By Shadomain Staff
The team at the ENnie awarded TTRPGkids has a crowdfunding campaign currently on Backerkit called StoryGuider – it’s a set of coloring book adventures for ages 2-7. What a great way to get new people into our favorite hobby – start them really young! And by using a coloring book, you’re starting them on their path to story telling with something they already love; coloring books.
StoryGuider – The Basics
The project is a collection of 36 stories total, with options to get 3, 12, or 36 adventures. These stories are an easy entry into TTRPGs, and are perfect for teachers or families even if they aren’t well versed in role-playing games. For older readers the adventures can be solo adventures, taking on the challenge of adventuring and coloring on their own. All the art is made by humans, and the team includes two skilled teen artists who are kicking off their careers in illustration and comics.
Q&A
Hi Steph! Thanks for talking with us. What’s the origin of TTRPGkids , and how long have you been doing this?
Thank you for having me here!
TTRPGkids started in early 2021. Right around then, I had just left my job as a crash test engineer to better raise my kid during the whole COVID shut down period, and I was trying to make sure we were teaching kiddo social-emotional skills.
I started using TTRPGs as the medium for that, role-playing characters who were learning how to make friends or share or talk about feelings. I started searching for info online and found scattered bits of people talking about experiences with their kids, folks asking the same questions as me but not getting any answers, people giving answers to questions no one was asking but that seemed to make sense, great games that no one knew about, the same 3-4 popular games that people said could be better, and so on.
Bored engineer brain started categorizing everything, making lists, linking things, etc, and I started putting the TTRPGkids website together so others could find all this information. I started reviewing lesser known games, interviewing people who needed a place for their words, and writing about my own experiences to help others get past that initial learning curve.
StoryGuider is aimed at bringing younger kids into storytelling and TTRPGs. How did that get started?
StoryGuider was the first game that I really published, and it was more like a storytelling framework at the start.
In trying to make stories for kiddo, and then was also contacted by a pre-K teacher who wanted an SEL-focused TTRPG series. So, I jumped in.
I wanted to do a good job, so I started reading books and articles about writing children’s literature… and there was a lot there about prose, illustrations, iterating points, how to keep the reader’s focus, story length, not giving characters sappy names, respecting the intelligence of the reader, what language to use, hiding things in the background, leaving things for a grown up to explain to kids, building morals to the story, how to end it, etc. It felt overwhelming in some ways and lacking in others… there wasn’t a ton about actually interacting and playing with the material, which is what I wanted to do.
So, I wrote down a basic framework that seemed like MY story style from all that: threading themes with three points of interaction, giving supportive congrats at the end, creating characters that were fun and bright, etc.
Then… I added things not in the children’s literature discussion because I was doing children’s TTRPGs, or at least playable books. I added notes about asking questions, including activities, making decisions for the characters, and getting up to move around and play in the middle of the story. I didn’t want kids just sitting there listening, which seemed to be a major goal in some of the children’s literature tips I’d read, I wanted them getting a bit distracted… just within the story.
With that, I made StoryGuider.
The SRD is a very simple framework that is parsed down from my big sheet of notes and points to hit, but then the adventures get into those details and aim to get kids engaging with the story, and thereby, connecting more deeply with the themes, morals, and skill-building that just listening might not.
What’s the connection between creativity such as coloring and storytelling and emotional skills and empathy? How do games help strengthen this connection?
As an adult, if I listen to someone giving me instructions for how to play a new, slightly complicated, board game, I will probably pick up on relatively what the flow is, but I’m not going to intimately understand the details. If I try to jump right into the game, I’m probably going to get overwhelmed and lose the first time. If I do a little mock practice round first though… I’m going to have a lot more fun going into the full game session and will be more confident about my knowledge of the game.
This is the exact same thing.
If you read a kid a book that involves character building skills, that’s like verbally reading instructions to a board game, but the board game is social-emotional learning.
If kids are instead making decisions for the character who is building skills, coloring in a worksheet related to that skill, being asked questions about a character’s feelings, and having to act out the scene, that’s like doing a practice round for the board game.. But the board game is social-emotional learning.
Once they’ve done a practice round, it’s a little easier to play the game in full. Once they’ve actively practiced social skills in their practice run (instead of just with being instructed to do so), it’s a little easier to use social skills in life outside the game.
Games strengthen the connection through active learning and practice in a low-stakes environment.
How can people learn more about TTRPGkids, and get involved?
You can learn more about TTRPGkids via the TTRPGkids.com website! There’s currently over 600 posts on the site about TTRPGs for young players, and they’re organized into categories about education, tips & tricks, reviews, interviews, books and library resources, etc so folks can help parse through the piles of information.
If you’d like to get involved with or support TTRPGkids, you could sponsor an article through my most recent crowdfunding campaign, check out my games on Backerkit and itchio, or become a member on ko-fi, which comes with some nice perks! I also have a newsletter for keeping up to date.
Thanks, Steph!
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