How Epic Brick Adventures Started: The Quest to Keep Kids' Imaginations Alive

Back in 2018, I had a problem. I really wanted to introduce my kids to table top role-playing games, but most games at that time focused on violence as a method of solving problems, and at best, they contained a lot of moral grey area in the adventures. Plus, I knew my kids would become very attached to their characters, and the thought of them dying would be devastating.

After searching for a suitable game, I began to look at what they already loved and decided to build something around it. They loved Lego® Bricks. My eldest child especially would spend endless hours creating creatures and scenes, and filming long stop-motion movie episodes. We made games out of Lego® bricks and anything else we could think of. We had tons of bricks at our disposal since I was currently running Lego® brick building classes and workshops for kids in my own brick studio.

Since they were already spending hours creating worlds, characters, and stories, I thought, "Why not combine that with a TTRPG?" The beauty of the brick universe is that nothing is permanent, everything is flexible, even death. Your character gets knocked to pieces? No problem. You rebuild them and keep going.
I started simple: just some basic rules, some dice, and a whole lot of imagination. My kids loved it. So I tried the game with a group of adult friends and got a very similar reaction!

The game slowly evolved from using dice to using cards, and eventually to a system where everything was brick-based, even the method for figuring out random numbers and determining who did what. The dice and cards were replaced with the Bag of Bricks.

And then I started thinking: what if other families wanted to play this too? That's when it got interesting.

I realized there were millions of kids and adults out there who had the same relationship with building bricks that my family did. They understood that creativity, adventure, and fun didn't require complicated mechanics or dark storylines. They just needed a system to play, some simple rules to guide them, and a bag of bricks.

Through the pandemic, I began refining the rules and writing them up. Before long, I'd drafted over 200 pages of rules. My clever wife pointed out that nobody is going to read 200 pages of rules just to start playing a game based on plastic bricks. So I edited it down to a 50-page introductory rulebook and came up with the name Epic Brick Adventures. By 2020, Epic Brick Adventures was officially launched through Tinker Troll Games, my newly created game design company. It wasn't just a game I'd created for my kids anymore, it was something that could bring families and friends together in the Brick Realms.

Looking back, I'm proud of what we've built (pun absolutely intended). This game came from a genuine place: a parent wanting to create something magical for his kids. The fact that it's resonated with so many others tells me that maybe I wasn't the only one looking for a TTRPG where imagination matters more than min-maxing characters, and where getting knocked to pieces is just part of the adventure.

2026 is shaping up to be a huge year for Epic Brick Adventures as we prepare for our Kickstarter launch of the new Core Rules. We've gathered a team of people from nine different countries who have contributed to the creation process or will be helping bring the game to the world. If you've been watching and waiting from the sidelines, thank you for your patience. If you're hearing about us for the very first time, grab some bricks and get building!

Sincerely,
Richard Hoedl