Adventure: Sheep II

- Just played a 1 hour adventure game with the kids
- Knackered
- the fluffy hippo and plastic dinosaur banded together with the pirates, attacked the playmobil knights to capture two cannons, with which to defeat the giant sheep
- the fact that i play with whatever happens to be lying around on the floor makes most campaigns turn into monty python

Just a Walk

Placeholder -

Dungeon Crawl Part 1

"Pirates of the CarpetBean - Part 2"

5th adventure Sunday 31 August 2011:

"Pirates of the CarpetBean - Part 2"
- see previous adventure
- They found the queen in a tower, but have to rescue her, I teach them the climbing rules (one body length = one try = need 4 or better on 1D6 otherwise fall for 1 damage roll) They like it and start using each other as ladders
- Queen thanks them: "But now we must find my treasure"
- They all sail together (Dino, Hippo, Princess, Queen), kids automatically assume that each of them will have to let an NPC ride them (coz boat small)
- They get to an island (couch) - climb again
- across the island is a defended wall with 5 pirates
- "Chaaaaaarge!" (will they never learn?)
- Hippo runs ahead, gets hit by a pirate with a bow (=distance attack)
- Nice long battle, Queen does not partake, but  distance weapons (bow & magic missile) lossen it up nicely.
- They win, but have taken quite a beating (both down to 50%)
- After victory, the queen gives them a special prize:
Leveling up:
Each kid gets to choose 1 point which they can improve by 1 (from hitpoints, movement points, number of attacks,  number of damage rolls - should not upgrade defense points because the difference is so extreme)
- Hippo chooses to go from 2 to 3 attacks
- Dino chooses 1 more movement point

Pirates of the CarpetBean - Part 1

5th adventure Sunday 31 July 2011:

"Pirates of the CarpetBean - Part 1"

- Dino & Hippo chilling at home
- The princess/fairy from previous adventure comes
- "Help help" the Pirates have kidnapped my mum and are holding her prisoner somewhere
- They accept
- The living room shaggy carpet is the sea, theyre gonna need a boat = piece of A4 paper
- They have to search the ocean, after every move with the boat they get a "warmer/colder" reading from the princess, depending on whether thy moved closer or not
- Halfway, they get ambushed by a pirate ship - yayy - fight on a boat
- Princess stays at a distance and shoot Magic Missiles. Kids don't even blink - of course she does
- First pirate that gets beaten (me)"falls off the boat into the water ", immediately (kids) "and gets eaten by a shark!!!"
Lesson: Kids make it really hard to keep the blood and gore out of this
- They win, after many many many hints they decide NOT to kill the last pirate with only 1 HP but to ask him to lead them to the Queen
- He does, they find her, end of Part 1
- Kids share one of the bananas for healing (only have one each as a permanent daily power now)
- Kids accept multipart adventure without blinking

Testimonials

27. Jul FB
Nuclearwar MUD players respond to the call!

4th adventure Sunday 24 July 2011:

"The Princess is in Another Castle"

- Dino & Hippo chilling at home
- A knight rides up (playmobil mongol horseman figure, hence his name Gengis Khan)
- "My Princess, your friend (see 1st and 2nd adventure) has been kidnapped by the bad guys, and is being held prisoner in a castle"
Note: We had changed the toy heap  from Lego to the Playmobil castle, hence change of tone/enemies

- "will you help?" "Yes!"
- All 3 together walk to the castle (have learnt to stick together/not rush ahead alone)
- Start frontal assault (5 defenders on ramparts - note that 11 defense takes a while to crack)

- Once Dino and Gengis have the first two opponents down, and the remaining 3 tied up in combat with Genghis and Hippo:
- "Hey Dino - where is the princes?" "at the back of the castle.." "Is is there a back doorway?" "Yes!" "Would you like to sneak around?" "No - wanna fight!" Damn - well, I managed to talk him round eventually
- To knock out back door, Dino just did attack rolls vs 10 defense , but upon success I let him shoot the door with the cool playmobil cannon :- ) Pic see below

- Meanwhile at the front, Gengis was taking a pounding, so I let him take a step back and use his bow instead (same attack stats for now) Setup for cool action below
- Hippo also down from 8 to 3 HP, after some prompting ate the banana for full heal. Dino was only down 1 HP but wanted to eat his too, took a bit of convincing for him to keep it (should have let him - oh well)
- After back door blown out, the 2 remaining attackers broke combat and started rushing across the inside of the castle
- Gengis tried shooting one through a suitable window (kids get line of sight concept automatically - nice) but misses
- Hippo and Gengis rush to support DIno at back door
- Dino bites through rope tying princess (took 3 attacks vs 10 defense to land one hit - perfect!)
Note: I only mentioned rope, kids immediately handed me a piece of scrap paper tape that was lying around to actually tie her up

- Dino spontaneously says "princess should ride on my back" (nice!), but this slows his movement down to 3 = to give the opponents a chance to catch up
- as the Chief opponent passes under the trapdoor with a sitting rock on it above back gate (cool playmobil castle thing), Gengis shoots the handle (2nd attempt) and succeeds in tripping the door - awesome!
- Hippo reaches same level as fleeing DIno, and after only a little prompting decides to "turn sideways to protect Dino and Princess" (yessss! awesome)
- Gengis asks Dino for his banana to heal "No, it's mine!!", after some haggling and intervention of big sister, he grudgingly gives a hlaf :) (hadnt thought of that option)
- Using Hippo as cover, they keep retreating, Gengis takes out 2nd-to-last guy with arrow
- As a reward for playing the Dino so well (not much combat while going round the back), I let DIno take an actual shot at the remaining leader (no roll, actual aim with cannon) - takes him down on 2nd attempt, couldn't have choreographed it better if i tried
- Even though there were no more opponents, they would have voluntarily walked all the way home (at least 6 turns) by sticking to the max movement rule - I said "it's OK, you just get home and heal - jubilations all round"

Duration: at least 45 minutes, amazing, 3-year old exhibiting slight loss of interest in last 10 minutes, successfully compensated by physically shooting cannon
Note: I let the kids do some of the actual rolls for Genghis, it helped shorten the waiting for them, must remember that (will probably only do for allied NPCs, otherwise too schizophrenic)

Balance/Stats

Attack:
Statistics for 3D6:
Source: Source with more details
In a nutshell for these rules (I NEED TO DOUBLE CHECK THESE)

- If defense points = 12  then the chance of hitting (=13 or above) is 25% (one in four)
- If defense points = 11, then the chance of hitting (= 12 or above) is 37.5% (about one in three)
- If defense points = 10, then the chance of hitting (=11 or above) is 50% (one in two)

- If defense points = 9, then the chance of hitting (= 10 or above) is 62.5% (about two in three)
- If defense points = 8  then the chance of hitting (=9 or above) is 75% (three in four)

Damage:
Very easy -
Hit points (average) per successful attack roll (above) = 0.5*number of damage rolls
So "Hippo" with 2 damage rolls = average of 1 HP per successful attack roll
So "Dino"  with 3 damage rolls = average of 1.5 HP per successful attack roll

Damage per round:
= Number of attacks*Attack probability * Damage probability

For an opponent with defense 10:
So "Hippo" with 3 attack and 2 damage rolls = (3*0.5*1.0) = 1.5 damage per round
So "Dino" with 2 attack and 3 damage rolls = (2*0.5*1.5) = 1.5 damage per round

For an attacker with defense 8:
So "Hippo" with 3 attack and 2 damage rolls = (3*0.75*1.0) = 2.25 damage per round
So "Dino" with 2 attack and 3 damage rolls = (2*0.75*1.5) = 2.25 damage per round

Character Creation

See also Character Sheet
There are 5 standard stats:
Movement "Boot" Icon - Maximum number of steps per round, see Movement
Life/Hit points "Heart" Icon - Current number of Life points, see Combat
Attack "Sword" Icon - Number of attack rolls per round, see Combat
Defense "Shield" Icon - Attack roll must be higher than this to hit, see Combat
Damage "Fist" Icon - Number of damage dice per successful attack, see Combat


Stats are shown visually on the character sheet:
- Number of boxes = value for this stat (do in pen)

- Exception: Defense Points is as actual number because too high (can be up to 17)

- Cross off HPs when damaged in pencil, erase when healed

Generating stats for a new char:

- Stats are a mostly driven by of the size of the toy (always choose the longest size, any direction, stretching allowed)

- You may need to adjust a bit to avoid too large differences between two players

- Rules below are still work in progress, may need to be tweaked once I run the numbers

Movement "Boot" Icon - Maximum number of steps per round, see Movement

Small creature (less than 10 cm toy size) = 4 steps
Medium creature (10 cm to 25 cm toy size) = 5-6 steps
Large creature (above 25 cm toy size) = 7-8 steps

Possible modifiers: a horse or T-Rex  could get +1/+2, a hippo or a brontosaurus -1/-2


Life/Hit points "Heart" Icon - Current number of Life points, see Combat


Small creature (less than 10 cm toy size) = 4 HP
Medium creature (10 cm to 25 cm toy size) = 5-6 HP
Large creature (above 25 cm toy size) = 7-8 HP

Possible modifiers: a big fat creature gets a bit more, also feel free to grow this over time (maybe 1 every two or three adventures)

Attack "Sword" Icon - Number of attack rolls per round, see Combat

Small creature (less than 10 cm toy size) = 1
Medium creature (10 cm to 25 cm toy size) = 2
Large creature (above 25 cm toy size) = 3

Note: values above 3 may slow down the play too much = too many rolls
Possible modifiers: fierce creatures, weapons, teeth, tails = +1

Defense "Shield" Icon - Attack roll must be higher than this to hit, see Combat

Note: small creatures are harder to hit = higher value, makes up for other handicaps
Small creature (less than 10 cm toy size) = 12-13
Medium creature (10 cm to 25 cm toy size) = 10-11
Large creature (above 25 cm toy size) = 8-9
See also Stats/Balance

Possible modifiers: Shields, armor, helmets

Damage "Fist" Icon - Number of damage dice per successful attack, see Combat

Small creature (less than 10 cm toy size) = 1
Medium creature (10 cm to 25 cm toy size) = 2
Large creature (above 25 cm toy size) = 3

Possible modifiers: fierce creatures, weapons, teeth, tails, extra legs = +1,+2

Note: Higher values do not slow down play, more dice not more rolls, however anything above 4 sounds rough

Combat

Combat is driven by 4 stats on the Character Sheet:
For attacker:
- Attack "Sword" icon = number of attack rolls per round
- Damage "Fist" icon = number of damage dice rolled for each successful attack
For defender:
- Defense "Shield" icon = attack roll must be higher than this number for a hit
- Life points "Heart" icon = attack roll must be higher than this number for a hit

Always two steps:
Attack:
- One attack roll is 3D6 (the total number when rolling three 6-sided dice)
- If higher than defender's Defense calue, then roll damage
Damage:
- Roll one D6 per Damage value
- Defender loses 1 Hitpoint for each dice with 1, 3 or 5 (make a pencil line in a box on character sheet)
Repeat both steps above for "Attack Roll" number of times per round
(Note: I found some "Poker Dice" at home, each face card means one damage - makes it a tad easier)

Victory/Healing:
- Characters with zero hit points don't die, they "go to sleep" (kids are bloodthirsty enough as it is)
- Enemies with only one hit point may well run away (Lesson: you don't have to destroy to win)
- Players automatically heal fully at the end of each adventure (make this explicit with eraser)
- Optionally provide healing potions (currently bananas)


Initiative/sequence of play:
- You can roll 1D6 per player to choose which order everybody acts (players and NPCs)
- I tend to skip this step, often it is whichever player gets there first

Future upgrade: Ranged attacks (e.g. throwing/shooting stuff) I'm pretty sure they would grok it but no need so far

Movement

- Most roleplaying systems assume a one inch increment. Sod that for a game of toy soldiers (pun intended), we're going metric :)
- However multiples of 2.5 cm seem to be a good basis
- 2.5 cm step size is too small for floor games, so I chose 5 cm steps, works well
- May change to 2.5 cm for tabletop and 10 cm for outdoor games, same movement value just different piece of string

- Maximum movement is indicated by number of boxes on Character Sheets
- Each player gets a piece of string with two knots corresponding to their maximum movement, works well
- (Deluxe: Grab a handful of the free paper tape measures at Ikea and mark with a pen)
- Movement is "put string at nose, move nose to end knot maximum"
- Encourage roleplaying "steps" (natural for kids)
- Don't explain the rule - just show as first lesson of first adventure (see "Getting Started" )

- Have to enforce discipline initially, kids are used to moving their toys unconstrained, but they get it quickly
- Use same method for movement in 3D space (climbing, flying - if creature can fly=skill)

- Fall damage: roll 1D6 per creature maximum length fall, result greater than 3 = 1HP damage
- Climbing: (untested - needs climbing skill) roll 1D6 per creature maximum length, result greater than 3 = fall

Typical movement stats:
(It is recommended  to adjust these to avoid too large differences between players "Waaah, it's not fair!")
Small creature (less than 10 cm toy size) = 4 steps
Medium creature (10 cm to 25 cm toy size) = 5-6 steps
Large creature (above 25 cm toy size) = 7-8 steps
Anything more  than 8-10 steps seems too fast (40-50 cm per turn)
Higher speeds possible if characters get into a vehicle (car, boat, plane)

3rd adventure Friday 22 July 2011:

"Animal Liberation Front"

- Hippo and Dino are chilling at home (Hippo snores something wicked)

- Suddenly, a monkey (Daddy Monkey a.k.a. Daddy Kong) comes along and chatters at them excitedly

- He doesn't talk, he's a monkey. Looks agitated and sad. Slight failure to communicate

Lesson: More roleplaying, need to keep hammering at that

- Monkey does the Lassie Come Home Act "Come, Come, point, point"

- Railroading: "How many monkeys were there in last adventure?" Hippo says "two" (yay! in English!) "How many are there now?" "One" "Hmm, maybe he wants help to find the other one"

- "Do you want to go with him?" "Yes" (whew)

- Interesting side note: Start walking, kids get out their distance strings unprompted(!)

Lesson: Inside every toddler there is a rules lawyer

- "Nevermind, The monkey is slower than you - just follow him" (walk walk walk, follow follow follow)

- Pick a banana from the tree on the way

- Getting closer to the goal, GM pulls out a pre-built lego house, with fences and a "Zoo" sign on top

- "What does the sign say?" "Zoo"

- Place 2nd monkey (Kiddie Monkey a.k.a. Kiddie Kong) in cage, and 4 Lego men in front. Kiddie Cong is very sad in the cage, Daddy Kong gets very agitated and angry

- "What do you think happened?" blank looks, maybe too complex. "The men are hunters, they captured Kiddie Kong and put him in a Zoo"

- To hurry the plot along (late for dinner), Daddy Kong rushes up and attacks the nearest man.

- "Do you want to help him?" "YES!"

- Long fight - the hunters are small = hard to hit (12 defense). Daddy Kong and Hippo each have one opponent, Dino has two

- Dino is a tank, has 3 attack and 2 damage rolls + luck of the dice, still gets the first opponent down fastest

Note: All hunters handled on a single character sheet, have the same stats (4 move, 4 HP, 12 defense, 1 attack, 1 damage), simply with multiple life point bars at the bottom of the sheet. Works well

- When Dino's 2nd opponent is down to 1 HP, he picks up the phone and calls for backup

Lesson: You may wind up fighting more than you started with

- When Dino's 2nd opponent is at zero, and the backup is not close enough "Do you want to attack the others?" "Yes!" "But you could also trample the fence and let Kiddie Kong out?" "Oh yeah I'll do that" Spontaneously roleplays the destruction of the fence!

Lesson: Remember the mission!

- 2 backup arrive, but now extra monkey in the fight, so still one on one

- When I try to fudge the rolls to hurry the fight along (need to work on more balanced encounters), the 3-year old notices when I am cheating "hey that wasn't a hit" even though he cannot actually add up the the dice

Lesson: Inside every toddler there is a rules lawyer

- When the last hunter is down to one hit and facing 4 scary opponents, he runs away (is a replay of a scene in their book "L'arche de Barbapapa"

- Big victory celebration, monkey hugs, kisses and social grooming all round

- Monkey gives each of them a banana, they eat it and heal back to max HP (only took 1 and 2 hits respectively, as mentioned currently unbalanced, but better than dying on first few quests)

Lesson: Healing potion. I tell them that if Monkeys come with them again, they can give them a banana to heal "like a bandaid or medicine". Am curious if they will remember

Lesson: Surprising levels of concentration on the long battle (~15 rounds with 6 actors), born table-top wargamers

Post Mortem:

- Interesting question at dinner after the game "Daddy why do you play more than one char at the same time?" "You play the heroes, I play the rest of the story - I cannot win, only you can"

- Couldn't resist "taking animals from the wild and putting them in cages is bad", she totally got it, the Disneyesque level of moralizing which you do as a parent is sickening :)

- Nintendo has poisoned my imagination... the 3 friendly NPCs so far are Princess Pearl, Daddy Kong and Kiddie Kong. Oh well, toddlers don't really care about names - waiting for them to say "that guy with the thing who lived in that tower"

Character sheet (blank):

(Movement, Hitpoints, Number of Attack Rolls, Defense points, Number of Damage Rolls)

Character sheet (samples -see previous posts):

(Movement, Hitpoints, Number of Attack Rolls, Defense points, Number of Damage Rolls)

- Defense Points is as actual number because too high (can be up to 17)

- all others number of squares = number of points.

- Cross off HPs when damaged in pencil, erase when healed

2nd adventure Monday 18 July 2011:

"Red Elephant"

- Princess needs to answer a question for her homework (weak I know - was a long day at work), only the red elephant who lives on the white house has the answer

Lesson: prepare/have collection of less lame ideas available

- Question was nonsense "what is the shnubble of the woo?"
Lesson: Kids give even less of a toss about the sanity of quest hooks than WoW players

- They walk there, they pass a tree with bananas on it at Helm's deep (gap made by chair and big orange pillow)

- Do you want to take the banans? Yes

Lesson: You can pick stuff up along the way

- Get jumped by a frog for combat

Lesson: need tougher enemies

- Reach white house, it is too tall to climb

- You (players, not chars) have to build stairs (Lego Duplo) to get up the top

Lesson: increase options for using stuff

- Play out encounter with elephant (elephant wants a kiss from each for the answer, they automatically kissed with figures)

- Answer to question is "Bong"

Lesson: Man, really prepare something before

- On way back get jumped by two monkeys at helms deep

- They would have fought them right away, only pointed prompting reminded them about use of bananas

Lesson: Kids are as bad as adults when it comes to rushing into a fight

Lesson: You can use stuff you picked up

Lesson: you don't always need to fight everyone

- Once home closeout with princess

- Had forgotten answer word

Lesson: Nonsense stuff is much harder to remember

Duration = under 25 minutes

1st adventure Sunday 17 July 2011:

"OK kids, each of you grab a toy, a doll, an animal, a dinosaur, whatever"

Players:

- Zoë = "Hippo" (pink stuffed) 6 movement, 2 attacks, 3 damage

- Milo = "Dinosaurier" (plastic brontosaurus) 5 movement, 3 attacks, 2 damage

Lesson: Kids not worried about character names

More on character creation in future post

Story:

- Hippo and Dino are at home (small round pillow)

- A princess comes, crying "the nasty bear has stolen my pearl" (note: roleplay!)

- "Will you help me?" "Yes" = yay Quest hook :)

Lesson: Kids get concept right away!

Lesson: Learning by doing, if I had explained rules/stats ahead of time I would have lost them

- Simply start walking - teach movement

Lesson: for small kids, make each a ruler (piece of string) with max movement, rather than counting squares

Lesson: Teach kids to stick to max move (they are used to moving their toys unconstrained)

- Halfway to target, they walk past Ayers Rock (big orange pillow)

- Get jumped by the zebra, who asks them 3 riddles (what is "Hello" in french, what is 4 + 4, forgot the other one)

Lesson: Instantly understand riddles - alternative to fighting

- Make it to target (Lego Duplo bear on house, pear is blue plastic ball)

Lesson: Roleplay bear "Grrrrr! you'll have to fight me" - they get it right away

- Start combat

Lesson: Character creation Max 3 attacks per round (Fuzzy Heroes has more - is too much dice rolling for small kids). Dino has 3 coz of long tail, Hippo has 2

Lesson: need to help em total up the 3D6 total >10, but they recognize high vs low rolls

Lesson: use "poker dice" for damage (face cards = one damage, instead of Fuzzy Heroes 1,3,5 - ) - explained once, got it forever

- They do not get hurt, but understand damage points on enemy

- Bear to zero "sleep not death"

- Victory "what now?"

- What were you supposed to do? Oh the pearl! Then take it and walk back

Lesson: Get them to re-iterate plot several times over adventure

- On walk back, get jumped by Croc (Lego) at big orange mountain

- Hippo ran ahead, so had to take first round hit alone

Lesson: "don't split the party" :)

- Croc ran away when down to 1 hitpoint
Lesson: No need to kill to win, running away is an option

- Walk home

- Princess: "Did you get my pearl?" "Yes" "yippee - was it easy?"

-> Hook for retelling full story

- Princess gives them magic kiss to restore health - demonstratively rub out pencil marks on Hitpoint bar

Lesson: They understand healing principle

Overall total success - want to play again tomorrow - even Mummy who didn't know about this and walked in halfway through said it looked interesting

Lesson: 20-30 minute max game length (younger player concentration waning towards end)

This blog is about my experiences with Roleplaying with toddlers

"Toddlers" in this case mean a 3-year old and an almost 5-year old

Originally inspired by this Wired article.

This article references this manual/system "Fuzzy Heroes".

(Also available as PDF download for USD 8 here)

Google search

However, The "Fuzzy Heroes" system is overkill for such small kids, but interesting inspiration.

I plan to add rules in a later post, see the index