This is an amazing game it really captures the feel of the "Scooby Doo" genre and i will treasure it always.

The Rules are light and easy to learn. You only need 4 six sided dice The GM gets to participate with their own special character (never seen this approach before)

Includes pre generated characters and an introductory adventuere.

perfect kids big and little!

Meddling Kids is a little RPG designed specifically for introducing people to role-playing. The combination of a simple rule system with a very familiar setting makes an excellent formula for that sort of thing. Players take on the roles of teenagers who, along with a 'Wild Card' character, investigate mysterious happenings, find the culprits, and bring them to justice.

The 'Wild Card' character can be most anything from a scaredycat Great Dane to an unfrozen flying caveman to a talking shark or dune buggy or purple ape. The gamemaster controls this character, and can use it as a 'nudge' if the players get stuck for a clue or the story begins to slow down.

The game system is very simple, (3d6 + stat vs. a target number) and encourages creative play. All in all, it's a great little book to use for an introduction to role-playing for most anyone, kids and adults alike. If there has to be a negative, it would be the amount of 'padding' the book seems to have - a chart of every possible target number complete with a sentence or two on the difficulty it represents, for example, takes up both sides of a page. Some of that space could have been better spent on something else, like a list of story seeds, or something as useful.

So what is Meddling Kids? Well it is an introductory RPG for "kids of all ages" but recomended for ages 7 and up. The writing is very clear and concise and frankly one of the better "intro" games I have seen. It is designed as an intro game and is listed as "Stage 1 of the Starter System". I don't know if other stages were produced or not, but the feel here is one of "this is your first game so have some fun, and when you are ready we will have more for you". As with most starter sets there is lot the seasoned (or grizzled in my case) player can ignore, but it was still a very fun, light and fluffy read. The premise is simple. You create a teenage mystery-solver who belongs to a clique of other liked minded teens. Like in the TV show that this is so obviously taken from, different teens of various social standing and family incomes mix together well in a group united by their love of solving a mystery. Or maybe it's the talking dog. Or dune buggy. Or chimp. Or genie. Or...you get the idea. If you grew up in the 70s-80s then you know what I mean.

Character creation is simple. You create a background for your character, then are given points for Stats and Abilities. Pretty simple. Since we are talking about cartoons your Teen is put into an Archetype. So think Jock, Brain, Fluff, Goof and so on. The system is a simple one of Stat plus a roll based on Abilities plus a d6. Compare to a Target Number or resist the roll of something else.

What sets MK apart though is the use of the "Wild Card" character. This is a character, usually an animal, that hangs with the clique and is run by the GM. Not an NPC or even GMPC (though very close). The Wild Card is the one that helps in the adventure/mystery. So yeah, think Scooby Doo, or even Jabber Jaw or Captain Caveman. It is a fairly clever idea really and one of the only games I have read that encourages a GMPC like character.

The book is small, less than 100 pages with pretty clear large fonts, so this is not a hefty tome to learn, it is a simple game that does exactly what it sets out to do and it does it rather well.

It is a great game to teach the little guys how to play using something that both parents and kids will know all about.

Not a bad game for kids, the game probably won't hold much interest for adults. The rules are very, very simple, and a ton of space is set aside for explaining to kids how to play and GM. To be honest, I was hoping for a little bit more robust a system, but as a game for kids, give it a try.