A New Home for Hero Kids!

There comes a time in a young game's life when they have to leave their home and strike out into a blog of their own. For Hero Kids, that day is today.

Hero Kids RPG Blog

This blog remains the home for the development and game design discussions for all of my games, but the Hero Kids blog will focus on that game and its supplements, including adventures and expansions.

So if Hero Kids is your bag, please please please head over there and click the Follow button so that you can stay informed about all the cool new stuff I release for Hero Kids.

As a super-special bonus, here's the cover for Hero Kids, once again by my buddy Eric Quigley:

Presenting the HERO KIDS!

From left to right, they are; knight, rogue, brute, warlock (male), hunter (female), hunter (male), warlock (female), healer, warrior (female), and warrior (male).

Click to enbiggen:

The previous warlocks that I used were in poses much more like the healer and they weren't popular with the playtesters, so hopefully these kick-ass versions get the attention they deserve!

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Kids would never fight monsters in Heroes Against Darkness, or would they?:
Heroes Against Darkness: Downloads.

Hero Kids alpha playtest complete

After several weeks of thorough testing, the alpha playtest of Hero Kids is now complete.   I've gotten back a whole bunch of useful feedback from the various testers and their tiny helpers.   Thanks guys and girls!

I'm currently working to implement the changes and suggestions that have come up in the testing, I'm designing more adventures for our pint-sized heroes (including an randomly generated minotaur's maze), and finally I'm working with Eric Quigley to complete all of the artwork for the monsters and the heroes so that we can get Hero Kids finished early in October (what a perfect holiday activity it will be!).

Here's a quick look at some of nasty humanoid monsters in the game:

Eric Quigley Art

Lookin' good boys!

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The monsters in Heroes Against Darkness are much less cute:
Heroes Against Darkness: Downloads.

Sneak peek at a Hero Kids character

So while all of the helpful playtesters are putting Hero Kids through it's paces, I reckon it's a good time to show everyone else what a 'Hero Card' looks like for one of the heroes that's included in the game.  From the card you might be able to work out the basics of the system itself.

First, each of the heroes has four main attributes:
•   Melee (dice pool for melee attacks)
•   Ranged (dice pool for ranged attacks)
•  Magic (dice pool for magic attacks)
•  Armor (dice pool for defending against enemy attacks)

Plus a number of attacks and actions:
•   Normal Attack (melee, ranged, or magic)
•   Special Action (usually a special attack or other action)
•   Special Ability (a passive ability based on the hero's specialty)

Finally, heroes can also have these items and skills:
•   Healing Potions (these are used in combat to heal the hero)
•   Inventory Items (these can be used in adventuring)
•   Skills (these can be used in adventuring or role-playing)

Hero Kids works as a simple skirmish game or as a full RPG, and the characters themselves have layers of complexity so that they are usable by kids from 4 to 10.  Younger kids just have to use their dice pools and their Normal Attack, while older kids can use tactics and their heroes' Special Actions and Abilities to tackle hard combats and other adventuring and role-playing obstacles.

If I've designed the Hero Cards it right, this example card should pretty much tell you about the underlying mechanics of the game and the possible and probable variations in the heroes that come with the game.

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Looking for something more complicated, look no further:
Heroes Against Darkness: Downloads.

Hero Kids alpha playtest begins

Okay, the playtest docs for Hero Kids are out to testers.

If I somehow missed you in sending out the docs, drop me an email at justinhalliday(@)gmail(dot)com.

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In the mean-time, here's a real-life RPG for grown-ups:
Heroes Against Darkness: Downloads.

Presenting "Hero Kids" RPG for Kids

I've been pretty quiet about RPG stuff lately because I've been beavering away on my next project.   Regular readers know that a while ago I made up some simple RPG rules to play with Violet and since I finished the first version of Heroes Against Darkness I've been working on turning those simple rules into a real game.

This project now has a name: Hero Kids

Hero Kids is a fantasy RPG for kids aged 4-10. It uses a combination of cool hero artwork, fast play and simple opposed combat mechanics to introduce kids to RPGs.

I'm looking for volunteers who want to alpha test the rules on their own kids ahead of the game's release on DriveThruRPG later this year.

This is your last chance to hit me up here, on G+ or on my gmail if you want an invite the playtest the game!

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In the mean-time, here's a real-life RPG for grown-ups:
Heroes Against Darkness: Downloads.

D&D RPG For Kids: Coming Soon...

I still get tons of interest in an old blog post of mine where I played a super-simple D&D-style RPG with my daughter Violet:

D&D For Kids (Rules Included)!

Since the release of Heroes Against Darkness, Violet and I have been working on expanding the basic premise of those rules into a real proper game for real proper kids.   It's too early to tell you too much, but what I'd like to do is to get you guys to contact me if you're interested in playtesting the rules when they're ready.

If you are interested, drop me an email at justinhalliday(a)gmail(dot)com, hit me up on Google+, or just follow this blog and i'll put you on the mailing list for the game's playtest.

Kudos to Eric Quigley for the pic.

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In the mean-time, here's a real-life RPG for grown-ups:
Heroes Against Darkness: Downloads.

More AnyDice d6 Dice Pool Probabilities

Following my previous exciting and enigmatic post about d6 dice pool probabilities, I've also run the same combinations of dice pools through AnyDice to see what the probabilities are when you take the cumulative totals of the pools, rather than just the highest of either pool.   The results are (obviously) a lot different.

First though, here's the AnyDice code:

---

function: opposedhighestcume of A:n and B:n
{
      if A >= B { result: 1 }
      result: -1
}

output [opposedhighestcume of 1d6 and 1d6]
output [opposedhighestcume of 2d6 and 1d6]
output [opposedhighestcume of 3d6 and 1d6]
output [opposedhighestcume of 4d6 and 1d6]

output [opposedhighestcume of 1d6 and 2d6]
output [opposedhighestcume of 2d6 and 2d6]
output [opposedhighestcume of 3d6 and 2d6]
output [opposedhighestcume of 4d6 and 2d6]

output [opposedhighestcume of 1d6 and 3d6]
output [opposedhighestcume of 2d6 and 3d6]
output [opposedhighestcume of 3d6 and 3d6]
output [opposedhighestcume of 4d6 and 3d6]

output [opposedhighestcume of 1d6 and 4d6]
output [opposedhighestcume of 2d6 and 4d6]
output [opposedhighestcume of 3d6 and 4d6]
output [opposedhighestcume of 4d6 and 4d6]

---

That code outputs either -1 or 1, depending on which pool 'won':
•   1: Attacker's total is higher (or ties, which is also a win).
•  -1: Means that the second pool 'won' and the attack was unsuccessful.

Here are the results for the cumulative opposed checks, with ties resolved in favor of the attacker:

Attacker's pool (down the left)	1d6	2d6	3d6	4d6
1d6	58%	16%	3%	0%
2d6	91%	56%	22%	6%
3d6	98%	85%	55%	26%
4d6	99%	96%	81%	54%

Here again are the previous results for the 'highest dice' opposed checks, with ties resolved in favor of the attacker:

Attacker's pool (down the left)	1d6	2d6	3d6	4d6
1d6	58%	42%	34%	30%
2d6	75%	61%	53%	48%
3d6	83%	72%	65%	60%
4d6	88%	79%	73%	69%

That's all pretty boring, right?  

Well, hopefully it will make sense one day. :-)

---

Check out Heroes Against Darkness, which has a dice mechanic no one could call innovative: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

AnyDice vs. a d6 Dice Pool Mechanic

I've been mulling over a set of super-simple RPG rules for kids (maybe from 4 and up).   As part of this I've been thinking about a simple (but playable) dice mechanic that involves opposed pools of d6s, with only the highest dice counting for each of the participants (and ties resolving in favor of the attacker, although this could change).

I've finally managed to get AnyDice to spit out the probabilities I was after for the opposed dice pool mechanic (gosh I hate it when people get excited about their 'new' dice mechanics).

This code for AnyDice spits out the amount by which the highest dice of the first dice pool is equal to or greater than than the highest dice of the second dice pool:

---

function: opposedhighest of A:n and B:n
{
      if A >= B { result: A-B }
      result: -1
}

output [opposedhighest of 1@1d6 and 1@1d6]
output [opposedhighest of 1@2d6 and 1@1d6]
output [opposedhighest of 1@3d6 and 1@1d6]
output [opposedhighest of 1@4d6 and 1@1d6]

---

•  -1: Means that the second pool 'won' and the attack was unsuccessful.
•  0: Means the highest dice of each pool were tied, which can be resolved in favor of the attacker or the defender.
•  1+: Higher numbers represent the disparity between the attacker's highest dice against the defender's highest dice.

Here are the results for the opposed checks, with ties resolved in favor of the attacker:

Attacker's pool (down the left)	1d6	2d6	3d6	4d6
1d6	58%	42%	34%	30%
2d6	75%	61%	53%	48%
3d6	83%	72%	65%	60%
4d6	88%	79%	73%	69%

And, here are the results with ties resolved in favor of the defender:

Attacker's pool (down the left)	1d6	2d6	3d6	4d6
1d6	42%	26%	17%	13%
2d6	58%	39%	28%	21%
3d6	66%	47%	35%	27%
4d6	71%	53%	40%	31%

What does it mean?   Which one is better?   

I'm not sure yet, but I'll let you know!

---

Check out Heroes Against Darkness, which has a dice mechanic no one could call innovative: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

D&D for Kids (Rules Included)!

I've developed the ideas here into a full RPG for kids called Hero Kids. Check it out here:
Hero Kids fantasy RPG for kids

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My daughter Violet has been nagging me for ages to play D&D (referred to as 'nerd games' in our house), so when my Pathfinder Beginner Box arrived in the mail (I don't plan on playing it, but I'm an obsessive completist and I love the monster stand-ups), I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to run a game for her.

Obviously a 4-year old can't play actual D&D , so I set up a super-simple RPG for Violet. Keep in mind, this all happened in the 15 minutes before Violet had pinkie-promised to go to bed, so the game is simple and the materials were whatever I could grab quickly, which should explain the HP tokens we ended up using!

Materials

The game uses these materials:

• 1 dungeon map
• 1 hero
• 4 monsters
• 1 d10
• 1 d6
• 6 health tokens for the hero

The flipmat that comes in the Pathfinder Beginner Box is very nice, and I used the cavern side for the game:

 

Violet chose one of the characters from the various hero pawns in the Pathfinder Beginner Box:

I used just four goblins from the Pathfinder Beginner Box as baddies for the game:

And the d10 is for the hero's attacks:

The d6 is for the monsters' attacks:

Finally, this was the first thing that came to hand to use for the hero's HP tokens:

Rules

Setup:
• Hero has 6 HP and rolls a d10 for movement and attacks.
• Monsters have 2 HP and roll a d6 for movement and attacks.
• Set up the hero at the entrance of the dungeon, and the four monsters along the route to the treasure (in this case the golden fountain in the middle of the flipmat)

Movement:
• Hero rolls d10 and moves that many squares.
• If a monster can see the character, it rolls d6 and moves that many squares.

Combat:
• If the hero and a monster are adjacent, they both roll their dice (d10 vs. d6) the highest roll wins and their opponent takes 1 HP damage.

Win/lose conditions:
• The hero wins the game when they reach the treasure.
• The monsters win when the hero is defeated.

Playing the Game

I started Violet's hero at the top middle of the map, and then scattered the goblins along the route to the treasure (the golden fountain in the middle of the map). The first goblin was at the top of the stairs, the second in the room at the top left, the third in the big room on the left side and then the last goblin was in the corridor near the treasure.

 

Each turn, she rolled her d10 and then moved her character that many squares (with some help). If a monster was nearby, I rolled a d6 for the monster and moved it towards her hero.

When the monster and the hero were adjacent, we both rolled our dice and the highest roll 'won', with the loser taking 1 HP damage. When Violet's hero took damage, I ate one of the six BBQ Shapes tokens that I had lined up for her health (bwahahaha!). When the monsters took damage, we just remembered it and then killed them the next time they took another hit.

The combination of the 2 HP for the monsters, 6 HP for the hero, and the d6 and d10 all worked pretty well, because Violet's hero reached the treasure with just 2 HP left!

What Did We Learn

• Counting (for movement)
• Comparing (for the opposed attack rolls)
• Remembering (for the monsters having 2 HP)

Possible Advanced Rules

• There's no difference if the hero reaches the monster first or the monster reaches the hero first, so maybe whoever moves adjacent gets either a free opposed attack or a bonus to their first opposed attack.
• This is balanced for only a small number of 'encounters', so there could be healing potions in side rooms, or the hero could regain 1 HP after each combat.