established the initiative you should just keep running around the table in the same order.   Sometimes you'll run into situations where players will want to hold their actions to do something after another character, but you can wing that.

"The Knight's Strikeback Special Attack which reads: If an enemy has attacked you since your last turn, you can attack that enemy with 1 extra dice.   If heroes gained first initiative at the start of a battle, and that initiative is maintained through every turn of the battle, then it might seem that this attack can never be used.   The difference though is interpretation of "since your last turn" as opposed to "since the last turn." We played the rule to be the former rather than the latter."
Yes, you interpreted this correctly.   The key phrase here is 'since _your_ last turn.   So if that character has been attacked since they last had a turn, they can attack with an extra dice.   Obviously this can't be activated if the Knight has initiative and is acting before the enemies, but that's a small price to pay! :-)

"Should I roll for player attack/move order during the turn, or should I let the players decide, or should all attack be considered simultaneous? This question arose when considering the Warrior Bonus ability Teamwork: Gain 1 extra dice to attacks against targets than an ally attacked since your last turn."
As I mentioned above, I only do initiative once, and then let it stand through the whole combat.   Basically, I use initiative to determine whether I go first or the players.   Once that's established, I go around the table clockwise for each round, starting with whoever has initiative.   I don't do individual initiative for the players or the monsters, only group initiative.
However, as you mention there are instances when players want their characters to act out of initiative order to gain some advantage.   When that happens I just temporarily switch them in the order to let them achieve their tactical goal.   This can happen when a character like the Rogue gains an advantage attacking an enemy _after_ another character has attacked it, but neither of them have attacked that enemy yet and the initiative or table order would normally have the Rogue attacking before the other character (thus not getting the bonus dice).
Don't forget, you don't have to play to this level of tactics.   Simply choose the Warrior, Warlock, or Hunter and the combat tactics are greatly simplified while offering relatively powerful attacks.

"Clarify the Ability Test (p.15) - it's not clear on initial reading that a number has to be rolled higher than one of the difficulty numbers (4,5, or 6), or if it's meant to be equal-to or higher, or just higher."
My fault.   This should specify that the ability tests are be *equal to or higher*, like attacks (otherwise you could never beat a difficulty of 6).

"Create scenario PDFs, especially maps and character sheets, that don't have background shading.   Printing all that yellow background was murder on my ink cartridges."
Sorry about that.   I'll see what I can do in the future for 'printable' versions of the PDFs.