My family was lucky enough to playtest this with our 5yo and we love it! It is a great simplification of DnD5e for the youngest players, but also adds some new touches that really let us tap into the sorts of adventures my daughter enjoys in books, movies, and story time, and that she makes up with her friends. So far it has held her interest across many sessions, through battles and socisl scenes, funny and serious. She even ran her own session with the rules and minimal help.
Honestly, while it is aimed at kids, there are some ideas in here that we have already added to options of house rules for general TTRPG night.
I will note that the game uses a d10 for everything that standard 5e uses a d20 for, which did take some getting used to, but after a few sessions we got the feel for it. Just remember that it will swing more heavily between success and failures, which be fun or not depending on how you handle it. We found that it added to the dramatic tension for our daughter. Lots of "Oh noooo!" followed by "Yeah! Take that bad guys! Punch punch punch!"
Top favorite elements:
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Character creation is handled in a way that makes the number bits and the RP bits easy to grasp for the little ones, and fun for both kids and adults. Our daughter made a warrior named Carla who enjoys "picking berries, helping people, and collecting bones to make into weapons".
- There are lots of options of species to play, and a simple but effective way to make your character half-anything, or have been raised by other species that lets kids (and adults) unleash their imagination there. E.G one of our adult players has a human wizard raised by bird people!
-Spells and magic are explained in a way that makes their intent, but also their consequences, clear even for little players. The distinction between "helper" spells and other spells is a nice touch that gets rolled into character creation and play, and is something that we doubly appreciated, both as players and as parents. DC also aded several spells to the game that can be used to tailor the level of peril and/or provide some simple but effective non-lethal damage with spells (for when you want them unconcious but don't just want to cast sleep over and over!) That let us get into talks about when to fight and when to not, and how to weigh ethical choices even in a fight. Fun AND educational!
So yeah, highly recommended and very playable. Looking forward to the next bit!
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