Omake: Zoo Panic
Happy new year!! I’m always excited by a new year, even though I know that dividing time is arbitrary and there’s nothing functionally different from one day to the next. There’s just something healing about the idea of a fresh start.
Though I have a few comics in the hopper (amazing what taking a few weeks off will do to refill the idea generator), this week I wanted to share something special from Momo – a holiday present, if you will. She got a few sets of dice for Christmas, and after getting a brief rundown on the concept of how rolls determine an outcome, sat down to not play her first game, but leap straight into designing one.
I couldn’t be more proud. She conceptualized it, came up with a gameplay loop, playtested it, asked for feedback, iterated on that feedback, and was so jazzed when I showed her that one-page RPGs totally exist and we could make one. So, here is her hard work, in a nice clean game document that should be pretty easy to play with the kids in your life as well, and teach them the very basics of TTRPGs as well.
What I like about it is that it incorporates things that already matter to kids – their stuffed animals – with easy-to-understand rules. It reminds me of Jay Dragon’s A Dozen Fragments on Playground Theory, and how easily play comes to kids that adults need systems to regain. It’s really cool.
I hope the new year finds you and your family in better health, fortune, and peace than the last one. Thank you so much for being here with me for another year. I appreciate it so much.