So one day my daughter finds some of my dice, and wants to play a game with them. Not knowing any non-tRPGs (tabletop roleplaying games) to play with dice, and realising that any tRPGs I have would be way beyond her attention span just to get up and running, I conjured up a simple one-shot where she could play as Elsa.

She wanted to play with dice, so let’s start with that. You will need around half a dozen d6 and 2d20.

Elsa: Elsa rolls a d20 to overcome “Danger”.

Elsa’s central theme is her struggle with fear. Fear seems to release / amplify her powers.

Fear: Elsa has another d20 used as a counter, starting from 1. This is her Fear, and every time her Fear increases or decreases, this die keeps track. Fear can never exceed 19. If Fear would reach 20, Elsa is captured instead and must escape.

Now my daughter initially wanted the game to mirror the events of the movie exactly… but railroading isn’t fun and there’s not much game in that. So there are going to be various dangers she will face. Let’s say, like a pack of wolves chasing her, maybe some men try to kill her with crossbows, she needs to escape a prison, that sort of thing.

Danger: Danger is represented by a bunch of d6. 1d6 = one sentient threat. If a non-sentient threat (like scaling a cliff), pick between 1–6 d6.

So if you’re facing Danger, and it overwhelms you, you’re going to get scared.

Resolution: Elsa overcomes Danger by rolling her d20 against the Danger’s d6s. If Elsa rolls higher, remove all d6 from Danger which rolled lower than the difference, and reduce Fear by 1. If the Danger rolls higher, take the difference and add it to Fear.

Now crucially, Elsa has “ice powers”. In the movie, she casts ice bolts, creates walls of ice, summons ice golems, and crafts an ice castle.

Ice Bolt: Elsa adds her Fear to her roll in Resolution. Wall of Ice: Subtract Elsa’s Fear from the all Danger dice rolls. Ice Golem: Roll 1d6 and add Elsa’s Fear; the golem adds this amount to Elsa’s roll in Resolution, but each time it does, reduce the die by 1. If it would hit 0, the golem dies / melts. Ice Castle: Elsa rolls her d20. If the roll is less than her Fear, she can craft an Ice Castle to live in. Inside the castle, increase all of Elsa’s rolls by 1, and decrease all Danger rolls by 1.

The story of Frozen is actually all about the strongest and most interesting character: Anna. But pfft, why would anyone want to play as her, right? Without Anna, there can be no resolution to the story.

Anna: Anna rolls a d6 to extend empathy and Love to Elsa. Anna can’t be introduced until after Elsa has an Ice Castle.

Only by letting go of fear and accepting her sister’s love can Elsa achieve happiness and become a positive influence on the world (though curiously, while the theme song sings about “letting it go”, it’s clear she isn’t actually letting go of fear, but rather embracing that fear by running away from everyone and seeking a life without consequences… but I digress).

Love: Elsa rolls her d20, and adds Anna’s d6 roll. If this is >= Fear, subtract the difference from Fear. If not, add 1 Fear and Anna must leave for a while. If Fear would be reduced below 1 by Love, the sister’s reunite and the game ends.

So that’s it. There’s no ongoing progression, and I didn’t develop mechanics for the whole “ice in the head vs heart” and “act of true love” stuff because those are all about Anna, and her courage and actions.

To run this, you’ll be the GM, and your daughter will be Elsa. You frame the opening scene as Elsa beginning her climb up the mountain. Throw Danger at her, and ask her what she wants to do. You may have to remind her of what she can do often. Narrate the results of her rolls, and maybe let her dip her toes in the waters of roleplaying by letting her narrate her successes and what she is doing between Dangers. Just go with the flow as she makes her way up the mountain, gaining enough Fear to build her Ice Castle. Once she’s got her castle, introduce Anna with her Love. Depending on how that goes, throw more Danger at her, maybe she gets captured, so now she has to escape that Danger, add more of Anna’s Love, and so on.

I came up with this one-shot in about 15 minutes while I bought myself some time to think by making my daughter lunch. Surprisingly, she actually grasped the mechanics really easily. In fact, as soon as she realised that Fear made her more powerful, she attempted to go outside the system to just declare that she was “super scared”. It took longer to explain to her why we play by the rules in games than it took for her to understand what the rules were and how they interacted.

So I thought I’d throw this out there for any parents who love tRPGs, and would like to introduce their young daughters to the genre. If anyone has any suggestions to make the game more fun for kids, I’d love to hear them!