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• Age target
• Setting
• Your character
• Mechanics
• Overall
• What did my kid think
• Find a copy!

Age target: all ages (requires reading and counting to about 20)

Michtim Fluffy Adventures is both a unique game system and an awesome setting with lots of lore.  For the system, the mechanics are pretty easy to pick up and the character sheet is well organized (with good notes for action options and pictures) to help make playing intuitive and easier to track. Players do need to be able to navigate a character sheet and track some numbers, but if they can read or do addition up to around 20, they should be OK. 

For the setting, it is definitely kid-friendly!  It’s very cute (who doesn’t like adorable hamster-like beings?) and promotes themes of community, teamwork, and finding your personal path.  There’s combat, but it’s also tempered a bit – in the premade story at the end, it specifies non-lethal means to be used as solutions to certain problems, and you knock characters out to be faced with an extra challenge versus being permanently removed.  

Setting:

The world building for Michtim was very cool – there’s lore fluidly integrated into the mechanics and character creation to really tie your character to the feel of this very cute but exciting world.  There’s details of the Michtim’s culture and social structure, different houses to join, info about the Michtims themselves, lore built into the different callings, and so much more to help fill the setting in without having to actually run an adventure first.

It’s also very wholesome and co-operation driven – there’s different houses in the lore, but they also all work together as a community when threatened by the humans… who are doing human things. 

Your character:  

In Michtim, you play as a cute but capable Michtim!  Michtims are hamster-like beings who are trying to keep their home safe and just kind of live in their world despite the humans who are living around them.

When it comes to character creation, there’s another very cool way to slowly build your character to get used to the mechanics overtime.  You start out as a Fauschule Kid, which is a Michtim with a name and their emotion dice.  Then you progress to an Apprentice (gaining your calling), then a hero (gaining a haus and gear), then a veteran (gaining extra callings and ultimates).  

The stepped character creation means that you start out with a pretty simple character so you can learn those specific aspects AND experiment a bit with what type of character you want to play as before you actually pick most of your long-term character elements.  For playing with kids, this is particularly great so you aren’t overwhelming players with a ton of character options off the bat – it starts out with you learning a few small pieces and then building on it as you grow!

I also really liked Michtim’s character sheet – it’s got pictures, notes, and color coding to help with tracking, and it’s formatted in a way that everything is spaced out to help with focusing one area at a time.

Mechanics:

Emotional stats and rolls

Michtim uses emotions as it’s way of assigning stats, giving it a unique focus on the character that I haven’t seen in too many games.  Most other games I’ve played have been concerned with the what or the broad “who”, but this helped to kind of push things towards the “who” of the moment and encouraged RP by putting emotions at the forefront.

Your emotions (joy, love, grief, fear, and anger) are used for actions like healing, attacking, and moving and determine how many dice you can roll each time you make a check.  

When you roll a 6, you gain a bonus to your emotion rolls (or it can be sold for getting extra dice).  When you take damage, you put penalties on your emotion rolls.  Everything focuses back to your emotion stats instead of being a single health pool.

Finding your calling(s)

Michtim has callings that you can pick for your character once they become an Apprentice.  Callings are kind of like character professions or classes, and they allow you to develop your character, adding talents, utility feats, some lore, and options for different paths.  

There’s a ton of options to choose from, and the combined lore, stats, and art for each one fit on 2 formatted pages per calling, so it’s great for referencing back and finding things quickly.  You can choose from callings like an adventurer or bard all the way to a cybertooth or frostpaw.

I liked how once your character becomes a veteran, you also get to choose an additional calling – you aren’t locked into one profession, you can add more as you gain more experience and keep developing your character. When you do this, there’s some callings that, when combined, offer some cool interactions, and the game points that out so you can enjoy playing those combos and don’t have to worry about parsing out the mechanics interactions.

What did my kid think?

Kiddo thought this was adorable!!  He loved the art, and he loved the lore – I answered a lot of questions about the little Michtim town that we were playing in because he was just so interested in everything about them.  We played the pre-made adventure at the end of the module, which involved visiting a pet store and dealing with some silly humans.  It was a pretty big hit!

For the mechanics, we played with the Fauschule Kid tier just to keep things at a good level for a ~4yo, and he handled it really well.  It was clear to explain, and, I think largely because of the color-coded pictures on the character sheet, he was able to do most of the rolls by himself.  Anytime kiddo can handle mechanics on his own, he has a way better time, and I think that goes for most anyone.  Having the tiered mechanics is GREAT for that so mechanics won’t be intimidating or a barrier to anyone starting to play.  It’s easy to add more in later, and kiddo wasn’t overwhelmed in the beginning.

Overall:

Michtim has fun, character focused, mechanics, well integrated lore, and an intuitive system that my kid was able to connect with and that I had fun running.  It’s a solid system that’s wrapped in an adorable setting, and it is a great game for getting some fuzzy Hamtaro-like vibes, starting out someone on a TTRPG for the first time, or just having fun with a smooth game.  I had fun with it, and I hope you do too!

Where to find a copy:

Michtim can be found on DriveThruRPG or itchio!  Go check it out!

Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions or decide to try out this game because of this post!