This one’s for you Andrés!

There was a question in the comments 2 posts back that I started to answer in the comments section but I was writing too much so I figured I would turn it into a post.

Man, this is awesome. I'm gonna try this with my son as soon as I get home. He's 3 years old so it may be a little early but still.
Does Ash reads? I'm feeling mine is gonna keep picking up the monsters and move them around. Did you had problems of this kind?

Ash does sometimes pick up monsters and move them around.  He doesn't read yet, but he is getting extremely good at recognizing numbers on dice that don't have pips on them.  One of the things I have been doing is each time that dice are rolled for attack/defense I ask him what he rolled.  Sometimes he can tell me and sometimes he can't.  Once we figure out what he has rolled and what I have rolled I will say something like, "You rolled a 6 and the monsters rolled a 5, which one is higher?"  He usually gets this question right, but sometimes he doesn't.  We have only played two games so far and I have been amazed at the improvement from one game to the next.  I will try to quantify that a little better.

In the first game, Ash had trouble remembering which dice to use for each of his guys, we came up with a solution that the dice go back to the proper spot on the character sheet after you roll them.  The next day, when we were setting up to play, he put the dice there right away, without being prompted to, and he put them in the right spots.

Day one he had trouble with moving 6 spaces on his move, so I decided that for now he could move as much as he wanted with each move.  I told him that the second day and he said, “No, you can only move 6 spaces with each guy ON YOUR TURN!”  (he was quite adamant).  He still sometimes would get distracted and move 7 spaces, but in general he did quite well the second day with counting out the 6 spaces and then moving his guy.

When we roll for initiative on the first day, we roll a 6 sided die each.  The dice have pips on them instead of numbers.  On day 1, he would count each pip and then tell me how much it was.  On day 2 he would just look at the die and know what he had rolled.  He figured out the patterns on the dice very quickly (and this is something I have been trying to teach him with flash cards for a while).

The same can be said for numbers.  I have been using flash cards to try to teach him his numbers for a while, with no success.  After just 2 days of playing RPGKids he can recognize most of the numbers on an 8 sided die, and telling which out of 2 numbers is the higher number.

So, to summarize:

We have played two sessions of RPGKids/D&D.  Each session was about 30 minutes, so an hour total, and we have seen vast improvements in a number of areas:

• Number recognition
• Pattern recognition
• Following rules
• Organization

While I can’t speak for anyone else’s child, this is doing wonders for my own son.  My suggestion would be to start small with the rules, and build up.  If your son is three, look over the rules for RPGKids and see what you like and what you don’t.  (My son for instance is not at the point where we can use modifiers)  Every kid is different and if you build a game that suits your child, you are likely to see better results.

(Yes, I am aware that I included 3 links to RPGKids…make that 4.  I think that they are some of the best thought out rules for a kids RPG game that I have ever seen, and I have seen a few.  I swear I don’t get a commission on this or anything.)