Sorcerer & Sword - Collaboration in Action

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Cosmic Ark.

Kind-hearted aliens land on the earth and try to collect specimens to preserve before the humans kill the animals off.

Creative, non-violent solutions. Animals. Allows each kid a special alien power that can be used X times per game.

- J

[Mithras]

I dunno Jared, referee's rights and all, could YOU GM that kind of squeaky-clean scenario?? I like to add a bit of depth, but not so much I'm going to get into trouble for it!

So, for example, I don't mind characters dying.

I began a game at another school without resolving it - kids shipped out in a 2300AD style universe to their parent's colony world. But they end up crash landed on some seemingly unihabited wilderness world. Where are they? Is it the colony world? Why did they crash?

And some people are after them. Why? And there are hostile aliens trying to eat them.

I might just try this. Cast them as children, take away weapons and any violent resolution - see what happens.

Then again, something I forgot to mention as I gave an account of the game-play. As it began to spiral out of control, I thought - "why did I commit myself ...". I could feel the tension rising, the girls's hackles were up as the boys got more and more wound up and stupid, they tried to tell other players what to do, wouldn't shut up when I asked them, said stupid things at inappropriate times...

I thought - screw this if I'm running it next week. Something else maybe - knock them sideways, make em laugh or scare them, but not this ... I think I felt the need to switch from one thing to another, it seems like a very useful strategy. Don't create huge multi-scenario campaigns - go for smaller games that can be ditched at will, or extended if they work. Rather than commit time and energy into a huge resource backed game. For example, I'd love to do a Basic D&D Lord of the Rings or Hobbit game. But that investment, I now feel, would be wrecked by hack n' slah gaming by 10 year olds who want to kill, kill, kill, kill.

BTW - ditching players is NOT an option. This is a school club, and its FOR the children, not for my own enjoyment. I should think about that. I'm not giving them an alternative 'avatar'-type experience away from computer games. I'm giving them a socially co-operative experience. Think, improvise, co-operate.

I've got a week's holiday to think about this. Pray for divine inspiration! Or posts from you guys (it works out to about the same in the end!).
Cheers.

Thanks for listening.

Not as depressed, but as frustrated as fuck.

Paul

[Mike Holmes]

Paul, you used octaNe? There are a couple of problems here. octaNe is a game created to be used in a specific sort of "zone" that one needs to get into to work. The scenario you had seems from it's description that it woudn't support this. That's why you have Jared above trying to tell you what would work.

Did you have the rock and munchies as the text suggests?

I'm not sure that kids that age can even get into the "zone".

But most importantly, there is one thing that you really overlooked. I know you're a great GM and designer, and I have every confidence in the world that you can run most games. But...you aren't American. I'm afraid that English persons may be culturally incapable of playing octaNe.

}Ducks{

OK, seriously now, have you considered other systems? Shadows by Zak Arneston? Or something more straightforward like FUDGE? Or that Ladder System by that guy who does that MARS game?

Mike

[Nev the Deranged]

That sounds like a major bummer.  It's too bad, kids these days are raised on Dragon Ball Z and violent TV shows... I mean, I love good healthy dose of violence as much as the next guy, but when we roleplayed as kids (pre-D&D anyway.. in D&D we just killed stuff) we did all kinds of things... the joy was in the storytelling, the exploration of a friend's imagination using a character spawned from your own.  I mean, sure, there were plenty of fights, death defying escapes and rescues, all that sort of derring do.  But to hear that that's all kids these days want to do makes me wonder what their parents are teaching them.  I mean, my parents steered me AWAY from violent input at that age.  It didn't work, of course... but I certainly had plenty of nonviolent interests to go along with the violent ones.

Trying to think of ideas to give the kids something else to do...have you come up with any puzzles to solve of any kind?  I'm thinking something requiring cooperation between multiple characters.  

One of my favorite angles is to arrange for one or a few characters to have to fight a really powerful opponent (or group), powerful enough that they are pretty well overmatched.  Arrange for the other characters to discover/figure out that the enemy(ies) are being magically enhanced in one or more ways, and the source(s) of those enhancements need to be disengaged somehow to give their comrades a fighting chance.  For example, the first time I did this, the big fighter of the group was challenged to fight the local champion in the arena.  He started out doing fairly well, with his comrades watching from the spectators area, but pretty soon it was apparent he was going to lose- badly.  One of the (female, incidentally) characters had a form of second sight, and managed to perceive that the champion had three beams of colored light connecting him to three towers around the arena (enhancing his strength, speed, and stamina, respectively).  The characters, after quick discussion, decided to split up and try to take the towers in pairs.  It became a race against the clock of their battling friend's HPs, as he desperately tried to hold out long enough for them to give HIM a chance to defeat the champion, who turned out to be kind of wimpy without his enhancements.  Each of the three towers required a different strategy, one violent (kill the wizards generating the beam), one more cerebral (solve the puzzle to shut down the beam), and one skill based (shoot the target to stop the beam) to deactivate, which I fudged and tailored each to the pair of characters who took them.  

It was a pretty satisfying gimmick, all in all, and I've used variations on it a few times.

Treasure hunting is good too, with clues and that sort of thing, obviously tailored to the age group... include a few fights along the way, exploration, mystery and what have you.

I'd probably be able to think of more if I knew all the nitty gritty background, but as it is I'm left to coming up with generic answers.  Hope you figure something satisfying out!

[Mithras]

Paul, you used octaNe?

Thanks, Mike!

Not quite. I used the basic concept behind the game, that is - you get a good die result - you narrate. You get a bad result the GM narrates. That's all. The kids created their own fantasy world.

Basic task description - roll 1d6
Good, elaborated task description - roll 1d8
Evocative and atmospheric task description - roll 1d10.

Get 6+ to narrate the result, or GM narrates and makes it complicated.

But, like I said, with shy or inexperienced 10 year olds this lack of structured rules seems to create alot of chaos. I think I need some RULES! First, a basic social contract kind of thing. This is what we do. This is how we behave in-game and out of game.

[Valamir]

Yup, I'm thinking that Ron's Octane review came out too late to save you from this.  I think the rules of Octane as Ron explains in the review just simply don't work except within a very specific atmosphere of consensual storytelling and aren't effective for sim light exploration of color/setting.

You may want to consider that the kids aren't completely to blame, but rather the system was the wrong tool for the job.

[greyorm]

Paul,

The first thing that hit me when I read your post was about your choice of giving out dice for description...I immediately thought "uh-oh" and (from the rest of your post) my foresight proved correct.

I've been role-playing for nearly twenty years now, some of my players have been playing for longer, and one thing we have never been able to do is decide what the heck "description" means from a player in terms of getting bonuses.

"Description" has to be defined solidly: does it mean more wordy, with lots of adjectives and detailed description of the action? Or does it mean 'important' to the current story, a moment when the action resolves or highlights some aspect of the plot and the character's condition within it?

What's more important here, IMO, is that these sorts of rules tend to reward player-effectiveness over character-effectiveness, and puts pressure on people to perform against a standard rather than enjoy a game.

My group is made of of those no younger than their mid-twenties (and the majority are much older) and when we tried to use rules like this, everyone started clamming up because...well, some folks are not as good at this as others, and no one enjoys being judged as mediocre on what they thought was their best effort...they become so nervous they go blank.

Add the peer-pressures of highschool to the mix, and all the judgement of a person that goes on regularly in teenage life, and you have a recepie for turtle-behavior...so it doesn't surprise me that the female player you mention did exactly this.

Two other items also spring immediately to mind:

I'm honestly having a hard time figuring out how all this violence occurred with you acting as GM. What sorts of specific situations did it arise in? Why did those situations exist and allow violence as a solution (yes, I am grilling you as the GM...as you are the one running play, not the kids)?

If the kids were engaging in violence, then the best answer isn't to say, "No violence!" and establish authority-figure rules for them to rebel against; it is to use the game's rules themselves to reinforce that violence is the wrong solution, a dangerous solution, and a solution that has consequences that go far beyond the moment.

Start a tavern brawl? End up in jail (or the hospital). Fight the city guard when they try to imprison you? End up out cold and in jail (or more likely: the hospital). And do not be afraid to go a step further and allow the characters to die.

If you don't want violence, the rules shouldn't reward it. In fact, given the specific situation you are in, the rules themselves should enforce (in general) quick, messy ends to those who utilize violence (I hear the Riddle of Steel is great for this).

Get realistic in terms of results (not necessarily number crunching and charts!): most fights are over in two seconds, and have painful effects that last for hours, if not days or weeks. Fighting also has consequences from the authorities. The action-hero violence and combat found in most RPGs is nothing like this: Find rules that do not support it.

The second item I noticed, the game sounds unfocused; that is, it doesn't sound as though the characters each had a "Kicker" important to their player. See if each player can develop one along the lines in Sorcerer: a situation that needs to be dealt with immediately that requires a moral choice to be made.

Used in conjunction with the above, a player (even a hormone-laden (pre)teenage guy) will not be willing to sacrifice their dear character to a fit of stupid violence.

The rules should also reinforce the type of play outcomes that are most beneficial: use the system itself to reward specific types of play and solutions (social, cooperative, intelligence gathering, etc). This isn't being Gamist; frex, Sorcerer rewards specific types of play and behavior.

[Stuart DJ Purdie]

I'm not sure if this sort of 'fix' would work, but it's nagging at my head, so I might as well share.  I'm assuming that the group is the same one that did the colaborative campaign design.

If you want the players to be less violent, the only solution that I can see is to penalise violent behaviour.  The method that suggests itself to me is if the crystal is drawing power from the blood spilt (or violent actions, or similar).  

Drop a heavy hint that continuing the violence will let the evil villian win (powering up the crystal, letting him extend his influence over a larger area, or some such).  Then, if the violence contiunes, have the PC's 'lose', because the villian triumphs.  If the loss is not crushing, (i.e. there are hooks for a sequel [0]) then I don't think that it will stop the players from continung, but will act towards a theme that violience is not always a good solution.

If they stop the violence, or, rather, slow it down, then that's also a solution.

This is somewhat against the principles of player authorship - it's a piece of pretty hard railroading.  It also might work - depends on the players.

As a thought, if the players want to kill things, and you don't want to encourage that, it might be worth considering a Drama resolution system for combat.  That way, they can mow down a few lowly enemies, whilst never getting thier hands near dice.  And (speaking as someone who has been an 11 year old male) it's the dice that make the combat exciting.  Have diced resolution systems for the other aspects, and try to sublimate the gambling instincts into those.

Both these ideas revolve around projecting your wants over the players - not a problem inherently, but somehting to remain aware of.  I have a bad habit of doing one such trick, then following it with several more - had I left it at one, everything would have worked (pasably at least) [1].  Your milage may, of course, vary.

[0] Sequal hooks: Bad guy never finds crystal, but it powers him through the part of the crown he has - thus allowing another group of intrepid adventurers to find the crystal, and break his hold over the region?  I'm rambling a bit here.

[1] This is down to my GMing style, rather than anything else.  If I flop, I tend to run home to extreme railroading.

[Mithras]

Greyorm and Stuart  - I take your advice seriously. I did come tothe same conclsion regarding narrating-dice, and ditched it for a straight task resolution system.

I agree this situation is all my fault. Firstly, I brought in 2 new guys when it looked like the girsls weren't going to turn up. Everyone turned up and I had 7 players. Not good. Especially when one (the most disruptive) had no character and had not done any roleplaying. The other two had not joined in the world building or roleplayed before. Large groups =chaos.

Secondly, the situation ingame WAS violent. Or potentially violent. The group had become prisoners of beastmen who had also enslaved the local villagers to dig for the crystal. There were over a hundred beastmen in the camp. My initial idea was to give the PCs the opportunity to escape, maybe free the slaves and get the crystal by exploring a secret passage unknown to the beastmen. Things started off well with a diversion planned and the rescue of the slavs. But once fighting began, all the boys wanted a piece of it - 100 beastmen or not. Each time I turned to the others in the group who were going to retrieve the crytal, the boys were psyching each other up, claiming how hard they were, saying how they were going to butcher everyone and so forth. When I cut back to them they came out with some really crazy, ultra-violent stuff. Impractical, implausible, and since this is a school club - inappropriate.

And it became uncontrolled  - the first time I've run a game for children that has become uncontrolled. One boy saying how one of the girls should 'suicide herself', another I warned that the beastmen were under the sway of the Bad Guy, and were actually allies, not to be slaughtered - replied "I don't care - they're gonna die".

It won't happen again, anyway. I post my terrible experience here really to illustrate that I was wrong - children this age NEED some rules there, hard and fast, rather than be given freedom to improvise and create. I had no problems pre-game, but ingame - it got wonky - the ultimate hack N slash, really. I'm quite ashamed of myself!

So I'm planning the next game already ... and I WANTED to use OD&D to run a Middle Earth game!!! No f**king way!

Instead, I'm looking at children crashed on an alien world they need to identify. Hostile wilderness, limited equipment, co-operative team efforts to solve problems, aliens, robot civilization, and untrustworthy humans (pirates? smugglers? treasure hunters?). I need to create a set of well-written scenarios with time-limits, chases, exploration and so forth. Its got to be high on action and tension, low on violence.

I've done something like this before and it seemed to work.

My problem is I like to try very different things out on new groups. Maybe I should use a good old standby first of all, see how they respond, THEN try something totally new.

[Judd]

Were the kids who helped create the world the violent ones?

I'd think if you threatened that world, threatened their creation with something large and ominous they might more readily band together in order to defend it.

I run an after-school program and have been thinking hard about how to run a role-playing program and I'm watching your work here carefully and thinking about it a whole lot.

I'll write some more later.

Good luck and don't be disheartened.  You'll find that winning combination and please know that your posts are helping me (and presumably other people) plan their strategies for running games for students.

Thanks,

Judd

[Mike Holmes]

I'd think if you threatened that world, threatened their creation with something large and ominous they might more readily band together in order to defend it.

I know you're an educator, and I should take your judgement on this, but haven't you found that the urge to knock the sandcastle over once constructed is at least as common as the urge to protect it from the waves?

Mike

[Mithras]

I know you're an educator, and I should take your judgement on this, but haven't you found that the urge to knock the sandcastle over once constructed is at least as common as the urge to protect it from the waves?

Mike

So true!

This has made me think a little harder about how I've been organizing these games. In my previous school I carefully chose the children I thought would work well. We had fantastic games, and I've written about those on my website.

At this school I got lucky with a random recruiting drive and we did very well. Another group was very very difficult to work with and I had to wind that party up  before the end of term. I was tough on myself then. This group was also a 'blind' recruitment and started out well.

I think there are some children who just cannot get into the roleplay mindset. There are plenty of adults you'd never roleplay with, I'm beginning to think the same about some children. It demands a certain type of personality. It doesn't demand much, but you have to be co-operative, wait your turn and listen. That's it. Being vocal, being descriptive, having imagination - they're extras and I believe a GM can bring those attributes out of a player.

Unfortunately the school does insist on a sort of equal opportunities as far as school,clubs go, no matter if you are arty or into sport or whatever. Which is good - but ... my tendency to create epic games, or even write entire rules-sets just for school, might have to stop. I think in future I'll have to have a stable of games I can adapt to individual groups, or even just 'approaches' that me and the group can take on the spur of the moment.

Paka, have you talked to John De Hope? He's a teacher in a high school and has run roleplaying 'classes' with huge groups, dividing them up and getting them to run games amongst themselves. In fact - I might give him a bell myself!

[Mike Holmes]

Make it just a Game Club. Then run RPGs for the children for whom that's appropriate, and Car Wars for those who like destruction.

It's interesting to see how organized people can be playing a game like Car Wars where the object is mass destruction. Put in robot drivers if you need to make it PG.

Mike

[Nev the Deranged]

Well, I don't know if my last post contributed anything useful... I didn't even notice the second page of posts when I sent it >.<  

I did come up with a some more ideas though, and I'll share them simply because if I don't spit them out they won't leave me alone.

One is the idea that is such a core part of Sorcerer, in that victories can carry over into related actions.  This is an awesome vehicle for including everyone in a gaming group no matter what is going on.  Almost any activity can be made cooperative using this idea.  It can be easily adapted to any diced system.

Second, a little more specific, is the "Goonies" style treasure hunt, complete with map and interlocking map/clue/puzzle/traps that give everyone something to do.

I don't know how useful any of this is to your specific needs, but hey, it didn't cost nothin' to type or to read =>

[Mithras]

One is the idea that is such a core part of Sorcerer, in that victories can carry over into related actions.  

Second, a little more specific, is the "Goonies" style treasure hunt, complete with map and interlocking map/clue/puzzle/traps that give everyone something to do.

Not sure what you mean on that first one Nev (I'm scared to admit that I don't have Sorcerer - and lost my free download a while ago). Your second idea I think will suit me perfectly. I've tried the open 'its in your hands' approach, I think now its time to move back to a tighter fitting approach, with more structure and less 'freedom'. For new players, I think the concept can be daunting.

I've just finished talking to John De Hope, BTW - he's been running RPG games with 30 x 15 year olds (mainly boys). I count myself lucky - and take back all I said!!!! He's braver than I!