Help me run a campaign for a bunch of 12 year olds.

[diaglo]

to expand upon the example. you can add options to help them understand something they might not yet too.

in the example you can tell them they are tiring but they see a graded path up to the goblin they might not make it to the goblin in time to still swing unless they take the path

 

[ExploderWizard]

Well, I agree that it offers the DM a lot of freedom, but only because it doesn't offer the DM much of anything. You've got your work cut out for you to run B2 even within the structure it pretends to. In it's favor, I enjoyed it as a kid myself, but I think only because I'd never seen anything else.

But, as I've said in other thread:



Add to that if you read the text Gygax knows that this is a highly incomplete adventure. Again, quoting myself:



What KotB gives you is so thin its hardly even worth anything. No one has a name even. The module is intended to be incorporated organicly into a larger setting with villages that the keep is protecting, a lord the castallan is serving, merchants travellign to and fro, and probably a chaotic cult with far reaching tentacles and diabolical plans. Only within that frame work does the module even make sense in its own right and offer real oppurtunities for play.

I didn't have any problems with KOTB even at 11 years old. If you read the Moldvay B/X rulebook before reading the module (recommended) then it makes sense.

The Keep is civilization. The caves are inhabited by monsters who are hostile to civilization. Those monsters have treasure. Adventurers venture into dangerous places such as the caves in search of treasure. The bulk of adventuring XP comes from finding treasure. Onward!!!!



As I remember both B1 and B2 were special instructional modules. This meant that they were designed more as adventure module "kits" aimed at getting fledgling DMs involved in the scenario/milieu creation process than as finished and polished detailed scenarios. If the point of the product is to teach DMs how to do for themselves, fleshing everything out ahead of time sort of defeats the purpose.

B1 was especially fun because you got to stock the rooms with monsters & treasures. The unique room contents were already detailed (such as the cool room of pools) but YOU got do decide what monsters were where, what treasure they were guarding, and come up with a coherent theme for the dungeon such as the OP has done, turning it into a heavily trapped kobold lair.

There is certainly a difference in expectations between what folks expect from adventure support products now compared to 30+ years ago. I personally treasure the sparseness of the content. It really helped me to find my own well of creativity. Too much over-produced product is spoon fed to gamers nowadays turning them into consumers instead of hobbyist gamers. It works fine for video games but it is the enemy of originality and creative thought in the tabletop medium.

 

[Lwaxy]

GMing with kids invokes a few thoughts, one is "never tell me the odds." Kids are twice as likely do do something totally unexpected, no matter what you have seen.

 

[Celebrim]

I didn't have any problems with KOTB even at 11 years old. If you read the Moldvay B/X rulebook before reading the module (recommended) then it makes sense.

No, it doesn't. The monsters don't have believable motivation. The keep isn't in believable danger. That much I figured out immediately.

And later I started wondering why people motivated by treasure didn't rob the keep instead of the monsters, since the keep had more good stuff. So then I started wondering what motivation 'lawful' people had in this situation. My DM mentor revealed that his group (somewhat older) had actually played chaotic and robbed the keep. That was funny to a 12 year old, but it wasn't what I wanted from an adventure.

I also noted other big problems with the module as I was running it. There were these different humanoid tribes, but they were basically the same. You'd go into a cave, trigger (or rarely not) the alarm system, and then the whole tribe would come piling down on and there'd be this massive slugfest between all these humanoids and the PC's. There wasn't much tactics to it. There wasn't any space much for tactics beyond not getting surrounded. The ground was flat. The distances were short. You'd just roll dice. And roll. And roll. Early on there was a lot of random unavoidable death, particularly among the classes that couldn't wear heavy armor. They'd take javelins or arrows or something or get outflanked, and just die. But within about two forays, most everyone left alive, was in plate mail with shield +1's, and then the monsters really didn't stand a chance. And then it was just a matter of rolling dice. And rolling. And rolling. It was all rather repetitive. And it got me wondering, why in the world didn't the whole valley just come piling down on the PC's as soon as they were spotted. Like, if this was supposed to be some sort of army, if they are really working together - surely they could put aside their hatred of each other enough to blow a trumpet or something and send the whole 110 or so humanoids in the caves hurtling down on the PC's. I mean, yeah, they don't like each other, but even a chaotic can figure out 'the enemy of my enemy', right? Especially with these priests up there. And if they aren't working together, why are they even here? Why wait around near their mortal enemies, in danger of the keep at all times, just so some adventurers can come along and take their stuff?

I tried 'fixing it' as a kid, but I couldn't figure out how. I figured there had to be an army or evil mustering somewhere, nearby, but I couldn't figure out how to express that in a way that wasn't repetitive - you know, lots and lots of barracks filled with more and more humanoids. It was the caves problem all over again.

It was very frustrating as a young DM. I was trying to figure out how to write an adventure of my own, and all I had was this lame piece of crap as a template. It wasn't creative it all. It made me think that the way to write an adventure was to just cram a bunch of unrelated monsters together on a map. It was a terrible 'introductory' adventure. Reading it again as an adult, I'm struck by how advanced in skills a DM has to be to run it really well and just how badly I'd ran it as a kid. Even my 17 year old self's reattempt, though it had some merit, still failed the real test. Imperialus's 50 pages of notes is on the mark - more content than is actually in the module. It would take me probably 50 hours to get B2 ready to run.

CM3 Saber River, ran by mentor, on the other hand was a revelation.

 

[ExploderWizard]

No, it doesn't. The monsters don't have believable motivation. The keep isn't in believable danger. That much I figured out immediately.

And later I started wondering why people motivated by treasure didn't rob the keep instead of the monsters, since the keep had more good stuff. So then I started wondering what motivation 'lawful' people had in this situation. My DM mentor revealed that his group (somewhat older) had actually played chaotic and robbed the keep. That was funny to a 12 year old, but it wasn't what I wanted from an adventure.

I also noted other big problems with the module as I was running it. There were these different humanoid tribes, but they were basically the same. You'd go into a cave, trigger (or rarely not) the alarm system, and then the whole tribe would come piling down on and there'd be this massive slugfest between all these humanoids and the PC's. There wasn't much tactics to it. There wasn't any space much for tactics beyond not getting surrounded. The ground was flat. The distances were short. You'd just roll dice. And roll. And roll. Early on there was a lot of random unavoidable death, particularly among the classes that couldn't wear heavy armor. They'd take javelins or arrows or something or get outflanked, and just die. But within about two forays, most everyone left alive, was in plate mail with shield +1's, and then the monsters really didn't stand a chance. And then it was just a matter of rolling dice. And rolling. And rolling. It was all rather repetitive. And it got me wondering, why in the world didn't the whole valley just come piling down on the PC's as soon as they were spotted. Like, if this was supposed to be some sort of army, if they are really working together - surely they could put aside their hatred of each other enough to blow a trumpet or something and send the whole 110 or so humanoids in the caves hurtling down on the PC's. I mean, yeah, they don't like each other, but even a chaotic can figure out 'the enemy of my enemy', right? Especially with these priests up there. And if they aren't working together, why are they even here? Why wait around near their mortal enemies, in danger of the keep at all times, just so some adventurers can come along and take their stuff?

So your efforts at trying something different was only variations on ATTACK!! or the DM didn't believe in any reaction result that wasn't " hostile- immediate attack" Thats too bad.

An attempt to sack the keep is perfectly natural. I imagine we have all attempted that at one time or another with varying degrees of success.

I tried 'fixing it' as a kid, but I couldn't figure out how. I figured there had to be an army or evil mustering somewhere, nearby, but I couldn't figure out how to express that in a way that wasn't repetitive - you know, lots and lots of barracks filled with more and more humanoids. It was the caves problem all over again.

It was very frustrating as a young DM. I was trying to figure out how to write an adventure of my own, and all I had was this lame piece of crap as a template. It wasn't creative it all. It made me think that the way to write an adventure was to just cram a bunch of unrelated monsters together on a map. It was a terrible 'introductory' adventure. Reading it again as an adult, I'm struck by how advanced in skills a DM has to be to run it really well and just how badly I'd ran it as a kid. Even my 17 year old self's reattempt, though it had some merit, still failed the real test. Imperialus's 50 pages of notes is on the mark - more content than is actually in the module. It would take me probably 50 hours to get B2 ready to run.

So making up things the various tribes wanted that put various species of chaotic monsters at odds with one another, the players discovering these things and using the tribes against each other never occured to you?

 

[Celebrim]

So making up things the various tribes wanted that put various species of chaotic monsters at odds with one another, the players discovering these things and using the tribes against each other never occured to you?

It occurred to me, but I was like 10 or 11 and while the text is somewhat suggestive of that tension, there is not even a single example of how to that in the text. Not one breadcrumb leads you to go, "Heh, this tribe would ally itself with me if I did X." It's not altogether obvious what you'd give a tribe, and it is certainly not obvious that they'd trust you or you'd have reason to trust them. The obvious things to give them - suits of armor for example - you don't have the money to buy and if it were discovered that you were arming the tribes, it probably wouldn't go well with you back at the keep. So that's the same as throwing in with chaos. You could give them slaves, they seem to like slaves, but what are you going to do - kidnap them from the Keep? There are voluminous notes on how the tribes organize to defend themselves, but there are basically no notes on what resources the tribes control or lack. There are certainly no resource nodes - a fungal garden of food stuffs, a well, a brewery, etc. The closest is the armory that the hobgoblins have, but they don't have a forge or anything. It's far from obvious even to the DM, much less to players that don't have the notes telling them that the individual tribes hate each other.

Besides, you said it yourself, "The caves are inhabited by monsters who are hostile to civilization. Those monsters have treasure. Adventurers venture into dangerous places such as the caves in search of treasure. The bulk of adventuring XP comes from finding treasure." It's certainly not obvious to 10-11 year old new players that charging in, killing things and taking their stuff isn't the thing you are supposed to do - and none of the notes on the tribes suggest their first strategy is parley.

I'm sure there is an interesting adventure in there somewhere that involves pitting the monsters against each other, but with no hints how to set that up in the text, I think it's pretty ridiculous to think that that is going to be the way it is going to play. To be honest, even today, I think that the main focus of how these groups hate and distrust each other is to provide justification for them not presenting a united front and just wiping out the low level adventurers expected of the module.

 

[Wangalade]

I have run b2 a few times and played it many more, and each time was a blast. Granted each time we played it it was tweaked to a greater or lesser extent, so it was never really the same adventure. That is probably what made it fun every time, I don't think I have ever played through it where everything was as described in the module.

A member of my group just started DMing a DnDNext campaign, and we just started KotB. We started right away using the hatred of the monsteres against each other without even trying. we didn't go " hey we should convince these guys to fight these other guys." It happened by accident. we entered the caves with kobolds, killed a couple, and then hid in a side chamber to rest for the night, during the night we were awakened by a patrol of about a dozen kobolds, who upon seeing us rushed into the room to attack, we killed just a couple, surounded them and blocked the way out before they had a chance to do anything so they surrendered. after interrogating them we learned of other humanoids and their particular dislike of the orcs, who had just recently arrived. after having them take us to their leader and forging an alliance with him against the orcs we ended the session.

THat was the best session I have been a part of in quite a while. there was no stereotypical reaction from the monsters, we definitely didn't fight the whole tribe, and we haven't looted any treasure yet. My point is that it is a very flexible scenario and great for young or new gamers. three of our players were younger than 12. I highly recommend using it as a starting point to any dungeoncrawl flavored campaign.

 

[DMZ2112]

So I'm going to be starting a lunch hour D&D game for a bunch of my 6th grade students.

Oh, man, that sounds like it would be so much fun.

Yes. Twelve year olds from a gaming perspective are fundamentally adults or soon will be; they are no longer 'young kids'. While you should avoid for obvious reasons the sort of things that are erroneously called 'adult content', and probably should use comic book code because of the school setting, 12 year olds are just another table of players and should be treated with that dignity. If anything, they are likely to be better RPers, to take ethical questions more seriously, and to strive harder to live up to being heroes than adult players are - particularly if you nudge them in that direction. They will be goofy, giggly, and unfocused at times, but so are my adult players. They are intelligent and creative; they only lack experience. You have to show them how to play and open them up to the possibilities just like any new player. You don't have to treat them like children.

This paragraph solidly sums up any advice I'd give.

I'll be running them through 'my' B2. I've run the keep a few times now, in fact it's shown up in several of my games and it has grown in detail and complexity as I've done so. I'm drawing on probably 50+ pages of notes that flesh things out significantly. There is an 'evil empire' on the far side of the pass, the monsters inhabiting the caves are its forward scouts. It's a setting that I know well, and has grown far beyond the 30 odd pages that make up the actual module.

Holy crap, you are so full of win!

 

[howandwhy99]

Like any D&D game, the players are in charge. They tell you want they do, where they go, what they want. Like normal you respond to their attempts, but with younger kids you may want to ask them those self same questions if play goes off track too much. For example, kids can have a hard time focusing and remembering. You might mention that they can record things on their character log when they discover something in the game. Not just when they acquire new stuff or their stats change. And that they had made decision and what those were. Do they want to keep those goals or perhaps try something else? And so on.

Also clarify responses and player attempts just as in any other game, but be patient. In fact, be prepared to be patient throughout. Kids can be incredibly quick, but also rather slow at times. Don't point out the latter, but try and make your responses clear and accurate to what's occurring in the game. IOW, be a little more detailed than you might usually be, but without overwhelming them. Then let them know they can dig deeper, get more specific with their actions, their searches, and what they want to do. Let them discover the details, but make sure they know they are there to be discovered and then gamed with.

 

[Oldehouserules]

Let them be the enthusiastic newcomers they are and, as others have said, don't be a slave to the rules...

We were all 12-years old once (and who knows, some here might still be). Tap into those memories and go with it!