Adventure Kids - With a new resolution system

[Larcen]

Hi All,

I was happy to see that this forum is all about game design. Awesome. Having just finished putting together a little RPG for use with my kids, I am looking around for opinions on it since I have never seen the resolution system it uses before.

For quick intro to the game, please see the thread on Enworld:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=3341784

The game can be seen at the webpage I put together today:

http://adventurekidsrpg.googlepages.com/

I am looking forward to if the resultion system is indeed unique.  Thanks for any input.

[Larcen]

Wow, this is disheartening.   It's been a month now and my thread still doesn't have a single response and it's the only topic like that.   Sheesh, I thought this forum was about discussing unique resolution mechanics?   Surely the Ratio System is something worth discussing, if not the game itself.

Hmmmm .... I wonder if I changed the game's subject matter to "mutant assassin robotic alien kids" it would get a better response.... 

[komradebob]

You said you designed this to be used with your kids, right?

Have you gotten some play in?

How did it go? The good, the bad, the confusing?

There are a few people around these parts who have an interest in games geared towards kids. I'll see if I can round some of them up.

[scrandy]

Hi!
I think basically you did a great job!!!
The mechanic is very interesting, because it is simple and someone can comprehend the odds easyly: so great for kids. It is somewhat limited though, because you have very few dice to choose and maybe have to round more than would like, but I think for a kids game this aspect is not that important because I think there will be only limited character development.

The rest, I think, basically sounds great. There is only one thing I wanted you to be aware of:
How, do you think the game will impact on your children?
-- I know this sounds silly, but I am at university to become a teacher and we had that course about learning psychology, and in this course we were told that children do strange things if they are shown to do so in games etc.. And that if these shown things are somewhat in there own limited possibility to redo it on another occasion they will redo that.
Well that was not easy to explain (because I don't tspeak english generally), so I will explain it in some examples:
1.) If you say in your game that drinking a soda will make you speedup, they will memorize it and drink more sugary things later.
2.) If you say that expensive clothes make you more cute in your game, they will in fact buy more expensive clothes later in live instinctively (at least if you play your game more than once)

I don't want to dismantle your game, and in general I think these ideas are fun, but seriously think about it: Your kids work different than us, and while we will recognize the abstract element of a bonus, they won't.

And there is even more:
The more the things you implement in your world are real, the more they will try to redo it in real. If for example they would have to make the giant dragon sleep with a potion, to free a friend, it wouldn't be a problem, because there is no such thing like a dragon or a potion in real.
But if they have to give the neighboors dog some sleeping pills, to get the ball, that has accidentially landed across the fence. They could in fact one day get the strange Idea to redo it in real. And then they will not realize, that in real a sleeping pill is not good for a dog, because they wouldn't realize the abstraction from reality a rpg gives you.

So, I hope you understand me right, I think basically your Idea is great, but you have to consider each element for sideeffects on kids or things that you have to explain while playing (and these things should be in your manual).

Perhaps you know about the kids that put there hamster into the microwave after they played the PC-Game "Day of the Tentacle" from Lucas Arts. - Then you know what I mean.

[Remir]

And there is even more:
The more the things you implement in your world are real, the more they will try to redo it in real. If for example they would have to make the giant dragon sleep with a potion, to free a friend, it wouldn't be a problem, because there is no such thing like a dragon or a potion in real.
But if they have to give the neighboors dog some sleeping pills, to get the ball, that has accidentially landed across the fence. They could in fact one day get the strange Idea to redo it in real. And then they will not realize, that in real a sleeping pill is not good for a dog, because they wouldn't realize the abstraction from reality a rpg gives you.

So, I hope you understand me right, I think basically your Idea is great, but you have to consider each element for sideeffects on kids or things that you have to explain while playing (and these things should be in your manual).

Perhaps you know about the kids that put there hamster into the microwave after they played the PC-Game "Day of the Tentacle" from Lucas Arts. - Then you know what I mean.

I think if parents would talk to their kids more and establish the difference between real life and games this sort of thing wouldn't be an issue.

To the OP, this is a very cool, simple system. Love the different dice mechanic, definitely a cool idea. The whole game seems nice and accessible. Well done!

[Callan S.]

Wow, this is disheartening.   It's been a month now and my thread still doesn't have a single response and it's the only topic like that.   Sheesh, I thought this forum was about discussing unique resolution mechanics? 

It's not really for discussion for the sake of discussion though - its more like a work shop. So, do you have any goals you want to work on in terms of the design? Or state your goals and ask 'Are my mechanics meeting these goals?'.

[Sentience]

Wait, what?! You're not making a game about mutant assassin robotic alien kids?! Gahhh!

No no, just kidding. For realz now. I think you've got something very interesting on your hands. I like the simplicity of it. Sounds like something I'd be interested in doing with my nephew.

As far as how games influence kids, I think a lot adults don't give them credit. Kids aren't stupid. By the time they're five years old, they know the difference between right and wrong. They know what's going to get them in trouble and what won't. I think parents are just looking for something to blame. But anyways, I digress.

I think you could teach your kids a lot if you bring real consequences into the game. In other words, if little Joey decides it's a good idea to dump a pot of searing hot coffee into Mrs. Bipple's lap, he shouldn't just be able to get away with it. If the coffee was hot enough, the teacher would probably have to go to the hospital. Joey would definitely get expelled and probably grounded for a month or two. While this may seem a little serious for kids a game, at least your teaching your kids that doing "naughty" or bad things aren't funny or rewarding. But then again, how you handle situations like this is up to you.

For me, I like the idea of the exciting, spooky summer camp trip. Say, the two kids go on a trip with their summer camp and somehow get lost in the museum they're visiting. Perhaps they see a mouse or something and decide to chase it into the closet which closes behind them, locking them in. Then, once they find the key in a pair of old janitors trousers hanging in the closet, they emerge to find that the museum is closed for the night. Now you've got a semi-realistic fantasy situation where the kids are stuck inside of a spooky museum all night long.

And, as if being locked in a creepy, dark place full of dead stuff and strange exhibits wasn't bad enough, perhaps a group of bumbling thieves (Ala Home Alone) just happens to be robbing the place of the precious Jewel of (Insert important sounding place/person/thing) that night. Now the kids have the choice to try to stop the robbers, or maybe just avoid them long enough to stay undetected.

Anyway, I think there's a lot of potential fun to be had for some lil' pipsqueaks with your game. You should elaborate on it!

[Larcen]

Well, this is embarrassing.  I complained that no one was responding to my post and then I disappear when people start responding.   Sorry guys, but I have been very busy with other projects.  I did see the first few responses a while back and meant to respond right away but then I felt that they deserved good thoughtful responses from me and so I put it off til later.  Big mistake.  One distraction led to another and I never got back to this until now.

Anyway, for everyone who left a response, thanks!  I will try and comment on each of you....

You said you designed this to be used with your kids, right?

Have you gotten some play in?

How did it go? The good, the bad, the confusing?

There are a few people around these parts who have an interest in games geared towards kids. I'll see if I can round some of them up.

Yes, I designed the game specifically to play with my two kids since I wanted something simple and non-violent.  Plus I wanted to build a game around the Ratio dice mechanic to test it out.

We have played the game a couple of times so far but both times it's been mostly improv with no specific storyline used.  I really just wanted to test out the rules a bit.  The kids were both very eager to try the game and got very excited about it. 

I was amazed at how fast they picked up the concepts like creating characters and roleplaying them.  They quickly realized that it's basically the same sort of let's pretend games they have been doing all along with their little dolls and actions figures. Only this time they got to play with Daddy who would help them along in making up the stories.  They loved that!

The game sessions were fun but somewhat surprised me at first.  As I said, I designed the game to be non-violent and so was in for quite a shock at the reaction my kids made to practically every encounter.  I expected them to talk to the people and creatures that met, which is why my system has a lot of non-attack interaction build into it.  But they kept trying to fight everything!

Here is how the very first encounter went.  The kids are out in the woods looking for a lost cave...

Me:  "You see this very large rabbit come out of the bushes and he says 'Hello.  Where are you going?'"

Cute Princess:   "I cut it in half!!"    {No kidding. That is exactly what my 6 year old little girl said.}

Me:  "Huh?  You attack it??  Why?   With what?  You have no weapons!"

Cute Princess:  "Oh, uh...hmmm..I use karate and jump up and kick it!"

Me:  "Honey, that is not a very princess like thing to do."

Cute Princess:  "Is too.  Fiona did it in Shrek.  She was a great fighter."

Me:  *sigh*

After  that I tried to convince them that talking first would be the best course of action with anything they meet and might actually make friends and get help that way.  Although at first they seemed rather disappointed with that but they we went along with it and we had lots of fun nonetheless.

I think that their exposure to shows like Power Rangers (my fault) and video games like Halo and Ghost Recon and Hexen (my fault again) have a lot to do with their violent tendencies.  But luckily I feel that the game might actually provided a forum to discuss that sort of mindset and teach them that there are other ways to handle situations and problems. 

Of course that is not to say that we didn't have many more battles in our AK sessions.  We had plenty of fights with little toy figures at the table and they loved it.  One encounter really stood out.  I was using whatever little toys we had at hand and when I needed a creature guarding the final treasure I just reached into the bucket on the floor and pulled out a little yellow duck at random.  I looked at it, went with it, and said "Now, you must defeat.....{dramatic pause before I slammed the duck on the table}... The Rubber Ducky of Death!"  They laughed so hard.  You should see the pics I took of the adventuring party fighting that rubber ducky. 

They have been asking me to play again but I told them that in order for us to play the game right I needed to create an actual story for them to follow and play in.  But that will take some time and so they need to be patient.  In the meantime we have been playing boardgames again.  Now they periodically ask me for an update on my progress with the Adventure Kids Story.

~~~~~~~~~~

Hi!
I think basically you did a great job!!!
The mechanic is very interesting, because it is simple and someone can comprehend the odds easyly: so great for kids. It is somewhat limited though, because you have very few dice to choose and maybe have to round more than would like, but I think for a kids game this aspect is not that important because I think there will be only limited character development.

They picked up the dice mechanic very easily.  As you said since the characters all had low numbers I very rarely needed a die bigger than a D12.  Overall it went pretty smooth.  They even enjoyed having the Kid Sheets in front of them and looking up the numbers on them.

~~~~~~~~~~

The rest, I think, basically sounds great. There is only one thing I wanted you to be aware of:
How, do you think the game will impact on your children?
-- I know this sounds silly, but I am at university to become a teacher and we had that course about learning psychology, and in this course we were told that children do strange things if they are shown to do so in games etc.. And that if these shown things are somewhat in there own limited possibility to redo it on another occasion they will redo that.
Well that was not easy to explain (because I don't tspeak english generally), so I will explain it in some examples:
1.) If you say in your game that drinking a soda will make you speedup, they will memorize it and drink more sugary things later.
2.) If you say that expensive clothes make you more cute in your game, they will in fact buy more expensive clothes later in live instinctively (at least if you play your game more than once)

I don't want to dismantle your game, and in general I think these ideas are fun, but seriously think about it: Your kids work different than us, and while we will recognize the abstract element of a bonus, they won't.

And there is even more:
The more the things you implement in your world are real, the more they will try to redo it in real. If for example they would have to make the giant dragon sleep with a potion, to free a friend, it wouldn't be a problem, because there is no such thing like a dragon or a potion in real.
But if they have to give the neighboors dog some sleeping pills, to get the ball, that has accidentially landed across the fence. They could in fact one day get the strange Idea to redo it in real. And then they will not realize, that in real a sleeping pill is not good for a dog, because they wouldn't realize the abstraction from reality a rpg gives you.

So, I hope you understand me right, I think basically your Idea is great, but you have to consider each element for sideeffects on kids or things that you have to explain while playing (and these things should be in your manual).

Perhaps you know about the kids that put there hamster into the microwave after they played the PC-Game "Day of the Tentacle" from Lucas Arts. - Then you know what I mean.

Your English sounds great to me.  Even better than mine sometimes. 

Those are all good points you bring up.  They are the very reason I wanted to create my own game and not use the standard violent and "scary" hack and slash type RPG games. 

However, yes, I think that by making this game even more realistic (because it takes place in modern times with contemporary kids) there is a bigger danger of kid associating themselves with the characters they are playing in the game and with what those characters do.  The Storyteller needs to remind them that this is only a game whenever something questionable happens.  Also I think the game can be used to teach good morals and how to make the right decisions if the stories are designed right and played properly. 

This is exactly the reason we have not yet played the game again.  Not because we don't want to or because I think the game itself is harmful for them, but because I want to make sure that the next session involves a good storyline, with good decisions for them to make, and lots of lessons to be learned.   In short, I want to have a well thought out prewritten adventure with all those good qualities built in before we try the game again. 

This is also a perfect excuse to allow them to get another year older or so, which I think would be better too.  I actually wrote the game for when they were a little older but I got impatient, and so did they when I mentioned it to them, and so we tested it out now.

It occurs to me that something like roleplaying games would be great to teach kids basic life lessons.  Like how to handle strangers that are trying to entice you with something or what to do in emergencies.  Situations such as these can be built into the game adventure and then the adult running the game can guide the kids through the proper course of action if need be.  In this way those are the lessons the kids take away from the game, and not just that drinking sugary soda makes you hyperactive.

I like your idea to add these sort of suggestions right into the game manual.  My intention was to create a simple game without too many rules and pages, but if I ever do expand on it I think touching upon moral decisions and life lessons is a good idea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think if parents would talk to their kids more and establish the difference between real life and games this sort of thing wouldn't be an issue.

To the OP, this is a very cool, simple system. Love the different dice mechanic, definitely a cool idea. The whole game seems nice and accessible. Well done!

Thanks for the nice words!   And I agree wholeheartedly that parents should use games such as this to teach the difference between fantasy and reality.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's not really for discussion for the sake of discussion though - its more like a work shop. So, do you have any goals you want to work on in terms of the design? Or state your goals and ask 'Are my mechanics meeting these goals?'.

As far as the mechanics go, I basically looking for:

1)   If the Ratio System is indeed unique or has it been used elsewhere.
2)   We are people's opinion of how the system creates a neat (IMHO) ratio between success and failure.
3)   Problems people might see with the mechanic or improvements they might have.
4)   Any sort of feedback since the game is new and still in it's development stage.

As far as goals I have that you guys might help me with, as I mentioned above I am now looking to create adventures for the game.  If anyone knows where I can find written adventures that fit the Adventure Kids setting without too much trouble, and that are rules lite, I would be happy to hear about it.  Even if I can't use a given adventure in it's entirety maybe I can get some ideas from it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wait, what?! You're not making a game about mutant assassin robotic alien kids?! Gahhh!

No no, just kidding. For realz now. I think you've got something very interesting on your hands. I like the simplicity of it. Sounds like something I'd be interested in doing with my nephew.

As far as how games influence kids, I think a lot adults don't give them credit. Kids aren't stupid. By the time they're five years old, they know the difference between right and wrong. They know what's going to get them in trouble and what won't. I think parents are just looking for something to blame. But anyways, I digress.

I think you could teach your kids a lot if you bring real consequences into the game. In other words, if little Joey decides it's a good idea to dump a pot of searing hot coffee into Mrs. Bipple's lap, he shouldn't just be able to get away with it. If the coffee was hot enough, the teacher would probably have to go to the hospital. Joey would definitely get expelled and probably grounded for a month or two. While this may seem a little serious for kids a game, at least your teaching your kids that doing "naughty" or bad things aren't funny or rewarding. But then again, how you handle situations like this is up to you.

Exactly.  These are all the reasons why I am taking a break from playing the game with my kids until I have come up with a real good story adventure that encorporates the elements you mentioned into it.  I think the game will not only be more fun that way but also more satisfying to me as a parent.   And the kids will no doubt have a blast in the process too.  Mutant assassin robotic alien kids or not.

For me, I like the idea of the exciting, spooky summer camp trip. Say, the two kids go on a trip with their summer camp and somehow get lost in the museum they're visiting. Perhaps they see a mouse or something and decide to chase it into the closet which closes behind them, locking them in. Then, once they find the key in a pair of old janitors trousers hanging in the closet, they emerge to find that the museum is closed for the night. Now you've got a semi-realistic fantasy situation where the kids are stuck inside of a spooky museum all night long.

And, as if being locked in a creepy, dark place full of dead stuff and strange exhibits wasn't bad enough, perhaps a group of bumbling thieves (Ala Home Alone) just happens to be robbing the place of the precious Jewel of (Insert important sounding place/person/thing) that night. Now the kids have the choice to try to stop the robbers, or maybe just avoid them long enough to stay undetected.

Excellent!  This is exactly the sort of ideas I am looking for.  Very cool concept with the museum.  I may just drop the current story idea I have in favor of it. 

The current storyline I have bouncing around in my head involves using a travelling carnival as the setting.  I think such a setting would be great for skill checks and investigation.  Plus lots of neat environments for adventure such as the Haunted Tunnel or the House of Mirrors. 

Maybe I can combine the two ideas and have the museum adventure drop clues that lead the kids to the carnival?  Hmmmm...

Anyway, I think there's a lot of potential fun to be had for some lil' pipsqueaks with your game. You should elaborate on it!

Thanks!  I will! 

[Sentience]

Excellent!  This is exactly the sort of ideas I am looking for.  Very cool concept with the museum.  I may just drop the current story idea I have in favor of it. 

The current storyline I have bouncing around in my head involves using a travelling carnival as the setting.  I think such a setting would be great for skill checks and investigation.  Plus lots of neat environments for adventure such as the Haunted Tunnel or the House of Mirrors. 

Maybe I can combine the two ideas and have the museum adventure drop clues that lead the kids to the carnival?  Hmmmm...

My opinion?
Definitely don't ditch what you've got. The carnival idea is another great setting for the kids to explore that can be fun and kinda spooky at the same time. However, keep the two adventures seperate. I'd say run your established carnival adventure and see how they do. If they're really receptive to the idea and they have alot of fun, continue the kids story by using the museum as a "next summer" type of thing. An ongoing story will help the kids get used to playing their Kids, and allow them to really start to love thier characters. I wouldn't be suprised if this is something they'll be pestering you to do with them a lot!

Would you mind giving a summery of your carnival adventure? I'm curious what sort of challenges your setting up for them.

Thanks!

Zack