JERPS - Junior's Easy Roleplaying System
JERPS - Junior’s Easy Roleplaying System
As someone who’s created more homebrewed RPG systems than children but who also has a child, I decided to come up with an RPG that a 4 year old can play. Something that can be run by one parent without much preparation or forethought, and can easily involve a friend, parent, or sibling. While I have not tested this with older children, my wife often joins in these games and finds them easy enough that she does not need a cheat sheet, while it’s not so simple that it is boring.
This is JERPS, Junior’s Easy Roleplaying System. First I’ll describe the basic mechanics governing JERPS, then show you a few examples of characters, adventures, and encounters, before ending with a brief discussion of how to run your game.
You’ll need a handful of regular six sided dice, a standard d20 gaming dice set, some coins, and probably some other tokens like poker chips or fun counters. I recommend some other materials at the end of the piece - some of which are highly recommended - but these are the only necessary pieces.
The basic JERPS mechanic is this: To accomplish something, you roll a die - usually six sided - and try to get a 4 or better. You may add a little to the roll depending on your situation. Usually this is +1 or +2.
Rolling a 4 or better is considered a “success.” The majority of tasks require 1 success to achieve. Some require 2, and very difficult ones require 3 or 4. These successes must take place over multiple turns, which is where your tokens, coins, and counters come in.
That’s it for your basic mechanics. You may realize that’s not quite enough to play a game, so let’s talk about some things like classes, skills, spells, and those other things that take up endless chapters of most RPG sourcebooks.
These are the three classes I have created. They should be enough for most games, but ideas for creating your own are listed after this.
Classes:
Wizard: The wizard has 3 HP, and can zap people with a wand. (Ranged attack, +0 to the roll). They know things (+2) and can cast two spells (+2, more on those later)
Elf: The elf has 4 HP, and can shoot people with a bow. (Ranged attack, +2 to the roll). They are good with animals and the wilderness (+1) and can fight with a staff(+1). They have one spell. (+0).
Barbarian: The barbarian has 5 HP, and can attack people with a hammer (melee attack, +2) They are good at physical things like jumping and running. (+2). They can throw a hammer if they need to. (+0).
You can rename the classes if you like. Wizard may become “Unicorn.” Barbarian may become “Warrior Princess.” Elf may become “Dog Dad.”
Leave cosmetic things like appearance, what sort of species they want to play, age, all up to them. They may want to be a pony. They PROBABLY want to play a pony. That’s fine. The classes can be flavored however you want, and named whatever you want.
These short skill lists are not meant to be exhaustive, they are meant to be broad categories. You should give them a +1 if you’re feeling like they MIGHT know it. +2 is meant for class-specific certainties, just like +0 is meant for things that they certainly would NOT be good at - like a wizard punching people.
Skills:
Whenever you roll a d6, that’s a “skill.” There is no real difference between making an attempt at hiding or talking or making an attack. Most of the time, one success is all you need. If you want to do something like “you have to hide from a keen-eyed elf” then they should have to hide twice, over two rounds, instead of putting a penalty on the roll, or requiring a 5 or 6.
The class skills are general, a character should have one class of skills they’re good at (+2) and one class of skills they’re okay at (+1). Everything else is rolled as-is. As I stated above, I don’t like to give kids penalties to things - if it’s really hard, just make it take more successes to do.
If you want to make your own classes, keep in mind that every character basically has +4 worth of things they are good at!
That can be two skills at +2, or one at +2 and two at +1. Every other roll is “as is.” For every spell they start off knowing, they should have 1 less HP, starting with five.
Every character should START with between 3 and 5 hit points.
Character Development:
You do not really “level up” in JERPS. You can reward quests and activities with rewards that enhance the character, but keep in mind that this game is designed to be played without a character sheet (because your players may not be able to read) and shouldn’t get too complicated. You should be able to make all your notes about your players fit on a post-it. Maybe a small notebook page.
Good rewards will give the players extra abilities to do things, but keep in mind that young players often enjoy friends, forts, and parties much more than they do a +1 battleaxe.
Example of rewards:
An extra HP (usually this takes the form of armor)
A spell.
A better weapon (turn a +1 attack into a +2 attack, or a +0 into a +1)
Equipment that makes them better at a skill.
Gold/money.
Forts and hideouts.
Pets and pals.
Healing potions and magic crystals.
(These are ways to replenish spells, or cast more powerful spells - see SPELLS)
If your players end up with multiple +1s, +2s, and consider some +3s, you may want to start a character sheet or even take up a more complex RPG.
Spells:
Wizards start with two spells and elves with one. You can let your players choose their spells, or you can choose for them. They can cast each spell once per session, or get them back when they rest.
They can get a spell back with a spell crystal or by touching a magic fountain or whatever mechanic you feel would give them a spell back. Throw these in whenever you like.
Every spell should have an associated physical die. To cast the spell, they roll the die. After they roll the die, if they get a 4 or better, the player will hand you the die. If it fails, they keep the die.
You return all their dice when they get their magic back. As the character becomes more powerful, you can give them a bigger die. (Making it easier for them to succeed) Using multi colored or sparkling fun dice is a nice touch for this.
You can name these spells or flavor them however you want. Just keep the basic mechanics and the dice size.
Sleepytime: Point at someone and make them go to sleep. D6. This one does not expend dice!
Pew-Pew: Point at someone and shoot magic bolts at them. d8.
Lightning Bolt: Shoot a lightning bolt in a straight line at as many people as you can connect. D10.
Healing: Give someone back all their hit points. d12.
Sparklebomb: Choose an area and blast everyone with sparkles. D20.
Plenty of other spells can be developed along these lines. Animal charming (d10) and invisibility (d8) are two favorites at our table.
Playing the Game:
A game should only last about 15-30 minutes, though that is entirely dependent on your child’s attention span at the moment. A play map or mat is pretty much a necessity. You can buy a blank battle grid with dry-erase markers for 25 dollars online. Just search for “reusable battle map grid.” The maps can be simple - big blocks for castles and houses, lines for corridors - kids will fill in plenty with their imagination. It’s also a good idea to let them draw their own maps with some guidance - filling in the basic shape with one color marker, then letting them add details and fluff.
Paper cutouts or cardboard icons are very fun - let them make their own, or pick from a wide, colorful selection. A good selection of these can be found at most of your comic book shops/game shops, or online. Small plastic toys are also suitable for this.
Taking Turns and Rolling Dice:
There are two basic types of interaction. Roleplaying and turn-taking. Much of the time, players are talking to each other or just you, they’re asking about the world or you’re telling them about the world. They can walk around the map uninhibited and without having to worry about how far they’re moving. You should make sure to take turns here anyway, to give each player a time to act, if there’s more than one player.
In turn-by-turn ACTION, each player has a turn that they take in sequence. Roll dice to see who goes first. (You may want to give some characters bonuses to this roll). If a player wants to go AFTER another player, that’s fine, but they cannot choose to go BEFORE their roll on the dice.
During ACTION, your players get to do two things per turn:
Roll a d6 to see how far they can move. (I usually let them move 3 spaces plus the total on the die)
Roll a skill.
You can get as involved with this as you think your kid has tolerance for. They may, for instance, want to draw swords with a badguy, making rolls to see who draws first and try to intimidate someone. They may need to pull someone up a rope ladder they are climbing themselves. Both of these things could be done as two rolls on the same turn. Generally I try and limit a turn to two rolls for the sake of pacing (everyone else hates waiting for their turn) but it’s not a hard and fast rule.
Conceptually, a turn lasts about 5-10 seconds, and each player’s turn somewhat overlaps with the other. It’s a weird RPG mainstay that kids don’t seem to question as much as I do.
Fights and “Flavor.”
You may have seen me say “flavor” several times. “Flavor” in RPG terms means the actual way things play out in the description and game-world, not in terms of rules. For example, a fireball spell and a sparkleball spell are the same mechanically: they remove enemies from the board in a certain area. But while fireball does so with fire and probably horrible murder, sparkleball puts people to sleep with sparkles. Adjust your flavor to your setting. If you’re doing spacemen instead of wizards, maybe sparkleball is a sort of grenade, for instance.
Enemies use the same mechanic as your players - they roll a d6, attempting to get a 4 or better. Most generic mook enemies get no bonuses to their rolls. More intimidating minions might get a +1. Most enemies only have one hit point (it only takes one success to remove from the board).
No matter how hard they are hit, the player only loses 1 HP. Running out of HP means they are knocked out, usually to be captured and “allowed” to escape.
With kids, and this mechanic in hand, you have a way to end one of the more ridiculous tropes of D&D and it’s ilk: that every enemy fights you to the (ok, their) death. Enemies can be knocked out, run away (I usually have them run away) surrender, get captured, become friends, become frenemies, and the like. Kids do like blasting apart skeletons and zombies, though.
An encounter does not have to be a fight. Talking to goblins (kids like small things) training dogs, and giving food to mischievous gnomes are all good fantasy tropes kids like.
By sparing enemies and talking to them, your players will inevitably corral some minions and companions. You don’t have to worry about long lists of stats for their friends and followers - they have a d6 and 1 HP. It’s a good idea to have them go out and do things apart from the party, for pacing reasons.
The Chase Mechanic
Kids will often run away from scary monsters! That’s fine. Running away should present itself as a “chase.” Kids love being chased. Set a number of successes they’ll need to escape. Let the monster roll - monster successes remove one from the pool. If they run out of successful escapes, the monster gets them, starting a fight. If they reach the goal, they escape.
You can use this mechanic for a variety of competitions against an NPC. Races, lifting things, treasure hunts - anything that’s a contest that isn’t a direct fight.
Difficulty of Encounters
Two things dictate how difficult a given encounter is: How many successes it takes to finish, and how many encounters have you had without replenishing spells and hitpoints.
A good rule of thumb for beginning adventurers is that they can get through this many challenges before things get too hard: [(number of players x 2) + total party HP + total number of spells in party.]
A “challenge” is anything that requires a success to overcome, and can cause them to lose HP. So, one jump over a chasm is 1 challenge. An encounter where an enemy has 2 HP counts as two challenges. Speaking with an NPC is not a challenge, and a chase is not a challenge (Though it may involve making challenges! If they can lose an HP by failing their skill roll, it’s a challenge!)
Example: If you had one player who was an elf (4 HP, 1 spell) you could put them through 7 challenges before they would need to rest or recharge to get back their HP and spells. That might mean 3 skeletons (1 HP each), a big skeleton boss (2 HP) and two obstacles. It might mean two ogres (3 HP each) and a falling rock, or any number of combinations. As your players get better at strategy and tactics, this can change considerably. Don’t be afraid to let them find a potion to regain hit points or a magic crystal to recharge spells if things aren’t going their way.
That’s it! Now get some battle mats, some markers, and some tokens and have some fun!