Well, I just received and read SORCERER AND SWORD, and I've got to say it arrived with perfect timing! I'm a teacher in a primary school and run a roleplaying club for 10-11 year olds. And this term I wanted to try something new and ambitious. No-more elaborate campaigns and clever scenarios, no more pre-generated characters! On my mind was octaNe's resolution mechanic, and EVERWAY's character generation system. I'd ordered S&S on a whim because I thought I might want to try pulp fantasy with the kids. When I read S&S I couldn't believe my luck. It was absolutely chock full of advice on giving your players lots of collaborative opportunities. This was great, because I'd decided to try and maximise my player's creative input more than in any game I'd run in 20 years of gaming. Let me explain why the advice in S&S was so timely:
With this group I'm going to let them build the lot (and keep my fingers crossed at the same time!). In this order, they (or we) are going to:
1) Create the Fantasy Setting
2) Create the Villain and his cohorts
3) Create the bones of plot that will be rooted in the Setting
4) Create characters for THAT plot
5) Run the game semi-conventionally with me as GM, but using Jared Sorensen's dice mechanic from octaNe where by results are not success/fail; but player describes/GM describes.
With the first session of world building over I'm impressed! I gave them a big list of keywords and made them select 5 from that list. Then they just wove these words together. I'm very impressed - they're only 10-11. The bare bones of their fantasy world is down, they even identified a role and a historical origin for the villiain and next week we'll add more colour, use EVERYWAY cards to put pictures to setting elements, and give names to places and people. I've never been so excited at the prospect of gaming with children - and I've got the least input!
I gave them two sheets of keywords, and they chose the 5. I read the following out to them: 'What is the setting of this story like? Is it full of rich cities and greedy merchants? Perhaps it is torn by war, armies marching across the land, towns are burnt, people flee for their lives. Maybe it is a little kingdom surrounded by terrifying wild lands. Or it may be a vast empire, like Rome, with millions of people all ruled by one great city. Perhaps there are mammoths, or dinosaurs, or dragons. There may be dark and scary forests just like the fairy tales, or dry deserts home to genii and camels. Are there mountains? Who lives there? Is there a big river? Where does it go? Are there cities? Who lives there? Who is in charge? Lots of kings or nobles, or just one emperor? What happened in the past? How did the world you are creating come to be?'
'Look at the KEYWORDS sheets. Pick out 5 words that might reflect what your setting is about. A setting is not just a place but also a mood and a feeling. Transylvania is a dark and gloomy place. Hogworts is full of mystery and magic. The Roman Empire is strict and efficient. Discuss and decide.'
'THE KEYWORDS
DESERTS, STARVING, LOST CITIES, INVASION,
DARK FORESTS, SCARY, ARABIAN, SAILING SHIPS, MOUNTAINS, FAIRY TALES, EXOTIC, ROMAN EMPIRE, BARBARIANS, DINOSAURS, WILD, ANCIENT CURSE, END OF THE WORLD! CHARIOTS, SILK, GREAT CITIES, EGYPTIAN, KNIGHTS, SORCERERS, MIDDLE AGES'
'Draw a MAP. Write all your ideas on one BIG SHEET.'
My five 10 year old players chose: Dark Forests, Barbarians, Knights, End of the World and Lost Cities. Someone mentioned Rome, too, so that might colour some of the later detailing. Thet created a hint of a map, with barbarians in the magical Dark Forest, bound in by a ditch, bank and palisaded wall built by the knights and king outside. A few villages live on the thinner edges of the forest and take firewood and timber to the villages and city. Some of the trees come alive, and kidnap villagers in revenge for their 'brothers and sisters' being cut down. Oh, and the barbarians all look identical, and can control some of the woodland animals, like bears.
The villain is plotting the End of the World. 1,000 years ago he lived in the Lost City, and the knights and king attacked and destroyed it. He survives and wants revenge. His followers include the barbarians.
I was impressed by that. The only cajoling I gave them was the info on Rome in Germany, the destruction of Varus' legions and the ditch/palisade frontier put in place thereafter. They picked that up and used it. A bright bunch. I'm sure this is going to go somewhere cool...
As I said, I'm looking forward to this. Sorcerer and Sword put into words ideas I wanted to do, defining them and giving me a working blueprint. Fantastic (and I don't even own a copy of SORCERER - shouldn't have said that. should I!)
[BTW, some parts of this I previously posted to RPG.NET...]
I run an after-school program and have been trying to get some of the kids in my program to game more. I am going to use this method. It is awesome.
Thanks and keep us up to date on how the world-building goes.
Quote from: PakaI run an after-school program
Hi Paka, I found that my other previous games were received differently. One group of 11 year olds I had were incredibly mature and sophisticated - fantastic players and a joy to game with. My other group from the same class riduculed and lampooned the very same games, and reduced everything to giggles and jokes. In desperation I turned up to this last group and got them to create a SETTING, VILLAIN and (SUPER) HEROES on the spot and then improvised a game. The success of that (they had created it all - and didn't want to tear it down nearly so much!!!) inspired me to do the same writ large.
Another inspiration was EA Games' Harry POtter and the Chamber of SEcret's computer game. My wife has just finished playing this, and to be honest, if I were 11 I would prefer to play that than the 'Harry Potter RPG'. It made me question RPGs and my approach to them, espcially in regard to movies and especially CRPGs.
I thought: what can't you do in a CRPG? Create the world? Create the character? Create the plot!! Create the villain? 'Moving your characer around as an avatar' doesn't seem like so much of a cool idea when you can already do that with most computer games. I figure the RPG has to offer either a f**king cool setting, or so way cool player participation - creation.
Paul,
Damnation, man, document each and every step of these projects and activities. This work is suitable for serious publication.
Best,
Ron
Just to interject some Paul Elliot-related coolness...
Check out TOTEM.
http://www.geocities.com/zozergames/totem1.html
Take note of the craft projects (click the Appendix link on the main page) -- really cool game-related artifacts that can be used in-play!
Thanks for the link, there Jared. In play I have noticed that the combat mechanic is a bit inelegant, something easily smoothed out, though.
Collaborative roleplaying is new (in practice) to me, but I guess here on the Forge its something that you've been doing for a long long time. Sorcer, octaNe, Donjon and others all incorporate that shared authorship theme, don't they.
Taken to its logical extreme there is no GM - and I read an eye-opening article at www.collaborativeroleplay.org which proposes a player only shared game experience. I considered doing this with the children, but since the entire hobby is new to them they need a strong guide. So I took as much as I could from that concept, but retained the strong role of GM, mellowing it slightly with shared authorship in-play.
Does anyone know who started breaking down the walls of gaming like this? Was it the famous, but rarely seen Theatrix?
Wow. Could I go back in time and have you be my teacher?
Hi Paul,
Couple things ... Sorcerer really doesn't belong in the shared-narration category. The rules are absolutely silent on who gets to narrate. It's big on shared authorship, though, via the Kickers, the rules for defining and Binding demons, and the necessity for a shared value-system at the table for purposes of Humanity rolls.
I think distinguishing between story-generating authorship and narration-distribution is a very important issue.
In terms of the former, I think that this mode of play has been around as long as role-playing itself. Game designs favoring shared authorship to some extent go back as far as early TFT, early Champions, and others; game designs centered on it probably start with Prince Valiant (1989).
In terms of the latter, narration-distribution ... h'm. In play, again, I think that people have traded narration informally around the table for a long time, but in terms of text, that the habit was discouraged by most games published after 1990 or so. My claim is that The Pool, InSpectres, and Elfs are the games that broke this mold, but I wouldn't be surprised to find some earlier exceptions.
And that takes us to Theatrix. Which is it? To some extent, it permits players to create stuff "into play," which in Forge terms is Director stance + a bit of author power. However, oddly, Theatrix comes down solidly into the GM-says-so side of things when we talk about resolving conflicts, which sounds extremely illusionist to me and not at all oriented toward player-authoring power.
Best,
Ron
The second session has proven just as successful as the first. Everyone brought back something they'd been working on, and it all proved to be very valuable, altering the group's perceptions of the setting and taking the world in new directions. The contributions were:
1 - A portrait of the villain – Red Eye Scorpion, with some notes that he is a disembodied head in a tank. Also that he has psychic powers which reach out to control his minions (including the barbarians). Cool. His age was noted in bold: 1031 years old!
2 – A brief write-up of our Dark Forest. In it the player described how the trees come alive at night, and that they are guarding an artifact that they stole from the king.
3 – The third contribution was a detailed pencil sketch of a view into the lost city.
4 – The fourth contribution was a list of keywords describing the barbarians and their typical equipment.
On face value the contributions didn't seem to add a great deal, I think I was expecting longer write-ups (and probably expecting too much!). But, all of the contributions raised questions that needed answers. What was this artifact? A gem? The villain wanted it (someone said). Why? Because he wants to restore the Lost City with it, someone else added. I suggested it was part the city's crown that he had in his possession. If the trees stole the gem from the King of the land, why did they now have it? Because the trees want it for themselves (came the answer). Looking at the sketch of the Lost City, I noted that the player had added some spear-weilding walking trees as guardians. Last session we had agreed the Lost City lay far far away. Here the pupil had set it in the Dark Forest. I suggested this be the case. Then one of the players declared: 'the trees used to be people. That's why they want the gem.' Fantastic! I suggested that they were the inhabitants of the Lost City – turned into trees whewn it was destroyed. Now they form the Dark Forest that hides it. I knew this would shape up nicely. The creation of the setting might have been aphazard, confused, linear – but it has been sophisticated, cogent and bursting with potential, plotlines left dangling. Superb!
I told the group that the setting was detailed enough and that we should wrap up the process ready for hero creation next week. All we needed was names. A couple of the boys ran down to the library and returned with a couple of atlases, I'd told they that an atlas was a great starting point for the creation of new names. Quickly, and without fuss they flicked hrough the atlases and began throwing names at me, most with minor changes or accidental mispronunciations. I just wrote them all down. When we had twenty or so good sounding names, we looked over our sketch map for locations and went about choosing a name from the list. We got the River Chantan, the Hedge of Messa, Gotland Mountains, Panava Sea, the Graz barbarians, King Basor of the realm called Mortarania, King Santan (Red Eye Scorpion's ancient title), the Lost City of Mindara, the Dark Forest of Andaman and the Royal City of Rosherdamm. All the spare names I kept for other locations I would invent when I created the plot for the game.
The children pestered me foe information on the heroes they would be playing, and I told them that they would be selecting character images from the Everway art cards they'd just been looking at. Most had already noticed one or two realkly nice characters and voiced the opinion that they wanted 'this' or 'that' character. On the spur of the moment I handed out those cards and asked them to bring them back next week with a 50 word write up of that character. I quickly improvised such a write-up verbally to give them a rough idea of what I wanted from them. I think they got the idea. I'm hoping to do a Hero Wars or The Pool-style 'dilute stats from description' trick!
Afterwards I thought - hell! I didn't want to do characters next week! I planned to create the villain, and the week after a tetative plot and the week after that the characters. But in hindsight it didn't really matter. The group had already given me the villain, and by creating this big epic plot about the crystal, the living trees and lost city I think I had my plot. Why drag things out when everyone is itching to play?
Next week then, we discuss characters, create a gameplan for getting them bound together as comrades-in-arms and I will afterwards go away and write the initial plot concept based on their write-ups.
Unfortunately I still haven't quite settled on a game system that will serve. I need something with minimal rolling of dice and a heavy narrativist slant. Some re-write of octaNe looks likely, or a quick-roll homebrew effort. I've got a week ...
Please, sir, could we have some more?
The third session has proven as productive as the rest. This was character creation. One of the five players couldn't make it today, but the four that could brought keywords or rough drafts of their character write-ups to me. I asked them to leave out physical descriptions (we had the EVERWAY art cards to work from after all), but to concentrate on what their hero had been doing, what they do now, and what special abilities they had. Maybe I've gotten really lucky, but they responded very well and were quite eager to write six or seven lines of text about their character. And it was all stuff that I could review, and pull out good, solid skills from.
One of the art cards, for example, depicted a tiger-warrior with a sword and clad in armour. The player who'd chosen this decided that this was Tigona, Lord of Beasts who once lived in the Dark Forest of Andaman, but had been thrown out. His description is as follows:
"Solid bronze sword and armour, comes from the Forest of Andaman because the barbarians turned the animals of the forest against him. Good jumper, can see in the dark as good as at day, can smell things from 50m away. A good swordsman and good puncher".
From this write-up I looked for skills (about 5 or 6) that I could pass back to the player. I came up with:
Forest Skills, Jumping, Dark See, Sense of Smell, Swordsman and Unarmed Combat. Each player was then given 10 points to divide up amongst his skills. Tigona's skills ended up as: Forest Skills 2, Jumping 1, Dark See 1, Sense of Smell 1, Swordsman 3 and Unarmed Combat 2.
Finally we looked at the art-card once again, tried to identify and weapons or equipment the character might be carrying, then think of anything else they might reasonably be expected to carry. No-one wanted to overload their characters with a ton of superfluous gear - thank heaven!
Our four characters, then, are:
Tigona - Lord of Beasts, exiled from the Forest of Andaman by the evil Graz tribesmen
Tyana - Graz barbarian female, but a thief who tried to steal the crystal, and was exiled by the Graz
Robyn - Horsewoman from the East who is a 'horse-whisperer' and skilled rider, show-jumper and trainer.
Barbados - Shark hunter and fisherman from an island far to the south with a magic harpoon.
My fifth player selected an art-card with a barbarian on it, and I'm pretty sure he too will be an exiled Graz barbarian. That's OK by me!
My next problem is coming up with a plot. My instinct is to whip out an old copy of White Dwarf magazine and use a couple of 'easy-conversion' scenarios set in the Dark Wood. But deep down, my instincts tell me to keep up the creative kick, and begin the session with minimal prep, just a handful of key scenario concepts and an intro from which the players can take their cue. If I can stay on my toes and improvise away, I can try to keep up the creative momentum, and hopefully hand them the game their way. The difficulty lies in trying to establish exactly what these key scenario concepts might be. Obviously I want to produce a series of linked encounters drawing the heroes to the crystal that is lodged within a secret tree in the heart of the wood - a search that is also a race against Red Scorpion. I need to begin that race, but not present them with the goal too early. Then again, perhaps all of the real interesting stuff happens after the gem is discovered? Wasn't Lord of the Rings more interesting than The Hobbit?
I've sorted out my rules-set too, by writing a nifty and rules-lite narrative system somewhat inspired by octaNe (with due deference given to Jared ...). More at the weekend following my first play session ...
Fantastic stuff--when you mentioned a Sorcerer product and 10-11 year old children in the same sentence, I thought, "Bridlington will never be the same again," and resolved to wait for the airmail letter from my Aunt Ros explaining that Something Terrible rose out of the ocean off Flamborough Head and that's why Grandma isn't around any more.
But obviously, I've much to learn from those youngsters--they created better stuff than I usually do. Kudos on your approach.
Dave
I'm really impressed with this as a pedagogical tool as well as a gaming thing. You're teaching these kids not only to create, but to create coherently and responsibly, and in the process inherently guiding them a bit in things like human nature and a bit of history (the palisades thing caught my eye). Couple of questions, for whoever's out there:
Could this be used, do you think, with slightly older students perhaps, as a way to get them into a bit of historical research? I mean, suppose this group kept working on the same world, and you nudged them toward more and more history of Rome and Germania. Or would that just stop being fun for them? I always found roleplaying exercises in school quite nauseating and patronizing, but this is far cooler than anything anyone ever did with me.
Might it be useful, over time, to cycle the GM role around? This might potentially also teach something about social roles and cooperation, again rather less horribly than the usual "let's all cooperate and clean up, children" sort of trash.
Oh --- and I'm with Ron. When (sad to say) this club folds or the campaign ends or whatever, I really hope you'll try to write up your experiences as a detailed article for the Forge. With limited exceptions, I think there is very little here about gaming with children, and it's important for a lot of reasons.
Amazing. When I was in school we got ridiculed and accused of Satanism for playing D&D. If a teacher had tried to start a project involving role playing (especially using a Sorcerer book as a source, although I notice you steered clear of the Demon angle, good thinking), they would have been blackballed out of town.
I'm glad to see things have changed! Can I be a kid again??
I appreciate the responses! Unfortunately the opening promise of the club has not been fulfilled. Fantastic creative juices were unleashed. But then we began to play.
My system of choice was an 'octaNe-style' game, where the die type you use (d6, d8 or d10) depends on the level of description you include. This didn't translate well. These kids had never roleplayed before. I wanted to give them something 'above' the usual CRPG standard, an epitome of creation, imagination and freedom.And I crashed and burned!! No-one played up to the descriptive angle. The two girls clammed up and I was afraid one would drop out completely. In one session she did not say one woRd to me or anyone else... scary. I think my 'gentle' pressure of descriptive input scared the shit out of the girls. And the boys just wanted to kill stuff. Anything. Just use those swords. It was like playing D&D with ... errrm ... 10 year olds .... (!!??!!).
Last couple of weeks I tried recruiting more players - only guys came forward. Today I ran 5 boys and 2 girls, and it was a 10-year old testosterone-fuelled kill-fest. My ultimate nightmare. Death, maim, kill, slaughter. It's all they wanted to do. Luckily one of the lads and the girls sneaked off to actually DO something, but the guys just wanted to fight - and didn't care if they were hurt because of it. Just seemed to be a 'who's harder competition'. Shit.
After half-term holiday I told them I'm back to 2 girls, 4 boys and NO VIOLENCE. Christ knows what I'll do. The girls looked overjoyed but the boys didn't seem keen. But that's it. I'm running the game in a school and am not pandering to their violent instincts.
Any ideas??? One thing I tried before was children in an escape pod who have crashed onto an alien world and who must co-operate to survive. Might use that ...
Depressed!!!!!!!!
Cosmic Ark.
Kind-hearted aliens land on the earth and try to collect specimens to preserve before the humans kill the animals off.
Creative, non-violent solutions. Animals. Allows each kid a special alien power that can be used X times per game.
- J
I dunno Jared, referee's rights and all, could YOU GM that kind of squeaky-clean scenario?? I like to add a bit of depth, but not so much I'm going to get into trouble for it!
So, for example, I don't mind characters dying.
I began a game at another school without resolving it - kids shipped out in a 2300AD style universe to their parent's colony world. But they end up crash landed on some seemingly unihabited wilderness world. Where are they? Is it the colony world? Why did they crash?
And some people are after them. Why? And there are hostile aliens trying to eat them.
I might just try this. Cast them as children, take away weapons and any violent resolution - see what happens.
Then again, something I forgot to mention as I gave an account of the game-play. As it began to spiral out of control, I thought - "why did I commit myself ...". I could feel the tension rising, the girls's hackles were up as the boys got more and more wound up and stupid, they tried to tell other players what to do, wouldn't shut up when I asked them, said stupid things at inappropriate times...
I thought - screw this if I'm running it next week. Something else maybe - knock them sideways, make em laugh or scare them, but not this ... I think I felt the need to switch from one thing to another, it seems like a very useful strategy. Don't create huge multi-scenario campaigns - go for smaller games that can be ditched at will, or extended if they work. Rather than commit time and energy into a huge resource backed game. For example, I'd love to do a Basic D&D Lord of the Rings or Hobbit game. But that investment, I now feel, would be wrecked by hack n' slah gaming by 10 year olds who want to kill, kill, kill, kill.
BTW - ditching players is NOT an option. This is a school club, and its FOR the children, not for my own enjoyment. I should think about that. I'm not giving them an alternative 'avatar'-type experience away from computer games. I'm giving them a socially co-operative experience. Think, improvise, co-operate.
I've got a week's holiday to think about this. Pray for divine inspiration! Or posts from you guys (it works out to about the same in the end!).
Cheers.
Thanks for listening.
Not as depressed, but as frustrated as fuck.
Paul
Paul, you used octaNe? There are a couple of problems here. octaNe is a game created to be used in a specific sort of "zone" that one needs to get into to work. The scenario you had seems from it's description that it woudn't support this. That's why you have Jared above trying to tell you what would work.
Did you have the rock and munchies as the text suggests?
I'm not sure that kids that age can even get into the "zone".
But most importantly, there is one thing that you really overlooked. I know you're a great GM and designer, and I have every confidence in the world that you can run most games. But...you aren't American. I'm afraid that English persons may be culturally incapable of playing octaNe.
}Ducks{
OK, seriously now, have you considered other systems? Shadows by Zak Arneston? Or something more straightforward like FUDGE? Or that Ladder System by that guy who does that MARS game?
Mike
That sounds like a major bummer. It's too bad, kids these days are raised on Dragon Ball Z and violent TV shows... I mean, I love good healthy dose of violence as much as the next guy, but when we roleplayed as kids (pre-D&D anyway.. in D&D we just killed stuff) we did all kinds of things... the joy was in the storytelling, the exploration of a friend's imagination using a character spawned from your own. I mean, sure, there were plenty of fights, death defying escapes and rescues, all that sort of derring do. But to hear that that's all kids these days want to do makes me wonder what their parents are teaching them. I mean, my parents steered me AWAY from violent input at that age. It didn't work, of course... but I certainly had plenty of nonviolent interests to go along with the violent ones.
Trying to think of ideas to give the kids something else to do...have you come up with any puzzles to solve of any kind? I'm thinking something requiring cooperation between multiple characters.
One of my favorite angles is to arrange for one or a few characters to have to fight a really powerful opponent (or group), powerful enough that they are pretty well overmatched. Arrange for the other characters to discover/figure out that the enemy(ies) are being magically enhanced in one or more ways, and the source(s) of those enhancements need to be disengaged somehow to give their comrades a fighting chance. For example, the first time I did this, the big fighter of the group was challenged to fight the local champion in the arena. He started out doing fairly well, with his comrades watching from the spectators area, but pretty soon it was apparent he was going to lose- badly. One of the (female, incidentally) characters had a form of second sight, and managed to perceive that the champion had three beams of colored light connecting him to three towers around the arena (enhancing his strength, speed, and stamina, respectively). The characters, after quick discussion, decided to split up and try to take the towers in pairs. It became a race against the clock of their battling friend's HPs, as he desperately tried to hold out long enough for them to give HIM a chance to defeat the champion, who turned out to be kind of wimpy without his enhancements. Each of the three towers required a different strategy, one violent (kill the wizards generating the beam), one more cerebral (solve the puzzle to shut down the beam), and one skill based (shoot the target to stop the beam) to deactivate, which I fudged and tailored each to the pair of characters who took them.
It was a pretty satisfying gimmick, all in all, and I've used variations on it a few times.
Treasure hunting is good too, with clues and that sort of thing, obviously tailored to the age group... include a few fights along the way, exploration, mystery and what have you.
I'd probably be able to think of more if I knew all the nitty gritty background, but as it is I'm left to coming up with generic answers. Hope you figure something satisfying out!
Quote from: Mike HolmesPaul, you used octaNe?
Thanks, Mike!
Not quite. I used the basic concept behind the game, that is - you get a good die result - you narrate. You get a bad result the GM narrates. That's all. The kids created their own fantasy world.
Basic task description - roll 1d6
Good, elaborated task description - roll 1d8
Evocative and atmospheric task description - roll 1d10.
Get 6+ to narrate the result, or GM narrates and makes it complicated.
But, like I said, with shy or inexperienced 10 year olds this lack of structured rules seems to create alot of chaos. I think I need some RULES! First, a basic social contract kind of thing. This is what we do. This is how we behave in-game and out of game.
Yup, I'm thinking that Ron's Octane review came out too late to save you from this. I think the rules of Octane as Ron explains in the review just simply don't work except within a very specific atmosphere of consensual storytelling and aren't effective for sim light exploration of color/setting.
You may want to consider that the kids aren't completely to blame, but rather the system was the wrong tool for the job.
Paul,
The first thing that hit me when I read your post was about your choice of giving out dice for description...I immediately thought "uh-oh" and (from the rest of your post) my foresight proved correct.
I've been role-playing for nearly twenty years now, some of my players have been playing for longer, and one thing we have never been able to do is decide what the heck "description" means from a player in terms of getting bonuses.
"Description" has to be defined solidly: does it mean more wordy, with lots of adjectives and detailed description of the action? Or does it mean 'important' to the current story, a moment when the action resolves or highlights some aspect of the plot and the character's condition within it?
What's more important here, IMO, is that these sorts of rules tend to reward player-effectiveness over character-effectiveness, and puts pressure on people to perform against a standard rather than enjoy a game.
My group is made of of those no younger than their mid-twenties (and the majority are much older) and when we tried to use rules like this, everyone started clamming up because...well, some folks are not as good at this as others, and no one enjoys being judged as mediocre on what they thought was their best effort...they become so nervous they go blank.
Add the peer-pressures of highschool to the mix, and all the judgement of a person that goes on regularly in teenage life, and you have a recepie for turtle-behavior...so it doesn't surprise me that the female player you mention did exactly this.
Two other items also spring immediately to mind:
I'm honestly having a hard time figuring out how all this violence occurred with you acting as GM. What sorts of specific situations did it arise in? Why did those situations exist and allow violence as a solution (yes, I am grilling you as the GM...as you are the one running play, not the kids)?
If the kids were engaging in violence, then the best answer isn't to say, "No violence!" and establish authority-figure rules for them to rebel against; it is to use the game's rules themselves to reinforce that violence is the wrong solution, a dangerous solution, and a solution that has consequences that go far beyond the moment.
Start a tavern brawl? End up in jail (or the hospital). Fight the city guard when they try to imprison you? End up out cold and in jail (or more likely: the hospital). And do not be afraid to go a step further and allow the characters to die.
If you don't want violence, the rules shouldn't reward it. In fact, given the specific situation you are in, the rules themselves should enforce (in general) quick, messy ends to those who utilize violence (I hear the Riddle of Steel is great for this).
Get realistic in terms of results (not necessarily number crunching and charts!): most fights are over in two seconds, and have painful effects that last for hours, if not days or weeks. Fighting also has consequences from the authorities. The action-hero violence and combat found in most RPGs is nothing like this: Find rules that do not support it.
The second item I noticed, the game sounds unfocused; that is, it doesn't sound as though the characters each had a "Kicker" important to their player. See if each player can develop one along the lines in Sorcerer: a situation that needs to be dealt with immediately that requires a moral choice to be made.
Used in conjunction with the above, a player (even a hormone-laden (pre)teenage guy) will not be willing to sacrifice their dear character to a fit of stupid violence.
The rules should also reinforce the type of play outcomes that are most beneficial: use the system itself to reward specific types of play and solutions (social, cooperative, intelligence gathering, etc). This isn't being Gamist; frex, Sorcerer rewards specific types of play and behavior.
I'm not sure if this sort of 'fix' would work, but it's nagging at my head, so I might as well share. I'm assuming that the group is the same one that did the colaborative campaign design.
If you want the players to be less violent, the only solution that I can see is to penalise violent behaviour. The method that suggests itself to me is if the crystal is drawing power from the blood spilt (or violent actions, or similar).
Drop a heavy hint that continuing the violence will let the evil villian win (powering up the crystal, letting him extend his influence over a larger area, or some such). Then, if the violence contiunes, have the PC's 'lose', because the villian triumphs. If the loss is not crushing, (i.e. there are hooks for a sequel
- ) then I don't think that it will stop the players from continung, but will act towards a theme that violience is not always a good solution.
If they stop the violence, or, rather, slow it down, then that's also a solution.
This is somewhat against the principles of player authorship - it's a piece of pretty hard railroading. It also might work - depends on the players.
As a thought, if the players want to kill things, and you don't want to encourage that, it might be worth considering a Drama resolution system for combat. That way, they can mow down a few lowly enemies, whilst never getting thier hands near dice. And (speaking as someone who has been an 11 year old male) it's the dice that make the combat exciting. Have diced resolution systems for the other aspects, and try to sublimate the gambling instincts into those.
Both these ideas revolve around projecting your wants over the players - not a problem inherently, but somehting to remain aware of. I have a bad habit of doing one such trick, then following it with several more - had I left it at one, everything would have worked (pasably at least) [1]. Your milage may, of course, vary.
- Sequal hooks: Bad guy never finds crystal, but it powers him through the part of the crown he has - thus allowing another group of intrepid adventurers to find the crystal, and break his hold over the region? I'm rambling a bit here.
[1] This is down to my GMing style, rather than anything else. If I flop, I tend to run home to extreme railroading.
Greyorm and Stuart - I take your advice seriously. I did come tothe same conclsion regarding narrating-dice, and ditched it for a straight task resolution system.
I agree this situation is all my fault. Firstly, I brought in 2 new guys when it looked like the girsls weren't going to turn up. Everyone turned up and I had 7 players. Not good. Especially when one (the most disruptive) had no character and had not done any roleplaying. The other two had not joined in the world building or roleplayed before. Large groups =chaos.
Secondly, the situation ingame WAS violent. Or potentially violent. The group had become prisoners of beastmen who had also enslaved the local villagers to dig for the crystal. There were over a hundred beastmen in the camp. My initial idea was to give the PCs the opportunity to escape, maybe free the slaves and get the crystal by exploring a secret passage unknown to the beastmen. Things started off well with a diversion planned and the rescue of the slavs. But once fighting began, all the boys wanted a piece of it - 100 beastmen or not. Each time I turned to the others in the group who were going to retrieve the crytal, the boys were psyching each other up, claiming how hard they were, saying how they were going to butcher everyone and so forth. When I cut back to them they came out with some really crazy, ultra-violent stuff. Impractical, implausible, and since this is a school club - inappropriate.
And it became uncontrolled - the first time I've run a game for children that has become uncontrolled. One boy saying how one of the girls should 'suicide herself', another I warned that the beastmen were under the sway of the Bad Guy, and were actually allies, not to be slaughtered - replied "I don't care - they're gonna die".
It won't happen again, anyway. I post my terrible experience here really to illustrate that I was wrong - children this age NEED some rules there, hard and fast, rather than be given freedom to improvise and create. I had no problems pre-game, but ingame - it got wonky - the ultimate hack N slash, really. I'm quite ashamed of myself!
So I'm planning the next game already ... and I WANTED to use OD&D to run a Middle Earth game!!! No f**king way!
Instead, I'm looking at children crashed on an alien world they need to identify. Hostile wilderness, limited equipment, co-operative team efforts to solve problems, aliens, robot civilization, and untrustworthy humans (pirates? smugglers? treasure hunters?). I need to create a set of well-written scenarios with time-limits, chases, exploration and so forth. Its got to be high on action and tension, low on violence.
I've done something like this before and it seemed to work.
My problem is I like to try very different things out on new groups. Maybe I should use a good old standby first of all, see how they respond, THEN try something totally new.
Were the kids who helped create the world the violent ones?
I'd think if you threatened that world, threatened their creation with something large and ominous they might more readily band together in order to defend it.
I run an after-school program and have been thinking hard about how to run a role-playing program and I'm watching your work here carefully and thinking about it a whole lot.
I'll write some more later.
Good luck and don't be disheartened. You'll find that winning combination and please know that your posts are helping me (and presumably other people) plan their strategies for running games for students.
Thanks,
Judd
Quote from: PakaI'd think if you threatened that world, threatened their creation with something large and ominous they might more readily band together in order to defend it.
I know you're an educator, and I should take your judgement on this, but haven't you found that the urge to knock the sandcastle over once constructed is at least as common as the urge to protect it from the waves?
Mike
Quote from: Mike HolmesI know you're an educator, and I should take your judgement on this, but haven't you found that the urge to knock the sandcastle over once constructed is at least as common as the urge to protect it from the waves?
Mike
So true!
This has made me think a little harder about how I've been organizing these games. In my previous school I carefully chose the children I thought would work well. We had fantastic games, and I've written about those on my website.
At this school I got lucky with a random recruiting drive and we did very well. Another group was very very difficult to work with and I had to wind that party up before the end of term. I was tough on myself then. This group was also a 'blind' recruitment and started out well.
I think there are some children who just cannot get into the roleplay mindset. There are plenty of adults you'd never roleplay with, I'm beginning to think the same about some children. It demands a certain type of personality. It doesn't demand much, but you have to be co-operative, wait your turn and listen. That's it. Being vocal, being descriptive, having imagination - they're extras and I believe a GM can bring those attributes out of a player.
Unfortunately the school does insist on a sort of equal opportunities as far as school,clubs go, no matter if you are arty or into sport or whatever. Which is good - but ... my tendency to create epic games, or even write entire rules-sets just for school, might have to stop. I think in future I'll have to have a stable of games I can adapt to individual groups, or even just 'approaches' that me and the group can take on the spur of the moment.
Paka, have you talked to John De Hope? He's a teacher in a high school and has run roleplaying 'classes' with huge groups, dividing them up and getting them to run games amongst themselves. In fact - I might give him a bell myself!
Make it just a Game Club. Then run RPGs for the children for whom that's appropriate, and Car Wars for those who like destruction.
It's interesting to see how organized people can be playing a game like Car Wars where the object is mass destruction. Put in robot drivers if you need to make it PG.
Mike
Well, I don't know if my last post contributed anything useful... I didn't even notice the second page of posts when I sent it >.<
I did come up with a some more ideas though, and I'll share them simply because if I don't spit them out they won't leave me alone.
One is the idea that is such a core part of Sorcerer, in that victories can carry over into related actions. This is an awesome vehicle for including everyone in a gaming group no matter what is going on. Almost any activity can be made cooperative using this idea. It can be easily adapted to any diced system.
Second, a little more specific, is the "Goonies" style treasure hunt, complete with map and interlocking map/clue/puzzle/traps that give everyone something to do.
I don't know how useful any of this is to your specific needs, but hey, it didn't cost nothin' to type or to read =>
Quote from: Nev the DerangedOne is the idea that is such a core part of Sorcerer, in that victories can carry over into related actions.
Second, a little more specific, is the "Goonies" style treasure hunt, complete with map and interlocking map/clue/puzzle/traps that give everyone something to do.
Not sure what you mean on that first one Nev (I'm scared to admit that I don't have Sorcerer - and lost my free download a while ago). Your second idea I think will suit me perfectly. I've tried the open 'its in your hands' approach, I think now its time to move back to a tighter fitting approach, with more structure and less 'freedom'. For new players, I think the concept can be daunting.
I've just finished talking to John De Hope, BTW - he's been running RPG games with 30 x 15 year olds (mainly boys). I count myself lucky - and take back all I said!!!! He's braver than I!
Well, one of the core concepts in Sorcerer (and I apologize because I started reading this thread from the Sorcerer website and thus assumed it was related to it) is that when you succeed at a task, the number of "victories" you won (IE high dice rolls) become bonus dice to roll on the next action, assuming it can be logically chained together somehow.
One example given is that if you want to assassinate someone, you may roll on the social traits to win their trust, and the better job you do at that, the more bonuses you'll have to the physical trait rolls when you go to stab them in the back; by virtue of their relaxed vigilance or whatever.
Sorcerer & Sword goes so far as to extend this idea over larger distances both physically and temporally.
If your buddy tries to distract that cave troll you're facing? The better a distraction they provide, the better bonus you get to your combat rolls.
If your partner is trying to decipher the ancient scrawlings on the map to avoid the trapped door... the better result they get when rolling to comprehend it, the better bonus you get to avoiding it.
This idea can be used for almost anything, and it's ideal for promoting cooperation and teamwork; especially when you create obstacles that are simply too insurmountable to overcome without them.
There were more specific ideas on teamwork scenarios in my other post too, in case you missed it. One of my best ideas, I think =>
A short post just to let you know that things have improved. Everyone's help was appreciated! After the horribly rushed wargamey ending I told the group I'd be running something non-violent - no fighting of any kind. The two girls immediately said "yes!" which speaks volumes. The boys said "but what about X or Y or Z" but I insisted.
This week two of the three boys were playing a school footie match and couldn't join us, so the two girls and one of the boys had the pleasure of my non-violent game. Non-violent is a misnomer. There is violence, and terror - there's just nothing you can do about it except get away.
I'm running what amounts to Jurassic Park 4 - but the kids don't know it yet. They enthusiastically created 13 year old US teenagers using a basic 'what are you good at at school and what are your hobbies' chargen. The game began with them crashing into 'some jungle clad mountain' on the way back from a field trip to the Galapagos on a science expedition. They don't know that its one of those Jurassic Park islands near Costa Rica.
The session was in two action packed halves that totally absorbed them. The first was trying to retrieve survival gear from the wrecked plane as it slid ever nearer to a cliff edge. The second involved them climbing down that cliff after the plane went over the edge, using less than enough rope to reach the bottom. Queue ingenuity, imagination, cool die rolls and near death experiences.
Very nice!
Now when the two lads get back to the game .... we'll see :)
THe good thing about this setting is that you are truly powerless against the dinosaurs, and also that the players KNOW that.
I predict more tension in the forthcoming weeks. I'm happy again!