Simplest Role Playing System

Gaming with kids

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Hello Parents and Educators,

We were asked about using tabletop RPG’s as an educational tool while integrating real life history and geography.

Baby Dragon with Cubie from Alina Pete and a glowing d20.

It’s a massive question and I could write an entire book about it, but here’s what I answered:

Hello,

This is the Eric half of JenEric, I write the RPG stuff and most of the stories. My wife is the one who did the homeschooling but she felt this was a bit beyond her.

Thank you so much for that question. That is a great question and will depend a lot on your kids and your preferred style of play.

First I’d (selfishly) recommend using Oneshot – The Simplest RPG. It’s just the rules, they are very simple and you’ll be able to use them for almost any scenario.

As for the educational part, I’d recommend you make a list of things you want the kids to learn about and build around those goals. If you’re planning on different historical locations, you should break them down. I find it helps to break down each location/time and then list the characters, places, important events, and reason for the characters to be there.

If you’re jumping around in history and geography, you need to either make a series of small adventures or try maybe make it time travel related. With the time travel, the kids can get attached to a character that they’ll see grow and experience,

Another good way to keep it fun and keep them interested is to have a fun villain. I’m a big fan of cartoonish villains for kids, but you know your kids best.

Hook them into a story and they won’t even notice they’re learning.

As much fun as movies, tv, and books are; be careful not to use them too much as research. A good place to start is WIkipedia, each article has sources and those sources usually have a lot more information and further reading.

I hope this helps,
Eric Desmarais

Anyone have further advice for gaming with children in an educational manner?

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

CoasteRPG Oneshot Scenario – Lost Toys

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Hello My Imaginary Friends,

On Tuesday I introduced you the the new and improved CoasteRPG; *Compatible with One-Shot Party: The Simplest RPG* now here for the first time is a oneshot scenario for the game. Depending on your players’ zeal and distraction level, it should take between 1-3 hours to play.

The players are all playing a toy that has just now gained sentience. Encourage your players to bring in the toy or at least bring a picture. Give each of them an attack and special ability based off their toy and its accessories.

The Room

They start out waking up in a kid’s room. Clean but filled with toys. Other than them, there are only 2 other toys that are moving.

There is a door and a window. They can see the night sky out the window. The door appears to be locked.

One of the toys with them is a stuffed Winnie the Pooh. He is quiet, says “bother” a lot, and sometimes mumbles.

The other is a Barbie who is missing her arms and legs. She shudders as she talks and manages to say, “Ship… Chip… RUN!” before becoming immobile.

Challenge

They need to escape the room. If they can pick the lock to the door they find what looks like a solid metal wall. It’s actually a sliding door (Spot 6)

There is a computer chip inside the Barbie’s torso (Search 4) that will open the sliding metal door.

The window is a porthole to the outside. They could open the window (Strength 5 or two at strength 3) but everything will be sucked into space. If this happens, they can use special abilities to get back to the hull of the ship.

The Hall

The door leads to a long narrow corridor that branches left or right. There are signs.

Challenge

There are 6 flying defence drones. They target any flying toys first or anyone who hurts them.

The left passage leads to the Teleporter, the right to the Extractor.

The Extractor

The Extractor is where the mad genius sucks the love out of a toy and turns it into energy. The planet’s energy reserves are completely dependent on this form of energy.

Challenge

Zombie Toys and Mad Genius

The Teleporter

The Teleporter is where new toys arrive from alternate dimensions.

Challenge

Getting home.

Activating the transporter (2) sends them somewhere randomly.

Activating it with coordinates (4) sends them home.

Ending

Hopefully they don’t die…

Options: They can send themselves home, destroy the Extractor permanently, take over the facility, or all of the above. Let them play with the idea.

Enemies

  Defence Drone Zombie Mad Genius
Health 6 1 5
Defence 3 4 6
Body 4 0 0
Mind 1 0 4
Luck 1 4 1
Special Abilities Lasers 1

Slam 1

Explode 3 flips

Fly

 Bite 1

Squeeze 1

 Drain 1+1flip

Grab and toss into extractor  6

Enjoy and good gaming,

Éric

The Simplest Role Playing System – Part 2

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Hello Friends,

Last weekend I ran the fourth playtest for The Simplest Role Playing System. It went great. I noticed a tiny issue with balance between defence and attack which I fixed. Other than that it’s a perfect rules light system for quick games.

I’ve also developed a Character sheet for the Advanced rules.

The Simplest Role Playing System-CharacterSheet

Here’s the PDF for download: The Simplest Role Playing System-CharacterSheet (111kb)

Have you tried the system? What did you think of it?

Éric

The Simplest Role Playing System

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I went to a social gathering the other night and someone asked if I’d brought a game. I hadn’t, so obviously I offered to run an improvised RPG. I had my phone with a dice roller so I was covered.

Turned out that I wasn’t needed but it got me thinking about how to create a simplified rule set that would be easy to remember and even easier to teach.

Here’s what I came up with… You need a coin or a dice (a coaster or other flip-able thing works too), a storyteller, and players. (Something to write on and with would help.)

Simple Rules: Each player chooses Body, Mind, or Luck as their characters specialty. They have 3 in that ability. (Ex. Fighters choose Body.) Their health and defence equal 4.

Complex Rules: Each person has 5 points to place in Body, Mind, and Luck. No negatives. Their health equals their Body plus their Luck+1. Their Defence equals Body plus Mind +1

Resolution Mechanism: When a character needs to do something the Storyteller decides if it’s easy (1), hard (2), ridiculous (4), or clownshoes crazy (7). The character then subtracts their attribute from the difficulty.

If the attribute is higher than the difficulty they succeed. If not they have to flip the coin 5 times and call it (if it’s a die have them call even or odd). Add every right guess to their attribute.

Combat: Each character does 1 point of damage if they hit something and take the same if they are hit. Death occurs at 0 health.

Everything else: The storyteller makes up.

Character Sheets: Available here!

I’d like to thank both XDM and Shadowrun for inspiring me.

Remember this when you’re at a bar or party and everyone looks scared or/and bored. Everyone will think you’re awesome! I promise.

*Rules updated July 7th, 2015 after a play test*