The Map Game

My daughter is young enough that reading and addition are still emerging skills. Nevertheless, I wanted to experiment with playing role-playing games with her. We've had some success, and she's named this game...

The Map Game

What you need for The Map Game:

• The room tiles from Steve Jackson Games' Munchkin Quest. The advantage these have over other maps you can get for RPGs, is that the rooms come pre-filled with content such as altars, beds, goo, books, etc. It provides an instant environment which the player can tell stories about.
  
• (You will also need the door/hallway link pieces from Munchkin Quest.)
  
• Fate Dice. My daughter can read numbers, but not routinely add them. If I want to vary the power levels of her character over the course of a game, we can't do it in a way that involves addition. One could increase or decrease the size of the die, but Fate dice are simpler. If her PC grows in power, you just give her another die. In normal play, we only count the plus sides, and ignore the minus sides.
  
• Minis of some sort. We use mostly Pathfinder pre-painted plastic minis, but there are a bajillion choices, including HeroClix figures and Lego minifigs.
  
• Treasure and props. I mostly draw from Lego minifigure accessories, which are quite varied, and allow for the synergy mechanic I'll discuss later.
  
• Health points for her PC. I use Lego studs, but glass beads would also work.

Setup

I allow her to pick out 15-16 rooms, and arrange them in a rectangle. Put the Entrance at one end, and encourage her to pick a "goal" room to put at the other end. (She usually picks the room with the comfy bed.) Connect everything with links. Attempt to manage the wall links and locked-door links so that they don't block all movement.
She has a bin in front of her where she can keep her treasure and health points. I started her with a club and 10 health points. She gets to preserver her treasure from game to game. She picks a figure to be her PC, and starts her in the Entrance.

Gameplay

She chooses which rooms to move to. Moving through a locked door requires a key. Most rooms contain a creature. Encounters vary:

• "Hah hah hah, I'm going to eat you up!"
• "You must pay one silver piece to pass!"
• "Welcome to my shop, would you like to buy anything?"
• "I am so lonely, I am going to keep you forever! (Unless you promise to find me a pet.)"
• "I make potions! If you need a healing potion, I can tell you what ingredients you'll need to bring me." (Which always includes a banana.)
• "You're my long-lost sister!"
• Etc. I try to include as many non-violent options as possible.

Treasure

Treasure includes:

• New weapons.
  • A sword adds a die over the club.
    
  • A magic sword adds another die.
    
  • A trident allows you to divide your dice between multiple target.
    
  • A ranged weapon lets you get in the first shot.
• Shields. A shield protects you from one point of damage.
  
• Silver and gold coins. The exchange rate is 1:3.
  
• Keys.
  
• Potion ingredients. (Especially bananas.)
  
• Ready-made potions, including healing and polymorph potions.
  
• Crystals, wands, etc.

I am going to try in the future to make it easier to physically combine treasures, since Roo invented that mechanic as a way to make things with new powers.

Combat

She rolls her dice, I roll a number of dice I deem appropriate for the challenge level and monster. Pluses the monster rolls come off her health points (modified for having a shield). Pluses she rolls might defeat the monster outright, or I might subtract one die from the monster per plus.

Further details coming...