Work work work.

You want to play D&D with your kid? Me too, I get it!

(cross-posted from blog.3x5arcana.com)

Kids don’t want to be boxed into saying “I cast my spell,” and waiting for the GM to tell them what happens. My kid doesn’t, anyway! He doesn’t have the language to say it this way, but he basically hates the core loop of how actions are resolved in RPGs.

Let’s rebuild the core loop of RPGs for kids. I call it The Bonkers Loop. It’s designed to get weird. Because kids are bonkers, and bonkers is fun. It’ll fit on an index card you can print.

(I’m going to keep using the word “kids”, which is broad. I’m talking specifically about kids maybe 4-8.)

Let’s talk about the fundamental core loop of RPGs:

1. Actions: Player says what they do.
2. Dice (optional): GM may call for dice rolls and set difficulty.
3. Response: GM says what happens as a result, and how the world responds.

This is the very bones of RPGs. Often, it’s not fun for kids, for two reasons:

1. They want to say what happens, and don’t get to.
2. They want the game to be fair, and the GM has all the power.

Kids Want Control

Kids want to say what happens, they want a hand on the wheel of the world. To understand why kids want this and need this, you gotta look at it from 3 feet high: you don’t have any authority. People are constantly telling you what to do, and what the rules are.

Pretend is a space where kids get to be in charge. It’s a critical response to the essential unfairness of being a kid. Taking that away in a pretend game feels unfair, because it is unfair: “How come you can say what happens and I can’t?”

But they’re 6 or whatever! They can’t know the rules and procedures and manage the table and all that!

The Sleepy Pretend Problem

Playing pretend with kids…. listen. This is a hard truth. Most of the time…. it’s boring.

It’s gonzo, nothing means anything, there’s not even a turn order, there are constant references to tv shows you never saw, and there are no meaningful consequences. Kids are all “I do this, and then this happens, and this happens, and then you do this, and um…..” and they want you to fill in all their “um…” gaps. Like an extra hard drive in their brain, they need you to support their play, but they’re rotten at making structure.

And the grownup mind needs structure to play. So the parent gets sleepy and doesn’t want to play pretend.

So the problem is defined. How do we give grownups structure, and kids authority?

The Traditional Action Loop

After the scene is set and questions are answered, here’s your traditional RPG Loop:

1. Actions: Player says what they do.
2. Dice (optional): GM may call for dice rolls and set difficulty.
3. Response: GM says what happens as a result, and how the world responds.

Step 3 is where it breaks down for kids. Steps 2 and 3 (and the relationship between them) is the part necessary for grownups not to get sleepy.

It’s a narrow needle, but we can thread it with a new core action loop.

The Bonkers Loop

In this style of play (and this is critical), if it’s just two players (a parent GM and a kid player) the parent also plays an adventurer who is in cooperation with the Kid’s character.

On the Kid’s Turn:

1. Actions: Kid says what they do.
2. Dice (optional): Parent may call for rolls and set difficulty. Kid Rolls.
3. Response: Parent says what happens as a result, and how the world responds.

Then we flow smoothly into the parent’s turn:

1. Actions: Parent says what they do.
2. Dice (optional): Parent may call for rolls and set difficulty. Parent rolls.
3. Response: Kid says what happens as a result, and how the world responds.

The kid gets to say what happens when their parent fails or succeeds. This is the critical change. For that moment of play, the kid owns the world. Chaos reigns. But the parent can call for rolls to adjudicate the chaos.

It’s cooperative storytelling where the parent manages the procedures, and both manage the story.

The rest of the GM duties outside this action loop still fall on the parent: rolling for NPCs and monsters, establishing space, keeping turn order, following rules, perhaps rolling for random encounters if that’s your jam, introducing monsters and NPCs, setting adventure hooks and placing treasure, etc.

For the Design-Heads

Put in the lightly stuffy but technically precise language of game design…

The Bonkers Loop zooms in on the process of Resolution — splitting it into Procedural and Narrative roles. In the Bonkers Loop, we consistently assign the Procedural element to one player (the ref/GM), and we assign the Narrative element by turns, such that the player with an Action in Resolution is never their own Narrator. It’s an example of Narrative-Switching and Fortune in the Middle style gaming.

(I do think it’s hilarious to talk so seriously about making games sillier.)

Example of Play

The following uses the rules for 3×5💔*, but it works for any game. This example is for two players, or “duet” style play. See below for notes on multiplayer games.*

>Dad: Okay so we’re in a cave, looking for… what was it we said last time again?

>Kid: The fartgun of crystal death.

>Dad: Right. The fartgun of crystal death. Right. We can’t defeat the evil sorcerer without it. We’re here because we think a mad scientist knows where it is. So in the cave, a creature steps out from behind the wall. It looks like a person, but it has rats instead of hair. it’s wearing a white lab coat. It hisses: “How dare you trespass in my sacred atelier!”

>Kid: What’s an atelier?

>Dad: ah…. it’s… a….. fancy word for….laboratory? I think? Anyway it looks like he’s starting to cast a spell. What do you do?

>Kid: I use my rocket boots and smash into him.

>Dad: Great. That sounds like a Risky Body roll. Roll 2 dice, I need to see one at 9 or above.

>Kid: ::Rolls:: Dang. I got a 4 and a 1.

>Dad: Okay, so you fire your rocket boots and he jumps out of the way. You crash into some sciency-looking equipment and sparks start flying everywhere. He casts his spell. Let’s see if it works:

>::Rolls for the rat-man, fails::

>Okay, the rat-man is so distracted by your rocket boot maneuver that he loses his spell, it doesn’t work.

>I see you in danger and I’m going to use my spell Dead Breath to try to deaden the electricity in the air. That’s a Risky Mind roll, but I get +1 dice on that, so I’ll roll 3.

>::Rolls:: Nice! I got an eleven. What happens?

>Kid: The electric stuff stops, and the Dead Breath stinks so bad he has to run away. He’s going to try to grab the fartgun of crystal death to use on us.

>Dad: Oh, wow, that would be really bad. Is it in the room?

>Kid: Yeah, it’s on the table. But I shoot my grappling hook at him to catch him.

>Dad: Okay, that’s another Risky Body roll.

>Kid: ::rolls:: Yeah! a 4 and a 10!

>Dad: Success! Your grappling hook wraps itself around his legs, and he trips and falls. But he reaches out and hits a button on the wall. A huge garage door starts opening. Behind it is a Huge Crystal Megaman of Evil.

>Kid: what’s a mega man?

>Dad: It’s from an old video… nevermind, it’s like a giant Golem.

>Kid: Like from Minecraft?

>Dad: Sure. It’s powering up and its eyes are red. I’m pretty scared of that thing, so I’m going to try to stop the door from opening. I’m going to try to hit the button.

>The rat man is going to try to stop me, so let’s call that a Hard Body Roll. I’ll only roll 1.

>::Rolls:: Aw, nuts. I rolled a 1. What happens?

>Kid: The door opens, and the rat man’s hair bites you.

>Dad: Aw, snap! that’s awful! I’m right there, and I’m not expecting it, so let’s say he gets to roll 3.

>::Rolls:: a 10! I’m bit! I’ll spend a might to roll a save.

>::Rolls:: Nuts and a half. An 8 and a 4. The save fails. I break one Body heart. What else happens? what do you do?

>Kid: I run over to the crystal mega man of death, and I open the computer panel.

>Dad: It has a computer panel?

>Kid: Yeah dad, it’s an overworld robot, duhhh.

>Dad: Okay. What’s it like?

>Kid: It’s like a minecraft calculator. I hack into it.

>Dad: Oh dang, okay, you’re an expert minecrafter, so roll 3.

>Kid: ::Rolls:: TWO TWELVES!

>Dad: Okay, wow. Dang. Okay, so now you’re in control of the Huge Crystal Mega Man! I’m going to make a break for it and grab hold of Mega-Man’s foot, shouting “LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!”

>The ratman is at risk of losing us here, so he’s going to roll a Mind Save to see if he catches on.

>::Rolls:: Nothing over, 9: failure.

>Nice! What happens?

>Kid: The ratman just goes “Haw haw, now my Mega Man will destroy you! Haw haw haw haw!” Cause he doesn’t know I’m in control of it.

>Dad: Rad, so what do you do?

>Kid: I fly the Mega Man to the moon.

>Dad: Hot potato. Okay. Sweet. The Moon. Let’s go.

More than one Kid

The procedural element — calling for rolls, saves, or tests — remains with the referee/warden/GM/etc. The narrative element rotates around to whoever’s action is next. The referee takes a turn, just like everyone else, on which the non-PC elements act.

The Bonkers Loop

Here, dear reader, is your promised gameable and printable 3×5 card.

Receipts

As far as I can tell, here are the most relevant similar ideas current in the RPG design space. I’M PROBABLY IGNORANT OF SOMETHING OBVIOUS HERE! Help me in my desperate ignorance! Leave a comment!

• Many story games (PBtA, BitD, etc) give players powers or moves that allow them to seize narration in a way bounded by that ability. This is different from the bonkers loop in that the adjudication is done by the rule, and the narration is done by the player on their own turn. You don’t generally narrate what happens as a result of another player’s moves.
• Dust Devils had a cool mechanic where the person holding the high card in a game of poker (it used poker for action resolution how rad is that) got to be the narrator.
• Trophy Dark has a What Could Go Wrong mechanic, where the GM asks for input on what could go wrong if a roll fails. After seeking this input, the GM is back in charge of narration. Read about it.
• Brindlewood Bay has a mechanic where you say what you’re afraid of before you roll. If you fail, it happens. This is different form the Bonkers Loop in a couple of ways. (Look at the Day Move and Night move, here.)
• Fiasco rotates narrative control much more radically than the Bonkers Loop — a hallmark, really, of all GM-less games.
• Fortune in the Middle was coined by Ron Edwards.

The Door tax is when your players spend 5 minutes deciding whether or not to open every door. You know it. You've paid it. It robs time at the table from other, more interesting rooms.

Against the Door Tax