Topic: A Father's Journey - the first post...

[Jacinto Pat]

I like the idea of age appropriate settings.  An obvious and easy one is the "school" -- "school of magic", "hero's school" or just regular school but with best friends who use magic and aren't human, an orc for the P.E. teacher, a dwarf running the science class and so on.

Kid detective is also a well developed theme where one should be able to steal lots of idea from various books, and the child can relate to it as well. 

Summer camp?  Mom and dad think its normal when they sign you up, but after your character arrives things begin to get odd....

[GrumpyOldFart]

Lots of scenarios can be 'ported from the classic TV situations for city kids. If the characters are country kids things get a little more limited, as animals and plants have their own cycles and don't wait on us.

As obvious examples, during lambing or harvest kids won't be able to spare the time or attention to even notice the seeds of an adventure, much less get involved in it. Not unless it's something that shakes the entire community to its foundations.

I'd think in many ways the hard part in either case would be keeping the adults out of it. Kids' automatic response to most emergencies is "first, tell a grownup", and for good reason. Fine and good, but if all you zero level guys tell the second and third and fifth level guys, they'll tell you to go home and they'll have all the fun and get all the experience.

True to life perhaps, but makes a sucky RPG. 

[John @ ICE]

I like the idea of age appropriate settings.  An obvious and easy one is the "school" -- "school of magic", "hero's school" or just regular school but with best friends who use magic and aren't human, an orc for the P.E. teacher, a dwarf running the science class and so on.

Kid detective is also a well developed theme where one should be able to steal lots of idea from various books, and the child can relate to it as well. 

Summer camp?  Mom and dad think its normal when they sign you up, but after your character arrives things begin to get odd....

actually a "school" figures big in the idea of my first adventure!  yes thinks its a good way to start and they can relate to it.

another idea Thom mentioned:

Possible idea would be Dragonslayer's Academy..... this is a book series aimed at 7-9 year olds.  Alex and Christian have both read some of the books.

http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Slayers-Academy-Boxed-Set/dp/0439859182


 

[jdale]

As obvious examples, during lambing or harvest kids won't be able to spare the time or attention to even notice the seeds of an adventure, much less get involved in it. Not unless it's something that shakes the entire community to its foundations.

Conversely, you can use this as the excuse for why the adults don't have the time or attention to notice the issue and the kids have to deal with it themselves.

[markc]

  Watch some Anime on Netflix and you can get some good ideas about School's of "X". For X it could be vampires, dragon slayers, zombie slayers, etc. IMHO it is a very common theme used and works well.
MDC

[intothatdarkness]

As obvious examples, during lambing or harvest kids won't be able to spare the time or attention to even notice the seeds of an adventure, much less get involved in it. Not unless it's something that shakes the entire community to its foundations.

Conversely, you can use this as the excuse for why the adults don't have the time or attention to notice the issue and the kids have to deal with it themselves.

Or if it's a tribal-type society the adults could send the kids off to deal with a smaller problem as a test of maturity (or rite of passage), when then turns into something bigger...

[ironmaul]

This is also a good one for kids by Firefly games. Nicholas put me onto this one.
http://firefly-games.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=25&products_id=47

Summer camp?  Mom and dad think its normal when they sign you up, but after your character arrives things begin to get odd....

I like this idea, perhaps there is a dimensional door to a fairy tale world that is causing havoc with the modern world? And it's up to the kids to close the door with the help of the 'good Fae folk'? Possibilities are endless.

I think I'll wait till the beta RM arrives to make any serious thought on rules and characters etc. It'll be interesting how you make up zero level child characters though. How does one handle child hit points, strength bonuses etc.? RM's focus is on adult characters(I'm not a rules lawyer by the way).



 

[GrumpyOldFart]

In terms of game design, I think the biggest single piece of work will be creating monsters/scenarios/treasures suitable for a party of zero level characters. As it stands, a lot of ICE's current fan base starts at above 1st level.

Note that the reason those 3 items are shoved together is because I don't think you can really separate them. If something's nasty enough to challenge them and get their interest, they probably won't be able to beat it at all without some help around the edges, both from the tactical environment of the scenario itself (terrain, weather, etc.) and from treasures placed in context of the story.

[ironmaul]

I think you'll find that NPC will play a large part in 'guiding' the players. Also I think it's important to have special items to help them achieve certain goals even if they are a one time use. So yes, I agree with GoF.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Also I think it's important to have special items to help them achieve certain goals even if they are a one time use. So yes, I agree with GoF.

One of the reasons I phrased it the way I did ("treasures placed in context of the story") was to allow for situations I think will be all too common with zero level characters: There's magic you need to win the scenario that no one has access to at zero level. But while you want to give them the help needed to solve the puzzles and be successful, you don't want to nerf the adventure or munchkinize the players. This may take careful handling in order to not only have magic/herbs/etc. they'll need, but at the end of the adventure have them still be as (or nearly at least) comparatively helpless as zero/first level characters normally are.

And yes, NPCs can probably fill a lot of that function.

[markc]

IMHO I think it is possible to have a child (6-12) be 2nd level but after that I think of 3rd being more like 20+.
MDC

[rdanhenry]

Tarzan killed a bull gorilla in single combat at the age of 10. If he wasn't 1st level before that, he surely was after. Adventures should get kids out of zero level pretty quickly, though I'd have them pick up skills as they went instead of piling experience up to a normal leveling experience, just because at 0 level you need every rank you can get your hands on.

[ironmaul]

Thinking out of the box...perhaps we should not think in the terms of levels but in the form of status. This is something I've been mulling over for a little while at least. When the characters start out they're pretty much 'unknown' in the game world. After they've completed an adventure, then their status increases to 'known'. You could have several status tiles such as 'popular', then 'famous', and 'legend' etc. I think this would be more appealing to children then saying they've increased a level. Alternately you could even say that although they've increased their level they haven't increased their status title. And with a higher status title comes the benefits of free/cheaper items, access to certain areas, functions and NPCs etc. Thoughts?

[markc]

 I like status also as a game mechanic but I have not thought of a good way to implement it yet.


 As per experience, I give out DP at 30%, 30% and 40% of the level and allow the players to buy 1 rank per segment (rarely 2 ranks per segment if they are training or spending a lot of time using that skill).  IMHO this works very well and I can see kids liking it a lot.
MDC

[ironmaul]

I like status also as a game mechanic but I have not thought of a good way to implement it yet.


 As per experience, I give out DP at 30%, 30% and 40% of the level and allow the players to buy 1 rank per segment (rarely 2 ranks per segment if they are training or spending a lot of time using that skill).  IMHO this works very well and I can see kids liking it a lot.
MDC

Yeah, that's not a bad idea and I used something along those lines when I GMed way back...a gradual increase of skills instead of all at once. I think that it also encourages the players to think on their skills more, the more they use a skill the better you'll be at that skill. Also, I don't think having negatives against a skill that the player doesn't have is encouraging(kill joy)...but that mechanic does remove itself a little from the basis of RM, does it not?

The status mechanic is more based on the surrounding environment and success of the player/groups achievements than the actual skill/level of the player. The character might be the best of the best at several skills but if s/he is new and unknown to the area who will care about who they are, "Don't tell us how good you are, show us!". Use status as the motivation and not the level of the character. As the status is increase it will open more doors of opportunity to more important NPC's, items etc. In time I'll try this idea with my kids once I get the new rules and a little time to get something ready but I can't see this being too hard to implement.

[markc]

 I know they used Fame in James Bond 007, I will see if I can find my rules and see how they did it. It has also been a long time since I played the game so my memory of just how good the rules were might be off a bit.
MDC

[WoeRie]

You should talk with your german partners from 13mann.de. They created a d10 system called Aborea, which is so increadible easy and still has a feeling of RM/HARP (at least with some fantasy and good will). The only thing which I'm missing are the critical hits... but... I know... we want to play with Kids, so it's better to keep the fights a bit more abstract

I will go on holiday tomorrow and we have the box with us. We will try to play it with my 8 year son in the evenings. I hope this works

It MUST have crits!  There is nothing more exciting than open ended rolls, come on!  You cant lose that. All you need to do is change the descriptions (and simplify the outcomes).  but having that heroic, one-swing win is key.

Let us know what you have discovered in your game.  Which box BTW - Arborea?

Yes, Aborea and it has open ended rolls (a roll of a 10 is open ended) but no crits

We had 4 sessions during our holiday and the players are shortly before level 3, now. It was GREAT! I only wanted to introduce my son into the game, but my daughter (6, not in school, yet) was not willing to stand aside. It was a bit complicated with her, but I think she really enjoyed playing. She always stood up and showed me how her ranger is sneaking around a corner or shooting with the bow. She also did a lot of the talking, which was so much fun! My son on the other hand enjoyed the fighting and rolling of the dice. He was also very "in role" and I think a few times he was really afraid of his dwarf

Yupp, we will continue playing, no question, but the tension of battles was high enough, I wouldn't like to increase that with criticals in the next years!

[intothatdarkness]

I know they used Fame in James Bond 007, I will see if I can find my rules and see how they did it. It has also been a long time since I played the game so my memory of just how good the rules were might be off a bit.
MDC

Fame had to do with completing missions and accomplishments during that time, and dealt with how easily a character could be recognized. Hero points were used to alter game outcomes and were gained by QR 1 results on non-combat tasks/skill rolls.