Rescuing the Ruby Princess... for a Three-year Old

Over the past few days, a couple of things came up that enabled a game with my three year old daughter, Maja. First, I've been wanting to develop a simple rpg system, so I didn't need to break out all of the gnomes when she wanted to play. Second, our nightly ongoing story, "David the Gnome," culminated in the heroes trying to rescue a princess. Third, the wife was working all day Saturday. I had my chance without any "Mommy, Mommy" distractions.

Maja colors on a huge roll of paper, so I pulled that out, a giant black Sharpie, and the dice and "minis" involved.

Introducing our heroes (L to R) Kenny the Gnome, David the Gnome, and Zeke the Mouse

We are dealing with a three-year old, with an 18 month old little sister constantly yammering "what's that?" to distract her, so I kept it to 2 or 3 encounters, with a one hour window.  For resolution, I stuck with a four  sided color die I had snagged up from Harmony House Hobbies at one of the HMGS cons.   For playtesting     sake, I had one color mean something good happened (red) and another for something bad (blue).  The other  two colors (green and yellow) meant the encounter continued without change, guys were still fighting each other, guys were still chasing another, etc.

The characters my daughter was running:

David the Gnome:  David lives in a tree in the woods with his wife, he has many friends, and loves to help people.  For this adventure, he had just returned from babysitting the Martian babies on the Moon, so he was dressed as an astronaut.  Don't laugh, you know you've brought far worse concepts to your serious gaming table.

Kenny the Gnome: Kenny is David's friend and loves to fix things.  He also likes to party a bit too much.

Zeke the Gnome:  Zeke's mouse family was rescued when David and Kenny cleaned out the old gnome castle down the road.  Zeke tagged along to finish the job, and became bosom buddies with the gnomes. He's small, but speedy.

Our adventure started with a giant Abby Cadabby magically transporting them to the Castle of the Ruby Princess.  The princess was missing and only our heroes could find her!

Abby Briefs the Party on Their Missioni

Maja made all the decisions, what doors to go through, left or right, and even what to do in the encounter.  When they heard a load roar in a cave, she tried to run the group past it, but alas, she rolled a blue and they were forced to bop the angry owlbear on the head to proceed.

She did throw a pleasant surprise at me.  While I was setting up the next encounter, she proclaimed with all seriousness, "They are hurt and tired and are going to rest."

Her training is going far better than I ever imagined.

I changed gears, threw in a dream sequence while they napped, telling the group how to find the giant ruby of the Ruby Princess, and I advanced the sheet to set up the final fight.

Maja Looks Over Her Options

Our heroes were led to a large room with a statue holding a giant ruby,with four bad guys, and an evil kangaroo trying to stop them.

"Wait Daddy, that kangaroo is a good guy," *moves the kangaroo over to the heroes, rummages through my pile of stuff, picks up another kangaroo* "This stinky kangaroo wants to fight with the bad guys."

Let it never be said that I don't let my players influence the game.  I guess I do show special preference to family.

Running the initiative as fastest first and rotating the group as such round by round, Zeke the Mouse scurried to the ruby, but couldn't avoid the one bad guy and stinky kangaroo.  David and the kangaroo fumbled with their fight, but Kenny the Gnome made up for them and cleared a path. A few rounds later, Zeke managed to chuck the ruby to the kangaroo and upon leaving the room, the Princess and her Prince were freed!

Success!

With the objective achieved, the bad guys surrendered and the our heroes (plus a marsupial) were treated like royalty and invited to the Prince and Princess' wedding the next day. Huzzah!

All in all, I thought the quick little game was a success.  I'll need to buy more four-color dice and revise the hit point system I chucked during the first round of combat with the owlbear.   Best of all, I had a full docket for storytime that night with the Wedding of the Ruby Princess.