[Shadows] Looney Tunes episode

[sdm]

I recently played Shadows, a free game by Zak Arntson http://www.harlekin-maus.com/The Takeaway:

[quozl]

This is great! Thanks for posting it.

[Yokiboy]

Very nice AP report, thanks for sharing. I played Shadows Tuesday with my two daughters, 9 and 3 1/2. Their character sheets are gorgeous! I feel the need to scan them and post them online.

The game went well from the point of view that my 9-year old loved it, but unfortunately we couldn't keep the 3 1/2-year old interested long enough to finish our story. We started with the default situation where you're sleepign over at your uncle's, and it developed into them capturing a fairy, putting a sleep spell on their angry uncle, rummaging around in the basement in hot chase of a boggart... Lots of fun.

Glad to see that other people also play Shadows,

Yoki

[sdm]

I forgot to have them draw the characters and their shadows.  It should be interesting to see whay Sponge Bob, Patrick, and Squidwards' shadows end up looking like.

I wonder if you'd have any luck with the 3 1/2 year old if you let her be a favorite character from a DVD series - Dora, Little Einstein, etc.  Maybe you could ask her "What would ______ want to happen next?"

I think 3 1/2 would be challenging, but the good news is that my 5 year old is very much into RPGs.  Hopefully, your 9 year old will still be excited to play in a year and a half.

When you play Shadows do you narrate a fair amount of story to build tension and then ask for player input? or do you let them make many choices with very little GM glue in between?

Finally, do you attempt to build the tension as the game goes along.  I've found that I usually bring the story to an end by saying, "OK, now we've got to bring the story to an end.  How do you want it to end?  How about your shadow?"

[Yokiboy]

Drawing the character sheets and picking dice was a ton of fun for us and a big part of the game.

Yeah my 3 1/2-year old daughter, Ella, might be interested in playing a fictional character more than herself. She kept misunderstanding us and wanted to go act out things. Her older sister, Sofia (9) would say something like, "we sneak into the living room" and Ella wanted to actually go sneak into our living room. It was very cute.

This was our first play of Shadows, but hopefully not our last. I did some narration of the story, trying to build tension. I told them that their uncle was up watching NHL in the middle of the night, as he usually is (we live in Sweden so the games air very late over here). They were good at coming up with ways to get themselves in trouble though, that I could riff off of.

We never got to the end, as Ella wasn't into playing no more. All the tokens also ended up with Sofia due to bad luck with her dice, which meant that Ella would have to take the lead for a while instead of taking turns, but with her being bored we gave up the game. Sofia did ask to complete it another time though.

TTFN,

Yoki