"What design features make a good wargame for children" Topic

I have recently started playing wargames with my boy – he is getting old enough to want to play with daddies toys. I thought it would be interesting to start a blog to document our adventures on what were good games to play with children.

I originally was going to just try out some of the simpler rules that I had to see if they worked for us. Then I thought it might be an idea to think about what sort of game would be good to try in the first place. So I have made a blog post with my thoughts on what criteria I should use when considering a game to play.

I then thought it would be useful to get the thoughts on people that are interested in the design of games – hence this post.

If you have the time and interest please have a look at the blog post – any comments gratefully received.

Cheers

thatwargamesblog.blogspot.co.uk

Things my daughters liked –

People on horses.
Ranged weapons(cannons!)
Lots of movement.
Card-driven.
Guys with flags.
One monster/vehicle that dwarfed the others.

Battlemasters was their first game, and it hit the sweet spot with all of these. No matter what I tried afterwards, Battlemasters was still their favorite.

Your number 6 is a good point. A variant on that is to make sure you are familiar with the rules. My son and I did DBA, it was the first time for both of us, and I was forever looking up rules--he lost interest and went away.

One thing that did work was letting him help with house rules and things that aren't covered in the printed rules. In a different game, he wanted one of his guys to swim the moat, I pointed out he was armored and might drown, my son picked the number he'd have to beat on the dice, rolled, and drowned. But, he was happy with that result.

Grelber

Lots of eye candy, sparklies and monsters. I use the old Warmasters Milton Bradly game [I have it in storage until the grandkids are old enough--so I may have forgotten the actual name.] Big, with humans versus Goblins, Trolls and Orcs. And it can be played on the floor. It had a gaming mat. My boys even painted up some of the figures.

Simple rules (few limits on actions), decent amounts of movement, lots of dice rolling, fast playing, a reason for the battle/game for each side (what are they fighting for, and/or why), tactical choices like move OR shoot – not both, and clear cut victory conditions.

Sounds like a lot, but the above can be really simple, so it doesn't have to be complex. Do it right, and you can play several different skirmishes in an hour or two, to keep things interesting.

Getting the kids involved in coming up with the rules and "to-hit" numbers, or skill-check values is a great idea.

The Mythic Game Master Emulator is a great idea, if you want to do a little storytelling on the fly, and don't want to have to come up with everything in advance.

Making stuff occur like in classic space operas, and/or fantasy movies is a good idea too, especially for at least the main characters, e.g. everyone is hard to hit, and the heroes rarely if ever die, they just get knocked out, captured, and then have to be rescued, etc..

The non-central characters (NPCs – non-player characters) can act as cannon-fodder to keep the games interesting.

Yes, simple rules are a winner! Made up super-simple rules for sci-fi for my son – he was 8 or 9 at the time. He loved it and kept trying to add rules to make it more complicated. But simple is a good place to start.

For really little kids?

Simple rules, not a lot of adding and subtracting.

Characters that are fun and distinct. Make their abilities relate to the figure itself.
Toss out rules that prevent a character from acting (morale, stun, etc)

Once they hit 9-10, they can start absorbing pretty standard games if they get into it.

Well, I goofed. It was called Battle Masters by Milton Bradley. It is not published now, but it can be found on Ebay and elsewhere.

Definitely simple and fast to play… movement is by cards.

Lots o good examples on the Junior General Site

juniorgeneral.org

and scenarios are here

link

Lots of movement
Lots of dice
Lots of kills
Cool figures
Never mind the history, that comes when they're adults ;-)

My approach here:
link

Don't overlook cooperative play, where you are both playing on the side of the kid(s) and being the GM.

That's especially important if he/she/they are sensitive to losing, and think you're gunning for them, like little ones sometimes want to do.

All good advice.

Speaking from experience I started my son off at six with Battleships, then MB Games Tank Battle bought very cheaply second hand on ebay. Moved onto Mission Command: Land, and Mission Command: Sea. Again bought very cheaply second hand. Mission Command Land is particularly useful for teaching logistics and basic grand tactics, use of reserves etc.

Moved onto Basic Impetus at seven and X-Wing, which he loves. He's now playing Impetus, Baroque and Pickett's Charge this weekend. He joined the local wargames club and is its youngest paid up member at not even nine years old.

Depends a lot upon the kid though. I took it really slow and tried to let the enthusiasm come from him. He's able to play for over six hours now and we play at least once per week.

:-)

…and I couldn't be happier. Quality father/son time

:-)

History … it's been winning content for centuries (don't ignore it ) …

Narrative – games that enable you tell a story.

Big toys … 54mm is very good.

Phil

Parental Enthusiasm and Patience
Smaller Number of Visually Distinct Figures
Simple Rules with No Lookups
Grids Instead of Measuring

Adding and subtracting is fine. With small numbers like on a d6, it's basically just counting up or down. If you talk through it step by step with the kids (1) they can handle it, (2) you're both engaged in the process.

Mako makes a good point on cooperative gaming.

The idea of things balancing out long term can take a while to grasp for a kid, since they're new to everything.

I taught my kiddo to play Squad Leader but it took him a while to figure that it was okay for the brown and grey counters to not have the same stats :-)

If it were still in print, I'd suggest HeroScape. My wife and I used to run monthly open game days and there were quite a few girls that would show up (granted they usually had brothers that got them interested). Having my wife there also helped make it seem less like a boys club.

Features of HeroScape that made it accessible to kids:
Hex terrain: discrete movement, no measuring.
Skirmish level: Each figure represents one person.
Simple activations: You move, you attack. That's it.
Simple movement rules: You can't move through enemies but you can move through friendlies (unless they're engaged). If you break engagement with an enemy you risk taking a wound.
Simple combat rules: Attacker rolls dice equal to attack and counts successes. Defender rolls dice equal to defense and counts successes. Whoever is higher in elevation adds a die. Defender takes the difference in wounds.
No reference card needed: Special ability descriptions are printed right on the unit cards.
Chrome: Very nice terrain (with a lego-like construction element to it), pre-painted figures, and easy-to-read, full-color unit cards all help draw kids in.

Unfortunately it's out of print, but the Arena of the Planeswalkers game is available and is a similar skirmish game by some of the same designers.

link

Having two young children of my own, I've designed several games that deal with very visceral skills, but keeps the game mechanics and objectives very approachable. My Wooden Wars game is played on the floor, with 80mm strong laser cut wooden soldiers. Players can either move, using a "marshals baton" for measurement, or fire.

Firing in this case is tossing a rubber ball at your opponents forces- with the rule that the ball has to bounce at least once in order to be in play. It is very obvious as to who has been "knocked over" and who is still up. It takes some amount of skill, eye hand coordination and once they start glomming onto those, basic tactics to win the day.

Melee is done in a very quick set wherein you charge, count how many guys you have and then knock over that number of the target unit.Any troops left over are diced out with simple 3+ simultaneous battles.

The game is over when one side is knocked over or the enemy's flag has been captured.
I run these games at conventions with kids ranging from 4(with parental help)64.

You can go check out more of my games at my blog
skullandcrown.blogspot.com

and my web store
skullncrown.com

Cheers!
Thomas