| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I tried out the Pathfinder Beginner Box in an unusual setting yesterday: the 3rd-to-5th grade Sunday School class at Peace Lutheran Church.
I have a strong background in Lutheran doctrine, have been teaching Sunday School at various churches for over 20 years, and usually make up my lesson from scratch using the gospel lesson scheduled for that Sunday. My standard format for this age group is 15 minutes of teaching directly from the Bible, followed by a 45-minute game or craft project that somehow relates to the lesson. For example, last week the lesson was on John the Baptist and we poured melted colored soap into molds to remind the students of washing away sins.
This week's lesson was John 1: 43-51, Jesus recruiting the disciples Philip and Nathanael. After Jesus impressed Nathanael with some divine knowledge about Nathanael himself, he declared, "You will see greater things than these!" Hey, that is an adventure hook! I decided to use Pathfinder as the game for the lesson and purchased the Beginner Box.
Some parents skipped church to watch the Baltimore Ravens game, so I had a small class: Jalen age 9, Rosemary age 9, and Savannah age 11. After the Bible lesson, I pulled the shrink wrap off the Beginner Box before them and introduced them to the character sheets. Jalen wanted to play someone tough, so I handed the Valeros booklet to him immediately. Rosemary was intrigued by magic powers, so she got Kyra (she didn't want to play Ezren, a guy). Savannah also wanted to play a cleric and we started on making a new character for her, but I realized we didn't have enough time and talked her into playing Merisiel. I, of course, was the GM.
While I was working with Savannah on the character sheet, Jalen and Rosemary were looking over the cardboard figures and setting up the most impressive monsters that they could find on the caves side of the playmat. I soon vetoed the plan of having three first-level characters confront a Medusa and Black Dragon and said that their characters were in the caves hunting down two orc bandits who were robbing travelers. But first, they ran into a venomous snake.
Jalen hollered that he wanted to go first, but I made them roll for initiative. Fortunately for Jalen, Valeros has Improved Initiative and did get to go first. i gave him the d20 and the d8. He hit, but somehow I misread the 1d8+4 as 1d8+1 in my glance at his character sheet so he did only three damage.
Then I explained to Savannah that Merisel could do something called sneak attack if she moved behind the snake, so she did. I ignored the potential Attack of Opportunity for moving into position. She missed.
Then the snake bit Valeros, 3 physical damage and 3 more damage when Jalen failed the fortitude roll against poison. I told Rosemary that Kyra could either move up to attack the snake or heal Valeros. She healed Valeros.
Jalen hit the snake again, this time getting the full 1d8+4. Then Savannah rolled her sneak attack and killed the snake. I knocked the figure over with my finger, but she picked it up and pulled off the base so that it would lie totally flat.
I explained to Savannah that Merisel could listen at the door before they opened it to check whether the room had any monsters in it, moving the Black Dragon figure in and out of the room as I talked. She listened, heard nothing, and they moved in. Her character immediately jumped in the glowing fountain in the center of the room to splash around. I had not yet read page 7 of the Game Master's Guide, so the fountain did nothing magical beyond glowing.
I had put the orc figures in the Gemstone Altar room, and the players made a beeline for that door. Savannah/Merisel listened in, heard the orcs, and I recommended that she let Jalen/Valeros enter first. He did so, and killed an orc in a single blow.
At this point, time was up and the other Sunday School classes were letting out their students. Patrick, Savannah's older brother, came into my classroom. I said that obviously they would defeat the other orc, and they would haul to bodies to the sheriff who would pay them a reward for stopping the bandits. And now it was time for closing prayers.
After prayers, Patrick asked what they were playing and Savannah explained it was Pathfinder. Patrick said, "I heard that was hard." Rosemary piped up, "No, it's easy."
Much of the fun of teaching Sunday School is seeing familiar things through children's eyes.
|
Wow. Nice story. I think if were to do so, I'd incorporate the Gospel message somehow, mirroring the message behind the passage in John. While I'm behind telling fantastic stories that shadow the Bible's Story, I'd ensure a story told through Pathfinder shadows the concept displayed by the week's lesson and the game would not trump the message. Thanks for reaching out and using gaming as a vehicle to reach kids!
Way to go. I hope that you weave some neat stuf together for them. I am a pastor and think this is awesome. I will give you a cationary "beware what some parents might think."
|
This week's lesson was John 1: 43-51, Jesus recruiting the disciples Philip and Nathanael. After Jesus impressed Nathanael with some divine knowledge about Nathanael himself, he declared, "You will see greater things than these!" Hey, that is an adventure hook! I decided to use Pathfinder as the game for the lesson and purchased the Beginner Box.And exactly how is John 1: 43-51 related to killing orcs?
Yeah, I was kinda curious about that too.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sounds like fun. I'm glad to see the next generation getting into gaming ().
Even though I'm an atheist, I still believe in the value of what is taught in churches - the church (historically) is the birthplace of Western education and literacy. The bible is a wonderful piece of historical literature and teaches some very important lessons in a way that people can digest them and take them to heart.
That said, Sunday school is, first and foremost, a school of church. It is a place of learning biblical history and the principles as seen through the looking glass of its literature.
Perhaps you can construct the adventures into biblical fables? Modify future adventures to the recreation of biblical stories? Or (what I'd do in your shoes) recreate your own stories which form a backdrop to the recorded gospel? The party could be, for example, soldiers or rogues of the times, interacting with the world back then, as gospel unfolded around them as "news/current events".
I think this would make it more relevant to Sunday school, and it would challenge you as GM.
Yeah, I was kinda curious about that too.This week's lesson was John 1: 43-51, Jesus recruiting the disciples Philip and Nathanael. After Jesus impressed Nathanael with some divine knowledge about Nathanael himself, he declared, "You will see greater things than these!" Hey, that is an adventure hook! I decided to use Pathfinder as the game for the lesson and purchased the Beginner Box.And exactly how is John 1: 43-51 related to killing orcs?
The lesson was about Philip and Nathanael becoming followers of Jesus. Philip had heard good reports of Jesus, because he was from the same town as Andrew and Peter, but Nathanael was skeptical that a worthy prophet would come from Nazareth, not known for scholarship nor religion. It was the chance at adventure that drew Nathanael's attention. The disciples were not all the same.
Killing orcs has nothing to do with preaching God's word, but it did have to do with wanting to do something adventurous and bringing together a group of people for that adventure. Jalen pointed out that killing monsters helped people. I responded that the real world has few monsters that need to be killed, so the disciples instead preached and healed.
I have a collection of Christian boardgames, such as The Journeys of Paul by Cactus Game Design, a Settlers of Canaan variant of Settlers of Catan, a Noah's Ark Game, a shepherd game, and so on. Thus, given the proper lesson, I can relate a game directly to the lesson. But the story of Noah's Ark comes up only once every three years, and one of Paul's missionary journeys only about once a year. Trying to force a Bible lesson directly into a craft or game activity that is not designed for that lesson tends to diminish the activity. Most of the time, I settle for a loose connection between the lesson and the activity to keep both interesting.
If the children are bored, they don't listen and they don't remember. My long-term hope is that the children remember the interesting game, which reminds them of Jesus recruiting the disciples, which reminds them that they can be disciples of God, too.
Sounds like fun. I'm glad to see the next generation getting into gaming ().
My wife started my daughters at D&D at age 5 and 6.
Perhaps you can construct the adventures into biblical fables? Modify future adventures to the recreation of biblical stories? Or (what I'd do in your shoes) recreate your own stories which form a backdrop to the recorded gospel? The party could be, for example, soldiers or rogues of the times, interacting with the world back then, as gospel unfolded around them as "news/current events".
I think this would make it more relevant to Sunday school, and it would challenge you as GM.
That would be a good activity for a two-hour afternoon session, but I would not be able to squeeze it into a 45-minute Sunday School activity.
Only 45 minutes? Ouch. Not alot you can do in that amount of time.
|
I tried out the Pathfinder Beginner Box in an unusual setting yesterday: the 3rd-to-5th grade Sunday School class at Peace Lutheran Church.
Might I point you to this (in case you had not seen it before)...
Testament: Roleplaying in the Biblical Era
It's only $2.00...
It was written for 3.0 D&D, but is very easily converted to PF (and thusly the PF BB)...
You could use it along with the Roman era sourcebook (Eternal Rome) by the same company (Green Ronin)...
You can find that book on PDF over HERE...
|
|
This week's lesson was John 1: 43-51, Jesus recruiting the disciples Philip and Nathanael. After Jesus impressed Nathanael with some divine knowledge about Nathanael himself, he declared, "You will see greater things than these!" Hey, that is an adventure hook! I decided to use Pathfinder as the game for the lesson and purchased the Beginner Box.And exactly how is John 1: 43-51 related to killing orcs?
Then I explained to Savannah that Merisel could do something called sneak attack if she moved behind the snake, so she did. I ignored the potential Attack of Opportunity for moving into position. She missed.Attack of opportunities are left out of the beginner box.
I dunno about John, but Pulp Fiction taught me that Ezekial had some stuff to say about the topic:
[Ezekiel 25:17 ]
Jules: "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."
|
Awesome!
Hate to inflame sore feelings about the inquisition of D&D players that many of us grew up through, but unfortunately, the "D&D = Satanism" era that was dreamed up by the media and made-for-TV movies more than actual religious groups had its negative consequences against Christianity, but I would like to say those times are over. Our church was always fond of Magic the Gathering when it first came out and we played HeroQuest and Dragon Strike and D&D all the time. Yes, there was one of "those" mothers (who was kind of a crazy cat lady, too) that refused to allow her kids to play our reindeer games, but there's always going to be someone like that in all walks of life.
Case in point: I went to school with a kid who never got to snack or eat junk food EVER, had to bring his lunch to school, and never even got to eat birthday cake for crying out loud. Why? His dad wanted him to grow up to be a pro football player. I'm not saying that it was the wrong way to rear a child (he was super healthy, after all!), it's just an extreme. It's the same thing with religion as everything else. Some people are all kinds of weird about it. Others are rational and logical. Stereotyping any religion is just as bad as stereotyping ethnicity. Are there a lot of truths behind some stereotypes? Yes. But no one should ever be shocked to learn of Christians enjoying D&D in church any more than they should be to learn that [ethnic group] is or does [aspect or activity conflicting with ethnic stereotype].
I applaud your efforts to engage your Sunday school class. They will remember your kindness, compassion, wisdom and imagination for the rest of their lives and will associate their positive experience with their future encounters with other Christians throughout their walk on this earth. Great job! The Lord surely smiles on you, Mathmuse!
I tried out the Pathfinder Beginner Box in an unusual setting yesterday: the 3rd-to-5th grade Sunday School class at Peace Lutheran Church.Might I point you to this (in case you had not seen it before)...
Testament: Roleplaying in the Biblical Era
It's only $2.00...
It was written for 3.0 D&D, but is very easily converted to PF (and thusly the PF BB)...
You could use it along with the Roman era sourcebook (Eternal Rome) by the same company (Green Ronin)...
You can find that book on PDF over HERE...
That's great. Thanks for the information.