Techniques and my friend's 9 year old daughter

[John Kim]

So I was reading komradebob's Minis, Narr Techniques, and my 9 year old daughter, and it was very close to a recent experience of mine.  However, since he is going off on a specific direction, I thought I'd take a different tack. 

So here's the deal:  My friend's daughter Ellen, who is 9, has sat in on a D&D game we've played twice, and also twice on our Buffy the Vampire Slayer campaign.  She's incredibly bright, and can give me a real run for my money in Carcassone and some other boardgames.  So this Sunday, we were babysitting for her, her friend Jake, and her younger sister Sarah.  I got back from my own game (a HarnMaster campaign) to find that my wife, Ellen, and Jake were making up D&D3 characters.  Liz made an amazon barbarian, while Ellen and Jake both made elven wizards.  I was a little stuck at this, since I think that D&D3 is not a good game for beginners in general and certainly not for their age.  To add to the confusion, after we started playing my son Milo and Ellen's sister Sarah -- who are both 5 -- wanted to get in on the game as well. 

So I ran a mostly-freeform scenario with them, partly acted out with Milo and Sarah taking the parts of their familiars.  During character creation, I asked them about who their friends and contacts were at the school -- then I gave Ellen and Jake each a bit of secret information to prime the mystery.  We played through trying to solve the mystery in a larp-ish freeform -- eventually breaking out dice for when it came down to combat with the doppleganger.  Everyone was pretty excited at that point, but I was pretty tired and called it quits soon after.  They moved on to a few rounds of Liar's Dice before their parents arrived to pick them up. 

I should mention, Ellen was troubled a bit by the freeform-ness.  At times, Jake would attempt to blatantly declare things to get his way -- like "No, you can't go that way because there's a river of lava going through the forest."  Ellen disliked this and afterwards said that "Jake can't act like he has infinite Drama Points" -- referring to the Buffy system and its Plot Twist mechanic. 

Anyhow, I'm trying to figure out what I should do next time if I have more planning.  I'm tempted to write up their characters using the Parlor Larp system and explain that to them -- and have some more secret information for them.  They're pretty set on a traditional fantasy genre game, though, and I'd be interested in some other choices.  Ideally, I'd like to prime Ellen to be a gamemaster for her friends within a year or something, so maybe I should try for a game which she could GM herself and play with her friends.  That means something in a traditional fantasy genre, with a short rulebook but a supply of premade adventures and/or other material.  Offhand, I'm not sure what I would pick for that.  Perhaps Tunnels & Trolls or Donjon? 

[joshua neff]

John,

My daughter, Morgan, is going to be 9 in a few months. She's very precocious and reads at a fairly advanced level. We just finished watching the Lord of the Rings movies and she loves the Harry Potter series. She's particularly fond of dragons (and dinosaurs, and aliens, and science, and magic tricks). She also loves playing games--Monopoly Jr, Mousetrap, chess--and once sat in for part of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer boardgame (which is sort of a weird proto-RPG, with a GM-type and PC-types and hit points). So, I really want to get her playing RPGs. I agree that D&D 3.x is not a good one to start with--not for her, anyway. I want something with consistent rules that allows for story games, but won't put too much narrative decision in her hands (because she tends to be very literal-minded and gets nervous when she's put in a position of being creative and original). I've been reading komradebob's thread about his daughter, and while that all sounds cool, we don't really have the money and the space in our house to set up lots of miniatures (although my daughter would really like them...maybe someday).

So, I've been thinking of going with The Shadow of Yesterday. It will let her choose what she gets experience for. It's got solid rules that aren't so crunchy as to confuse or bore her, but aren't so handwavey that she'll feel lost. I'm not sure how much she'd get into the World of Near, but I'm pretty sure she'll dig S. John Ross' Uresia, with its anime-inspired bog-standard fantasy. She'll like the elves and dwarves and beast-people and magic and dragons (of course). So, I'm working on converting Uresia to TSOY, which is really pretty easy.

So, this long-winded, roundabout answer is: yes, I think T&T could work well. I think Basic D&D could work, too. Both of those have premade adventures that could be used. I obviously think TSOY would be a good choice (although it lacks the premade adventures, and I'm not sure how easy it would be for a 9-year-old to GM). Solid, consistent rules that aren't bogged down in lots of exceptions and complications, but provide a good structure that kids Ellen and Morgan's age want. They want to know where they stand, what they can and can't do, but they also want to stretch their wings and see what they can get away with.

Whatever you go with, I'd love to hear more about it.

[Allan]

I hate to sound shamelessly self-promoting, but The Big Night is designed specificly for kids Ellen's age to GM for younger friends and siblings.  Maybe it or a variation of it could work for you?

The Big Night isn't traditional fantasy, it's Christmas themed.  Cute Kittens and Snowmen vs. cute Vampires and Toy Company Agents.  Kind of "Nightmare Before Christmas".  But the basic structure could be adapted for a fantasy setting pretty easily. 

Each character has 2 positive traits and 1 negative trait.  Positive traits can either be special abilities that no one else has, and that don't always work (like changing shape), or the ability to try again on ties for specific actions (like fighting, running, or climbing).  Players could make up their own, and define them as loosely as they want. 

Conflicts are resolved by rock-paper-scissors, so it's fast and LARPish, no numbers.  If the player wins, they narrate the outcome.  If they lose, they narrate how their character failed, or what went wrong.  If they tie, they narrate a new complication to the action. 

There are some Actual Play reports of the system in action here and here.

I'll be really interested to hear what you do come up with, and how it works. 

[komradebob]

Have you considerd Redhurst Academy, which I believe is a D20 product? I know that the maker's site has a free pdf dowload of about 30+ pages that is written as a sort of new students guide to the school and campus.

[James_Nostack]

John, Trollbabe might work too.  I don't own the game, so for all I know maybe the text is totally age-inappropriate, but I could easily see something that simple working for kids.  I played it once recently, and it seemed like it's something children could dig.  Of course, if her friends include 9 year old boys, they might have difficulty playing girl characters.

[John Kim]

Have you considerd Redhurst Academy, which I believe is a D20 product? I know that the maker's site has a free pdf dowload of about 30+ pages that is written as a sort of new students guide to the school and campus.

Yes, I have.  I was just looking at a review of it.  The problem is, I don't think that D20 is a good basis to start from for her.  Redhurst is a 160 page book of background material which I think she's unlikely to have interest in reading.  In short, I think it's very clearly a bad fit.  

At this point, I'm leaning towards either Tunnels & Trolls or Ars Magica (1st or 2nd edition), for the following reasons:

1) They are in the fantasy genre with player-cast magic, which Ellen seems set on.
2) I want something which I can hand her to read and eventually run games of by herself.  
3) For the above, it should have a fair bit of support, like premade adventure modules.  

While I haven't played it yet, it seems to me that something like The Shadow of Yesterday or Donjon would be very difficult for her to game-master.  I would strongly consider Prince Valiant except it is fantasy without giving the PCs magic, which she seems pretty set on.  As I ponder it, I lean towards Ars Magica.  It's got a clear player-empowerment from Whimsy Cards and from troupe-style play (and thus background writing).  It's got a bunch of adventures.  And the first edition is hopefully fairly readable to her.  It could be played straight, or it could be adapted to a school-like setup fairly easily, by allowing Companions with limited magic who are taught by full magi.  

I think she'd be much more interested in covenant-like adventures than in T&T style dungeon crawls.  Trollbabe I don't think provides enough structure for her to feel comfortable with -- especially if she were to game-master it with her friends, which in particular includes Jake, who I doubt would like playing a girl. 

[joshua neff]

John, there's a really good write-up of actual Tunnels & Trolls play at RPGnet, a one GM/one player session, that might help in your decision.

I will say that one of the reasons I'm leaning towards TSOY is because the resolution of conflicts, even physical fights, isn't geared towards killing, whereas a lot of other similar RPGs are geared towards killing your opponent. I don't think I want to start my daughter on RPGs with kill-or-be-killed games.

[MatrixGamer]

I should mention, Ellen was troubled a bit by the freeform-ness.  At times, Jake would attempt to blatantly declare things to get his way -- like "No, you can't go that way because there's a river of lava going through the forest."  Ellen disliked this and afterwards said that "Jake can't act like he has infinite Drama Points" -- referring to the Buffy system and its Plot Twist mechanic. 

There is a good developmental psychology reason for this. Very young kids - the 5 year old - don't know rules and just make things up. They draw purple cows floating in mid air. Around age 8 they figure out "rules" and get real rigid in wanting them followed. Freeform to them means cheating at worst or ruleless at best. They can't show off (by being good at the rules) if there are no rules. It is only by age 12 that kids reach a point where they can see that freeform still has rules.

Chris Engle (former kid therapist)
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

[John Kim]

John, there's a really good write-up of actual Tunnels & Trolls play at RPGnet, a one GM/one player session, that might help in your decision.

I will say that one of the reasons I'm leaning towards TSOY is because the resolution of conflicts, even physical fights, isn't geared towards killing, whereas a lot of other similar RPGs are geared towards killing your opponent. I don't think I want to start my daughter on RPGs with kill-or-be-killed games.

Well, I'll explain more about my reasoning. 

I haven't played TSOY, but here is my evaluation based on my reading and the three criteria I had.  First, it doesn't have a magic system.  You can have magic-flavored secrets, but that isn't the same as a systematic way of casting spells -- which I believe is what Ellen would want.  Second, it doesn't provide any solid structure above the level of conflict resolution.  This, to me, is critical if Ellen is going to write her own adventures.  By contrast, say Dogs has this as towns, or T&T has this in dungeons.  But if she wants to make up her own adventures based on the book I hand her, I think TSOY would be very difficult for her.  Lastly, it doesn't have nearly the level of support which, say, T&T or Ars Magica have.  I think it would be much easier for her to GM if she had a premade adventure -- or even just a few to look at for ideas and illustration. 

I only have a much earlier edition than the current, but from my earlier reading, T&T and its support material seem pretty solidly geared towards dungeon crawls, and not as magic focused.  (Magicians are artillery, basically.)  This is a workable structure and would provide the needed support, but I don't think she would be as interested in it as a genre. 

[joshua neff]

Well, I'll explain more about my reasoning. 

I haven't played TSOY, but here is my evaluation based on my reading and the three criteria I had.  First, it doesn't have a magic system.  You can have magic-flavored secrets, but that isn't the same as a systematic way of casting spells -- which I believe is what Ellen would want.  Second, it doesn't provide any solid structure above the level of conflict resolution.  This, to me, is critical if Ellen is going to write her own adventures.  By contrast, say Dogs has this as towns, or T&T has this in dungeons.  But if she wants to make up her own adventures based on the book I hand her, I think TSOY would be very difficult for her.  Lastly, it doesn't have nearly the level of support which, say, T&T or Ars Magica have.  I think it would be much easier for her to GM if she had a premade adventure -- or even just a few to look at for ideas and illustration. 

I completely agree with you. The GMing part isn't a concern of mine for my daughter--not yet, anyway--but since your goal here is to get Ellen into the GM's seat, I think you've got a good point.

At any rate, I'm interested to hear about what game you go with and how it plays out.