Download: FirstFable

Role-playing games should be very popular with children given how much better they are with their imaginations. Many popular games are a little scarey so FirstFable has been designed to appeal to both children and their parents.

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This download is a PDF file of the rule book designed for parents so they can guide the game. It also includes pages for characters to keep track of their statistics and posessions. The character pictures for these are left as line drawings so everyone is free to colour as they please.

You will need some PDF-reading software on your computer either Adobe Reader or one of the many alternatives such as Sumatra.

Although designed for children from the age of six and up, we're not sure whether the lack of physical models or toys will be a problem for keeping attention. One (non free) alternative is Fuzzy Heroes that uses childrens toys as the characters in the game. On the other hand FirstFable could be very good for car journeys. You can read a blog post of how I got on with Fuzzy Heroes here.

There are four character templates (old hands at gaming might want to think of them as classes) that will combine to form a well balanced party. Each class has a weakness as well as strengths. There are ways to improve the weaknesses that stretch the imagination of the players.

The manual includes character sheets at the end that can be printed for creating characters and keeping track of their achievements. We were pleased to see that the pictures are left as line drawings as colouring them in will probably be part of the fun.

FirstFable is free to download and play under a Creative Commons license. At the end of the descriptive part of the manual is an appeal for people to get involved. Suggestions include coming up with new adventures in addition to the example one included in the manual and new Character Books.