Tiny Dungeon Review: Best RPG for Kids? (Ep. 217) 

I just want to note that you shouldn't be concerned with how long an rpg book has been out before you review it. Many of these are not getting the attention they need/deserve. Even if your viewers have heard of it before, they may not have looked into it fully. Your reviews do a great job of giving attention to real gems and gives viewers a good sense of what they could get from it and can decide if it interests them.

Never heard of this, but I love a good rules-lite system. Thanks for the review, Professor!

Not just for kids, and totally adaptable for grim dark. Currently running a Tiny Cthulhu game (more like monster of the week). Very fast and fun, story driven... Long time 3.5 and 5e players are having a blast.

OBSESSED WITH THIS. I've been working on my own bare-bones ruleset for months and when I found this I wanted to chuck the whole thing and just run Tiny Dungeon. I love the simple d6 mechanics, I love the wound-style hit point system, I love the colorful traits, and the simple advancement. The publishers have tons of extended content to expand the Heritages and traits list. Once I make the switch, I probably won't ever run anything else again.

Currently playing in a Tiny Dungeon campaign. About half the group are experienced TTRPG players, and we're all having a blast. It's great for short weeknight sessions every couple weeks. It lends itself to speedy and descriptive play with no discussions/arguments about rules.

Another great Game in Tiny D6 is Tiny Taverns, it allows your players to run an Inn or take part in a Fantasy version of Chopped. Lots of ideas, great fun.

I have been running D&D for 30 years, and honestly this sounds great for myself as well. I like games that get out of my way and let me do my thing.

A mix of The Dark Crystal with Thundercats sounds awesome.

I can confirm that kids love having an animal companion. We play BECMI, and though it's not in the rules my eldest son has home-brewed it for the campaign he runs for his brothers. Somehow they want that cute factor...while hacking goblins and werewolves to pieces.

Lol. Another possible kids dungeon written by Deathbringer: "Twinkle Twinkle Little Scar" 😁

Hey, hey,HEY! Not just for kids! I'm seriously considering starting a campaign for adults using Tiny Dungeon. The reason I like is that it boils down the tests to a simple standard, and the traits are easily adaptable. This way the GM can sit down with the player and easily devise new home rule traits that follow the form of the traits in the book. Gallant Knight Games has also made world expansions to Tiny Dungeon. They have Tiny Wastelands, Tiny Supers, Tiny Frontiers (sci-fi). These new expansions merely tweak a few things like adding more traits, or like in Tiny Supers adding a new "trait" category called power trait, or they'll add a new action to combat. In Tiny Wastelands they add the action suppressive fire. My point is that Tiny Dungeon is easily modifiable without risking breaking the game. Often children/teens don't need the extensive rules to play an RPG , because they easily let their imagination sit in the driver's seat. Adults often have to be re-taught this ability. I'm an old man now, but I remember being a teen in the 70's and getting a new game called Dungeons & Dragons. We played alot! The secret was that I don't think any used all the rules, we played the ones we remembered and otherwise we just winged it. So I say Just Wing It!

As a content creator for this lovely system, I must say this indeed very child friendly. Not only kids, but also adults enjoy this system. My own party of Dnd vets wanted to try something fast paced and rules light. We've been mixing elements from Tiny Dungeon and ICRPG as of late. In my opinion the mechanics for Tiny Dungeon just feel natural, succeed or fail and resolve your action. It also lends itself to build upon and add whatever you like.

Gonna throw Ryuutama out there as another great kids-friendly TTRPG. The English translation is up on DTRPG. Great art, great premise, great times. Highly recommend it.

Definitely picking this up now. I love the simplicity of it. I'm striving the capture that level of simplicity and rules-lite approach in my own system I'm trying to write at the moment. Thanks for another great video Professor!

The d6 system seems pretty similar to Scum and Villainy. I like its simplicity and definitely its much easier to use that system with kids.

Thanks for this review & flip-through! I’m gonna pick this up. 😁

I use Tiny Dungeon as a base for my megadungeons. Made a single map that combines the locations of Barrowmaze, Caves of Arachaia, BF Chaotic Caves, Keep on the Boarderland, TOEE, Castle Zyntyllian, Chateau Di Amberville.

I introduced my kids to TTRPGs with "Heroes & Treasure" by Davis & Daughters. From there we moved to D&D 5e and now are playing Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

I own this book and have ran it many times. It's fun and is a great system for young or new people. I myself prefer light systems. The only criticism I have is is how much they are charging for what you get. Something around 70ish pages of principle material and black and white art that is repeatedly used throughout is hard too swallow at 40 dollars. At least that is what I paid a couple years ago.

Another really nice, simple, and generic rpg that I really like is Risus. Its probably even easier to grasp than tiny dungeon and you can make stuff on the fly very easily. All creatures and activities are reduced to one thing: cliches abd cliche levels. so the character sheet for luke skywalker might be: pilot(4) jedi(3) farmboy(2) thats it! the number next to the cliche represents how many d6’s you role when doing a test in relation to that cliche. if it is an oposed or dangerous task and you fail, you subtract one from the relevant cliche, showing injury, fatigue, thematically being overwhelmed, etc. when a cliche hits 0 you are defeated. The great thing, besidess its simplicity is that its easy to balance and really has a “movie” feel to it. you can go directly from sword and sorcery to si-fi in the blink of an eye. And its super easy to keep track of. And because each individualcliche level is so impactful, advantages and disadvantages, and differences in level are very meaningful. If a knight(6) noble(3) faces off your Squire(4) maintenance(3) poet(2) character, you are into a rough ride and need to use teammates, unorthodox stratagems, or just run away! In adition, if you successfully justify using an inappropriate cliche in a situation inventively, you are reward by the opponent loosing 3 levels in their cliche! The base ruleset fits on like 3-5 pages.

My first brush with the Tiny D6 system was Tiny Supers. It's a great superhero rpg, and it uses the same rules as Tiny Dungeons. Simple, very versatile, and I would recommend it for kids who want to play superheroes.

I picked up the softcover at that drive thru rp... something or other. I got it with the PDF and have been using it to solo play. Its light nature encourages my imagination and, as you mentioned, it includes a number of charts to help flesh out scenarios and ideas. Printing out the charts makes accessing them quicker. There are other solo rpg resources that are deeper and richer, but this one is easy to pick up and just start chucking dice.

Hi Professor! Thank you for reviewing this for us all... didn't know it existed but it looks great for small and big RPers alike. Will be picking up the main rules and some supporting material straight away! Thanks again! And a thought: maybe having pips on the dice could be a good way of getting kids to count. Perhaps numbered dice for some players and pips for others depending on the level of education? Totally going to Drivethru' now to get this...

The dice system seems similar to YZ engine and Forbidden Lands. Love it!

I will need to look into this for the after school programs we plan on starting up soon.

I play this system with my friends since it's much easier to play than DnD. As the DM I'm also able to homebrew a lot since the rules allow for that! My main changes is adding critical hits whenever you get 2 sucesses, but instead of dealing +1 damage you choose to knock the enemy back or knock it prone. I aslo nerfed and buffed some traits that were a bit unbalanced.

I’ve played Tiny Wastelands with my group for some fallout-esque shenanigans. The base building mechanic is actually really involved and if we had had more time I would have liked to get into it more. Reminds me of a board game called Dead of Winter where survival against a zombie horde is the goal. I could see both a fun wastelands game and a gritty survival game using this system. My favorite part was the “roll for ammo” after each combat, where you roll the d6 to see if you’ve still got ammo, then roll a d6 to see how much. It’s so cool to see players react to only having three bullets and how to deal with that in future encounters. I have always wanted to put that restriction on my archers, but I fear that would make them useless if they come up short on ammo.

Don Bluth also did the Dragon's Lair arcade game and the American Tail movies. That's a very iconic art style.

Used it for two campaigns with adult players one in person and one online. They loved it. Build the character you want in a few minutes.

I ran a game loosely based on Hero Kids that ran pretty close to Tiny Dungeons for my nephews, using pieces from various board games like scrabble, Talisman, and Risk. We kept the dice simple, they drew their gear, and it worked pretty well.

Amazing review. I'm ordering my copy now. Thanks, professor.

Can confirm Tiny Dungeon to be THE game for kids 5-10 years. Just enough rules to give them fun choices, but not so much that they lose interest. My kids love it!

You make an interesting point at the end about making the dice easy to read for children. It might be interesting to play this with Fate-style dice instead, so they just know they succeed on a +.

Thanks for the review. I’ll be using this system for my son who is almost 7 years old.

Back in the late 90s early 00s I played a LoR game that had a simplified d6 system like this. Quite fun, but much less player freedom by the sound. I think this would be a blast 💥

Thanks for your great reviews and channel in general. I was wondering if you also had any experience with Monty Cook’s “No Thank You, Evil”. It is supposed to be fit for slightly younger children, which mine are. That, and most of Monty’s stuff is awesome.

I’ve been living in Mexico for 10 years and I need something simple and engaging and not too difficult to translate into Spanish. I bought the PDF, put it in drop box, and forgot about it for a while. I’ve got a pool of young people 8-12 I’d like to try this on. I just opened the file and I’m starting to do the translation-and simplification. The plan is to just run some one hour adventures from a base/keep. If the kids are into it, I’ll introduce more complexity.

A rainbow sword? Sounds pretty sweet to me! Maybe each color does a different damage type or imitates the Color Spray spell.

Thank you for making this video. I have been looking for a simple TTRPG to introduce my kids to my favorite hobby. I really look forward to bonding with them over this shared experience. D&D 5e is way too complex for my kids and I've been searching relentlessly for a vintage boxed set of Dragon Quest (which is how I got started, almost 30 years ago), but Tiny Dungeon seems much more appropriate (and easier to find!). Thanks again!

I love this system! Not just good for kids but people new to RPGs as a whole. Thanks for the review.

Thank you. Just ordered it.

You can also use Fate dice and count the +'s as successes.

This looks like an awesome system I love the rules light .

I'd love to see what you think of the RPGs that Penflower Ink makes! He makes his own system!

I've used Tiny Dungeons 2e with my kids and I also use it to run an RPG group at their school. It's a fantastically simple system that has few barriers to entry. Using the Tiny Dungeons system with the GMing principles from Dungeon World makes for some incredibly fast, fun, and accessible gaming for both kids and adults learning the ropes of rpgs.

What a reeeally good video. Thanks doc!

This game looks really cool, and the book is well designed. Wish I had started my kids on "D&D" with this.

Thank you so much professor! I bought Tiny Dungeon to play with my 7 year old after watching your review and he's in love with it. Now he's DMing to his friends during recess...

Crazily enough my two oldest (8 and 7) have been playing a long campaign of dnd with me. I want to go ahead and introduce them to a prequel campaign to give them a break and I may use this system to do it. It’s not combat heavy and this will make it faster and WAAAY more fun for them to just be themselves

My go to game for kids is now Pocket Fantasy RPG. Everything can be printed to card size and to booklets and its booklet is very simple with only d6's being used. Its very easy to understand and only like 28 pages so its easy to carry in their backpack. I think i paid like $8 or something for the booklet version.

Great stuff friend 👏 👍

I'll have to take a look at this! My thought for an intro for kids would be to use Whitebox. Edit: the game had me at bear-folk. And making up spells.

Thats amazing. Thank you. My twins and my 3 year old little girl are loving a dungeon game called CoraQuest.

So much value in such a small book, theirs other settings for this tiny d6 system as well, cyberpunk, western, sci-fi.

This game reminds me of Hero Kids, just with more to it and that's awesome. I could switch my kiddo to Tiny Dungeon very easily due to the dice system. Thanks for reviewing it, I might need to look into this title more.

Ancient Odysseys Treasure Awaits by Precis Intermedia is another good one for kids. Simple stats, wound boxes instead of HP, uses zones on the battlemaps, and OSR-minded.

Never done Tiny Dungeons but Tiny Supers is an absolute blast to run and play.

I think the spell weaving thing is cool, but just so you know, ttrpg can always be reflavored as long as the mechanics are the same, (DM allowing of corse)

Looks great for kids of all ages. Love that the monsters are borrowing their design from 4e DND. I will definitely pick up a copy of this.

Looks pretty cool. I appreciate seeing how different systems handle things. I don't think I'll pick this one up (at least not right away) because I am getting into solo RPGs at the moment and in addition to playing Ironsworn, I am thinking about another campaign using ALONe, Elemental, Five Torches Deep, Freeform Universal, or Fate., while also getting into Four Against Darkness.... So, basically, my issue is that I have too many systems already and want to play them all! Choosing is really hard! I think if I were to start a game with my younger son, however, I might either use FU, FAE, or Risus.

I found "Amazing Tales" by Martin Lloyd the best rpg ever to introduce kids to the hobby of TTRPGs in general. It has a ton of advice for gaming with kids, lots of examples of settings, and guest writers that have children therapist on the benefits of story telling with your kids. That being said, Tiny D6 is perfect for introducing kids to medieval Fantasy and to more involved rpgs in general (so if you are getting tired of Amazing Tales, and think your kid would want to have a more involved rules set). It will show them that they can have a great game without having to have a crap ton or rules. I mean, during the pandemic, I ran this game so much for my adult group, so it has all ages appeal for sure.

wow! i might go get that! i was asked to run a children’s game and this sounds perfect!

thanks for uploading this, one of my writing classes demands i get this book and im not wasting money on anything DND related or seemingly related

In the past I played this system a lot and I am going to try this with a group of children (I am an educator).

I needed this so much Professor! so many references i love...Primal..Conan...and i need to watch the Black Cauldron....I'm 30 years late!!

Thank you! Sounds wonderful, hope to play it with my kids one day :) Also, I believe your t-shirt link is broken 😯

Just found out about this, looks like a to of fun ad very adaptable to a lot of players.

I would unironically play the heck out of that. That looks like boatloads of fun.

Fascinating point about numbers Vs spots on a d6. I've recently swapped all my RPG d6s to spots, but I've been playing games for decades, so the spot patters are hardwired for me. It didn't occur that numbers would be better for tiny people. I guess the only other question is "Where can I buy this".

I love the Tiny D6 games I have most of them, the rules are fast and light for those nights you do not want to spend half the play session making characters. If you are a fan of Tiny D6, Alan Bahr is one of the authors of a new system called Arium I am reading now, it is a world building (Aruim: Create) and rpg (Arium: Discover) the system is crunchier but familiar. I cannot suggest this one enough since the players and DM create the world in Session Zero by popular vote. It is not for everyone, but as someone who likes to run Airships with Pirates sailing the stars in a steampunk setting, it is hard to find a system that I like for that kind of game.

There is a Tiny Dungeon HATCHLING edition that i suppose is for small kids. I dont know the differences between the editions though.

How about a Black Hack review? Seems like a game that’d be up your alley

Heroes Quest is what I’ve been using, but might be time to switch.

Love the magic system! Although with great creative freedom comes great responsibility on the DM's part to prevent players casting crazy overpowered spells (like Wish, Time Travel, Disintegrate). :-)

Looks cute would definitely like to get it in the future but I might just have the future kiddos jump straight into Shadowdark

Also looks like a great introduction to new RPGers.

You should put an affiliate link below in the description so we can find it and you can get a little revenue from it. I would love to get this and support your channel.

Thanks for this...I agree with your comments. For what it is worth, I have a (now) 6 year old that I've been moving along in the RPG world. We started on (and are still on) Amazing Tales. Amazing Tales is rock simple and great to get those first few games under her belt. Next year, I'm moving her to Quest. Quest is just so pretty (while staying simple). Being pretty really helps to keep her interested. After that, we'll also move to the Tiny series. I love the Tiny ones not just because they are perfect for playing something simple and a well thought out system but they also have various topics available - so we're not just hanging in the fantasy stuff if she wants something else. There's Tiny Dungeon but also Tiny Superheroes, Tiny Frontiers (space stuff) and even Tiny Cthulhu.

Very neat and tidy, very simple but also still seems to suggest slightly more complexity to the players and GM. I like that.

I love this type of system

I like this quite a bit but I wish there were criticals. is that something that can be worked in?

Cool I introduced my kids to RPGs with D&D 3.5. That was tough. But they liked it

Karhu is a bear in Finnish ;-)

Looks like a great game. A little too complex for my little ones though. I think I'll go with Legendary Advdntures or lasers and feelings

Can’t seem to find a copy in the UK. My son would love this. My son is keen to DM a game of D&D for us, but I don’t think he understands exactly how much is involved.

It may also be good for older gamers., like my players who meet infrequently and occasionally forget the rules. Something simpler like this would be good for them. I've been modifying Pocket Fantasy RPG for them as an alternate to our Pathfinder games. Pocket Fantasy shares a lot of the same ideas as Tiny Dungeon and is very easy to learn, but is built more for one-shot convention games. Point being, they loved the modified Pocket Fantasy as an easier system to learn and play.

Love the system. I bought a a few books. Fungal Kingdom is one if you want to play two brothers who are plumbers 😉 against and evil Turtle

Love it!

Good review! It sounds like a basic way to play the game without the volumes of rules - those come later!

It is good for expert players as well

So beautiful!

I work at a facility for people with mental disabilities. I've been looking for a system to play with them that I felt they could comprehend. I ordered the pdf after seeing this video. We played our first game yesterday, and it was a huge success. Thanks for turning me on.

Another great 1d6-based TTRPG suitable for kids is MEADOWS & MEGALITHS. The rules are quite lite and can be learned in a matter of minutes, and they can be easily customised to taste. 😎

The book looks very good for kids. I'm having trouble finding it. Any tips? Thank you Professor DM!

Looks neat.

number dice v pips some of the best advice for kids I've heard

Deathbringer needs a +4 Lozenge of Soothing....

The key is that _all ttrpgs are actually the same thing_ and thinking one book somehow makes things fundamentally different than another is false. You could use something traditional like D&D for any group and depending on how you _play the game_ it will be different. It's just a basic ruleset and you make up the rest with your players. Just use ICRPG and make it feel right for your table. That's all you need to do. It's _your_ game.

Bhar is a dick, now that's out of the way, I totally agree with you DC, I'm already thinking of houserules, maybe exploding on a six, for added effects, (its a way to give the simple system a tad more variance) And the pictures look pretty,

A link for Tiny Dungeon would be nice.