Kevin FerroneStarport: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game for Kids

I'm a fan of role-playing, and there are not a lot of good role-playing resources for the younger crowd. This is a well-designed, engaging, and all inclusive RPG for the younger, newer role-players.(Please see the enclosed pictures.)This one uses a D20 mechanic where the gamemaster/parent sets a difficulty for one of four Traits: Helpful, Smart, Sneaky, or Tough. After the roll, the kid player decides whether to spend any of her tokens to up her result over the target difficulty. So, let's say Shamalla rolls a D20 and gets an 8. Her mom, the GM says that the difficulty is a ten. Then, Shamalla has the option of having her character use two of her tokens to make the roll. (Also, any of the other players can contribute Helpful Tokens to help out another player.)Beware though. Once you run entirely out of tokens for a specific Trait, you cannot make challenges using that Trait until you have at least one token restored. Kid's characters begin with one "energy point" that allows you to restore all of your tokens one time, and if the group goes back to town to rest then they all recover all of their tokens and points.This is an entirely non-violent game. You might have to trick the fiend, sneak by, etc. Both the target number to defeat the creature and the number of times is in the monster description. The specific tactic that the players use is entirely up to them.The book is lavishly illustrated, and if you make color copies of the pages in the back with the tokens on cardstock then you have everything you need to play the game in this book.For quality of the product, the idea, and the easy to use game system, this is easily five stars.Now, one caveat, or at least point of information for discerning parents. A word from the wise to the wise suffices.This book expresses some very, very progressive values. I tried it with a group at my church of 9-12 year olds with their parents there.Everyone seemed to be engaged and having a fun time. One of the older boys noted that the one real authority figure in town was a middle aged, empowered, single woman while all of the creatures were either overtly men or had masculine features. I was starting to say that monsters could be boys or girls when one of the more vocal young ladies chimed and cut off my clumsy repartee with how "appropriate" the male monsters were given "toxic masculinity." Then, another boy asked about why such a large fraction of the kids in the tree-house were physically challenged, ... and the onslaught continued until a few of the parents decided that they had had enough of this game.*sigh*Um, ..., I like the game, and honestly, I did not notice the extreme progressive slant until the kids in the test group smacked me in the nose with it.That said, just be aware and make up your own mind as to whether this is appropriate for your own kids.

My family and I ran our first game over the weekend and my kids have not stopped asking me to do another adventure. My children are 6 and 9, and Starport was the perfect level of complexity to keep things interesting but also make sure that we didn't get bogged down in rules and mechanics. As someone who looks forward to running full-scale D&D games with my kids, this whet our appetite and served as a great introduction to tabletop RPGs.The world of Starport is one of the highlights. There are so many different ways that you can craft your own adventure and plenty of room for kids to inject their own imagination into the game. The illustrations that come with the book are vivid and engaging in a way that help make the world come alive for any age.In terms of mechanics and running a game, the rules are easy to pick up with lots of flexibility for how to handle running the game as a "guide". We did the first out of the box adventure and it was perfect for introducing the core concepts and leaving room for creativity. It was also comprehensive in providing options to resolve various paths the characters could take and handouts/visuals to keep the kids engaged. The other adventures look just as good.I can't wait to continue playing this as a family. It's a fun world with plenty of room to grow and customize while introducing kids to tabletop RPG mechanics in a setting that's wide open for adventures.

This review is only on reading the contents of the book. It gives you everything you need to start your gaming with kids and pointers on how to evolve your game based on age. I like the non-violence aspect to it, especially for younger kids. I haven't had the chance to try it out as my kids are still a little to young but I look forward to this token system. The book also comes with its own major NPCs and encourages the game master to create additional. The art is vibrant and the map is fantasical as a kids map should be. There is plenty of lore and hook suggestions to remove the "blank page syndrome" which i find especially helpful having only limited to create session and get teh creative juice flowing. I own two ttrpgs for kids at the moment and would run this one over the other.

I’m a DnD player but have never been a DM-my kids were interested in playing and we just ran our first session with this and they are loving it! I did add/alter a good amount. My kids love rolling dice and we use DnD wording and some basic rules instead of the given “tokens” of tough, sneaky, etc. that is written in this. My kids are 9 & 7 and had zero issues following and keeping up. There aren’t any combat encounters-just so you know. I wrote in some and ran it more like a real session with stripped down rules and difficulty. There are blank spaces to add your own items, creatures, etc. which I love and have already used a bunch. This comes with three separate stories. Our first session was 2.5 hours and we stopped right at the beginning of the Missing Pets story. I think this is a great resource for beginners, but especially if you as a parent have zero experience as a player or DM. We are having fun with it and will likely buy the next book as well. I think they’ll be ready for a real DnD campaign after using these-with my DnD modifications and practicing the basics with them. Highly recommend!

Good presentation, easy to learn. My challenge with it was adapting to how the game plays with minimal mechanics. It is quite vague in some areas leaving it open for you to figure out due to it being primarily a story telling game, but the mechanics do fill in when necessary. My nephews loved the game I ran from the book so it was a win for me.

My 8 year old has really been wanting to play d&d with us, but it's just a bit too complicated and so many options. This game takes the concept and really simplifies it in a way that's engaging and easy to play. The items, pets and abilities are simple and straight forward but still full customizable to build your character.

This books is great for an introduction to table top role play games for kids. The instructions are easy to follow and the stories are fun and interesting, and the world its set in is full enough to give plenty of inspiration to come up with your own stories. It encourages imaginative thinking, problem solving, teamwork and maths, as well as many other things which is great for the kids. I've only played the first adventure with my kids but they're buzzing for the next session. The only drawback, which I had already seen in other reviews was that all the tokens and handouts are in the book so you need to have access to a scanner/printer to fully utilise them. I unfortunately don't have access to that so had to hand write the character sheets and use theatre of the mind mainly for the kids. Overall though, fantastic product to get kids using their imagination or a gateway into other fantastic role play games.

I purchased Starport to help me get started playing RPGs with my kids, aged 9 and 11. The vibrant pictures and open-ended world was what drew me in, but upon looking further into it I have been captured so much more.This is indeed an easy to learn and easy to run RPG, which for a busy parent is so important.The emphasis on non-combat encounters really does help this game open up many doors and doesn't at all limit the fun. I have already planned supplementary activities (math and language) to use as puzzles in the game room, and created a home "job board" where my kids can choose topics to write news articles about to earn coin to use at the Equipment shop. What I am getting at here is, your options are limited only by your own creativity.Best starter RPG to use with kids!!! We love Starport!Also, it's not necessary to photocopy the tokens double sided... but you should have access to a printer to print off the needed resources.

I’m new to DND and wanted to play this with my family and 6 year old daughter. Didn’t play yet, but the book seems to have everything you need to create the game.There’s a lot of creatures including their artwork for inspiration, and a few more with no stats so you can make up your own! There is 1 character sheet in color. I guess you have to photocopy it, which is fine; but I believe someone said in comments you can go on their website and get more? Lots of token for visual reference and beautiful maps. All paper (including tokens), which can be easily lost or wrinkled by little fingers lol. I suggest some “crafts” to give these tokens a better shape (maybe mounted on cardboard or something, which could be fun to do). Everything is attached in the book. You have to cut the pages with scissors (nothing is precut), or, once again, use some crafting ideas and make your own if you want to preserve the book intact. Again, I will go to their website to see if I can find something there :). All in all, it seems very nice and missions are educational (maths, mind puzzles, etc.) I do recommend this book if you want to introduce rpg to your kids!

I was an avid D&D player so I was looking for a way to hook my 7 yr old into a non-violent RPG. This was perfect. It has a really simple rule set and 3 prebuilt campaigns for children. Instead of a 20 sided dice I just use 3x 6 sided dice and make my kid practice his math at the same time. I also cut out the little characters and monsters and taped them onto poker chips. Maps are hard to photocopy as they are color. But overall, money well spent.