I've been playing Heroica and Talisman with the kids lately, and combining that fun experience with prior desires to create a simple paper-based game, I've come up with a new idea that I think both I and the kids will like.

The game I'm thinking of consists of a single book that provides all of the background materials necessary to play in short sessions while waiting for dinner to come at a restaurant, using only a pencil and a blank placemat.

It's not precisely a role-playing game. It's more like a board game with a dynamic, drawn board, and a story. The players choose characters with specific abilities that they can use during the game to achieve success. The game has the additional primary characteristic of being aimed squarely at kids my kids' ages. As such, the actions are varied enough, but simple to remember. The consequences are finite -- unlike a true RPG, where you can do anything, this game is limited to a specific set of actions with specific potential results.

I've been doing some "market research" with the kids, asking them to look at the character classes in the D&D Players Handbook and tell me not just which classes they like, but what they like about them. The results are interesting. For example, they like that the Cleric is good, and that he can wear armor and use weapons. Basically, they see him as a good Fighter. But they didn't like the Fighter class at all. Also, they were in love with the Druid, especially the possibility of having an animal companion. These insights are very helpful for focusing the game on a limited number of potential classes that the kids will love, as opposed to leaving the game open to endless expansion.

I've been doing a little bit of work on the game each evening. It could be anything from doodling icons that might appear in the book, to sketching out mechanics for playing the game, to creating some background for the world the game takes place in. The game story will be pretty rich, or at least rich enough for the kids to enjoy playing, and possibly even enough for a light game that adults could play. Something like this game would have gone well as a "play anywhere" game in groups I've been a part of.

In addition to the game itself, I've also been looking at pricing for producing the game as a product. There aren't many good games for kids in this genre. The few I've found are so simple that they're not fun to play with the kids, or they're so dry that even the kids don't care to play. Seeing them light up while playing Heroica (this is a great Lego set, by the way) recently merely convinces me that the market is set up for a game that parents could introduce to their kids, then let them take it from there.

Producing a book is actually not too pricey. For about 120 pages, you can have a full-color on-demand book printed for under $10. Add a bit to that for the retail price and there's potential for at least a meager profit.

The problems I have right now with producing the game are time (obviously) and illustration. I really don't want to produce another "Word doc with clip art RPG for kids", the likes of which I've scoffed at myself many times. I originally thought that maybe I could get some color art in there, and have the book be full-color, but I think I might be able to handle line art drawings better. There might not be a custom illustration on every page, but I think there would be enough variety and decent layout that it wouldn't look like it came off of the dusty dot matrix printer in someone's basement.

For now, I'm taking many notes, and I've started a production notebook with some random supplies from Staples. I loaded an A5 notebook with graph paper and such, so that I can sketch out ideas for the various sections of the book. If I get a reasonable distance with the game bits (gameplay, background, testing), maybe I'll throw the project on Kickstarter, and get some initial funding for a real artist to supply art for the project. That would be pretty neat.

Recently, one of the parents of Riley's schoolmates called to arrange a playdate between her son and Riley. I don't remember having so many playmates as a kid, and I certainly don't remember how my parents arranged them. Even though I appreciate the opportunity to socialize Riley among his classmates outside of school, this whole process seems kind of strange to me.

It's not so strange that our contact information is available. The home and school association produces a White Pages-like book of student names and addresses, organized by grade. You can opt in/out each year, but most parent include their addresses for purposes of convenience, like setting up playmates. I assume it also helps for homework help, since some of Abby's classmates have called asking for clarification on something they were doing in class.

What really perplexes me, though, is how the playdate itself is supposed to work. Maybe I put too much thought into this whole thing, but take this most recent instance as an example. A strange woman calls the house and asks, "Are you Riley's dad?" Uh, yes. "I'm Riley's friend from school's mom. You know, Riley's friend, Bob." Uh, ok. "Bob wanted to invite Riley over for a playdate." Oh! That sounds great; I'm sure he'd like that. Now what?

Maybe it would be easier if I wasn't so weird about it myself. But like any meeting, you arrange a place and time. Usually it's at the caller's house, after all, you don't call someone up and say, "Hey, we've never met, but I'd like to come over and hang out!" The time is a weird thing, too. We talked about summer camps, which seem to be the thing parents do around here - send their kids off to camp for the summer. Riley had a week of day camp this summer, but mostly he's been at home, so he's free during the day. Sort of.

Have I mentioned at all about how I'm becoming more like Mr. Mom? Back during the weeks I was carting the kids to and from day camp, and between activities, it felt more and more like I was a stay at home Dad with a part time job. While I find nothing wrong with that lifestyle (if one can afford it), I don't want to be perceived that way unless that's really how it is. I find myself vociferously defending my work, how I work from home, etc. As if everyone is now unfamiliar with the concept. (It seems that half of the men on my street work from home at some point or another, at least. Weird I never see them, though...)

So yes, I can cart Riley over mid-day for a playdate. Am I expected to stay? As a parent, should I be wanting to stay and observe this stranger's environment that my kid will be playing in? What if they have knives? What if Riley comes home with a tattoo? Aren't these things I should be worried about? "It's ok if you just want to drop him off."

I'm telling you, there should be a manual. I've met only a few parents who I would not want to leave my kids alone with, and combined with the number of people I know who are not parents that I absolutely would not leave my kids with, I believe I have a healthy enough fear of leaving my kids with anyone. On the other hand, I've seen parents participate in playdates as if the kid's presence was contingent only upon their ability to dote. I've seen other parents behave as though they were the ones coming over to play. So who knows. Me? I'm happy to leave Riley to play with other parents that seem sane and responsible. Maybe that makes me neglectful in the eyes of the doting won't-leave-my-house playdate parents, but I find that I am not really trying to hard to please random people in the school directory.

Oh. Another problem. What happens when you make all of these plans with this "friend of your kid's" parent, and then you go talk to your kid and his eyes get wide and he says to you, "I don't want to go!" and then runs off and hides in a corner somewhere? Yeah. I guess I should have asked him first. But how do you do that in the middle of a phone conversation? Moreover, what do you say to the parent when you get back to the phone from that discussion? Oh, sorry, Riley doesn't like your kid, so thanks anyway.

And that's not even the case. My opinion, lacking any evidence otherwise, is that Riley is simply reluctant to leave his routine of being at home. He's not really making "best friends" at school because, apart from him being a kind of shy, slow friend-maker, the school actually dissuades them from making "best friends" (yeah, I should write a whole post about this, too). As a result, visits to classmates outside of what's required for school are an expected uphill battle for us.

Well. I personally can't wait for Riley's playdate. I'm going to get all this awkward parenting nonsense ironed out. Awkward human beingness, really. And then I will be formidable. And the kids will learn from my example. Yeah, looking forward to that.

Both Berta and I work during the day. This will not come as a shock to most Americans who have families like ours. We could have chosen a smaller house, a smaller family, a tighter budget, but we like the way we live and it requires two working parents. What is perplexing is how many parents in our area don't understand this and count on the opposite to be true.

Maybe it's a strange assumption on my part to believe that stay-at-home parents are not the norm. I think it's pretty common here where we live. I suppose the natural tendency would be to assume that other parents or families also live the way you live until you find out otherwise, so maybe it's normal to be constantly questioned as to why we can't be involved in various school activities during the work day, as if it's abnormal not to be available.

The main thing that plagues me week-to-week is Girl Scouts. Everyone likes Girl Scouts, especially Abby, and I'm not saying anything against the organization or calling out particular parents or the scout leaders, but it does seem unusual to me that it's assumed that a parent will always be around to pick up the girls right after the traditional workday. On normal days, the bus brings the kids home from school, and they're here at home without me having to leave work. Is there an assumption that there is mobile childcare for fetching Abby from random Girls Scout events that these other people know of that I've been made unaware? The same inconvenience exists for Riley's activities.

The karate class Riley participates in, and practically any extracurricular class we'd be interested in the kids taking, takes place during the work day. I can't think of any way he would be able to take this class if it wasn't for his school being right next to the dojo, and the karate instructors being willing to walk their students over. But for classes like the kids' acting classes that I've seen offered at the local theater company, or art classes that happen at the local art studio... These all happen during the day when it would be inconvenient for anyone who has no stay-at-home to ferry the kids to.

Moreover, I feel a kind of brash inconsiderateness on the part of the stay-at-home parents who participate toward the working parents, like me, that occasionally are able to spend an afternoon helping out with their kid's school class or extracurricular activities. It's hard enough getting the time out to help, and it's something we want to do. Do they think that we're purposefully avoiding our kids with work? Apparently. So when we volunteer, they should use us because often we otherwise can't. By excluding us, they're purposefully eliminating us from being part of our kids' lives, which is nearly criminal.

Let us participate in our kids' growing outside of the home. To me, it seems like a bunch of stay-at-homes that get themselves together using the kids' activities as an excuse. They want to keep their little parent-cliques together, so they wait for all the stay-at-homes who typically volunteer to do so, at the exclusion of the parents who hardly ever are able to help as they would want to.

Even if I was to volunteer more time, and make more allowances for the activities that the kids participate in, I think I still wouldn't be "in" these cliques because I'm not a stay-at-home. And don't get me started on the fact that I'm a dad, and am apparently only good for coaching sports teams - a laughable concept if ever I've heard one.

On days when Riley needs to get up for school, I have a playlist of music that I play to get the kids moving in the morning. The kids say they hate it, because it wakes them up, but I secretly suspect that they enjoy the music that I play at 100% volume out of the sterero connected to my computer.

The selection of music varies. I added music that is good for an energetic morning, but there are all different artists and flavors, as well as different ages of music. There's one Miley Sirus song (Party in the USA), which they enjoy, and I have also included some Perfect Circle (Weak and Powerless), which I like even if they don't.

I've also included some of the soundtrack of Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog (My Eyes), and Muse's Uprising, which Berta likes to hear in the morning. The standard Wlaking on Sunshine is in the list somewhere (haven't heard it on shuffle in a long time) and so is a remix of Boom, Shake the Room, one of the Fresh Prince's (before he was Will Smith again) better tunes, but with an updated sound. I haven't listed a wide variety of music here, but there is quite a bit of diversity for what we can all stand to listen to at this early hour.

I should probably add more classic rock, but in the morning I'm curious about what would get the kids motivated to get to school more than giving a full music education. I hope that when they're older they appreciate the exposure.

I chatted with the kids a bit about the recent horrendous snowfall. They seem mostly concerned about snow getting into their boots.

Here's the recording.