RPG Games for Kids -- A Faery's Tale

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#1

If you are looking for a RPG for the kids, I recommend a Faery’s Tale by Firefly games. The game allows you to play as 1 of 4 different type of faery. Unfortunately, all the boys we have played with want to be Sprites (little fighters) and all the girls want to be Pixies (little beauties), but that doesn’t seem to be a real issue. I am trying to have a few other fairies jump in for minor NPC roles to flesh the world out.

It is a lot of fun watching the kids expand their imagination. At first they would do the same thing, over and over. Sprites fight, and pixies try to chat and charm and that was about it. Now they are trying different approaches to problems. For example, the other day they had to get over a river. The pixie flew, one sprite decided to use his shield as a boat and the other sprite (who ALWAYS jumped over rivers on this faery kangaroo [don’t ask]) decided to chop a tree down across the river and made sure to remind me that the tree will be there when they return so they won’t have to keep figuring out how to get across this same river. (They had to go over the river 3 times prior. The Faery Queen’s castle is in an awkward spot.)

The game mechanics are very simple and the book suggests ways to make the game even easier for younger children. Apparently, kids as young as 6 can play though I find that game runs a little smoother with 9 and 10 year olds. My 8 year old loves the game but is having some trouble understanding that it is the game master that decides the outcome of his decisions. If allowed, he would tell me what his character did, how it turned out, what he did next, how that turned out for 20 minutes straight. My 10 year old daughter grasped the idea fairly quickly, but prefers to hang onto her essances and let her brother get creamed.

There are three quests included in the book and we played two of them. The kids much prefer the quests that I put together. My son wants to try to be a game master, so we might try that if he can assure me his quest won’t be a blood bath. I should point out that no character dies. The character can lose Essence and fall into a sleep, but once he or she has rested, the character is good to go. Enemies are the same, though once they have lost a bit of essence, I usually have them run away.

So if you are looking for something a little different this Christmas season, you might try an RPG game night in the land of Faery’s. Lots of fun.

If you have tried RPG’s with kids, let me know which ones and how it tured out.

#2

YES!! This is awesome. I found about this game earlier this year from a link that Pike pointed me too. And I bought it and learned it. We’ve only played it once, when we were on vacation in July, but it was great. I twisted my wife’s arm to also roll up a character too, so I game mastered the game, and my two girls and my wife had characters. I even had a player character of my own in the game.
I’m planning to do another session for my kids over the holidays.
I wish I could play it with my kids more often–but busy lives, and the time it takes to prepare to play etc etc.
For anyone who (a) loves RPGs, (b) has kids of elementary school age, this game is a must. In my opinion, so much healthier for the brain and the imagination than video games, TV, gameboys, etc.

#3

I know what you mean about time to prep – at first. There is hardly any prep time needed once you have the game mechanics and characters down pat. Actually, I find that the kids drive the story quite a bit so all I do is have a general story drafted out and some colourful characters to meet. I can do that while watching their hockey, ringette, speed skating, karate or piano. I finally convinced my dh to join in, but he has no clue how to play and decided to be a grumpy brownie that doesn’t want to leave the house. We had to have a little talk. I expect that tonight, Igor the brownie will be more willing to quest. :rolleyes:

Our current quest is about the King of L’Orange’s baby, kidnapped by a dragon. The Queen’s new handmaid is actually a hag in disguise and will be behind the whole thing. She is being helped by a dark faery. A journey to a mythical library will be involved and because the kids love Merlin, he will figure. I still can’t figure out why the hag has such a hate on for L’Orange. No doubt the hag will be convinced to be nice and helpful. My daughter likes to turn evil to good. She spent a lot of time in the Firefly quest with pig and horse heads convincing the town folk that the rejected old woman should be better treated. It all ended happily – as expected.

#4

That’s so funny what you said about the boys all wanting to be Sprites.
I have two girls, and I guess it’s a sign of the overprotective parenting we’ve done, but somehow the girls are convinced that Sprites are bad BECAUSE Sprites are fighters and carry swords. My girls both wanted to be Pookas because they love the idea of being about to change into animals. Before we played, I went to local doll house shop that that had a ton of little metal animal figures. So now I have a figure for just about any animal they could hope to transform into.

#5

I just sent the link to this thread to my hub who is traveling to the UK at the moment. He was into D&D in college and we have a bunch of D&D books. I never played but he explained it to me a little. I found this thread very cool as I was reading through it. I’d love to teach our son, plus it might be a good beginner intro for me. :stuck_out_tongue: Plus, we could get all of our geeky friends’ kids into it too. :smiley:

Tell me, if I purchased this, what dice or whatnot would I need to buy with it…since I’m a total fraktard newbie?

Also, did you see this free Christmas adventure download here?

#6

That would be so cool if you and your family got into this game, Keara!
We could compare notes!
The game mechanics are VERY simple. You only need six-sided dice.
I took my girls to local game/comic store that (of course) sells dice. And I let each of them personally pick a set of 5 dice of their very own (cool colorful dice.)
I’m not sure I’d take 'em to that store again until they’re older—it’s was kinda an extreme sensory overload for them seeing all the kind of things that are in a good comics/game store—they got a little kooky.

#7

Which one? Most games don’t use the full bag of polyhedral dice that AD&D does.

#8

One thing I’ve found INCREDIBLY useful for role-playing games are vinyl mats like those made by Chessex. Some stores that sell RPGs also sell these kind of mats.
You can get ‘em with hex grid on one side and a square grid on the other.
They’re great cuz’ you can use them to draw somethink like room your characters are going into ( or a cave or a castle or spaceship–whatever) and when you’re done with the room you can just erase it using water-soluble overhead-projection pens (which come is variety of colors of course).

#9

OK, so does each child need their own set of 5 six-sided dice?

#10

Nope. Typically only person will be rolling dice at a time. And of course the gamemaster should have his own set.
So two sets total is all you really need.

#11

Just called my local comic book store. They don’t have it in, but they owner will call me back this afternoon and let me know if they can get it in by Thursday. I left a message for my husband to call me to see if he’s interested in teaching my son (and me) to play this.

I can just see it. At future GWC meets, all our kids will wander off into a corner to play RPG games while we’re still fighting about the Earth/Erf thing, even many years post-finale. :smiley:

#12

I bought the game online. It took a couple weeks before I got it in the mail.
I’ve only played it once—but if I can somehow get into a routine where we play maybe twice a month, maybe I can keep their interest in it going while at the same time keep myself familiar with the rules.

#13

Ahmm.
The Hackmaster Society rules clearly state “never touch another players dice”
All good gamers know this.

:wink:

Anyway, I may have to check this game out for the 5-year old !GWEN. That or find our “Fuzzy Heros” books. (Fuzzy heroes is more a miniatures game-using stuffed toys!)

#14

Is true. You want to raise them right, otherwise they’ll find themselves committing a huge faux pas the first time they play with new friends.

#15

Keara, you will just love this game as, I am sure, will your son. Other kids can drop in and out as play days allow. I keep the stats and pictures of all the faery’s and come up with plausible reasons for their disappearance and reappearance in the game. Kids are so flexible. I use regular old 6 sided dice from store and poker chips for essence. A character might need more than 5 dice if you consider their special abilities and levelling up. A Sprite with 4 for body will need 6 dice for a fight.

ThoughtFullGuy, I love the idea of buying little animals. I looked for some toy faeries for character figures, but the ones I saw where too expensive. Can’t afford a set of faeries at $20 each. They were mostly a little girlie too.

Glad to see your daughters have bucked the pixie trend. My daughter wouldn’t play a pooka because of the picture at the beginning of the book. Too ugly. I pointed out Hiccup, who is a real cutie, but she was on to the Tinkerbelle fantasy already.

Printable paper figures exist for the Faery’s Tale, and I thought about buying them. The examples show lovely pixies and sprites and wonderful giants and ogres. All of the figures are the same size apparently, so a giant will be the same size as a fairy, but I think kids can get over that. What I am not sure they can get over is the absolutely evil looking pookas. In my mind they look like fookas (or evil pookas). Nothing special about the brownies either. As I said, I never bought them so maybe they are better once printed. http://www.arion-games.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=69 My kids have drawn their own faeries, and that seems just fine for now.

#16

I wonder if Faerie Paper Dolls would be useful.

Although, doing their own is infinitely preferable.

#17

This game looks like something my daughter’s would really enjoy. I am going to call around to some shops and see if I can’t procure it for Christmas.

My husband has made them into Titan Quest fiends, so hopefully this will get them to quit asking to play on the computer all the time!

Oh, and another great game for kids that adults enjoy as well is Flux. It’s not an RPG, just a card game, but it is a blast. A bit like Calvin Ball, as the rules always change.

#18

Setting up RPG Games for Kids via GeekDad