Been awhile since I worked on my other FitD, but as a brain exercise I started to think about how a minimal, kid-friendly might look.
Inspired by media like Hilda and Gravity Falls, KitW is about a group of scouts who are camping in the Appalachian Mountains, lead by a scoutmaster providing spooky stories about the woods, sugary snacks, and the bare minimum of supervision.
Investigate these local legends, earn merit badges, and try not to lose your enthusiasm and quit scouts, or worse: get caught by your scoutmaster and get sent home early!
Play as various scout archetypes using different handbooks such as: The Overachiever Kid, The Pyromaniac Kid, The Prankster Kid, The Bookish Kid, or The Stinky Kid.
This is just a seed of an idea but I think it could be a good fit for kids in the 7-11 year old range.
I think FitD could be a lot of fun for kids, especially since there’s no math requirement aside from basic counting/number identification, unlike other RPG systems.
I built something similar to this for my daughter when she was learning to read. It had 9 skills instead of 12, and they were all chosen to be simple, easy to spell words like “See”, “Run” etc. She really enjoyed it. The dice system is so easy that even a 5 year old can learn it.
That’s also part of my plan! I want to try to play something with my kids sooner than later, and something a 5 year old could play makes the system really promising.
I found my notes. I never figured out what to rename Prowess, Insight and Resolve. I used this framework to run my daughter through an enchanted forest, a superhero game where she was Cheetah Girl, and a game where we hunted for monsters in a desert.
Oh yeah for sure. I feel like the pyro kid is a chaos element but is largely directionless, whereas the prankster kid sows chaos through meticulous planning and traps.
Oh hey, I happen to be working on something very similar to this. (Or was before my mind immediately jumped to work on other things because my modus operandi is “utter chaos”.)
My premise is a bit more fantastical, as you can play as various nonhuman (such as elf and goblin) kids, balancing the mundane school/home life with the exciting afternoon/nighttime adventures, in a small town in a “fantasy 00s” world, with playbooks such as the Champ (sportsy, competitive and protective kid, and a bit of a classic fantasy warrior/) and Wizard (a bookworm on one end and a …well, wizard, on the other) and team playbooks like the Scouts (kind of similar to this thing here) and the Knights (who protect people from bullies and monsters alike).
I haven’t worked on it in a while, but I did get to conduct at least two playtests, which is an achievement in and of itself - I’m not really comfortable showing off my docs out to the broader public yet, but you can probably search for my messages in the #hack_talk channel on the Blades discord if you want.
Thanks so much! Love this premise too. I’ll hop on the discord again soon to check it out!
I definitely wanted something somewhat grounded, but you’re moreso investigating strange things like trying to find Bigfoot or a Snipe. I did have an idea for an archetype called The Weird Kid, which is essentially your magic character, but flavored as a kid who is basically Lydia Dietz from Beetlejuice haha.