Suggestions and hints? Role-playing with adolescents in school
Jaakko Koivula:
Greetings all.
Im trying to decide on a good game to run for a class full of adolescents. Main points would be to introduce them to role-playing and try to build some class spirit. Maybe even give everyone an experience of success at a social situation and that they have made a contribution for the whole etc. Standard empowerment stuff.
The players will be 15-18 year old and mostly completely without any RPG-experience. Im thinking groups of 4-6 players with one three hour session for each group. To begin with, at least. So the game would have to be pretty compact and the scenario playable in a demo-like situation.
Im now thinking along the lines of Primetime Adventures. Im hesitant of using any really violent/gory games (like maybe Dust Devils or Zombie Cinema), as they are still minors and because the attending would be pretty much mandatory. Playing it safe so no parent can come whining to me about exposing their child to satan worshipping or anything.
I think Zombie Cinema could be made to work, but Primetime Adventures so far seems most suitable "out of the box" for me.
Also, it's worth mentioning that I don't have that extensive experience or knowledge on "new-wave" role-playing. So there might be a game made for just this kind of gaming and I propably wouldn't know about it. So if you have any ideas on this, bring them on.
In general, has anyone here experience on using RPG-games in a somehow similar situation? Anything you think I should really keep in mind before trying this out?
Eero Tuovinen:
I've done similar things. Zombie Cinema works pretty well (he says about his own game); I'm not personally too worried about the gore aspect, as it's up to the players in this game as well as others how violent they get, the game doesn't do much about it. Also, it's pretty easy to swap the zombies for something less violent if the game otherwise serves well.
However, there should be better alternatives. I'm not too enthused about Primetime Adventures here myself, as it's pretty freeformish in the short term; it's basically up to your own skills and little else to get anything out of it in a limited time-frame. It builds into a solid engine over a couple of sessions, of course.
Have you considered 1001 Nights? It has a suitable topic, it's quick enough to get some meaningful play out of it and it does a pretty good job of framing and supporting creativity.
Another consideration is Under the Bed, which has many virtues for this sort of thing. It's unlikely that an untrained group would get a very coherent plot out of the game, but it is very easy to get some fun character roleplaying, and group coherence is not a priority, which means that you can swap players and remove them from the exercise as necessary. I don't know how teenagers would like the game, though.
Callan S.:
Hi Jaakko,
I think you have to get clear in your own head what fun the activity is about - because if you leave it to a bunch of children to kind of work out some way of having fun with this 'thing' called RP...well, I'd buy a lotto ticket instead, if your feeling that lucky. :)
Can you articulate what sort of fun a particular game has? A kind of dark, cynical part of me says that if you can't articulate it, you probably shouldn't do it - it might be just passing on a personal habbit rather than passing on an enriching, rewarding activity.
Jaakko Koivula:
Hi and thanks for the suggestions Eero! But let's try articulating first a bit then.
I think that the main point in trying RPGs with the kids, is to show that they are also a way of having fun together. Because hanging together is fun. Doing something creative while hanging together, could be even more fun. The specific type of fun depends rather on what game I choose to try. If I try to prioritize my goals a bit:
1. Hanging out: these people don't know each other that well yet and we're still building team spirit etc. RPGs might be a nice way to try to do that safely and ejoyably. If I pick the right game.2. Creativity: go for experiences of actually creating something cool. "Wow, this story is actually nice, and I helped to create it. I didn't just watch TV at home."3. Empowerment: would be a nice bonus. "The others liked what I narrated, Im not that useless after all."
I didn't put immersion or anything like that on the list. Im feeling narrativistic right now.
Hopefully this helps to clear up what Im trying to accomplish here.
Here on the forums I saw something about Zombie Cinema adapted to Cops and Robbers and that sounded quite usable, actually. Even though the amount of blood depends on the players, Im trying to minimize the risk that some people in the group want very detailed brain-eating and some don't and then the latter go and have nightmares etc. boohoo.
1001 Nights sounds pretty suitable according to Arkenstone's presentation text, Im just not too sure about the 1001 nights -setting itself. I'll have to ask how familiar the students are with it and if it interests them etc.
Also Under the Bed sounds extremely good, again according to Arkenstone's. The players are still adolescents, so actually the setting sounds pretty nail on the head -type of case somehow. I'll try to familiarize myself with the game a bit more. Would UtB be or could it be made to be playable one rather short session?
Thanks for the suggestions so far! Please, keep em coming :>
The Magus:
Don't play Sorcerer!
It scares the bejeesus out of me.
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