[Rambling] [Play Report] Daddy's Made Up Castle Crashers Inspired Role-Playing Game for Kids

So... my Boy is nuts for Castle Crashers. He was into Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Video Game so I let him try the demo for it and, since he liked it, I bought the full version. I don't know how YOU spend family time but in our household... four player brawler games are high on the list.

Castle Crashers is a fantasy arcade brawler (Available on PS3 PSN Store, XBOX LIVE arcade and Steam [with Big Picture support])... the basic premise is: You are knights who save the princesses by murdering wave after wave of minions, sub-bosses, bosses and a final big-boss while collecting treasure and new equipment along the way... so... basically Old School Dungeons & Dragons. Apologies to pacifists and feminists... my plan is to ensure that "over the top violence" and "institutional chauvinism" are categorized as "bad things that should only happen in games", OK?

Little side note here... children's television these days seems expressly suited to teaching children the basics of questing... seriously, Dora, Team Umizoomi, Bo On The Go, etc. all seem to be conspiring to teach the importance of maps, keys, adventure hooks, looting, prerequisite quests and objects, magic sentient doors and spot checks... I'm convinced that a generation of Role-Players have now grown up to be childrens television creators... but I digress.

Like I said, the kids love them some killing faceless minions so we play a lot of co-op castle crashers and every time a character levels up I get to look at something like this:

I don't own this.

and my tabletop brain says, "Say, that there is basically a character sheet..." As such, the other day I fiddled around in inkscape and came up with this:

Found the clip-art somewhere online so I don't own this either.

and printed off a copy that I looked at while feeling proud of myself. Around that time I also filled up a Google Drive Document with some basic key points, fleshing out the bare-bones of my Castle Crashers Inspired Role-Playing Game for Kids.

Daddy's Made Up Castle Crashers Inspired Role-Playing Game for Kids

Yesterday evening I had the kids to myself while my wife did something or other and after exhausting other avenues of interest and finding them in the mood for board gaming (you can see my Google+ Post on the Subject for more information) I decided it was time to try my little game out... do an Dogfood Playtest or whatever.

Setup
After printing off a second copy of the prototype character sheet. I gave it to the kids along with the bag-o-crayons and instructed them to color in their Knight (in the game the colour of the knight is indicative of the scope of it's powers so this was implied) and went to find my bag-o-six-sided-dice, glass counters and bag-o-miniatures-and-maps (encounter maps from the D&D Miniatures Starter Set, figures from various sources)... and a pen and scrap paper. I also cleared off the small table we were going to use.

Character Generation
First I had the kids pick names. The boy (age 3.5) decided to call himself "Thomas" and the girl (age 5.25) chose to call herself "Unicorn"... there was some discussion and negotiation at this point because, while the girl was committed to her choice it became clear that using the name "Unicorn" was confusing. We settled on "Ser Thomas, The Poison Knight" and "Princess April, The Unicorn Knight" by the end of character generation and back-story composition.

I gave each player four six-sided-dice and told them to assign them to each skill category (strength, toughness, quickness and power/magic). Ser Thomas chose one per stat while Princess April chose two strength and two magic.

On having assigned dice to the "Power/Magic" stat the kids got to pick what their skills were. Ser Thomas chose "Poison"... we never worked out what that meant in practical terms because it never came up... while Princess April, having assigned two dice got to choose two powers. Negotiations on her powers took some time and at one point I said "those are too powerful, would you like them to be unreliable or infrequent" and she chose unreliable. The killing and zombification were all her though.

1 Die Power - Make Them Fall Down.
On a Roll of 4 or Better, Target of Choice is Dead.

2 Die Power - Make Everyone Fall Down.
Roll 2 Dice. Kill That Number of Targets.
If either Dice rolls One, Roll A Die, That Number of Targets Come Back As Zombies, Stunned for One Round.

I also have them pick out miniatures from my collection. Princess April chose Green Lantern and Ser Thomas chose a Female Human Warrior.

The Quest for the Beefy Sandwiches!
In Castle Crashers there is a consumable item that looks like a sandwich... when it's used it temporarily boosts your strength and defence while preventing you from using your powers or reviving allies... it also makes your character scream and bulk up like a roid-addled he-man and so my the boy is nuts for the things. We call them beefy sandwiches because they make your character "beefy"... get it?

So, when I asked the two knights what they would like to do Ser Thomas suggested that they go get some Beefy Sandwiches and Princess April agreed. They started in their home castle and the Queen tasked them with their Quest for the Beefy Sandwiches. I told them that they didn't know how where to find the Beefy Sandwich Shop. I asked them what they do when they don't know which way to go and my daughter suggested that we might use a map (thanks Dora). She decided that she would draw a map... I told her that she couldn't make a map because she didn't know which way to go... she drew a picture of a map and presented it to me as evidence that she had a map... I suggested they visit the Castle Map Shop.

The shopkeeper told them that he did have a map they could use, but it would cost them 10 coins to buy. Princess April tried to hand the shopkeeper some imaginary coins... I told her that she didn't have any coins... she drew ten circles on a scrap of paper and presented it as evidence that she had ten coins... I told her that wasn't how it worked... I asked if they could think of any way they might earn some coins. Princess April suggested that they could find jobs to earn money (thanks Team Umizoomi).

I asked what types of work they thought they might be able to do and Princess April suggested that they might build some things, like wagons, and sell them. Ser Thomas suggested they find and kill bad guys and take their money. Princess April agreed this was a good plan and that if they didn't get enough money that way they could always invest what they earned in supplies that could be used to make wagons that they could sell.

The shopkeeper overheard their discussion and mentioned that, in fact, a band of thieves had recently made off with a number of his maps. These thieves were holed up in the Thieves Forest and that if the knights would retrieve them for him, he would be happy to give them the map they needed as a reward. The knights agreed.

They made their way to the Thieves Forest and I told them that a path lead into the dark of the forest. I asked them what they would like to do. Princess April suggested that they light a lantern. I advised her that they did not have a lantern and asked if she might have an idea where she might get one. She suggested that her mother, the Queen, might have one. So they headed back to the Castle and borrowed a lantern (which I drew on Princess April's character sheet) and then returned to head down the darkened forest path.

I had intended for them to be waylaid by thieves but since then now had a lantern I told them that they say some movements off to the side of the path. They rushed over and surprised a thief hiding in the bushes. I asked what they wanted to do. Turns out...

First Combat Encounter In The Thieves Forest
I had a "forest map" that I folded down to one narrow strip and places their miniatures and another random miniature (doesn't matter but I think it was a wizard... he had a brown cloak so it was thief-like at least).

Princess April used her "Make Them Fall Down" power and successfully dispatched the thief (1/0/1/0 - 5HP). Ser Thomas decided he should loot the corpse.

The party was ambushed by three more thieves who were hiding in the shadows. Ser Thomas did find a single coin in his looting though. He also asked if he could search the head (having searched "the body") and check for food... I told him he could stop searching since he'd found everything there was to find.

I decided that after using a Power it would take a few rounds for the Power Dice to recharge so the next couple rounds were normal combat. Ser Thomas (1/1/1/1 - 5HP) having a dice in his toughness would roll opposed for defence (Enemy Roll - Player Roll)... so Princess April (2/0/0/2 -5HP) hit harder but also took some damage... also, you had to roll your speed die to move and since Princess April had none she only got to ever take one step.

Near the end Princess April used her "Make Everyone Fall Down" power with 1 HP left and ended up with more Zombies than there had been enemy thieves left, but the extra round of stun (which I decided would make sense during their "transition") gave them plenty of time to finish them off completely.

Ser Thomas insisted that they search the bodies and ended up finding 3 more coins (so I drew 4 little circles on his character sheet).

At this point mom came home.

Leveling Up!
I suggested they go back to the castle and rest up so, session over I reviewed all the things they had done and told them that they had leveled up, earning two additional dice to add to their character sheets. Ser Thomas put both of his into Strength while Princess April put one into Toughness and the other into Speed.

All told, I think everyone had fun. I hope I can convince them to play again soon. I was going to attach an image of their character sheets here but it would seem my daughter took her's to school to show her friends... so I'll have to post them later... maybe stage a nice shot with miniatures and dice and stuff.