Suggestions and hints? Role-playing with adolescents in school
FredGarber:
( The following holds true for, at least, a mixed group of American Teens. YMMV )
If you have a large group of adolescents in small groups, and you're looking to build "group spirit," something you have to watch out for is that adolescents will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid appearing different from everybody else in their identity group. You might see more "role playing" as people try to avoid looking like a freak than actually in playing a character in the session. An important thing to remember for adolescents that while they all WANT to be empowered, very few want to stand out as actually demonstrating that empowerment.
After each session, I'd mix up the small groups, and letting them know that you'll be mixing up the groups. That way they know ahead of time that they won't get away with just hanging out and not participating in the activity. I'd keep my criteria a secret, but probably mix them up by taking the person who did the "best," and the people who did the "worst," and moving them around.
If you're rotating the groups, you have a chance to move the people who have similar tastes (ex: high gore vs low gore) together as well.
-Fred
(who has a secondary education degree as his author authority :) )
Eero Tuovinen:
One reason for considering UtB is indeed that it handles the short session pretty well. I wouldn't even consider it much of a loss if the players didn't have time to finish the game - the point in roleplaying at school is often more in proving the concept than getting a whole session in. As long as the players get to use their imagination and get to see how it works, they can always join a club and play at more length later on if they want.
Jaakko Koivula:
Ordered UtB for now. Just waiting for Arkenstone to email me my bill :> From what I've gathered from this thread, UtB it sounds like a decent enough game for this. And yeah, Im going exactly for something like what Eero said. Get them to know the hobby and see what you can do with it. I'll see how it starts out and then consider about more games.
And Fred really has a point too about adolescents not wanting to appear too different. Im hoping that roleplaying is a new enough area in itself, so that they might get bewildered and accidentally sneak in some fun-times for themselves. We'll see how it goes.
Thanks for all the hints so far, you can still keep them coming, please :)
Anyways, I'll let you know how it turns out once I actually get to playing.
Ron Edwards:
Here are a couple of links to discussions, food for thought: Prydain, the Hobbit, Pendragon ... Fun for Kids! and IAWA - roleplaying at school.
They're both about much younger kids, but I think that certain points can be applied to your topic. Let me know if you agree or disagree.
Best, Ron
Jaakko Koivula:
Hey again. Very interesting and cute threads those! :)
I don't know IAWA myself, so I might be missing a bunch of points from the other one, though.
In general I think that I can go more "role-playing gamey" with my students, as they are older. I want to play the game "as it was meant to be played" and not simplify or cut corners from the few rules that the game has. Playing by the book or improvising could both be ok ways to start playing RPGs, but I've chosen the first for now.
I might be a pessimist, but I propably will be seeing a little less enthusiasm about the game than in the threads with the younger children. Adolescents and not wanting to appear too different etc. again. That's part of the reason why I want to keep it around the table and clear cut. So if someone isn't excited about all the immersion or anything, they can still somehow participate by doing what the rules say.
Trying to keep it somehow safe for them.
"Crap, I can't think up anything to say or anything cool to narrate, well ok I'll just play a chip and say that I challenge him and I get to throw the dice and to see what happens."
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