New short game for some wee boys ages 7 - 9

[Lindeloef]

I am a bit disappointed that i don't see a joke, that you should start a Dungeon World game, as these kids haven't reached the 13th age yet.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Any specific, current culturally relevant tropes? Harry Potter type stuff? Classic Dragon Slaying stuff?

In my experience, this is overthinking it. Kids have none of the hangups grown ups do with adventures and linear plots. They like being in control of things, their character. We played a 3.5 session where the two heroes borrowed a boat to row to an island to help scare off the bandits who lived there from terrorizing the village. (The bandits were a handful of orcs, as they discovered). Once the younger one convinced the older one to leave the boat unguarded ("But the old man said...") it became a marvellous diplomacy session with them trying to incentivize the orcs to redirect their energies.

ALmost nothing happened, and combat happened but was incidental. I gave them the choice of doing killing damage or subduing damage each time, and they thought about it. Discussed it. Almost every time. And they regularly chose to subdue. ("We have 50 feet of rope. We cut 5 feet and tie him up! Can we do that?").

At then end of two hours they had done almost nothing, but they had loved every minute of it.

A five-room dungeon is enough: Someone's had a ring stolen, and she asks for your help.
Hope this helps.

 

[Manbearcat]

I am a bit disappointed that i don't see a joke, that you should start a Dungeon World game, as these kids haven't reached the 13th age yet.

I was leaning toward Dungeon World due to the fact that these kids haven't reached the 13th age yet! Mission accomplished.

 

[Manbearcat]

Keep in mind, if you haven't seen other posts about the game, it's a Star Wars game that's Jedi-light. In the full book, you can make up PCs who are Force sensitive, but this part of the 3-game series is really about living on the fringes of the Empire - smugglers, bounty hunters, hard scrabble colonists, guns for hire and so on.

Gotcha. I have seen that complaint about it (I believe Innerdude's post). I think they would still have fun as they aren't as hardened and committed dorks as we all are.

 

[Manbearcat]

In my experience, this is overthinking it.

<snip>

ALmost nothing happened, and combat happened but was incidental. I gave them the choice of doing killing damage or subduing damage each time, and they thought about it. Discussed it. Almost every time. And they regularly chose to subdue. ("We have 50 feet of rope. We cut 5 feet and tie him up! Can we do that?").

At then end of two hours they had done almost nothing, but they had loved every minute of it.

A five-room dungeon is enough: Someone's had a ring stolen, and she asks for your help.
Hope this helps.

That does help. Quite a bit. Mostly I just don't want to confuse them with concepts beyond their reach and I want material that is familiar to them. But I think you're right. In the end, they just probably just want to run around and "do stuff" so it probably doesn't matter so much.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I think I'm trying to say something else:

You can put moral and ethical questions to them and they will actually wrestle with them. They've not learned to be murderhobos yet, and so in a 5 room dungeon, you can make them think and make real choices about their intentions, their ethics, and what they are willing to lose.

This is what I think DW does well, because if you roll a 7, you might get only 2 of the 3 desired effects.

I think it does matter: but that we older players can get bogged down with a linear quest, when choosing to disobey an adult talking to them is a big challenge, even in make-believe.

 

[S'mon]

Thoughts on current, culturally relevant source material/tropes that are transparent, fun, and non-complex for boys of this age to grasp, engage with, and riff off of.

Ask them - my boy loves knights and English longbowmen, Ivanhoe, Robin Hood and King Arthur, but yours might like something completely different; The Hobbit movie or Ben 10 or something.

 

[Gilladian]

For culturally relevant material for 9-12 year olds, I would suggest "sonic the hedgehog" and similar cartoons. I cannot keep intact volumes on my library shelves. Amulet is another good property to mine. Or Fullmetal alchemist!

There are a couple of similar discussion threads on the dungeonworld tavern in google+, if you care to go over there!

 

[Manbearcat]

Ask them - my boy loves knights and English longbowmen, Ivanhoe, Robin Hood and King Arthur, but yours might like something completely different; The Hobbit movie or Ben 10 or something.

We've read tons and tons of works of classic fiction (and some contemporary) together. Curiously, while he loved the book The Hobbit, he wasn't particularly interested in the movie. Movies have to be extraordinarily paced to hold his interest. I think that is the direction I'm going to go for the game; take The Hobbit and turn the pacing up to eleventy-seven.

He has watched a lot of contemporary stuff though and he engages with other boys in school on cultural touchstones for that age group that are alien to me (this is my nephew, not son). I know of Harry Potter and the like but I don't know much beyond that. Asking him may just be the way to go.

For culturally relevant material for 9-12 year olds, I would suggest "sonic the hedgehog" and similar cartoons. I cannot keep intact volumes on my library shelves. Amulet is another good property to mine. Or Fullmetal alchemist!

There are a couple of similar discussion threads on the dungeonworld tavern in google+, if you care to go over there!

Perfect. Thank you. That is exactly what I was looking for. Amulet and Fullmetal Alchemist. I'll look into those for ideas.