Brawl should work. With the 5 year old playing, you'd probably have to take turns, instead of do it real time. It's collectable decks instead of building decks.

There's also a knizia game with CCG like play that comes with pre-built decks that I forget the name of, but that you'll find quickly on BGG probably. I don't know about it's suitability for children.

Most of the classics: crazy eights, spoons, and old maid can be picked up by a five year old.

As for board games, Parcheesi and it's variants (Sorry, Aggravation, Trouble) also have simple enough rules for a five year old. Chinese checkers will probably also work.

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There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic

4-5 years ago, but I don't know how much it's changed.

Back then it was a lobotomized version of MTG, but it was interesting enough that a couple of guys at work bought decks to mess around with.


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Faith, and the possibility of weaponized kissing?

Dead serious here. Help the kid along early on and soon he'll tell you to stop letting him win. I started learning when I was five (in school during recess, actually). Started beating my father when I was about 8.

i used to play a game called Spellfire (TSR's answer to M:TG).

i have never played any of the new CCGs, particularly the ones aimed at kids and those really migh be ideal for you.

but i mention it because i was about sixteen at the time that Spellfire came out and i played it with my two little sisters (aged ten and eleven then) with absolutely no problems. the rules are a lot less complex than Magic.

of course, the biggest problem with spellfire as a recommendation is that it is out of print. though that might be an advantage in it's own way.

for example, right here you could buy all the card you would need for a full three player game for $2.95.

and the rules are available online for free here
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_{I don't think anyone's ever really died from smoking. --ni}

alas, i don't know any collectible card games.

if you need any suggestions for other kinds of games, i'm at your service.
i used to work as a camp counselor, a sunday school teacher, a babysitter, and then a gardener in a public park so i have a ton of games and actiities tucked up my sleeves for indoors, outdoors, with equipment or not, loud, quite, one age group, all ages, adult participation, big or small groups.

sorry i'm not more help!
as far as regular card games, we used to play "black and red" and variants of "spoons" with all ages of my family.
black and red is for the littlest ones, and requires patience and tollerance from those over 5. it's more of a game you let the littles in on for a hand or two when they're bugging the larger kids or adults during card time.
you deal out a small hand to each player (depending on size of child's hands) and it has to be an odd number of cards. then you make a pile of the remaining cards. the top card is turned over . if it is red, then the player must play a black card on top of it. if it is black then the player must play a red card on top. you go around the circle and if someone can't go they must draw a card. play continues untill someone has goten to play the last card in thier hand. they win. depending on the group, you might continue and give 2nd, 3rd, etc. and let whoever came in dead last deal.
this game is great because it can be used to teach little little ones all basic card skills, like shuffling, sorting your hand, dealing, not bending pr eating playing cards and all that. you can invent more and more rules for it as the kids improve, adding card numbers, suits, passing, or any card game rule you want to teach.

spoons (also called "pigs" in my family)
the first variant i learned is to have in the centre a bunch of spoons, one less than the number of cardplayers. one person deals 3 cards to everyone and holds the rest. the goal is three of a kind. the dealer passes their least desireable card to the left, and takes a new one. each person in turn passes one as they take the discard of the person to the right. once someone gets 3 of kind, they grab a spoon. once one person has grabbed a spoon then everyone else rushes to also grab a spoon and not be left out. the person with 3 of a kind shows, and whoever is the odd one out looses that hand and gets an "S"
if a false spoon grab is made, and noone has 3 of a kind everyone except the one left spoonless gets a letter. you continue untill someone has spelled out spoon, they loose, everyone else wins.
the prime strategy is to be subtle in your spoon grab, and keep passing on cards.
this game was the favourite untill someone at camp got an unfortunately sharp and slightly bent spoon through thier palm druing an especially intense game.
"pigs" is played the same way, but without items to grab. this is the way my family plays. the first with 3 of a kind puts thier finger to their nose and turns up the end like a pig. last to catch on gets "P" and whoever spells pig first looses.
because i have an unreasonably cruel and competitive family, we always played after big meals at the table after it was cleared. the "pig" always had to leave the table, go out to the front porch and yell "i'm a pig, i'm a pig, i'm a big fat pig" then they had to wash the dishes and whoever else had the most letters had to dry. sometimes we had to play several games, disputes of who had "PI" first, or how to determine the looser runner up was common.
this taught card sharking, subtle nose thumbing, slight of hand, distraction and other mans of cheating, and reinforced the true meaning of family togetherness being public humilliation.
exactaly what every family needs!

Information found here. Not only is it a CCG with pirates, but it's a constructible CCG with pirates that uses wargaming miniatures type rules.

I used to hang out with a guy that was into it, and they were great. Very easy to learn, and it's a lot more fun for kids than reading a bunch of cards, I imagine.

but it only really held my interest for very long because I wanted to nail the harpies. It also becomes very quickly one-sided if one person develops a solid strategy. I won 19/20 games. Got boring.

If you only want two players, Lost Cities is a great little cardgame.

For multiplayer have you tried the Harry Potter CCG (if they still make it)?

but I used to be supervised by the man who developed the formalism. Is that any help?

It has nothing to do with CCG, but it's still fun for all ages.
- - - - -
That's what I always say about you, boz, you have a good memory for random facts about pussy. -- joh3n

You just have to tone the game down. No enchantments, no interrupts (or instants), no artifacts, no creatures with anything by flying, first strike, trample, maybe protection from colors.

Pokemon is terrible. Yu-Gi-Oh is nearly as bad.

Yeah, I'd stick to magic. You need to have patience. It'll take work to teach them, but it'll help them out later on. Chicks who play CCGs go on to be hostesses on a little site I like to call Suicide Girls.

Honestly, though, I could give you the decklists I used back then. Did you play Portal? Portal was a good starter set.

Set up a few theme decks. Girls like the angel/unicorn decks (not to be sexist - I did too) and my gryphon deck was always a hit.

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"I'm very responsive to certain stimuli, and pain is pretty much at the top of that list." - BadDoggie

5, 10 and 40 years old are very far apart, and I doubt there is an off the shelf game which would fit.

The solution is to make up your own rules. But not you - hand the kids some cards and encourage them to come up with their own game. Inventing games is the core competence of all children.

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<ni> komet: You are functionally illiterate as regards trashy erotica.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/10Kg-of-CCG-Cards-Deadlands-Blood-Wars-Star-Trek_W0QQitemZ200034339540QQihZ010QQcategoryZ60242QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

10 kilos of cards is probably going to have at least one decent game in it:P  postage to the US might be a bit much though.

rummy (7 hand), fish/pairs, spit/speed were all happily played by me in that time period.

Also, scrabble. No, really. Though bridge was, er, a bridge too far.

deck making is pretty fun and pretty varied. we had fun with it in college after all....

NOT, btw, Legend of the Five Rings if you've ever heard of it. That is one complicated CCG.

Rachael

"There will be time, there will be time / To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet." -- Eliot

Not sure if WotC has killed that game yet, but it's supposedly their answer to Yugi-Oh and their loss of the Pokemon license.

But others have suggested MtG without the complex cards and I agree that's likely the best way to go.  A ten year old is on the crux of being able to play with the complex cards once they get the grasp of the game, and a younger child with basic counting skills would be well suited to an all creature deck.

WotC used to sell a MtG variant called Portal.  It was their idea of the first hit for getting people addicted to the cardboard crack before Pokemon and the other child oriented games came out.  Once your kids grasped the all creature deck style I'd likely look at the way Portal handled instants and sorceries and bring that into their game.

Millennium Games is likely the "premier" WotC store in your area, sometime in the next few months WotC will be announcing their annual Junior Super Series events for kids 15 and under.  One or two should be run there I believe.  Each event offers $1000 in scholarships so a fairly competitive group shows up, but there are age based prizes so fairly young children also show up.  I've seen a fair amount of ten year olds at the JSS events in my area.  It might be an opportunity to find other children the same age who play the game rather than the slightly older teens at most events.

My five year old loves playing Clue with the family.  Getting to move the pieces and play with the murder weapons.  She does require either me or my wife to update her card and feed her information.  But she does enjoy it.

If you have a PS2 around the house, get Culdcept. Half way between MTG and Monopoly...

_{Have you seen The Passion yet? Here's a spoiler for you: Jesus dies.
"...compassion is more than a 16 point word in scrabble." - MostlyHarmless}