Below is my first pass at combat rules for Beary Simple Rules. They need to be simple enough for a pretty clever five year old to enjoy and still somewhat interesting for grown-ups too. She's already starting to get frustrated with games of complete chance (unless all of the chance is going her way). The rules should be easy enough to memorize for adults. Hopefully, the kids can figure out most of them pretty quickly.
Potential Results:
If the Attacker rolls less than Defender: no result.
A tie allows defender to counter attack.
Attacker beating the defender by 1-3 would disorder/pin/scare the defending bear.
Beating the defender by 4 or more removes the defender bear.
Bears that are disordered/pinned/scared would roll with a -1 modifier. Leader bear can rally away disorder/scared. (Not sure if that complication is worth it for a few years) Other modifiers would include terrain bonus for being behind cover, and a rock/paper/scissors scheme where infantry beats cavalry, cavalry beats artillery, and artillery beats infantry.
This system seems to be a good compromise for basic games. It involves both players so everyone feels like they have a role (or roll) to play in the outcome. It isn't as swingy as a hit/save result with a single D6, which I like. Most importantly, the math is pretty easy. Once the kids learn about multiplication/division, maybe something with 2D6 and doubling/tripling would be better.
If anyone has encountered a system like this before and has critiques, I'd be glad to hear them.
I like the rules - I think if you describe disorder/pinned in terms of the bears feeling scared (as you mentioned), confused, or something else a child can relate to, and you describe the leader as being a great cheerleader, caring, and very likeable who can help those bears, then it may make perfect sense to a child to use their leader in a way that mechanically resembles rallying.
ReplyDeleteI also wanted to recommend The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game(competitive) and Outfoxed (cooperative) as board games that are not pure chance and fun for kids and adults. Sneaky Snacky Squirrel might be geared closer to age 3, so she might not enjoy it that much, though I do think there is some interesting strategy that comes out when there are 4 players and the result of the spinner involves choosing one of the other players to take an acorn from (I may have enjoyed the game more than my son did when he was 5).
Outfoxed looks like something we could enjoy as a family. My wife's family loves playing Clue. Outfoxed looks like it could be a good introduction for the kids.
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