Free Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share by Chris Anderson, Ken Denmead Page B

these classes depending on your children’s interests. Just stick to the game mechanic of granting one additional skill point every third level in an area tagged with two specific types.
Tags
    Tags are ways of organizing ideas. In this game, both Skills and Challenges are tagged with different words that help identify what concepts they apply to, helping sort out what bonuses may figure in determining experience. Ultimately, how Skills and Challenges are tagged is up to you and how you want to run the game. For instance, you may decide that allowing your child to apply his Magic bonus to creating a good science fair project makes sense, but applying his Agility bonus does not.
Skills
    In our game, skills represent not only things your child knows how to do, but may also be permissions he’s been granted or chores he may perform only with special approval. Skills are things such as a regular weekly allowance or how much TV/computer game or play time they are granted each week. Skills can also be how late the child can stay up on school nights, whether he can take an elective course, be on a sports team, or use the lawn mower unsupervised. It’s anything your child can do that you should be monitoring as part of being an involved parent, and anything that can be seen as a reward for meeting goals and expectations.
    Certain skills are “growable,” meaning they can be increased over time. We call this “adding ranks.” For example, when your child is six or seven, getting $1 a week in allowance may be sufficient, so he may choose to take one Skill in Allowance ($1 per week per rank). As he gets older, and financial needs increase (must buy more video games!), he may choose to spend the skill points he gets when leveling up by increasing his rank in Allowance to get them up to $3 per week. The same may work for minutes of television per week, or school night bedtime.
    Other skills may have limited growth yet also allow the earning of more experience points. For example, Yard Work. At rank 1, this means the child is allowed to help an adult with yard work for small amounts of eps. At rank 2, the child is allowed to help with yard work, including supervised use of the lawn mower and hedge trimmer. This will allow him to earn higher amounts of eps for the challenges he faces. At rank 3, the child is allowed to perform yard work completely unsupervised, earning even more eps every time he does the job. Of course, as these skills require a certain level of maturity and care, you can make them harder to attain by increasing the skill points required to buy additional ranks, or set a minimum age for choosing them. Once again: Tailor the system to your children!
Suggested Skills, Point Adjustments (Tags)
1-POINT SKILLS
    Bivouac —+1 to Challenge Rolls for cleaning a room (cleaning, solitary). Rankable.
    Scullery —+1 to Challenge Rolls for doing the dishes (cleaning, solitary). Rankable.
    Animal Handling —+1 to Challenge Rolls for pet care (feeding, scooping, washing, walking). Rankable.
    Athletics —+1 to Challenge Rolls for successes in sporting endeavors (practice, games, outdoor play). Rankable.
    Academics —+1 to Challenge Rolls for successes in educational endeavors (tests, spelling bees, weekly homework, reading goals). Rankable.
    Minstrelsy —+1 to Challenge Rolls for successes in performance (plays, chorus, arts, band/instrument practice). Rankable.
    Salary —+$1 per week in allowance (benefit, monetary). Rankable.
    Curfew —+30 minutes to base bedtime.
    Entertainment —+30 minutes a week to allowed TV, video game, computer game time. Rankable.
    Indoor Tool Use (Specific Tool) —Permission to use a specific indoor tool toward confronting higher-exp challenges (washing machine, iron, vacuum, stove, oven, etc.). Two ranks: 1 point allows supervised use, 2 points allow unsupervised use.
    Outdoor Tool Use (Specific Tool) —Permission to use a specific outdoor tool toward confronting higher-exp challenges (lawn