As it turns out, keeping a 3-going-on-4 year old occupied when we can’t go to the park or the mall or the children’s museum (or anywhere…) is a good deal of work. We’ve done art projects, baked goodies, watched a silly number of episodes of Boss Baby, and played a ton of video games, but there’s still more time to pass.

Since the kids can’t go to school and need something fun to pass the time, this is a great opportunity to introduce them to tabletop roleplaying to work those math and problem solving skills while having fun with fantasy or sci-fi worlds.

While most pen and paper RPGs are geared towards adults, there are quite a few specifically aimed towards (or adaptable to) an audience of toddlers to teens. Here’s a few of the best ones, as well as a bunch of RPG-themed coloring books released for free you can easily print off at home!

[image error]Way, way, way before PJ Masks, way before Spongebob Squarepants, even before Rugrats, Toon was there to capture the feel of ’70s and ’80s cartoons.

This is the perfect tabletop roleplaying opportunity to be silly and let the game go off the rails on purpose. You don’t need to worry about keeping a group of adventurers on track for the story, because cartoon characters don’t really need to abide by any rules.

Best of all? No one dies. If you run face first into a fake wall where a roadrunner has slapped on a giant painting of a tunnel, or get blown up by a martian trying to take over the Earth, you just fall down and show up again in the next scene.

Getting yourself a copy of Toon can be a bit tough these days though, and the physical edition is sadly your best bet at this point. The major online digital retailers don’t have any of the Toon lineup, although Steve Jackson Games does sell a PDF of the core book here. It’s a scan of the last print edition though, and not a direct transfer of the files.

There have also been some other attempts at similar cartoon-based pen and paper roleplaying games that made it to sites like DriveThruRPG though — take a look at what’s available here.

[image error]The grown ups done fucked up, OK? They got kidnapped by goblins, or let Christmas get cancelled, or did something really stupid like stealing a mama dragon’s egg. Its up to the kids to set things right in this tween-focused take on the fantasy roleplaying genre.

Sort of like the Warhammer Adventures books, Hero Kids is basically the young adult version of D&D, with simpler rules to match. The game assumes a party of roving good guy paladin types always on the lookout for evil to vanquish and villagers to help.

The real draw of Hero Kids is that there’s a ton of supplements and adventures to keep kids occupied for a long, long time if they get into roleplaying. If your kids need extra structure to keep them engaged instead of just engaging in pure imaginative roleplaying, both the core book and the various add-ons include a ton of cards, maps, and character / monster tokens to print on card stock and cut out.

The folding character tokens in particular are a great idea, because it lets you jump into using minis during a roleplaying session without having to actually shell out the money for figures and paints.

Grab a PDF super cheap of the main rulebook here, and you can also find reasonably priced bundles of all the various supplements at the same site.

[image error]Less aimed directly at kids and more at adults who want to roleplay kids getting into trouble in suburbia or rural America ala Stranger Things, Kids On Bikes is still a great choice for families or mixed groups with older and younger players.

The system is fairly rules-light, and has a big focus on making sure everyone at the table is comfortable with whatever is happening.

There are some published books of adventure hooks to kickstart either a campaign or a series of one shot scenarios, and the publisher releases free content on Fridays for various game systems, including Kids On Bikes. See the latest adventures and supplements released for free here like a recent free adventure set in a high school for kids who may be missing their time away from home.

Personally, I’ve been hankering to run a mashup of Stranger Things and Dream Daddy with the Kids On Bikes rules where all the players take on the role of eligible single dads solving strange mysteries after the kids go to bed. So far there have been no takers from my regular stable of gaming folks