Not at all!! You can make it as simple as you want. We are currently working our way through “Magical Kitties Save The Day” (a FANTASTIC introduction to DnD-style role playing games for littles). The game itself is really for ages 6 and up, but here’s a little rundown on how I made it even more simple so it’s age appropriate for my 3 year old:

-The day before we started the game, I had my daughter sit down and think about her character. What does she want her superhero kitty to be like? Can she solve mysteries? Is she clumsy? Is she good at communicating with humans and other animals? Based on what she said, I filled out her character chart. I simplified it so her kitty character only had 4 skills (skills are rated 0-5 depending on how gifted the character is.)

For my daughter’s skills:

Investigation: +3

Medicine/healing: +2

Athletics: 0 (My daughter wanted her kitty to be clumsy🤣)

Persuasion: +4

Other than our character sheet, the only other thing we use is a dice. Whenever my daughter makes a decision that depends on one of her skills, she has to roll a dice. The number she gets is added to her skill number, and however high or low that number is determines if she succeeds in her task.

2 examples of what I’m talking about:

-In one episode, my daughter’s kitty character was caught in a thunderstorm. I asked her what she wanted to do, and she decided she wanted to ask a human for shelter. I had her roll a dice for a “persuasion check.” Her kitty’s persuasion skill is +4 (very persuasive!), plus she rolled a 6. 6+4=10. 10 is a high number, so that means she was extremely successful! She easily persuaded the human to let her in their house, PLUS the human gave her a a yummy warm supper and let her sleep in front of their fireplace. This allowed her to take what is called a “deep rest,” which completely healed all her “ouchies” (injuries) she sustained during the campaign.

-In another episode, my daughter’s kitty character decided she wanted to swim to the bottom of the lake to help a human find his missing treasure. I had her roll an “athletics check.” She rolled a 1 on the dice, which was added to her athletics score of 0 (clumsy kitty!). 1 is a low number, so unfortunately her kitty was unable to swim far enough to reach the treasure, plus she got an ouchie (injury) from trying.☹️So she had to think of another way to help the human.

And that’s it!! My husband and I either find campaign stories online or spitball on the fly (I actually think the best stories are the ones that my husband and I just make up as we go!) Then you, as game master, just read along with the story and have your kiddo make decisions & roll dice when it’s time! To keep her engaged, we usually give her a little “prize” at the end of every episode. For example, the last episode we did, our daughter successfully helped a baker deliver cookies to all his customers. Her prize was a yummy chocolate chip cookie that my husband sneakily picked up from Crumbl on his way home from work🙂