Hmm! I’ve always dreamed of creating a components-rich rpg. This looks interesting but I have no sense at all of how it plays. Seems like it’s in the same zip code as No Thank You, Evil! but maybes even more lavish and shallower design.
Money money money.
One could design a game with child minds specifically in mind. Rather than “content” concerns, design concerns would make designing for children per se worthwhile.
On that note, I’ve been thinking about a Avatar: The Last Airbender style game for parents to run for their children that makes a virtue of all the DM god / DM fiat that is caustic in relationships between adults, but which might be perfect for parents and children.
Avatar: The Last Airbender style game for parents to run for their children that makes a virtue of all the DM god / DM fiat that is caustic in relationships between adults, but which might be perfect for parents and children.]]>
in my experience, basically all intellectual property is game design for kids
it’s adults who need rules to know how to play
A lot of people seem to have strong ideas about what makes games especially good for kids or other beginners, I’m not sure many of them have much data to support their strongly held views.
Who has data on RPG design? 🙂
System load: Burning Wheel relies on leveraging a lot of conflicting economic tensions, and those don’t work without the player even knowing that they “should” care about the various inducements. Come on Mark, this strikes me as disingenuous. BW isn’t even right for most adult players on those grounds.
NTYE does this very clever thing where stats (Cypher System btw) are spendable tokens, and character sheets are built with three levels of complexity (adding additional abilities that scale with math and reading comprehension). I was able to run a full blown rpg session with my preliterate daughter six years before I’d learned my way around Red Box.
Optics: presentation matters. Bright, colorful, attention-getting art gets_my kid pumped to speculate. No it’s not any different than Frazetta … other than the fact that representation matters. Young kids feel, imo, drawn to peers in the art. Slightly older kids are imagining themselves as adults so traditional fantasy art makes more sense.
Play structure: I don’t know anything about this KS but in NTYE it’s mechanized that sessions last 60-90 minutes, pass through three formal acts, and end in a celebration. Could you port that into an OSR clone? Of course. But do we really, actually want to start that “conversation” all over again? This is 2017.
Violence: also on the system matters front, let’s look long and hard at whatever trad training wheels game you might offer up. Heavy load on rules for violence. And not just that (and the inevitable effect of playing toward what the system provides for), but there’s frequently very little support for nonviolent play. Unless you go balls deep on OSR-y rulings-not-rules and just have the GM adjudicate all the nonviolent action. Which is legit, but not the only solution. And I have…Opinions about training players early with weird social dynamics.
So, those are some of my reasons why youth-specific design can and should exist. I think a lot of those reasons go away with age, maybe 10-12ish depending on the kid.
(This is where self righteous parents tell me all about their 7yo who learned on Labyrinth Lord and how dare I post such scurrilous criticism of their parenting…sigh.)
lot of conflicting economic tensions, and those don’t work without the player even knowing that they “should” care about the various inducements. Come on Mark, this strikes me as disingenuous. BW isn’t even right for most adult players on those grounds. NTYE does this very clever thing where stats (Cypher System btw) are spendable tokens, and character sheets are built with three levels of complexity (adding additional abilities that scale with math and reading comprehension). I was able to run a full blown rpg session with my preliterate daughter six years before I’d learned my way around Red Box. Optics: presentation matters. Bright, colorful, attention-getting art gets_my kid pumped to speculate. No it’s not any different than Frazetta … other than the fact that representation matters. Young kids feel, imo, drawn to peers in the art. Slightly older kids are imagining themselves as adults so traditional fantasy art makes more sense. Play structure: I don’t know anything about this KS but in NTYE it’s mechanized that sessions last 60-90 minutes, pass through three formal acts, and end in a celebration. Could you port that into an OSR clone? Of course. But do we really, actually want to start that “conversation” all over again? This is 2017. Violence: also on the system matters front, let’s look long and hard at whatever trad training wheels game you might offer up. Heavy load on rules for violence. And not just that (and the inevitable effect of playing toward what the system provides for), but there’s frequently very little support for nonviolent play. Unless you go balls deep on OSR-y rulings-not-rules and just have the GM adjudicate all the nonviolent action. Which is legit, but not the only solution. And I have…Opinions about training players early with weird social dynamics. So, those are some of my reasons why youth-specific design can and should exist. I think a lot of those reasons go away with age, maybe 10-12ish depending on the kid. (This is where self righteous parents tell me all about their 7yo who learned on Labyrinth Lord and how dare I post such scurrilous criticism of their parenting…sigh.)]]>
Robert Bohl Not many. That’s why the proper stance to take is one of intellectual humility. However that’s not the optimal strategy if your goal is good salesmanship.
Or you could be trying things that seem right to you without hard data.
Robert Bohl You don’t have to strongly express views in order to try things.
I’m not sure if I’m reading you right but it seems like you’re saying strongly expressed views require data to back them up. Correct?
Paul Beakley It depends on what your goals are. If your goal is for your views to be correct then it certainly helps if they’re justified by data.
“Strongly held views” is a weird phrase and I don’t know what it means. I have strongly held views about any game I’d take to publication.
This is a weird place to be having this conversation.
Robert Bohl dictionary.cambridge.org – strongly held Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary
Paul Beakley
“This is a weird place to be having this conversation.”
I agree, I didn’t expect anybody to try to turn my cynical remark into a conversation.
dictionary.cambridge.org – strongly held Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary Paul Beakley “This is a weird place to be having this conversation.” I agree, I didn’t expect anybody to try to turn my cynical remark into a conversation.]]>
I can’t parse it and am trying, that’s why I’m talking about it.
Paul Beakley The important part of that sentence was “Rules comprehension aside”, but sure, BW was probably a bad random example to offer. My point is, assuming the child understand how the game works, what makes one game better than another?
I”m not sure how to continue that conversation without nailing down that first part. That’s a huge part!
Hopefully my other three points made sense.
Paul Beakley Thanks for explaining what NYTE does that you think makes it good for kids. What I’m hearing is that it’s instantiating a lot of techniques you might use in helping a kid play a game not specifically aimed at them.
(The Pool is jumping out at me for some reason as easy and non-violent. But I dunno if it’s one of those “so simple it’s actually not a good fit for newbies” games.)
The Pool is jumping out at me for some reason as easy and non-violent. But I dunno if it’s one of those “so simple it’s actually not a good fit for newbies” games.)]]>
The game referenced in the OP has players play themselves. Is that actually appropriate for kids? What if they get scared because things are happening to “them”?
(I’m mixed on the too-simple argument when it comes to little kids. I feel like we laid some useful procedural groundwork with Iris with NTYE: taking turns, her responsibilities and my responsibilities, sharing scenes, accepting consequences. So far I’m very satisfied with how that’s worked out.)
Paul Beakley It sounds like you’re saying that not all rules are good for kids, and so it’s not about just comprehension. I.e., there are specific rules that work better for the under-10 set.
Robert Bohl It’s an idiomatic expression, I’m a bit surprised you’ve never encountered it before. It comes up more often in political discussions where advocates often express an undue level of confidence in the efficacy of their policy proposals. But I think this is kind of derailing Mark’s thread.
I believe that’s true. BW is not appropriate for a 4 year old. Anything requiring reading and writing isn’t appropriate before they can read. A system with lots of decision points at resolution (ummm thinking Cortex Plus here specifically) is probably not awesome.
But hey what do I know, I’m just raising an actual child who plays these games. My anecdotes aren’t data.
Dan, of course I understand that expression. I agree it’s pointless and off topic to continue.
Paul, I see Mark trying to understand you, not disagree with you.
And thank you Paul, for sharing your experiences with your daughter. I’d like to some day teach my daughter how to play and it’s useful to me to hear this stuff.
Robert Bohl I agree!
But this “no opinions without data” nonsense has stuck in my craw.
Paul Beakley I suspect you’re reading more into what I wrote than is there. I didn’t say “no opinions without data”. I also didn’t dismiss your experiences.
(And someday I’ll be running a game for Henry and Iris! I don’t want your punk kid minmaxing and rules-lawyering me.)
Makes note to self to teach Henry how effectively min-max and rules-lawyer.
I guess one thing that’s tripping me up is that I was not thinking young enough. 4? Crap, I was probably thinking 8-10.
Oh yeah, at that point they can read and follow pretty elaborate rituals. Then it’s a matter of what grabs them. And happily, there’s a big range of topics and styles — including these “for kids” games (NTYE, Storm Hollow) that tackle subject matter that you just won’t find prepackaged in existing adult-audience games (Pathfinder, d&d, Savage Worlds maybe).
One of my favorite role-playing research projects is listening to just…very elaborate make-believe games, mostly 10ish year old girls with the occasional little brother
suckeredpressed into service. They are 100% able to handle pretty much any subject-appropriate storytelling you could dream up.suckered pressed into service. They are 100% able to handle pretty much any subject-appropriate storytelling you could dream up.]]>