[UtB] Under the Bed with Adolescents, pt. 2
JoyWriter:
Damn that rpg magic, it's always in the background when it works!
I think I know what you mean about it being less player based; it's a bit like the QCD/string theory dualism; when everyone is doing their own thing, or bumping into each other with defined roles it's easiest to talk about people interacting with clearly delineated borders. When everyone's blurring and bleshing and collaborating it's easiest to talk about the distinct patterns of interaction as the main thing.
After your experience of playing, any overarching specifications for teenagers become apparent? Or was it all too variable? Obviously that's completely backwards to the way you were doing things, but I thought it might be an interesting insight nonetheless.
Jaakko Koivula:
Not sure if I follow, specifications for teenagers? Do you mean on how to game with them? It was rather variable, and can't say if I can offer any insight into teenage-gamers in general.
I think the single largest thing in this exercise, was that actually no-one had RPGed before. And I hadn't run any demo-games ever, either. So I had to learn how to pitch the game, explain the rules and then guide the game enough, so it kept moving, even when the players had no idea what was up. Even when the game was supposed not to have a single GM, I had to keep poking the story forward a bit I think.
I think that the fact that the gamers were teenagers really didn't affect the game itself that much. Older people could play a different kind of game, but then, all different groups play different kinds of games. I think the age of the players really didn't matter much, after all. UtB will most propably look really different if you play it with 7-year old children, or with 40-year old game designers, but Im guessing that it would work nicely in both cases.
Again, not sure if I got the question right, so just sort of rambled, sorry :D
JoyWriter:
Fair enough, I was vaguely hoping that with your new experience you could answer the question you started with. Both for future people who might wonder the same thing, and because I find that kind of reflection is a nice way to become aware of your own learning.
What do you think you learned most during this game, the intro bit?
Jaakko Koivula:
Ah, ok.
Atleast I learned a ton about running UtB. First and foremost. Now Im sort of confident that I could get solid gaming out of that game most of the time. Which is already quite great.
About roleplaying and adolescents put together, Im not that sure. Roleplaying is a great hobby but it's really dependant on how fun you allow it to be for yourself? Naturally there's also skill involved and some people are more natural at telling stories and/or enjoying them. I think that the main stumbling block still is the teenage-tendency of not wanting to have fun when someone else is seeing, if you're not drunk. Especially if you are doing something geeky.
So that would be the first thing I'd try to consider next time I would try to game with a bunch of non-RPGing adolescents. On how to make the situation safe enough for all to throw themselves into the game, how to tackle the spoilsports, how to "reward" having fun, etc.
If you get all that right, I see no insurmountable difficulties about running most games with teens and it working ok. Sort of have to force/nudge the players to accept a game-friendly social contract, before anything else can happen.
...that looks actually pretty damn obvious when you put it like that. Oh well!
JoyWriter:
Quote from: Jaakko Koivula on October 11, 2009, 10:02:39 PM
I think that the main stumbling block still is the teenage-tendency of not wanting to have fun when someone else is seeing, if you're not drunk. Especially if you are doing something geeky.
I'd say that "being geeky" is pretty close to the core of that; I've seen so many teenagers stand at the side of a field obviously wanting to play football, but not being willing to in case someone ridicules the game. If a group of adults walk up and start playing football, then they may well join in, or look grumpy and jealous!
Not to get too psychological, but many teenagers are scared to commit to something because it could get laughed at and so by association they could, that "over-engagement" fear is a big part of why people don't like being creative or express strong love for stuff. In my experience the dichotomy "geeky vs cool", focuses mainly on the ability to restrain yourself, and mixes people's fear of committing to stuff with what they are learning about self control/smooth efficiency. Drunkness is an excuse, it's like privacy mode on a web browser, "none of what you do will be personally linked to you"!
Now how to make that insight useful? Well I have seen times when people start playing football and those two effects happen simultaneously; some join and some mock, and those who join look to the adults to respond to the mocking. I've seen a number of different responses to this, from parents, big brothers, trained youth leaders and myself, and I've seen a few different responses.
Ignore the criticism as if it doesn't exist, which doesn't really help the kids justify their current activity to themselves,
Devalue the mockers opinion to the people playing, by bigging up the game or just pointing out that the mockers are getting nothing out of it, (this can lead to issues if the person isn't able to leave, or has no-where to go as they will notice that no-one is taking them seriously and likely escalate their interference)
"Sell" the game to the mockers, which often doesn't work if they are disengaged for other reasons too (like they can't do it very well and are worried about looking unskilled and childlike)
Or just suggest they go off and do something else, sometimes by reverse psychology if they are being particularly combative. (tricky!)
An extra solution I just came up with is to suggest to the kids that joined that they are just mocking to have something to do, and encourage people to let them get on with it, which is sometimes similar to the second, but at the best times a mix of the second and fourth approaches. Most people I've seen do a mix of these actually.
Once you do get them involved, as I'm sure you know, whatever you do don't make too many (if any) personal inferences from how they are playing! That's like a gunshot in a bouncy castle. (Everything deflates and people scrabble around to work out who was wounded)
I'd also say it's often more about legitimising having fun rather than rewarding it, but if you can get them to chase a trail of carrots and it helps, then go for it!
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