Well, last time I posted I laid out what this forum topic was about. Now I’m going to bring people up to speed on what I got done thus far.
So, I lugged out all my old boxes of writing - you see, I was the GM for my main game group and most others I was involved with. It is extraordinary how much I wrote. I have 5 full campaign worlds and another 4 or 5 half written. I wish I had worked that hard in school! But actually, like my father said to my mother when I was spending ALOT of time on my game in high school, he is writing, researching, learning, doing math, being creative and NOT doing drugs! So it worked for him. In hindsight, I got ALOT of value out of gaming, just learning organizational skills, self discipline to sit down and write to meet deadlines for the next game session, and being fair and impartial amongst my best friends despite how I might be feeling about them personally outside the game at the time.
Anyway, I started looking for inspiration... and the kids walked in – “Watcha doin?†[ Isabella Garcia Shapiro voices a la Phineas and Ferb – and yes, that’s the best cartoon on TV right now] showing the kids all this...stuff.
“Ooooooo! What’s this?†a box of lead miniatures in her hand...So I showed them the all the figures painted over 25 years ago in many cases. Then the dice (including my GM player slayer), lots of pictures, old dragon magazines, game screen with house rules paper-clipped to them. And tons of game books (MERP, ROTG, HARPS, D&D versions through 3.0, including an original white box in “very good†condition. An old video tape of the animated hobbit movie (can’t even watch that now!)
And this was a good way to get them juiced up to play. What was true was that the dice and the figures REALLY got their interest. So right then I knew the lead minis would need to be part of the game.
I did manage to go through a lot of my writing and took an idea for a campaign I wrote based on medieval England. But knew I had to start again – I did this stuff in high school and it was lots of facts and figures, not something that’s going to work for two young girls...
Which got me on another path of thinking – will I need to change the type of game we play to appeal to female tastes (let alone kids), and what are those if they exist at all? I’m not trying to be sexist here, but I get the sense that boys are pretty happy, most of the time, with hack and slash dungeon crawls. And I also think it’s true that the girls will like that too, but I think...not all the time and maybe less than boys.
So, this brought me back to the game rules itself, and I think I now have developed four main things I need to do: (1) It certainly will be derived from RM/HARP (obviously!), (2) It certainly needs to be simple in the sense that a 20 minute reading of the rules means you can play since I need to assume parents won’t always be around to direct, (3) the rules need to support ROLE playing – not just violent resolution, but riddles, tricks, traps, problem-solving, who-dunnits, etc. – and more, than that but I think role-playing in the sense of obstacle/resolution of social interactions, even “social climbing†– not trying to be sexist here, but I note Charley really does feel sad and hurt for certain characters in books who are picked on and unpopular and likes to see them achieve something and become “likedâ€. So can I capture that concept as well?
I want this game to be played in a way, even, where violence is a last resort, particularly when it comes to obstacles presented by intelligent beings.
Wow, now that’s a far cry away from the way I played games in the past for sure. But, as a parent, I’m desperately trying to avoid my kids seeing any sort of violence. The nightly news should be rated “Râ€. The new Dark Knight movie? No go for my 11 year old...waaaaay to scary and way to violent.
And I think my wife will feel fairly strong on this point, so I need to get buy in that “this is not bad for the kids†which I know in my heart it’s not, and not only that, it’s GOOD for them!
And I suppose that’s what it comes down to. I want it to be GOOD for them. I want it to teach all sorts of math and English skills of course, maybe inspire an interest in history, certainly inspire them to read more. I know it will help them learn how to critical think, problem solve, become leaders and be creative too. It should also allow them to become proud at their own efforts when they achieve success and learn from failures. In fact all the things my own father recognised as being good for me! And, of course, it has to be FUN. I can’t achieve any of the aforementioned if it is not fun. They won’t play if it becomes “like schoolâ€.
So, back my next move. If I am going to try to make a good “starter†game, I need to do a little research. Yes, I am going to start with our ICE products, but the industry has produced 35 years of innovation and we have no monopoly on that. So I spent quite a bit of time doing some research and asking industry people and putting some requests out on boards for some “simpler-ruled†games and game systems where social interaction is “ruled up†since I might want this to be a more important element in my game.