|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
Hello! I decided to post here because a while ago, I noticed a similar thread from someone who started a middle school club; I’m looking for suggestions or for comments from anyone else who’s done something similar.
This past October, I started an RPG and Board Game Club at a Denver-area high school. It’s a magnet school and offers career classes like welding and forensics, and also partners with one of the local community colleges so that juniors and seniors can take college-level core classes at the community college part-time. I don’t actually work at said high school, but a friend of mine, K, works as a 9th grade science teacher there and has allowed me to use her room as the meeting place for the club.
Originally, K asked a few of the juniors/seniors at the anime club if they were interested in doing an RPG game like Pathfinder on Saturdays during the summer, but that didn’t quite pan out. Now it’s a club that happens on Wednesdays after school, from 4:15pm to 5:15pm (with clean-up from 5:15 to 5:30). I’m also part director at the anime/arts club, going on three years or so, which also happens in K’s room, with meetings happening during lunch a couple of days a week, manga drawing on Thursdays after school, and more general “fine arts” drawing on Fridays after school (I go in on Fridays for this).
I was deciding between D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder at the beginning before a student named D, who played Pathfinder for a while, volunteered to bring his copy of the Beginner Box. Now, I’ve got my own copy of it to work with. I’m trying to work out ideas for adventures beyond the Beginner Box Demos that I’ve downloaded from Paizo’s website that can work with weekly one-hour sessions at the school. I realize that one hour really is not enough time, so encounters that relate to each other as far as continuity goes would also work. While K and I would LOVE to have more than an hour, I can’t really start earlier and can’t go later than I already do. To start, literally all but one of the students (who is a junior, is not as interested in RPGs, and doesn’t come regularly enough) are freshmen, of which there are about five currently. Classes end around 2:45, and K has to monitor a “study hour” from 3 to 4, which is where freshmen who didn’t turn in their work or were absent for any classwork are required to go after school. Starting earlier when the club happens in the same classroom would be disruptive to the study hour students, as the students in the club are kind of loud. On top of that, there is at least one student from the club that is required to be at this study hour because he didn’t do any work or needs extra help (...yeah). Also, since this is in Denver (and not in the best part of town, to boot), it gets dark around 5 in the winter and parents are picking these guys up at that point...they’ve been at the school since 7am, so....
On top of the one hour session, most of the students in the club have never played any sort of RPG (but DO have copious amounts of video game experience), so I end up teaching them how to do skill checks and how to do combat while playing. I also end up having to bring dice for the students; there isn’t really a close enough game shop for them to go to without spending at least a half hour on the bus, and I’m talking about a school where +85% of the students are Hispanic, and +80% of this student body of ~450 full-time students are on the free or reduced lunch program, so telling them to just go out and buy some dice seems rather flippant. One student played D&D “a long time ago” (or, at least, enough time has passed that he really doesn’t remember how things work). Two students in the club, D and F, friends outside of school, play Pathfinder, but F doesn’t technically go to the school where the club is held. I made the mistake the first time the others were making characters using the Beginner Box of letting D help everyone, but there’s only one of him and six (at the time) new players, not to mention D is really scatterbrained, so the new players had so many things missing or wrong that I had to spend the entirety of the next session to show them how to fix their character sheets. A number of these students are ELA students, have learning disabilities to different degrees, and aren’t necessarily at grade level in reading, and so I end up having to explain a lot of things past mechanics, like what the weapons are or what “constitution” means and the difference between “wisdom” and “intelligence” (this is also an issue of low “worldly/cultural knowledge,” where some of them are REALLY sheltered, and others aren’t so sheltered but don’t know how the world “works” outside of their neighborhood/local culture “bubble”).
So, fellow RPG players...I look forward to your thoughts and suggestions!
Society adventures maybe worth looking into, they are meant to be played in a set amount of time (probably longer than you have, so you could get more than one session out of them, my guess would be 2 or 3 worth) and are set up in a more linear fashion to facilate that from the one or two I've read. Also due to them being meant for organized play the expectations for the adventures are more "loose" most of the time. You never know what the party composition will be which may make it more forgiving for the players you are introducing to the game. I believe that they are categorized and some of them are loosely linked as well. Also, they are relatively inexpensive which is also a plus in a situation like yours.
Another option, the adventure paths. These are full blown adventures from level 1 to 16+. Each book leads from one to the next and are more "open" in the way of progression. This is good and bad, it let's you have more freedom to poke around, explore and learn about what is going on (there is a TON of background information to be found typically if that is what your group is into). The bad is, sometimes the group can flounder trying to figure out what to do next because there are more options. Each book as several encounters that can be run as quickly or as slowly as you want to go, and is all about building up to the next book so overall is is that "epic story" feel when you get done. Unfortunately, they are going to be more expensive as well. I want to say each book of the AP is roughly $20 and there are 6 books in every AP up to the most recent. That being said, they are just as much fun to read through as play as a GM. With so much going on, the back story that the players may not know about, things happening which come to fruition later, it is often like reading a good book which helps you do the sometimes boring job of GM.
Also as you are using basic rules, you could always take and look up older free modules and rewrite them to PFRPG. That way you could customize the adventure to the players and know exactly what to expect or how to tweak them for your group.
Regardless of what you do, I would always suggest reading through the adventure in its entirety at a least once just so you have an idea of how things "should" progress. You would be able to see "problem areas" that might occur for the players and figure out how best to gloss over or deal with them when the party gets there.
I forgot to mention that I am fairly new to GMing anything; I am in an online campaign for Pathfinder currently, and have played in other systems.
So, some suggestions.
The PFS scenarios are meant for 4 hours each, but if you prep right, I think you could divide them up to shorter intervals. Additionally, the Silverhex Chronicles are designed to be 1 hour sessions (6 of them).
It does not sound like you would be able to join into PFS, which is ok. However you can still use the rules set, you just do not need to worry about reporting and can simplify things.
Also, I know the kids will like the PCs they created, but you can use the pregens to introduce the kids to complete characters. They may then want to modify the pregen into a full character of their style.
Hope this all helps.
Print editions of the AP books are $19.99 apiece, or $119.94 for an entire path. Digital PDF editions are cheaper at $13.99 apiece, or $83.94 for an entire path. An even more affordable option is the Anniversary Edition of Rise of the Runelords, which is an entire 6-part Adventure Path for $59.99 in print, or $41.99 as a PDF.
I would suggest Adventure Paths as a superior alternative to PFS if you only have an hour per session for a few reasons. One, you're new to GMing, and Adventure Paths make GMing REALLY easy. Two, it's rather easy to acquire maps for Adventure Paths, and especially images you can show to the players if you happen to have a laptop/tablet. Three, there is no real continuity between the vast majority of PFS scenarios, and they typically take 2-3 hours to play through, which is multiple sessions.
If you had 2-3 hours available for your sessions, then PFS would totally be an awesome option, and probably far better, but since you don't, and will need to maintain the same group from one session to the next anyway, it loses some of its luster.
I'm in a similar situation as you are, having set up a club just recently to run in our 30-40min lunch break on Mondays. We've only met twice and the first session was just character creation (although we only got though stats, races, and classes, I am impressed with them). The second session was a lot more fun as I have been converting Keep on the Shadow-fell to pathfinder and we started out in a bar (typical, I know). Half an hour is a really short time to be playing, admittedly, although we still manage to get some stuff done. The key for me as a GM is to keep them on track, it's very easy to get caught up in side conversations and not get any gameplay in, so I tend to up the pace quite a bit. One trick I use is to just draw the maps you want to use beforehand, but not to worry about the grid, I can't emphasize this enough, DO NOT PLAY GRID COMBAT when you are pressed for time. I've played games where one combat took the better part of two hours, and that was at low levels! Instead I use pure imaginative combat, although we haven't actually done any fighting as of yet. This does make the game more of a roleplaying game, which is refreshing for me compared to my usual roll-playing games. I've also been teaching them on the go, letting them know the rules as they come up (and convincing them that I'm not making them up on the spot, although sometimes I am). It's important to focus on fun, not necessarily getting the entire "Pathfinder Experience," as that is what most of them are likely there for. I"m finding that the short times are inspiring others to play more though, and I've even had requests for other sessions. So don't worry too much about what everyone has or doesn't have, we only have one core rulebook between all of us and we have been using it less and less the more we play. Good luck, and happy gaming!
Kumi wrote: I forgot to mention that I am fairly new to GMing anything; I am in an online campaign for Pathfinder currently, and have played in other systems. Like the others said, just use some pre-generated adventures, even free ones from online and print them out. I'm finding that the shortened sessions really take the stress of prepping off, as there is only so much they can do in such a short time.
One hour, once a week...
Honestly I wouldn't recommend Pathfinder at all. I would suggest high speed games like Love Letter, Coup, Resistance, Werewolf, and Munchkin.
If you're dead set on something D&Dish, I recommend pre-fab characters and published modules. Keep an obsidian portal account of the adventure and the characters available, don't be afraid to steal liberally from other sources, and if kids want to craft a new character tell 'em you'll give the character a look, but that the character might end up in someone else' hands. Vanity projects require a light touch since it gets the person engaged in play but EASILY ties their ego into how well they and their character "wins."
Thanks for the responses so far!
I've collected some modules online these past few weeks, and I have a few PDFs on my laptop, including We Be Goblins (plus We Be Goblins Too!), the PFS scenario Master of the Fallen Fortress, a few that take place in Falcon's Hollow, and the adventure A Dragon's Demand (in physical form). I'm currently playing through the Second Darkness Adventure Path with my online group and borrowed Rise of the Runelords from the library to see how Adventure Paths are set up, since Sandpoint is kind of the jumping off point, so I'm familiar with those. I'm just worried that I won't even get through the first chapter of any Adventure Path before the school year ends, even if I had started earlier. I think I'll use shorter adventures (~32 to ~64 page modules) and see how the pacing goes.
RE--boring7: I kicked off the club by playing Munchkin, and between having about eight players at the start who never played before (myself and the tutor who was there at the time included) and ending at 5:20 at the time, we barely finished, and that was after a couple of students dropped out to leave early because their parents came to pick them up. This situation was likely an exception rather than the rule; I had the group play Apples to Apples the last board game day I organized and they already seemed to get the gist of that, since most of them either played it before or had played Cards Against Humanity (which I am NOT bringing in to a high school). They seem to be pretty set on mainly playing Pathfinder, however. I'll look into using something like Obsidian Portal or setting up some sort of blog so that they can update and look at the current story we're doing. I kind of feel like no matter what I do, the time thing is the most restricting thing. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do once summer break starts, since they're all freshmen and obviously can't drive yet. They'd need a ride from their friends/parents/sibling or take the city bus system to get to a central place if the club were to still meet. I think I'll have to ask my friend K about the availability of the school over the summer, since the meeting place for the arts part of the anime club happened throughout the summer last year at the school on days that it was open.
The way I scheduled the semester is this (after coming back from a two-week winter break):
- Board Games
- Character Creation
- Adventure Week 1
- Adventure Week 2
- Adventure Week 3
- rinse, repeat;
where board game day happens on the day that the state-wide standardized test happens, since we don't know if that's a half day for them or not, or how their classes are going to be scheduled. In the past, for the students that don't come in regularly enough, I've given them a pre-generated character, either one that came with the Beginner Box or one that I made. Maybe next time I'll have them use a pre-generated character since we already spend the last session on making a new character and they aren't done yet. My point in having them create new characters is so that they rely less on asking me what to do next and more on knowing where to look to create the character (and also to get them to see how different the classes are played so they realize how much they have to work as a team...they were in the video game mentality the first time they played and went in all sorts of directions and attacked the door to an empty house to a house I created on the spot, expecting a monster).
I did have them fill out a survey near the beginning of the club, asking them how familiar they were with board games, card games, and other role playing games like anything from the White Wolf line or other editions of D&D. I also asked them if they were able to come several weeks in a row if they were to make characters and do an RPG. Most of them, as I said, have no role playing experience whatsoever. Some of them have played some sort of trading card game like Vanguard and Pokemon. Board game wise...well, out of those that really answered, they've played Risk and Monopoly before joining the club. Pathfinder student D (and I think F, I'd have to check again) is really the only one who's played something like Settlers of Catan. I think introducing some new board games is interesting and fun, and they really enjoyed themselves with the days I brought a board game, but I have to keep in mind that the game should take less than an hour from start to finish.
The students decided that they really would like a second day during the week, so now the club happens on Wednesdays and Fridays. It still only lasts an hour or so, but at least there's some more time, now.
|
