The Forge Archives

Took a birthday hiatus in March (though Sea Monkey RPG and In the Works on the website happened then, so I'm guiltless), and am back with an April game!

Shadows, a roleplaying game for all ages

And, being a design forum, I'll ramble a bit.

The game was improvised in all of a few minutes, when my niece and nephew wanted to roleplay (they're 6 and 10). The earlier version of the system was this:

* You had two d20's. One was the Good Die, one was the Shadow Die. Anything conflict was resolved by saying what YOU wanted to happen and what the Shadow wants.  The Good Die had to roll equal-to or over 5 (easy), 10 (average), 15 (difficult), 20 (impossible) AND be higher than the Shadow Die to succeed.

* You earned a Token for upping the difficulty a step, and you spent a Token to lower the difficulty. You could also spend a Token to reroll one die.

Well, Jared awesomely told me to write this up for HMaus, so I took out the Difficulty clutter, and left it at what you'll find on the website. So it's now a Narrativist (i.e., the game creates interesting situations over anything else) game with a Fortune system & a little Karma thrown in to keep players involved with each other's actions.

It's perfect for kids who want to roleplay but don't want to learn a ton of rules (my own younger family loves RPGs, but won't pore through any gamebook, no matter how short). And since kids generally affect a ton of Author/Director stance in everything they do, Shadows really supports that mindset.

Any critiques or comments or playtests would be wonderful. I feel like it's complete, but there may be issues I have missed.

Hey Zak,

I'm not really sure what to comment on, but I was sure happy to see a new HK Maus game.

Shadows reminds me a bit of the mechanic I use in Appalachia Now.  In AN, I use two d20s - one is your straight resolution die, the other is your "Licker" (that being the hillbilly way of spelling "liquor").  You make two statements of intent - the first being what your character wants to accomplish, the second being some fucked up thing that might happen because your character is drunk off his ass (like tripping over a rock and accidentally discharging your shotgun, inadvertently shooting a spaceship out of the sky - that happened once).  Of course, it's different, bcause in Appalachia Now, both rolls can succeed.

I can say for certain that mechanics like these - which, in my case, were inspired by Elfs - pretty much generate content all by themselves.  And they're so low threat that (being largely slapstick comedy, at least in AN's case) just about anyone can get into it and have fun.  Of all my games, Appalachia Now is the favorite of my old gaming buddies, preferred to WYRD (which they've never played) and NightWatch (which they have)...and these guys are mostly gamists and simulationists.

So there, I plugged one of my own game designs.  Not bad.

Keep up the good work Zak.

- Scott

This is great!  This is a really basic system that really anyone can play.  So did the kids just say "we want to roleplay" and you just came up with this?  Pretty damn cool.

So a general question...  I am training to be a teacher (elementary and possibly HS) I am wondering what people here at the forge think about kids and the feasability of introducing them to rpgs at young ages are.  Also if anyone has any experience or suggestions, I would love to hear them.

-Shane

Quote from: Scott
Of all my games, Appalachia Now is the favorite of my old gaming buddies, preferred to WYRD (which they've never played) and NightWatch (which they have)...and these guys are mostly gamists and simulationists.

Are you sure they aren't Narrativists who haven't found a system to support their bent? Unless Appalachia Now (which sounds awesome, by the way ... is it available at your site? I have to go look!) has other aspects that aren't solely "generate trouble with the Licker Die"

Quote from: Shane
So a general question... I am training to be a teacher (elementary and possibly HS) ...

This is a great question, but really belongs in a new thread. Moderators? Can we get it moved? (Or just start a new thread, Shane). I have one other game that works wonderfully with kids (I'll write it up, maybe another April game?) called The Fantabulous Adventures of Professor Glump.

(edited to fix quote bbcode)

Where should I move it do you think?  Leave it here?  Actual Play?  RPG Theory?  The whole RPG's and kids thing really facinates me...

-Shane

Zak,

Regarding my friends and their GNS preferences...some of them may be narrativists in training.  It's hard to tell.  They've reacted extremely well to "ownership" of the game, both in games like Appalachia Now, and more recently in an excellent game that Mr. Matt Gwinn ran for them.  I'm trying to get at least one of them over here to The Forge...which reminds me, I need to send him an e-mail.

But there is definitely one pure simulationist in the group.  And the absolute best experience I had with Appalachia Now was when I ran it at CobbCon (that's a sort of apartmentcon my friend runs every year...it has a website, check it out) for, maybe, seven people.  The only rp'ing experience two of them had was from the endless MUDding they do, and one game of D&D they had played the night before.  They were pretty gamist.  But man, did they like playing their fucked-up, inbred, drunk-as-shit rednecks.  And they did it with style and verve.  It was great.

And none of this has anything to do with Shadows, except that I think this method of introducing Director's stance works great with people familiar with more conventional games (the testimonial of one of my friends after having played Appalachia Now for the first time: "I really liked that I could make stuff up.").

Of  course, I used comedy to make the Director's Stance go down easier and to explain away continuity problems.  What was your play of Shadows like?  Different, I'm sure, because you were playing with kids, who have fewer expectations for this sort of thing.  

- Scott

* Zak, Appalachia Now is only partially up at my site.  There's some color text and some chargen stuff.  Funny that I haven't finished writing it up and posting it, since it's the game of mine that's received the most actual play.

Quote from: Scott
Regarding my friends and their GNS preferences...some of them may be narrativists in training.  It's hard to tell.  They've reacted extremely well to "ownership" of the game, ...

Except Stance and GNS are two different widgets. They may have a Sim/Gamist bent with a preference away from Pawn/Actor Stance. I have questions for you about Appalachia Now, but I will hold out until you finish it up. Hurry!!

Quote from: Scott
Of  course, I used comedy to make the Director's Stance go down easier and to explain away continuity problems.  What was your play of Shadows like?  Different, I'm sure, because you were playing with kids, who have fewer expectations for this sort of thing.  

The game I played was pretty much the kids lighting up about what they wanted to have happen and what their Shadow wanted. Since most kids play in Author/Director Stance, it was pretty easy for them to get the hang of it. The best part was watching them announce particularly nasty outcomes, and then all the tension (physically shown by bouncing in seats, blowing/kissing dice, praying, running around the room to show me what the two outcomes would be like, and so on) that came forth. You could see them wanting the Good Die to win out (but secretly wanting the Shadow Die to win).

Kids like the sinister, and un-sugar coated. Something I think Shadows lets them get away with without getting in any trouble.

One note (which I'm not going to put into the game's text): As GM, I had to adjudicate against certain Shadow outcomes. Like my nephew trying to get past a magic forcefield, saying that the Good outcome is the force field being broken, the Shadow outcome is that something breaks, bonks him on the head, and breaks the forcefield. (it was more elaborate than that, but both outcomes were effectively the same. I told him no, it has to be something you don't want to happen)

My girlfriend is probably going to use Shadows for a Sunday School lession sometime! Good job, Zak!

Of course, she will have to modify it a little bit.

Is there anyway you can hash together a real quick PDF version of it? When I printed it out, some of the text was cut off on the right side of the page.

Thanks,
Nathan

Quote from: Zak Arntson
Any critiques or comments or playtests would be wonderful. I feel like it's complete, but there may be issues I have missed.

It looks very nice, Zac! Congratulations! It makes me want to play it this weekend.

There's just a very small problem here in Shadows:

Quote
Play tokens (coins, beads, etc) are also required, about ten per Player should work.

I think that "ten" should be "three", based on Step 4 in Setup. Or may be Step 4 needs fixing?

Perhaps as an optional rule, would it worthwhile allowing the players more influence on the game, by allowing them to add more things to the game depending upon the number on the low rolling dice? So if 2 is rolled on the low dice, the player can add two things to the game. For example, continuing on from the Shadows example for Amber:

Amber then rolls her dice. The Good Die shows 5 while the Shadow Die shows 2. Phew! Uncle fishes some leftovers and orange juice from the fridge and sits down to eat. Amber sees that "2" on the low rolling dice and says, "I sneak out kitchen, and get a flashlight from the cupboard."

It would be better to use D6 for this though. D10 or D20 might be excessive.

Zak,

I can't read this without thinking "Fight Club" for kids. Kick-ass.

Hi Zak,

I really like this (big surprise, Ron likes funky intuitive Narrativist game, shock!). I'm having a tad of trouble printing it out for going-over purposes, though ... any hope of a print-friendly layout or download file? Even RTF would be OK by me.

Best,
Ron

Quote from: Nathan
My girlfriend is probably going to use Shadows for a Sunday School lession sometime! Good job, Zak!

Of course, she will have to modify it a little bit.

What kind of lessons? The system wouldn't work well for a right vs. wrong situation (I'm thinking Sunday School here), since you have a good chance of the Shadow Die winning. Add to that the secret (or not so secret) desire I've seen kids have for the Shadow Die to win out ...

Quote from: Andrew
I think that "ten" should be "three", based on Step 4 in Setup. Or may be Step 4 needs fixing?

Fixed! Thanks!

Quote from: Andrew
Perhaps as an optional rule, would it worthwhile allowing the players more influence on the game, by allowing them to add more things to the game depending upon the number on the low rolling dice?

If you try it out, let me know. I like the simplicity of the rules and the ambiguity of how much influence per roll. I may make a mention of a social contract in the Setup portion, though.

----------

An a PDF file is available. Direct link: http://www.harlekin-maus.com/games/shadows/shadows.pdf

Let me know how it looks. There's a weird indenting issue on page 3 or 4, but it's pretty minor. I had two wisdom teeth cut out yesterday and I'm still hopped up on drugs, so my judgement is a bit impaired.

Quote from: Zak Arntson

Quote from: Nathan
My girlfriend is probably going to use Shadows for a Sunday School lession sometime! Good job, Zak!

Of course, she will have to modify it a little bit.

What kind of lessons? The system wouldn't work well for a right vs. wrong situation (I'm thinking Sunday School here), since you have a good chance of the Shadow Die winning. Add to that the secret (or not so secret) desire I've seen kids have for the Shadow Die to win out ...

I very much like how the tokens can be used by the players in a negative or positive sum way, and how you harvest what you sow. Negative sum in that one player can make other players likely to fail (until their tokens run out), and then will almost certainly will have revenge heaped upon them by the other players. Positive sum in that players can help each other to succeed by forcing rerolls of failed rolls, and will then later get the benefits themselves in return later. It shows the benefit of working together as opposed to working against each other. It's a very nice mechanic that follows "natural law".

Zak,

Very nice!  Simple, effective and would work very well with children's make-believe play!  We're going to be trying this in my group, and I see some definite classroom possibilites (at least for small group settings - a typical 18-25 student count would just be too big). BTW (and as you can probably attest to sice you've got your neice and nephew), kids are fascinated by polyhedral dice...the 20 is the fave in my classroom.

Quote from: Andrew Martin
I very much like how the tokens can be used by the players in a negative or positive sum way, and how you harvest what you sow. ... It shows the benefit of working together as opposed to working against each other. It's a very nice mechanic that follows "natural law".

I catch you now. The original mechanic was a simple token system where you would spend a token to lower a difficulty of task, earn a token to raise a difficulty. Well, I got rid of difficulty levels and things fell into place. (nod to Jared, who helped me to clean up the system). I hadn't thought of it as a pos/neg sum game, but wow! I'm thinking this'll become some kind of Zak device in the future (like my consistently appearing "wild die").

Quote from: Matt Steflik
kids are fascinated by polyhedral dice...the 20 is the fave in my classroom.

d20's are neat. My Shadows game with family was done with d20's. My family loves the colors of dice more than the sides, though. Which is why I'd suggest dispensing crayons with the dice. One crayon = Shadow Die, another crayon = Good Die. Wheee!!