I GM the RPG Club I started for a some students in the school I teach.
They are 13 - 16 years old.
What is the best AP for use with me as GM?
What is the best AP for use with a student as (noobie) GM?
How suitable is that AP for students/players dropping in and out due to other commitments?
From what I have read, I would recommend against Curse of the Crimson Throne. It is a great AP, but it has a lot of subject matter you don't want to have to explain to parents. Unfortunately, as far as I recall, all the AP's will have something that would make them problematic for a student to run, for the reasons I mentioned regarding Curse.
Kingmaker & Jade Regent may have the least material you will need to adjust as the GM. They also have some interesting possible 'side benefits'.
Kingmaker has the Kingdom building 'mini game' which you could potentially use to explore some basic economic & social concepts. Granted, depending on where you teach that might get you in as much hot water as some of the other subject matter.
Jade Regent is supposed to explore more 'character interaction', which is to say, non-combat interactions with key NPC's. On the down side, you don't get a great deal of 'ongoing assistance' with said NPC's, which is to say, after you get the initial write ups you have to decide how these NPC's respond to your Player's Characters actions. I would recommend not going into too much detail regarding the Relationship 'mini game' either. If you have players interested in exploring their relationships with the PC's (it is a rather key role-playing aspect of that particular AP), I would say keep the mechanics you use, if any, 'behind the curtains' so to speak. The Caravan 'mini game' can be used as something of an economics study, but like the Kingdom rules in Kingmaker, it is very simplistic from an actual economics standpoint.
When I was in high school and GMed for my game club I just wrote up one or two bare-bones encounters and that took up all three hours of the club for us.
I wouldn't shoot as far as an adventure path, especially for something as casual and social as an after-school club for fourteen-seventeen year olds. But that's just me.
When I was in high school and GMed for my game club I just wrote up one or two bare-bones encounters and that took up all three hours of the club for us.
I wouldn't shoot as far as an adventure path, especially for something as casual and social as an after-school club for fourteen-seventeen year olds. But that's just me.
That is basically what I have been doing. When we are all in the groove we can get through three or four encounters in the four hours of gaming.
The thing is, I am going to have two or three months off work due to an operation. I would like to leave them something that they can plough through at their own pace.
Beginner's Box might be the best thing for that.
Beginner's Box might be the best thing for that.
I don't know enough about the Beginner's Box. We've had about 10 sessions. They players know their characters pretty well now, and have a working knowledge of the combat mechanics. Is the Beginner's Box appropriate?
I would skip the modules and go sandbox. I gamed quite a bit at that age and while we started many modules, we only finished a few. The kids who want to will get together themselves and try adventures requiring more investment.
|
Huh...
I can't think of why CotCT should be avoided. Seems pretty innocuous to me. Care to elaborate on what you see as dodgy Irnk?
Ones to avoid:
Rise of the Runelords
Carrion Crown
Second Darkness
These three have some pretty adult stuff in them.
Don't let that put you off at all. I'm all for those elements in an adult game but for teenagers it's a bit more risky. To be clear I loved all these AP's they just have some adult themes.
Good ones to choose:
Kingmaker
Legacy of Fire
Jade Regent
Kingmaker is good as it has a pretty positive message. Players get to feel a sense of real achievement building something from nothing. It really is quite fun and promotes collaboration and teamwork.
Legacy of Fire is my favourite AP because it is just so epic in scope. There's a real sense of scale and wonder to it and it fits the exotic Arabian Nights inspiration perfectly.
Jade Regent is another nice one. An epic journey to the east to set right what once went wrong. Lots of exotic enemies and a throne to win. Perfect stuff.
My advice is not to go for it with an AP. I started playing when I was 8 years old and 28 years later I'm still getting enjoyment from it. Let your students run with it.
|
First recommendation = pathfinder society mods. Very modular, drop in whichever ones you want, short, easy for kids to miss a session, pathfinder society (in game) provides a handily hand of god to provide whatever help they need.
Second recommendation = kingmaker, but take it nice and slow, play low point buy and low-ish magic, emphasize the exploration aspects. Some good threads in kingmaker forum about getting started.
I'd vote for something less ambitious than a full adventure path, mostly because I'm skeptical that a student GM would have the stick-to-it-iveness to make it all the way to the end. I'd suggest a series of related modules instead, like Crypt of the Everflame/Masks of the Living God/City of Golden Death. Well, except that I don't know if that particular series would be good for teens or not.
|
Basically all the Adventure Paths invove some fairly adult themes, which it would seem wise to avoid under these circumstances...but some are easier to divorce from said themes than others.
Specifically, it's not hard to get rid of most of the overly adult themes in Legacy of Fire (as long as you can work around accepted slavery, and you likely can), nor Serpent's Skull (as long as you're okay with cannibals...and possibly working around some more slavery), and while I haven't read Jade Regent or Kingmaker (still hoping to play them), I suspect those'd be workable as well.
Legacy of Fire isn't a bad one. I don't remember anything particularly mature in that one, certainly nothing important or that can't be avoided very easily. It's my favorite pre-Pathfinder rules AP so I might be a little biased.
Sounds like you have a reasonably well established group, and tweaking/glossing over material shouldn´t be too hard. Wouldn´t worry about it though.
Here are my recommendations:
Kingmaker
Pros: Sandbox and long in game time table, plus lots of important NPCs due to the kingdom building, means it is easy for players to drop in and out. Player can´t make it? Their character was occupied with kingdom business. New player? X from the council has volunteered to help deal with the latest crisis, or just wants to get out more. Sandbox also means it´s really easy to drop in a encounter or module that you know or have wanted to try out. Kingdom building rules are a neat way of letting players shape the world.
Cons: Sandbox makes it tough to thoroughly prepare ahead of time. Since the PCs can go whereever they want, you need to have a general idea of the entire kingdom/map and be prepared to improvise. Sandbox means players have to be more proactive in writing the story, which can be tough for new players. Kingdom building rules add more rules to a rule intensive game, not all players, especially ones just getting a handle on the base rules will appreciate. Having a PC ruler, which is the idea, can cause tension.
Rise of the Runelords
Pros: Anniversity compilation is coming out soon! It will be amazing! Covers lots of classic D&D material: Goblins, undead, giants, evil wizards, ancient civilizations, the wild frontier, etc. Easy to run as written as the material flows smoothly into from one installment to another, keeping the players on track but not feeling railroaded.
Cons: It lacks fey. It isn´t in print right now. Some people think the content is too mature. (I think if you can read shakespeare, greek literature, and other english class staples, you can handle it just fine.)
|
|
Some people think the content is too mature. (I think if you can read shakespeare, greek literature, and other english class staples, you can handle it just fine.)
Speaking as someone who read the Player's Guide to the Sabbat in my early teens...I agree with this in terms of what teenagers can handle. But, practically speaking, it's not something the OP can do.
A teacher simply can't afford to throw in the kind of adult content found in RotRL into a game their students are playing in. It's the kind of thing that can get you fired from your job if their parents find out, ie: totally not worth it.
A fellow student can get away with running something like that, and the penalties if someone objects are minor. A teacher? Has more chance of being reported and, potentially, vastly worse consequences if anone does so.
A teacher simply can't afford to throw in the kind of adult content found in RotRL into a game their students are playing in. It's the kind of thing that can get you fired from your job if their parents find out, ie: totally not worth it.
A fellow student can get away with running something like that, and the penalties if someone objects are minor. A teacher? Has more chance of being reported and, potentially, vastly worse consequences if anone does so.
I think it is quite apt that DeadManWalking should make that connection...
Interestingly the RPG club has attracted the more mature readers, but that still doesn't mean I can play whatever games with whatever content I want. I'd like to play Cthulhu or Witchcraft, but I think that if I did that I'd be a dead man walking.
I do explore some minor horror themes, I've thrown in nightmares for the PCs based on them not investigating dead bodies on the road. That has them very worried about zombies with a personal vendetta. Personally I was thinking of ghosts and wights...
Thanks for all the advice. I think I'll get copies of the Crypt of the Everflame series for them to use. I'll have to help the GM to be able to adjust the modules to the number of players, always more than 3-5. That is always going to be a problem to hurdled with premade adventures.