I don’t really make it a secret: I’m a huge nerd. So is my wife. So when we found out we were having a child some years ago, one of the things that came to mind was how to pass on my love of tabletop RPGs to my kids. I even did some research early on. More recently, with my child growing older and another on the way, I got more serious about the search. Time and again, the book “Amazing Tales” was what was recommended to me. This past Easter, I finally got the book for my eldest and started to play it right away.
The game is a smash hit in our house, to say the least. My kid talks about it constantly and we have a ton of fun together. I’d like to offer my own little review here, so that others who may be interested can enjoy it as much as we are!
One of the best parts about Martin Lloyd’s system is that he basically has the different aspects that make games like Dungeons & Dragons great in this game, while making them much simpler- simple enough for a four year old to grasp it. There’s character creation–you pick a “class” that relates to the type of adventures you’re doing, with several suggestions in each world (eg. Robot for the sci-fi setting or a knight in a fantasy setting). Then, you pick 4 things that the character is good at. Some ideas are provided (eg. “being strong” or “making things”), but Lloyd encourages letting your kids run with it. For example, he writes about a game with one of his kids where the Pirate he made has a pet octopus and has a kind of “handle animal” as a skill that let him, in the adventure, use the octopus to do things for him. The character creation part lets your kids run wild, but Lloyd also offers suggestions to help make characters as broadly effective as they need to be. With 4 skills, you then ask the kids to pick which they’re best at, next best at, and so on. Then, these skills are assigned a D12 (best), D10 (next best), D8, and D6. Success for using the skill is 3 or higher, so the game is heavily weighted on letting kids run with their imagination while you guide the story along.
Lloyd has 4 settings, effectively following Fairies/talking animals, knights/magic, pirates, and sci-fi tropes. I have started a homebrew setting for my kid’s knights/magic kingdom. Lloyd provides tons of ideas for expanding the setting, integrating sounds/etc. into it, and the like. Then, you just run with it. It’s a lot like the “Yes, and” type of improv comedy people do. Your child may say something that seems impossible, but instead of shooting it down, let their imagination guide you! In the sci-fi setting played, my child played an inventor who was good at building things, and when confronted by an asteroid threat to the planet, the solution was offered to build a dungeon for it to get stuck in. We did it, but then got stuck later in the same dungeon and had to escape! These kind of wrinkles allow a more complex and rewarding play experience.
The book itself is richly illustrated and full of ideas. It’s not going to tell you everything about how to run a game, but Lloyd gives many seeds for stories (and I love the “twists” he throws into them, letting you make an even deeper story for your kids). The ways to deal with repeated failures (eg. rolling 1-2 over and over) are interesting and helpful, and the book really gives a quick baseline for you to run with as a parent. Experienced role playing gamers will easily be able to pick it up and play, while newer gamers may need to teach themselves a little bit more. Overall, the ease of the system is a huge selling point. I read the book and within a few minutes was playing the game with my child, who adores it.
Amazing Tales is a really excellent resource as an introduction to role-playing games. It does it in a way that lays foundations for a long, illustrious, book-collecting, dice-rolling career as a gamer. I very highly recommend it.
Links
J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!
Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!
SDG.
Eclectic Theist 