Topic: Rolemaster for Kids

[Marc R]

I am also married to a gamer.  In fact, we met at a gaming event.  Now we are married with 4 kids.  Our oldest, who is 8, also has begun to play some.

My 11-year-old has been playing with us for about 8 years.  She started with a faerie Illusionist.  If she could think it up, it could happen!

Any advice, comments or things you'd advise not doing based on your experience, for others like me with young kids, who are considering breaking them into role play?

[bpowell]

OK, here is what I did.

1)  Make a character they can have fun with
2)  Keep the game to their level.  If they seem to think it too simple increase the difficulty.
3)  Use the game to make homework fun.  I have my daughter keeping an adventure journal of her character.
     Also we can count gaming as math homework.  (I know I am a pain)
4)  Remember their limited attention span.  Take frequent breaks.

[yammahoper]

frequent breaks is a very good idea.  I run about an hour to ninety minutes usually before we break.  A cliff hanger is always good.

In our last adventure (using 4th edition HERO) the players (my niece Jessica, 12, and my daughter Bianca, 8 in Feb) sought a jewel to keep it out of the hands of the gang leader trying to steal it.  When they grabbed the jewel, the two guardiand of it, an ice and light elemental, popped out.  I stopped right there for the night.  We had been playing almost two hours and it was a perfect spot.  B' and jess spent much of the night discussing what they would do, with a nice level of anxiety (Jessicas character is vulnerable to light attacks in her shadow/desolid form and it doesn't take much to scare a seven year old!).

The following day after dinner we sat down to play, starting with the fight.  Jessicas character joined a gang in the game under the influence of mind control and agreed to break into the museum to steal the gem, but during the fight another telepath was able to break the mind control, resulting in both girls plotting to steal the gem, play dumb, and learn what the Wizzard has planned.  We stopped there and when we pick back up, it will be the girls reporting back to the gang leaders (The Shadows powers has made her a Lt in the gang, called The Demons).

Point is, Bianca in particular is easily distracted.  In fact, I gave her mental flaes for ACTS CHILDISH and LACKS CONFIDENCE and EASILY DISTRACTED.  When B starts acting that way, we just play it as her diadd(s).  Working swell so far.

Linear aint bad eiither for the younguns.

[markc]

  Take a look at what they like to watch or cartoons that they liked to watch a couple of years ago. treat it like it was a movie or TV show and back off a little on the time as it is more interactive than TV. (At least in my house it is)
  I hope we do not see any "Reality TV" RPG's out there but maybe some younger players would like it as a side story.
MDC

[Zat]

This brings to mind a quote from one of my players when we had a 12 year old neighbor's kid around to have a go at gaming.

"I'd move through the door, buy I don't think I could make it past all the excitment"

The lad only stayed with us for the one session, but I remember that magic from when I first started gaming and wish I could spread a little more of it around.

[bpowell]

A fellow here in Denver often says, "If we do not teach our kids to game the hobby dies with our generation."

[GrumpyOldFart]

My gaming group started with RM1 in 1982 or so, has been on again/off again as RL takes its toll, and is about to start up again with HARP. Only this time it's me, my sister, my son, one of my nieces (sis' daughter), her husband, her son and her nephew. Sis and I have been in since the beginning, the niece and my son started in the mid 90s I guess.

The 2 youngest are 10 and 12 IIRC, and we're weaning them off of D&D and teaching them how to roleplay.

[bpowell]

GOF,

I think you hit the nail on the head.  I fin that RM give me a greater breadth to allow the players to ROLE play their characters.  While sometimes I just let the game flow and not use a single roll of the ice, there are time the players use skills in strange combos.

My wife still brags about the time she had her halfling thief climb a tower, sneak across the top while the party kept the evil mages attention.  Once behind his she then used a Martial Arts maneuver to push him over the edge.  He fell 150' feet to his death.

Of course I had this huge heroic battle in mind where the Mage would taunt the party and cast spells at them as they battled their way up the stairs.

The group looked at me and say..."Well, that was easy.  What next?"

Lucky I know my wife and had some other ideas for the night.

[yammahoper]

I'm starting the girls on HERO, and have stressed the role play part from the start.

My experience is the kids are naturals!  My seven year old has surprised us with excellent one liners, including "I'm gonna make you eat dirt!"  Normally she is to shy to deliver a good speech, but she loves the one liners.  her cousin otoh digs making presence attacks and giving speechy speeches.

Jessica already has a well developed sense of morality, but it took a few tricks to drive the lesson home to Bianca.  Her PC has a ranged killing attack (electrocution), a NND no range eb (shocking grasp) and a normal eb (lightning bolt).  In our first encounter, she electrocuted a normal, killing him.  I had the deceased child run out to her prone daddy crying, and when the police came they took her away because whe no longer had a parent to care for her.  This made Bianca very thoughtful, and now she doesnt want to use her RKA (um, even when she should lol).

BTW, the crazed AK toting normal was under mind control by The Wizzard to create a diversion.  Bianca PC, Electric Girl, is not a member of the gang but just a friend of The Shadow.  It wasn't until our last adventure the girls learned The Wizzard has mental powers (that do not affect pre puberty/children, not that they know that either).

Both girls like slipping into their secret ID's and going out after dark, slipping out the house and doing what the wnt to, wheich has been a little silly at times.  In their secret ID's they are treated like adults, which they really like.  As Jess said, "I could stay The Shadow forever."

Be ready for some amazing, and wild, and even, well, dumb, ideas.  Electric Girl has desolid with linked flight that allows her to travel through electrical systems.  When they first came to the jewel, it was inside a secure case with alarms.  She wanted to enter her hand though a light, desolid just her arm, reach into the case via one of the display lights, and grab the jewel.  It was freaking brilliant.  We moded her desolid power to have 2" stretching on the spot and I demanded an EGO roll at -4.  She rolled a 1, 1, 2!  They got the gem, the elementals appear (I asked B what she did when they appeared and she delighted me by responding I DROP THE DIAMOND!) and we stopped for the night there.

Jessica had the idea that Biancas PC could follow her by riding in the cars electrical system.  I asked for a roll to see if Electric Girl could hold her form without blowing out the cars fuses, and she failed the roll by one, so when the car was half weay to its destination, I had the car break down.

My point is the kids have had some really neat ideas.  They have kept me on my toes and really dig into what I put before them.  I recommend lots of NPC's to make the world seem real.  Don't let them live in a vacuum.  be sure to stress the imact of their actions.  When The Shadows full power 12d6 shadow bolt missed the villian, it tore a gapeing hole in the museum wall, I was sure to describe the damage done to the exibit, and I'll go back to it when the news covers the story and talks about the finacial cost and loss of Native America artifacts (and I have a native american villian that will be showing up when i need him to kick her bottom...I want the first meet to be very direct.  I can bring him back later).  I encourage good ideas, but I want them also focusing on their responsibilities as heros, not acting like this is a video game.

[David Johansen]

I've mostly run Castles and Crusades with my kids.  I wrote a couple games to run for them but they've got no faith in my game design skills.

[ReaperWolf]

Hrm... it can be done.

I've run HARP for kids as young as 10 but there were problems I had to solve along the way through trial and error.

Firstly, divide every die modifier used in game by 5 and round to the nearest. Use a d20 instead of 1d100, kids don't like too much math and cumbersome rules confuse, encumber, and ultimately distract. The d20 rolls down on a 1 and rolls up on a 20. Simple.

The GM with calculator in hand converts the adjusted die roll by multiplying by 5 and consults the relevant table. Yes the limited range of 1-20 throws off the attack and critical tables a bit but since even the monsters and foes are doing it the overall impact to the game is minimized.

For Armor, condense the number of columns to a minimum, I suggest the following:

Hide: AT 4
Soft Leather: AT 8
Rigid Leather: AT 12
Chainmail: AT 16
Platemail: AT 20

For example, the player let's call him Joey the Wood Elf has a +48 OB with his shortbow and he enthusiastically chooses to put an arrow between the eyes of a charging morning star swinging orc (who's wearing Chainmail AT 16) with a DB of 31. Converting Joey's OB of 48 becomes a 9.6 or a +10 and the Orc has a 6.2 rounded to +6. Joey rolls the d20 as as luck would have it rolls a 20, rolling again he gets a 5 for a total of 29 (20 + 5 + 10 + -6), the GM multiplies by 5 and Joey the Wood Elf's attack is 145 on the shortbow table reading 17E Piercing. Hearing this Joey the Wood Elf picks up the d20 and rolls the critical and his luck holds out rolling a 15 which the GM multiplies by 5 and gets a 75. Pausing for effect the GM changes the description (to placate Joey who stipulated he was aiming between the eyes, no biggie it makes little difference) that the arrow bounces off the orc's helmet causing him to scream in pain and fall down taking 3 rounds of stun without parrying and for one round is -15 to all d20 rolls.

Kids make poor choices and sometimes forget this isn't a video game with infinite save points so implement some sort of fate point/hero point mechanic allowing them to tinker with dice rolls so they aren't killed instantly. The one from HARP works fairly well.

Also, reducing the difficulty of traps, ambushes, and hidden things is a good idea as is reducing the monster power level. Kids focus on the finish line and often forget the journey so you'll need to hold their hands teaching them the rhythms of the tabletop game such as searching for traps, finding herbs, looking for ambushes, taking time to rest and heal, retreating from tough combats, etc. You'll probably have to break down tasks into a choose your own adventure type format with laying out potential courses of action until the kids get the hang of it.

So it's doable.

>>ReaperWolf