[The Big Night] - GenCon Kids Room

[Allan]

I hadn't realized there was going to be a kids' room at GenCon, but after I discovered it I was really excited about getting to play The Big Night with a group of kids.  Meguey came along as a player, and Morgue (of Contested Ground) was a huge help as a non-player roustabout.  Sadly, none of the photos turned out (thanks to my disposable camera).

The kids room had several tables with puzzles and boardgames going.  We set down crayons and loose sheets of puppets to color, and kids started gathering at the table.  Both days I had about 8 players, and more girls than boys.  The players ranged in age from 6 to 12.  I wish I'd written down all their names and ages, I'll have to use their Puppet's names instead. 

The kids picked a puppet to color, and Meguey, Morgan or myself cut out the backs.  While they were coloring, we talked about the 2 Presents (positive traits) and the Lump (negative trait) on the back of their Puppet.  More kids kept gathering as we talked and colored, until we had enough, and Morgue started a second coloring table.  When the puppets were finished, I taped them together, and explained the first 3 rules.  Follow the Leader (me), Take Turns, and Rock/Paper/Scissors.  The kids all got it, they already knew all of these rules.  Then I framed them at the North Pole, with a bag of toys in the sleigh and a note with their mission address. 

I'll just give highlights of a couple missions, and then talk about what I learned. 

Saturday:  A toy robot goes berserk looking for ice cream
Stripe (Elf) drawn with a big ray gun, blasts the robot, but misses, destroying a house.  He rebuilds it before dawn.
Amy (Kitten) is launched across town by the robot's slingshot.  With no dirction, the kids place her puppet on the other side of the table, and build the street around her with pencils. 
The Baby Dinosaur eats up the snow like a snowplow
One of the Penguins (Penguins and Kittens were popular) talks to the robot, and finds out it wants ice cream.
Snap (Gingerbread Man) runs to China to get ice cream for the robot.
The Kitten, Elf and dinosaur keep struggling to fight the robot, but the Kid befriends it and they manage to calm it down and deliver it without hurting it.
One player notices that they have been co-operating.  One player tells her mom "It's like D&D, only better!".  One player immediately wants to Lead the next game. 

Sunday: Delivering presents to a lighthouse, the crew meet a sea monster.
Suzy (Kid) came back and brought her little sister.  Suzy crashed the sleigh at sea. 
Jamie (Doll), was played by a 6-yr old.  She mostly just held up her puppet, and took suggestions from other players.  But she was actively engaged, chose which suggestion to take, and was having fun.
Bob (Penguin) loses at RPS while swimming, and narrates herself hitting a rock and getting squashed flat. 
Icy (Penguin), drawn with fangs, swims to China and brings back sushi for the sea monster.
The kids try a wide range of ideas, including hitting the sea monster in the nuts, blinding it with the lighthouse beacon, phoning it's mom, and distracting it with a girl sea monster toy.
Bane (Puppy) and Balrog (Baby Dinosaur) climb all over and inside the sea monster, trying to fight it.  The kids coin the term "tie fever" for a long run of RPS ties against the monster. 
Again one of the kids imediatly wants o Lead a story. 

I liked that the kids grasped the rules easily, waited their turn, made suggestions to other players (especially when they had a plan that their Lump kept them from executing themselves).  Also that the fights wee descriptive and exciting, and engaged the boys, while the girls explored the setting, and resolved conflicts peacefully.  Each time one of the kids successfully ended the Mission, all the kids cheered, they knew that they had done it together, and were co-operating not competing.

What didn't work
Failing.  The kids didn't like failing at actions, and it made their turn fast and boring.  On Sunday, I borrowed an idea from The Imp Game and had the kids narrate the effects of their own failures.  This was much more fun and interesting, and will be amended in the next printing of the book. 

Missing Turns.  This didn't come up much, as the kids were smart, and only the tougher puppets got into fights.  But the couple of times puppets did fall down, the kids didn't like it.  And who can blame them?  Missing a turn sucks.  In future (and in the amended rules) players get to use their turn to narrate the cartoony way their puppet Falls Down (like Bob being squashed flat on the rock).

Player vs. Player conflict.  I'm too used to pitting players against each othher in Sweet Dreams. Before we started play, while we were still talking about Presents and Lumps, Suzy's player said Stripe shouldn't have a gun, and he said he would shoot her.  While explaining Snap's "Tasty" Lump, I said that the Kitten might try to eat him.  Both Suzy's player and Snap's player felt hurt by these exchanges.  In future, I will emphasize from the start that the Nice Puppets are all working together, and would never hurt each other.  This is in the rules, I should have remembered it.

So as long as I'm planning to amend some rules, any thoughts on playing with kids?

[Nev the Deranged]

I'm bummed I ended up not making it to the kids room to check this game out, I just got caught up setting the booth up- that was the day everything needed restocking and all the boxes had been moved around the day before.  But it sounds like a great time!  It's a good reminder that kids are natural roleplayers, and that all the first "games" kids learn to play are role playing.  You have to *learn* bad gaming habits.  The "like D&D only better" comment is priceless.

[Paul Czege]

This gets my vote for most awesome GenCon playtest.

Allan, any thoughts on what age is too young for the game? And I presume kids beyond a certain age will be "too cool" for the game. But twelve is still good?

Paul

[Lisa Padol]

Jamie (Doll), was played by a 6-yr old.  She mostly just held up her puppet, and took suggestions from other players.  But she was actively engaged, chose which suggestion to take, and was having fun.

Yes! Different funs! "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays"

Bane (Puppy) and Balrog (Baby Dinosaur) climb all over and inside the sea monster, trying to fight it.  The kids coin the term "tie fever" for a long run of RPS ties against the monster.

I like that term.

Failing.  The kids didn't like failing at actions, and it made their turn fast and boring.  On Sunday, I borrowed an idea from The Imp Game and had the kids narrate the effects of their own failures.  This was much more fun and interesting, and will be amended in the next printing of the book.

This also makes players, whether big or little kids, feel that a character's failure isn't something that someone is doing to us, but something that we are doing to it. We're active, not reactive, and we're having fun making an imaginary person's life difficult.

So as long as I'm planning to amend some rules, any thoughts on playing with kids?

It's something that makes me nervous. I remember running an OTE demo where one of the players was a kid. He was very bouncy and what was fun for him was sometimes hard to balance with what was fun for others. Of course, this was also true of a couple of the, um, nonkid players.

-Lisa

[Jared A. Sorensen]

This gets my vote for most awesome GenCon playtest.

Allan, any thoughts on what age is too young for the game? And I presume kids beyond a certain age will be "too cool" for the game. But twelve is still good?

Paul, you can play a penguin with fangs. How could anyone be too cool for this game?

Man, I wish I checked out the kids' room. I could've busted out some grindhouse octaNe...

[Gamskee]

This is pretty enlightening stuff. It makes me happy that roleplaying games can lose their stuffiness and boil down to the good stuff. If it can solve the "bang, bang your dead!" debate, it probably did its job.

[Meguey]

I've been waiting for this write-up! This is my favorite game I played at GenCon. I played Snap the Gingerbread Man. I loved everything about this game, from the coloring to the rock/paper/scissors. It's a great example of how a very simple task (deliver the toy) cangenerate huge fun. I was glad to be there as a parent, because that let me help Allan smooth over the kid-stuff he had less experience handling, which came up in the 'does the elf get a gun' debate, the 'does the kitten eat me' debate, and most especially when Amy lost a confilct.

Allan's age asessment is a bit high; I'd put the lower ages more like 4 1/2-5. I can easily see playing this with kindergarteners, who are mostly 5. 4 year olds really tied into storytelling and reading aloud and playing make believe could handle it fine. The big challenge with the youngest group would be to stay really tuned in to their engagement, and be ready to wrap things up fi they started to drift - I'd prep for a half-hour, and be happy if it stretched to an hour. The 6 y.o.s could easily go an hour+, perhaps with follow-up stories led by each other. Allan, you might want a section on 'How to run this game" that's aimed solidly at kids, because they will want to run it.

I found the gender break-down interesting:
Stripe (Elf) = male, 7-8
Baby Dinosaur = male, 7-8
Pink Penguin = female, 4-5
Amy/Suzy (Kid) = female, 8, played in both games ?
Snap (G-man) = female, 34
Pink Kitten = female, 6-7
Icey (Punk Penguin) = female, 11-12, played in both games ?
Orange stripped Kitten = female, 5-6

The fights were descriptive and exciting, and engaged the boys, while the girls explored the setting, and resolved conflicts peacefully.

I noticed that too, and it was particularly interesting in light of the fact that the pictures of the penguins, elf, and dinosaur had no gender cues. The kids added or colored very clear gender markers, even the Punk Penguin with the tattoo on it's belly was lavender and teal.

So as long as I'm planning to amend some rules, any thoughts on playing with kids?

One thing you will have to get clear is that for R/P/S to work the hands ought to be hidden below the table or behind hte back for the chant, and revealed together on "Shoot!" You were doing it all on the table, and that's not standard to most kids, in fact, the Kid player in our game suggested this correction during play after a tie.

Emphasizing the co-operative nature of the game will help forestall conflict that rolled around the begining of our game. I'd suggest, for future demos, state up-front that "We are all part of a sleigh team delivering toys on the Big Night. We'll  work together, and everyone has special skills. Ok, now pick a puppet to color."

The Failing fix is great, as you know. I'll run this for my boys (5 and 9) this weekend and post the results.

[M Jason Parent]

You rock for running this Allan.

My youngest daughter spent about a third of GenCon in that room, but didn't get in on your playtests. The year before, however, she was playtesting another game for another developer. The GenCon KidTrack is a great, albeit once-a-year, source of kid testing for games. Oh yeah, and it allows me to send the kids off to do their own thing sometimes while I'm doing other stuff, like shopping at the Forge booth.

Failing.  The kids didn't like failing at actions, and it made their turn fast and boring.  On Sunday, I borrowed an idea from The Imp Game and had the kids narrate the effects of their own failures.  This was much more fun and interesting, and will be amended in the next printing of the book. 

Missing Turns.  This didn't come up much, as the kids were smart, and only the tougher puppets got into fights.  But the couple of times puppets did fall down, the kids didn't like it.  And who can blame them?  Missing a turn sucks.  In future (and in the amended rules) players get to use their turn to narrate the cartoony way their puppet Falls Down (like Bob being squashed flat on the rock).

Both of these lead to one basic premise, which is that hte kids all want equal time in the game, if not equal billing. Your fixes are perfect, and something to think about when writing games for such ages.

[Bret Gillan]

The kids try a wide range of ideas, including hitting the sea monster in the nuts, blinding it with the lighthouse beacon, phoning it's mom, and distracting it with a girl sea monster toy.

These kids are brilliant. I especially like the "phoning its mom" solution. I giggled until tears rolled down my face.