The Princes' Kingdom, family-style

[joshua neff]

I've been taking a break from role-playing/story games. But my daughter, Morgan, had gotten a taste for this kind of play last spring, playing a few sessions of a game (just her and me) set in S. John Ross' Uresia, using The Shadow of Yesterday rules, and she wanted more. My wife, Julie, and I talked about it and decided that we would start doing Friday Family Game Night, playing something--a card game, board game, or story game--every Friday night. I've really wanted to play The Princes' Kingdom, so I declared it would be the first FFGN game we'd play (and this met with Julie and Morgan's approval). Last Friday we played the first session, and tonight we played the second session, finishing up their first island.

Julie is playing the older sibling, Caroc, a 12-year-old boy who is Big For His Age (a strong quality), Likes Girls a Lot and is a Showoff (both troublesome qualities). Morgan is playing Marion, a 10-year-old girl (Morgan will be 10 this coming February) who is Good At Science (strong quality), Likes To Read and Sometimes Doesn't Pay Attention (troublesome qualities). Marion can also Talk To Animals (which started as a troublesome quality but became a strong quality through Fallout). Character creation went smoothly, with everyone making suggestions about character traits and color. For the proving struggles, both players succeeded in their struggles; Caroc proved he's not as dumb as he looks, and Marion proved she's more responsible than her older brother (in an amusing scene where she has to babysit their incredibly bratty toddler sister).

Going with the pseudo-French vibe Julie had suggested, I designed the first island, Foranoire. It's a fairly small island of rolling green hills and a large, dark forest in the center. Caroc and Marion began with their arrival at the small village of Gendo, where the mayor immediately sprung trouble on them: a group of bandits, living in the dark forest, where coming about once a week and raiding the village. After a few bits of color and scene-setting, Caroc and Marion ended up confronting the bandits at the village gate, and Caroc got them to leave for the night and agree to meet the next morning for a parley. The next day, the met the bandit's leader, Chasser the huntsman. He tells them that he and his band have become bandits because the mayor of the nearby, larger village of Avare overtaxed the citizens. Unable to make a living in Avare, they've turned to banditry "because the mayor of Avare has taught us that this is how to live, by taking from others." Chasser tries to bully Caroc, but Julie played some good dice combos, so I had Chasser give and agree not to attack the village--that day. When Julie started talking about the bandits being bad for stealing, Morgan quietly but astutely noted that the mayor of Avare was also breaking the king's laws. Knowing that Chasser would be returning, Julie had Caroc get the villagers to hide all of their goods and valuables, to trick the bandits into thinking they'd bled Gendo dry. The idea was to get the bandits to attack Avare instead "and let the two groups fight it out between themselves." Sure enough, that night, the bandits come howling like animals, running into the village, and when they don't find anything of value, Chasser announces that they'll change to a different target: the nearby village of Groshom. At that point I was getting tired, so I declared the session over.

Morgan was so enthusiastic about the game, she drew a picture of her character the next morning. All week, she's been talking about how she couldn't wait to play again. Julie also liked the game, but she was concern about Morgan's inaction. Morgan loves to provide all sorts of color detail--talking about what her character's eating, what she's reading, how she talked to some animals but they weren't able to give her any useful information--but when it comes to engaging in conflict, she tends to hang back and let Julie take the lead. All week, Julie's been telling Morgan, "You need to be more active. I'm not going to carry you. It's not 'The Julie Show.'"

So, we started the session tonight, and Morgan told the mayor of Gendo that they'd stay a few more nights, before moving on, but Julie said Caroc was going to leave immediately for Groshom to try and stop the bandits before they can raid the town at all. Morgan was still going to have Marion stay in Gendo for a while, but I told her the conflicts had passed and nothing would really happen there. I also reaffirmed that her character could go wherever and do whatever, regardless of what Caroc was doing. Morgan decided to have Marion go to Avare to talk to the mayor there. The mayor of Avare, Peti, was a short fellow with rich clothing and a huge house, in contrast to the villagers who were all skinny, tired, and dressed in threadbare clothes. He invites Princess Marion to his house for a fancy meal (later, when Caroc asked Marion what the mayor was like, Morgan deadpanned, "Nice house, good food, but those are his only good qualities," which cracked me up). I asked Morgan what she wanted to do, and then the voice of Mike Holmes popped into my head and said, "Don't just ask them what they want to do, present them with conflict that they have to act upon." So I had the mayor come right out and tell Marion that the bandits were lazy villagers who refused to work and had run off owing lots of taxes. He asked her to confront them and get the taxes back, because the village of Avare needed all the taxes it could get. She agreed to go after the bandits, collecting a group of dogs and cats to go with her, but was planning on not really helping the mayor. Meanwhile, Caroc got to Groshom just before the bandits began their first raid. He convinced Chasser that Peti was the person he really needed to deal with and offered to escort Chasser to Avare and serve as a mediator. With Caroc and Chasser travelling to Avare and Marion travelling from Avare, they met halfway, compared notes, and all went back to Avare where they confronted the mayor. Peti initiated a struggle against both siblings, and I really laid the dice on them, pushing them to play their high dice to see, so that I could block their raises. It was a tough struggle, and Peti seemed to be winning, asserting that he was appointed mayor, so he could run Avare as he saw fit, and since being a mayor is hard, he was within his rights to tax the people highly and use the money as he wished. But finally, Morgan raised with a killer dice combo, and there was no way I could see with less than three dice, which meant I'd have to take the blow. "Okay," I told her, "look at my dice. I can't block you, which means anything you say will have to happen. Think about what you want to happen, how this can all be resolved, and declare it. You can do whatever you want at this point." She thought for a minute, and then Julie suggested she make Chasser the new mayor. Morgan liked this, so she did this long speech about how Marion and Caroc were the representatives of the king, and they would someday rule the kingdom, so they had final authority over the island and would make Chasser the new mayor, but only as long as he and his band quit their banditry. I narrated Peti standing there shocked as Chasser removed the awesome mayoral sash and put it on himself. He then pledged to abide by the laws of the kingdom and see that everyone was treated fairly.

We finished up the session with fallout. Julie and I laughed and rolled our eyes as Morgan declared that one of her permanent fallout changes would be a new belonging: a ribbon to tie her hair back. (She already has "some small jewelry" as one of her belongings.) Oh, she's such a pretty princess! Morgan is again excited to play more, saying, "I wish next Friday would come sooner. I love The Princes' Kingdom!" For my part, I plan on making the next island more complicated. I want to see how Morgan handles characters who are mean bullies, plain and simple, who aggressively push struggles on people and quickly escalate to physical conflict. I want to push her into the "moral testing ground" without taking away the fun of the game.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Josh,

First Uresia/TSOY, now The Princes' Kingdom? I'm very flattered that you keep playing my games with Julie and Morgan. Your game sounds awesome, and the outcome, like most TPK islands, is totally fitting and great. I don't have a lot of comments except to say:

- The idea of Julie telling Morgan "It's not 'The Julie Show'" made me laugh out loud.
- But, you know, that's exactly what I wanted from TPK - a safe place to test out being assertive and making decisions. I hope it works out.

Keep us posted on the next island!

- Clinton

[joshua neff]

I actually wish I'd started Morgan with TPK rather than Uresia/TSoY. Not that TSoY isn't a great system, but TPK, like DitV, is very explicit about what everyone playing is supposed to do, and I find that helpful both in teaching someone how to play the game and in a 9-year-old girl knowing what to do in any particular scene.

Her hesitancy about initiating struggles is interesting. Morgan frequently hesitates when making decisions that are somewhat important in a game (like choosing which island to sail to in the navigation phase of Pirate's Cove). Julie has privately said to me, "It drives me up the fucking wall when she does that." (But Julie also openly acknowledges that she's very impatient.) I suspect that Morgan worries about giving the "wrong" answer (she also hesitates when she knows she's in trouble and she's asked if she did it and why she did it). She loves filling in loads of color in the game and she'll kibitz when Julie's doing something, so she clearly enjoys the whole "collaborating on a story" thing. I think Julie and I just need to show her through play that there is no "wrong" answer.

[Caesar_X]

Josh,

Great post!  Really a lot of fun reading about the adventures you guys had.  I had a similar experience recently with my niece and nephew.  My ten-year old nephew certainly wasn't trying to dominate the game, but his seven-year old sister tended to hang back a bit, especially in conflicts.  So I tried to give her scenes that she needed to deal with herself inside of the game, and then encourage her brother to help her at the table.  And he ended up helping her with the dice mechanics and bringing in her qualities while her character still got to make the big decisions.

Clinton, it's really exciting to see how kids get engaged by this system.  It just "feels" more freeform than a game like Faery's Tale (which I like as well), but at the same time, the DitV structure is really something that the kids can latch onto.  It's definitely got me thinking more about story games for kids.

Chris B.

[Mikael]

Great post, Joshua.

As a parent myself, I have to say some parts of your account sounded like pushing a kid to do an adult's job, including your last line about giving her real hard moral questions to crack. It seems that she is enjoying the game anyway, so probably I am just reading too much into some of the sentences, but something here is making me uncomfortable, making me feel like she is expected to perform, instead of just have fun. Did you ask what it was about the game that she enjoyed? Was it fixing the mayor problem, or just being the pretty and capable princess?

What if you just focus on providing her enough decision points, and push your wife with the moral issues.

Once again, my apologies if I am completely wrong here.

Regards,
+ Mikael

[joshua neff]

Mikael,

Yes, I absolutely want to push my daughter to deal with questions of morality and ethics in the game. I don't think dealing with questions of morality and ethics is an adult's job--people of all ages have to deal with questions of morality and ethics. I do think that one of the important aspects of RPGs (and Clinton talks about this in the afterword to TPK) is dealing with the morality and ethics of imaginary situations. In fact, I don't see how it's possible to play The Princes' Kingdom without dealing with moral and ethical issues--it's the core of the game. And I feel that one of my main jobs as a parent is to help my daughter learn to deal with moral and ethical issues. I also don't think that "dealing with moral and ethical issues" and "just having fun" are mutually exclusive. Now, if she does stop enjoying the game, then I've pushed too hard in one direction--I don't want to do that. (That's not any less true of playing RPGs with adults, however.) So, I understand your concern. But I don't think you have anything to worry about in this context.

[Mikael]

Joshua, in the following, please note that I am not really, in any way, specifically directing this only to you or your family, but want to discuss a more general concern.

The thing you did not answer was whether you had discussed which part of the gaming your daughter specifically enjoyed. Note that I did not mean to imply that morally relevant could not be fun, only that morally relevant is not automatically also fun. This "talking about what you want" part seems especially important when it's kids we talk about, as they are so heavily influenced by their parents.

One take on this would be to say that specifically because it's your kid, it's your responsibility to provide moral guidance, and a game like Clinton's is an ideal safe testing ground. Thus you do not have to really discuss gaming preferences, as it is your responsibility to make that choice for your child.

Looking at that assumption opens up the really interesting question, to me. If my main game group, adults all, contains more than one person who is resolutely opposed to morally relevant gaming (I am simplifying things here, for the sake of the discussion), are they inherently just wrong? I mean, all politically correct talk about "letting live" aside, do we really think that they are, dare I say, brain damaged and stupid and wrong not to see how the morally-relevant gaming is, in the end, the only truly valid way to play?

If your first reaction to the above is negative, then the same should hold for the kids as well, and we need to accept that our choice of game, or focus in a given game, is not necessarily the right one for our children.

On further reflection I think this is a non-issue, and the same applies than to any other activity: expose your child to the possibilities, sometimes pushing them a bit to expand their boundaries, but always watching very carefully for their true limits.

[joshua neff]

Mikael,

I did ask both my daughter and my wife what they enjoyed about the game. My daughter's answer was, "I liked everything. I love The Princes' Kingdom!" If you're worried that my daughter may not enjoy playing a game in which she has to makes decisions on moral and ethical issues, I'm going to have to ask you to trust me and assume that I know my daughter much, much better than you do.

I can't address the rest of your post because it's far too general and isn't really talking about anything in this particular discussion. Nobody in this thread is making the claim that "morally-relevant gaming is, in the end, the only truly valid way to play." I did say that you can't play The Princes' Kingdom without dealing with issues of morality and ethics, and that's true, just like you can't play Risk without engaging in abstracted military combat. But talking about people in general playing RPGs in general isn't something I particularly want to do and isn't at all relevant to my playing The Princes' Kingdom with my wife and daughter.

[Mikael]

Joshua, I hear you.

My concerns are more about what and how I will play with my son in the not-too-distant future. I will take my creased forehead elsewhere now.

Regards,
Mikael