Kidlings

Welcome to KIDLINGS

A tabletop RPG where your imagination is your greatest weapon—and your worst enemy might be bedtime.

✨ What Is Kidlings?

Kidlings is a narrative focused, kid-powered tabletop roleplaying game where you play as imaginative children navigating wild adventures in magical playgrounds, spooky neighborhoods, and dreamlike realms stitched together by wonder and whimsy. Think Calvin & Hobbes meets Stranger Things—only funnier, friendlier, and full of teamwork, treehouses, and Trouble.

The game is simple to learn, incredibly flexible, and designed for players of any age. Whether you're a parent introducing kids to RPGs or a group of adults who never quite stopped pretending, Kidlings is your invitation to play boldly, misbehave creatively, and laugh constantly.

🎭 Create Your Kid Hero

Every player chooses a Hero Type—a larger-than-life version of the kid they might be in a magical world of cardboard robots, forest spirits, haunted libraries, and schoolyard tyrants.

You might be a:

• Magic Dreamer who literally brings dreams to life.
• Puzzle Master solving riddles and escaping traps.
• Animal Lover who can call a pack of squirrels to your aid.
• Street Orphan darting through alleys with urban stealth.
• Adventurer, Jester, Computer Geek, Bully, Bookworm, or even a Culinary Whiz whose snacks restore morale.

Each Hero Type has unique abilities that cost Brownie Points to activate—and every ability can shift the story in dramatic, hilarious, or heartwarming ways.

🎲 A Simple, Success-Based System

Kidlings uses a lightweight dice pool system where you combine one of your Aptitudes (like Muscles, Smarts or Mischief) with a Trait (like Creative, Karate or Curious), roll some of your favorite dice, 6-sided, 10-sided dice, or use coins as long as they have an even number of outcomes so half can be counted as successes.

Most tasks require just 1 to 3 successes—so things move quickly and every roll matters. Risk-taking, clever thinking, and cooperation are always rewarded.

😇 Brownie Points & 😬 Trouble

Two signature systems make Kidlings truly shine:

✨ Brownie Points

Your most powerful resource, Brownie Points let you:

• Supercharge your rolls.
• Unlock Hero Type abilities.
• Negate Trouble to avoid Trouble or redeem yourself.

Use them wisely… or chaotically.

😵 Trouble

Instead of hit points, you earn Trouble whenever you:

• Get caught doing something you shouldn’t.
• Break rules in hilarious or heartfelt ways.
• Fail to convince an authority figure that it was totally not your fault.

Trouble builds toward Punishments—like extra chores, early bedtime, or worst of all… a heartfelt scolding.

But don't worry—good roleplaying, teamwork, and creative thinking can reduce Trouble just as fast.

🐾 Packed With Whimsy

Inside the core book, you’ll find:

• 25+ Hero Types, each with flavorful powers and stories.
• 80+ Traits (Good & Bad!) to personalize your character.
• Meanies and Monsters: trash-talking geese, creepy adults, gremlin tutors, and cursed vending machines.
• Magical Items & Kid Treasures like adventure backpacks, cardboard karts, mystery eggs, and walkie-talkies.
• Over 30 adventure hooks ranging from “Midnight Cookie Caper” to “Secret Spy Mission” to “Cave of Echoes Expedition.”

Whether you're climbing a haunted playground slide or arguing with a ghost coach who only speaks in whistles, Kidlings promises adventure after adventure.

👨‍👩‍👧 Made for All Ages

Kidlings is:

• Easy to teach and fast to learn.
• Ideal for family play, classrooms, youth centers, or goofy grown-up groups.
• Full of flexibility: one-shot or campaign, silly or sincere, light-hearted or rich with emotional depth.

🚀 Why We're on Kickstarter

We’ve created the rules, art, and playtested our hearts out. Now we need your help to print, polish, and publish Kidlings so more adventurers can join the fun.

Your pledge brings us one step closer to:

• Printing beautiful hardcover and softcover books.
• Unlocking stretch goals like books for gear, foes and adventures.
• We want to share Add-ons as well for custom dice, tee shirts, plushies, counters, crayons, embroidered backpacks and more.
• Sharing this imaginative, inclusive game with the world and opening the door to many more editions like fantasy, sci-fi, holidays, urban legends and more.

📚 Stretch Goals

We’ve got big plans! With your help, we’ll unlock:

• 📖 Expanded Foe Folio – More creatures and villains.
• 👧 Adventurer Attendance – Fully detailed kids and NPCs.
• 🛠️ Kid Survival Kit: Volume 1 – More toys, tools, and kid-built machines.
• 🗺️ Adventure Book: Volume 1 – Dozens of premade stories.
• 🎲 Custom Dice, 👕 Tees, 💧Water Bottles, 🧸 Minis, 🎒Dice Trays… and more!

So Come Play With Us

We made Kidlings because we believe in the power of imagination.
Because kids deserve to be the heroes.
And because sometimes, sneaking past bedtime with a flashlight and a plan… is the best kind of adventure.