My 5th-grade son has been running this during recess for his friends (using Shadowdark RPG). He's enjoyed it so much that I am going to buy The Isle of Forgotten Gods for him to run as the continuation in the campaign. Thanks, Chance!

I am a dad who plays a lot with kids. I’ve been using the Quickstart for a couple months now, and it is far and away the best way I have found to introduce new players to fantasy roleplaying. (The ones I tried before Shadowdark were 5e, B/X and AD&D.)

The basic mechanics are similar to 5e, which means it feels familiar to those who came into the hobby through 5e. “Roll to cast” replaces cantrips to make spellcasters relevant at low levels.

Various aspects of the rules help to keep things moving even in large groups: an emphasis on random character generation, clockwise turn order (even outside of combat), one action per PC per round, omission of separate saving throws (they are resolved as in 5e through ability checks).

Really, couldn’t recommend it enough.