An RPG for our entire family.
- Use weapons like swords and bows (C), but without hurting or killing (N)
- Gameplay that works for both young (3) and old (10+) kids
- Just enough structure to avoid chaos while still focusing on having fun
A meteor came to earth and broke into many pieces. Each piece landed in a different area and cursed the land and inhabitants (including animals).
It's important that the "bad guys" in this game are non-sentient. The "monsters" in this game are the cursed inhabitants (usually animals). The "combat" is how you remove the curse.
There is no big boss to defeat. Maybe a puzzle or luck roll to remove the curse from the meteor piece?
Each campaign can be dealing with one of these cursed pieces. Each piece could be themed. Maybe one is ice cursed, another is fire cursed, etc.
A town asked your group to help them. Monsters have been coming into their town. They seem to be coming from a dark stormy castle in the distance. You adventure through the castle, exploring, solving puzzles, and "defeating" the monsters. You discover the cursed meteor piece at the center of the castle and remove the curse. All the monsters turn back into animals and the town rewards you.
Everyone (monsters and players) have armor points, represented by a stack of checker pieces. Roll a dice to attack and remove that number checker pieces from the other character's armor.
Your character can have stats and/or equipment that affect the dice outcome (higher numbered dice, modifiers, etc). This system can be simplified for the younger players. For example, the three year old can roll a small colored dice that is simply hit or miss. As they get older they can move to numbered dice. An even older player could multiple dice with modifiers (e.g. 2d6+3).
When armor points are removed they are put in a bowl next to the stack. When healed, they put points from the bowl back onto their stack. This is a built-in way to track maximum armor points. (When they "leveling up" you can add a new piece onto their stack).
When a monster runs out of armor, the player can use a special spell to remove their curse (the armor prevents the spell from working which is why you must attack it down to 0). Possibly roll to see if it succeeds?
When the curse is removed, the monster turns back into the animal that was inhabiting that area before the curse. So you aren't killing monsters in this game, you are rescuing them.
When a player runs out of armor, they must hide and can't take an action until they regain armor. There can be spells and potions that regain armor and/or saving throws (dice rolls that must be a certain color or number). Possibly have everyone automatically regain 1 armor after each round?
Each player has another stack representing ability points. These can be used to cast spells. They can also be used to increase stats for checks. For example, a character with low strength (or a low strength roll?) can spend some ability points to temporarily increase it.
Note: younger players should have a simplified system of succeed/fail or choose option 1 / option 2. Could use a colored die to choose.
Points are removed from / added to the stack/bowl the same way as armor points.
To allow younger and older players to play together, the system needs to be turn-based to avoid chaos. Younger kids should have simple turns (e.g. do you want to climb over or fly over?). Older kids can have more defined steps in their turns (e.g. you can move, talk, and perform an action).
But there should also be an emphasis on problem solving and working together.