[UtB] Under the Bed with Adolescents, pt. 2
Jaakko Koivula:
Old thread about RPing with adolescents and some thoughts about the first session at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=28602.0. Wanted to start a new more game-reportey thread for this.
Second session of UtB with the class. Another five students completely new to role-playing and me. This time I had more solid idea on how to pitch the game and explain the rules, which I think helped a bit. The group in general felt a bit more open to the whole idea than the last group. The last group had one or two people who made rather a point of not enjoying the whole business at all, which I think affected the situation quite a lot.
I didn't make nearly any notes about the session, so I won't propably remember that many characteristics etc. I'll still try to run you through the session and not just wonder about extra-gamey stuff this time.
I went a bit more GM this time and pushed through a 4-year old Child and starting situation Lost in the Woods. I wanted to get the story to a more light-hearted and magical direction, instead of toy-powered school bullying.
The Toys were:
Me - Mater the tow truck from Cars -movie(perceptive, etc)Nanna - Goofy (passive, faithful, etc)Mick - The Owl from Winnie the Pooh (reasonable, clumsy,etc)Marty - Action Man (Contentious, Obedientetc)Thea - Little My (loving, crazy, etc)Hannah - Jacku (some murdering toy figure from a movie, Im told) (Violent, etc)
We start with the Child Jukka being lost in the woods, trying to find his dog. We go through some conflicts about how Jukka is trying to find the dog and gets track of it. Then it starts to rain so much that the tracks wash off and Jukka is nearly buried in all the falling leaves also. Basic stuff, not that gripping. Jacky -toy is lost in all the mess with the rain and leaves though and Hannah draws a new one: Frankenstein! (Thick, etc.)
Next Jukka gets to a swamp. He has to get over it, but! It has characteristics: You can't get around it and It's getting dark so you have to hurry. (If you know the song Lion Hunt, there's a passage about a swamp there. In the finnish version you can't get around it and you have to go through.) Jukka manages to slosh through in time with the help of Mick's Owl. Owl managed to deduce a reasonably safe path through and to his clumsiness, the mud really wasn't an obstacle. All the mud was just a drop of water in the ocean of his natural clumsiness.
Next Jukka came to a chasm! It's too wide, you can't go around it either! (Again Lion Hunt. It was great when half of the people at the table knew the song and they had so much fun at this point) Marty's Action Man rises to the challenge. Jukka commands him to get over the chasm and he Obediently does so. Surprisingly the player decided, that even though he beat the conflict, he still made Jukka fall in the chasm and break his leg(!).
This was the first time that the Child got stuffing knocked out of him in this game. We had played for quite a while and at this point in the last game the Child had had like ten conflicts about getting beaten up etc. Still, show must go on.
Marty's narrating the next conflict. Jukka needs to get up from the chasm, but it's Really deep and it's slippery because it's raining. Thea's Littly My tries to get out, but fails. Little My gets tossed away and Thea draws a new toy: Piglet (Sad, stupid, etc)
Jukka fails to get out of the chasm, because his leg is hurting so much, but he founds an entrance to a small dark cave. Marty narrates that it's really small so it's hard to get into and that it's also really scary, because it's so dark.
I get to face the challenge. I remember about whining how the toys never do anything (in this game it had been Jukka always doing the stuff too mostly), so I try to play Mater into the narration. He uses Perceptiveness to light up the cave with his front lights. Also he Disobeys Jukka and drives into the cave already, even when Jukka is still wondering if he dares to go in or not. Anyways, in they go.
I narrate: Jukka goes down the cave and it just keeps going downwards and downwards. Oddly, it doesn't get any darker at all. Suddenly he bumps into a large cavern, with some seven dwarves mining away happily. The guys are about the size of the 4-year old Child and get really jumpy about a human barging in on their mine. They are suspicious and surprised. Thea's Piglet seems so Sad that the dwarves pretty much cave in and decide that Jukka is no threat.
Thea narrates that Jukka wants to dwarves to heal his leg. Dwarves cock it up, because they just couldn't rise to the challenge or something, can't remember this conflict that well. Jukka decides to carry on deeper into the cave and leave the dwarves mining behind. Jukka is having trouble, because his leg is still hurting like a bitch and some other problem.
Mick's Owl clumsily bumps into everything and accidentally knocks Jukka's leg back in to place. It was just dislocated or something after all! Nice. Then Jukka runs into an elevator!
(Mick had a hard time to come up with anything. He is really, REALLY, quiet boy in general and for example, didn't say anything during the game when it wasn't his turn. But after you presented the narration to him in small pieces: "what's the next thing he sees? What direction does the elevator go?" he actually managed to cough up pretty nice stuff.)
Elevator takes him upwards, over the clouds. There he sees an aeroplane. Jukka needs to get into it, but the Door to the plane is locked and he hasn't got the key and the Doors of the elevator are really slow and the plane is passing him already.
Action man spring to action. Man! Jukka commands the Action man to do his bidding again and Action Man decides to forgo searching for a key and instead rips the door of the plane. Jukka enters the plane and finds it empty. After running out of fuel, he makes a successfull emergency landing onto a field.
Another muddy field, goddamn. Marty narrates that Jukka needs to get out of the field, but It's been such a long day and he's tired and It's really muddy. Can't remember who beat this challenge, but Jukka manages to get out and finds
Jaakko Koivula:
(Right, accidentally clicked post. Thought I lost the whole post for a while. Learned my lesson, will write this in notepad and just paste it when it's ready, goddamn)
Jukka managed to get his way out from the field and finds a cottage. It's getting dark, so he decides to stay there for the night. But it's also really scary. Can Jukka make it through the night okay? He is Home-sick and the House if really moldy and rotted and might collapse at any moment.
Nanna's Goofy is so Happy that a little home-sickness doesn't mean anything. Jukka is also faithful to his lost dog, that he is out to find, so he has to make it through the night etc.
Nanna managed to beat the conflict, but at this point we ran out of time.
All in all, this session left me feeling pretty nice. People participated and the Child didn't get manhandled nearly at all during the story. I think this is a bonus and definately something I'll go after in the next game also.
The students seemed rather enjoying themselves this time around, which was really great. Wednesday is the last group of students, we'll see how it goes.
Jaakko Koivula:
Oh, and forgot to mention that all the names have been obviously changed.
Jukka was Jukka, though.
Joshua A.C. Newman:
I look forward to seeing how future sessions play out.
What do you think the effects of the spoilsports were?
Jaakko Koivula:
Agh, glanced through my own writing and it's pretty horrible. Want editing back. But oh well.
Tonight's another session, will be writing a report on it tomorrow then propably.
Im not really sure how much the spoilsports really spoiled the sport for others also. In general the second group had a lot more accepting attitude towards the game, than the first. Which was a bit surprising really.
Even though some of the first group's spoilsports had propably told them that it would be stupid and boring, they still came to the game interested and tried to participate. The second group had maybe better team spirit to begin with. In addition, the second group had some very extroverted, barrels of fun -type type of people in it, who kept the situation jovial even when the game itself wasn't progressing that fast.
In the first group you pretty much lacked these clowns and instead had one person who pretty much looked offended that they had to participate.
That didn't wreck the session completely for all of the participants, but I still think that it had a surprisingly big, if subtle, impact on the atmoshpere. Didn't realize it at the time, but looking back I think that it really had. Got to be alert for this kind of behaviour in today's session and try to catch it in time. Remind the players that it's only up to them how much fun we all will have and all that :)
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