Horror, post-apocalyptic, or cyberpunk games will have themes that may be too mature. Some games probably aren’t appropriate at all. This is one thing that will keep my waiting until my kids are older. If your game has monsters, you may want to avoid monsters that are too scary. You may also want to avoid having humans as bad guys and instead focus on monsters. Gloss over the violent aspects of the game or make it more cartoony. If the level of violence described in the game doesn’t make you comfortable, you can change the way you describe it to your kids. You don’t need to feel tied to the rules you can change them at any time, for any reason, if it increases your enjoyment of the game. It’s all up to you-that’s one of the great things about roleplaying games. However, even if you choose a game with such violence in the mechanics, you don’t have to focus on the gory descriptions or even use them at all. I thought it was awesome, and since then I’ve always preferred RPGs with more realistic and gritty combat. I decided to have my dwarf use his war hammer to hit the orc, and thanks to a lucky roll on MERP’s detailed injury tables, my dwarf ended up shattering the orc’s kneecap. I was playing a dwarf, and we came across a nasty orc. I started playing that game at 11 years old and still remember the first fight my first character got into. There were damage tables that describe severed limbs, blood, crushed skulls, and all manner of physical harm. Tolkien’s Middle Earth can be a rather violent place, and the game reflected that. I personally started out with a rather violent RPG called Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP). Some kids deal just fine with violence in RPGs. Other games are targeted towards adults or kids with a higher tolerance for violence. The level of realism in these games is rather like cartoon violence, where every blow just bounces off until the last one. Even in some more mature games, violence is abstracted to “hit points”-a simple numerical value that indicates character death upon reaching zero. For example, in one game each kid plays a fuzzy stuffed animal character, and when opponents are defeated, they simply go to sleep. A lot of RPGs designed for kids do a good job of downplaying such violence and focusing on other types of conflict and gaming challenges, so you have plenty of choices in that regard. RPGs originated with war gaming, and many RPGs are tied closely to fantasy adventure stories, so combat plays a big role in most games. But down below I’ll give an overview and list some pages where you can go to find one that’s just right for your kids.īefore picking one and diving right in, there are a few things you’ll want to consider before introducing your kids to roleplaying games.Ĭonsider your kid’s maturity level with regard to violence and scary situations. I haven’t tried any of them (yet), and there are just too many for me to make specific recommendations. Many of them are very inexpensive or even free. There are tons of RPGs designed just for kids-way more than I had initially suspected before writing this post. RPG design and theory have expanded drastically in the past 20 years or so, and the number of options out there is truly staggering. Luckily, the market for roleplaying games is really healthy. Two of my brothers have already started roleplaying with their older kids. I definitely intend to introduce my kids to the hobby one day. I started playing tabletop RPGs when I was about 11 years old and never stopped. I was glad when a friend asked me to write about roleplaying games (RPGs) for kids, because it’s something I’ve put a fair amount of thought into, and I relished the excuse to look into it a bit more.

Fun roleplaying games online