This month I sat down at PAX Australia with a stack of printed heroes, a haunted mansion and a table of kids, and I was nervous…
Plenty of them had never played a roleplaying game before. I’ve done it dozens of times but I’ll be honest, its always a mixed bag when it comes to kids!
A convention floor is loud, there’s a lot competing for a kid’s attention, and nobody owes you five minutes of it…. It went better than I expected.
What we played
The adventure was Krog’s Bone to Pick. Mr Bones, the skeleton butler at Whitlock Manor, has lost his arm bone, and he’s sure Krog, the manor’s patchwork pet, has taken it.
Each table had five players, and they picked from nine ready-made heroes. All up it ran about an hour to an hour and a half, including the intro, a quick warm-up and a certificate at the end.
How I wrote the rules
I gave my DM”s the exact instructions on how I design the games myself. I asked them to read the shaded box out loud, asked them to ask the players which hero they preferred, and handed over a set of dice.
Roll a 10 or more and it works. Roll a 15 or more and it works brilliantly. That’s most of what a brand new player needs. We worked out the rest as we went.
Keep things simple - Premade adventure, pre-generated character sheet and dice!
What the kids remembered
A few things stood out.
The Echo Vine. Everyone claps and taps together, and it got every table moving. Even the shy kids joined in.
Helping a friend back up. In our games a knocked-out hero isn’t out of the game, because a friend can help them back on their feet. I didn’t plan that to be a highlight, but it was the moment that seemed to stick.
Galdor and the poison plant. Watching Galdor the brainless zombie water the poison plant got some of the biggest laughs of the day, mostly from the parents standing behind the table.
THE FINALE!? The combined team dice roll where everyone had to roll the d20 to get a combined score to save the puppy from the vines!
Snippet from our adventure The Beast of the Hollow Caves
The thing I didn’t expect
Most people walking past had no idea what Cavalier Adventures makes - SIMPLIFIED ZERO PREPARATION GAMES FOR KIDS!!
It’s a book you open, read out loud and play. No prep. No D&D experience needed.
That has changed how I talk about what I do, and I’m looking at printed copies so more families can pick one up and play.
Want to try it at home?
The free one, The Chest That Bites Back, is a complete one-shot for ages 7 to 12. It takes about an hour and needs no prep. FREE ADVENTURE
Krog’s Bone to Pick, the haunted-mansion story we ran at PAX, is our Halloween adventure. PATREON LINK
Not sure which one suits your kids? The 2-minute quiz will point you to one. QUIZ
Thanks to everyone who stopped by, and to the parents who let their kids sit down with a handful of dice and a skeleton butler.
Harry
A tiny snipped from our adventure Krog’s bone to Pick which is full of easy rules and simple guides for parents.
This Is Not Therapy. It's Play. And That's Why It Works.
Nobody is asking your child to talk about their feelings. There's no structured exercise in identifying emotional states. There's no circle time.
There's just a story, some characters, and a group of people deciding together what happens next.
The confidence builds because the child was too busy having fun to notice it building. That's not a side effect of good game design — it's a direct result of it.
Where to next…
Every Cavalier Adventures pack is built with neurodiverse-friendly design as standard — clear choices, structured turns, visual prompts on character sheets, and adventures that give quieter kids natural moments to step forward and lead. Browse our adventure packs and find the right starting point for your child.
