Buying an RPG for ESL classes - Please Help!

[buddhafrog]

I teach small ESL classes in Korea. Most classes are between 2-4 middle school students. For the past year, seven+ classes have been playing D&D twice a week. The kids love D&D and it has been great for their conversation skills. It's been an overwhelming success and we will continue playing D&D. It's been so successful in fact that now I'm planning to add another game to our gaming schedule - a game that we might play between campaigns.

There are so many other RPG's out there these days. I only restarted playing (in this case, DM'ing) D&D one year ago after a 25 year hiatus and have never played any other type of RPG. I'm sort of at a loss.

And so here I am, willing to buy the game that you recommend for me. Criteria:

• No fantsay realm games - we will stay with D&D for that. No sword fighting games. I'm even shying away from Mouse Guard. Modern-based games would be nice, but this isn't a requirement. Games that require a specific knowledge of a western era (Call of Cthulhu is early 1900's, right?) wouldn't work for these Korean students
• We have one hour classes so games are broken up into smaller segments than usual. This can work even for D&D, but RPG's that handle this even better would be nice
• Less prep time would be awesome
• A game with less complex rules so students can focus on the game and not the ruleset
• Lots of communication opportunities (this is an ESL conversation class)
• The game does not have to be "kid-friendly" - the themes we use in D&D are mostly the same as most D&D groups - I've had a cleric sacrificed to a demon, for example. I do want to stay away from rather adult themes of sex and drugs.
• ESL - we play D&D 4e, but it does require me to change some attack and spell wording so that they can parse the language better. Any game that might create less of a language barrier.

Dresden Files sounds a little interesting - of course these students haven't seen the TV show. I've heard the magic language can be quite tricky, however. Fiasco sounds very intriguing, but I'm not sure if it is too adult-themed.

So, what are your thoughts? I also hope that there are other ESL teachers out there that might find value in this thread. Many have commented via Enworld about my D&D classes. Maybe a different RPG might make it easier to play with their students as well.

Thanks!

 

[Umbran]

Dresden Files sounds a little interesting - of course these students haven't seen the TV show.

So, have them read the books! The TV show was okay, but the books are better, and serve an English class well

Other games you might try:

World Of Darkness - if you just go with the core rules, it isn't complicated. How well it works for one-hour sessions depends very much on your adventure prep.

Savage Worlds - this can be used to do a number of genres, and the system's reasonable.

You didn't say which edition of D&D you are using. If you're using 4e, you might consider Gamma World - different genre, but the same mechanics under the hood.

 

[buddhafrog]

So, have them read the books! The TV show was okay, but the books are better, and serve an English class well

Other games you might try:

World Of Darkness - if you just go with the core rules, it isn't complicated. How well it works for one-hour sessions depends very much on your adventure prep.

Savage Worlds - this can be used to do a number of genres, and the system's reasonable.

You didn't say which edition of D&D you are using. If you're using 4e, you might consider Gamma World - different genre, but the same mechanics under the hood.

Thanks Umbran. We use 4e, so Gamma World is one of the options. I was thinking however that another system entirely might be better. Maybe not.

Unfortunately the Dresden books would probably be too difficult for almost all of my students. I wish I could do this!

Savage Worlds - I could use it with another genre, but unfortunately, I don't think I'd have a clue how to do so. I think I need a system that will walk me through the gameplay/setting/etc. Then after I have some experience, I could improvise a lot.

Never heard of World of Darkness - I will now google.

 

[Fate Lawson]

Dr. Who


With a sytem that encourages Talking or "RUN"ning over combat sounds like just the thing for ESL. And you can have adventures happen anytime/place.



or


Traveller


if you want science fiction as a break from fantasy

 

[S'mon]

Mutant Future! It's a Gamma World style post apocalype mutants game, very well done. It uses Basic D&D style rules under the hood making it very simple & easy to play.

 

[haakon1]

I'd consider Boot Hill, a Wild West game, as that might be an interesting setting for them, and everybody knows the basics of a "cowboys & Indians" setting from the gazillion Western movies every culture has seen a bit of.

Unfortunately, Boot Hill is out of print, but perhaps there's another Western game you could try.

 

[Shades of Green]

I'd recommend Tempora Mutantur. A simple, yet enjoyable, post-apocalyptic game which could be set almost everywhere and could very easily be modified to local cultural context. Very easy to break games into 1-hour segments IMHO.

I'd second Fate Lawson's recommendation of Traveller - Classic or Mongoose. Relatively rules-light, fast-paced sci-fi, just adapt the themes to local sci-fi the students are familiar with.

 

[nedjer]

Traveller seconded. Not too long, simple mechanics, free option with the SRD, (though that involves some formatting shoogling around), open to all kinds of corporate, modern, spy and spacefaring gameplay.

 

[buddhafrog]

You guys are awesome. You've given me lots of homework.

I agree that cowboys/indians is pretty universal, but I still worry that some of the details of the setting that would make it more alive/interactive will be missing. This is a possibility though.

A lot of suggestions for Traveler - this will be my first google.

Any other ideas? Also, if I can break D&D into one hour sessions, I can break anything into one hour - so I suppose that isn't too critical of a criteria.

 

[Charger28Alpha]

I second the Mutant Future recommendation, it is easy to pick up and fun to play and run.

Have you checked out the Savage Worlds One Sheets? They are free short adventures that cover a bunch of genres.

Savage Worlds One Sheets!

Combined with the Test Drive rules, also free form the same website. You should be able to pick up and run with Savage Worlds.