I started my first ever TTRPG experience (one-shot DnD) back in August. It’s been a blast, I wish I had got started earlier in life with it.
But beyond the fun I have in-game, what’s been the best part for me is, I have three kids ages 3-7. When I put them to bed after a session earlier in the evening, I tell them the story of what happened in our game. They love this. The day of, they will constantly ask me when I’m playing and if I’ll tell them about what happened. Last night, when they weren’t listening to their mom I told them if they don’t listen I won’t tell them the story. The look of terror on their faces…. they were good the rest of the night.
So I really want to use this as an opportunity to get them into kids’ RPGs. My problem is, I’m new to this whole world myself and I’m having trouble narrowing down the possibilities for their first adventure. They really like a fantasy world so I’m trying to stick to that. FirstFable and Hero Kids looks interesting, but I wanted to make a post to solicit ideas from the community: what are some RPGs you would recommend for little kids for their first experience with it?
Magical Kitties Save the Day
There’s a game that I think fits exactly what you want: Magical Kitties Save the Day. It’s built as an introductory TTRPG, but that shouldn’t deceive you, because it’s got depth and sets you up for good play.
Why do I say that? For one, the game was built by Justin Alexander, who is a great GM educator. His books, blogs, videos, and interviews have educated me in TTRPGs more and better than anything else. Much of his knowledge was carefully distilled into Magical Kitties. So someone playing Magical Kitties will learn many of the fundamentals of GMing and have fun.
I wish I would’ve had this game when I was 8.
Maze Rats
Another game that comes to mind is Maze Rats. This game is also great for newcomers, but for different reasons. While Magical Kitties guides your hand so that you can learn GMing fundamentals, Maze Rats is a bit more like a playground that children can explore.
What do I mean by a playground? I mean that Maze Rats has less rules. It’s a bit more like there’s a bunch of toys that the players can choose to play with very few constraints. I suppose this ethos comes from how the game was created: it was playtested in classrooms with young children.
It might seem like Maze Rats doesn’t teach you to GM, but that’s not entirely true. Maze Rats has good advice that, if a GM were to follow, would result in good GMing. In fact, the creator of Maze Rats, Ben Milton, is also a good resource for learning to GM. It’s just that Magical Kitties feels crunchier and more structured.
So, which game should you choose?
I guess it’s a matter of trying either one and seeing how it goes. I’d start with Maze Rats, because the cost of failure with Maze Rats is much lower than with Magical Kitties; to play Maze Rats you only need a couple of minutes to read the rules, a couple of d6’s, a dozen or two of printed pages, and some writing utensils. If Maze Rats doesn’t work for some reason, I’d actually suggest you try Fate Accelerated (which someone else recommended in this thread) for the same reasons: the cost of failure with Fate Accelerated is quite low compared with Magical Kitties.
There’s a caveat to my suggestion to perform safe-to-fail experiments: if you or your children are exceptionally motivated and able to learn to GM in a structured way, skip Maze Rats and Fate Accelerated and jump right into Magical Kitties Save the Day. Further down the line, if you or your children are motivated and able to learn from a book, you might buy Justin Alexander’s book on GMing. This would open up the world of TTRPGs to you all, because a good GM can pick up almost any TTRPG and GM it well. However, as a default, I’d stick to Maze Rats, Fate Accelerated, or other similar lightweight systems.