This forum is in permanent archive mode. Our new active community can be found here.

Teen RPG

edited February 2013 in Role Playing Games
Well, today has been interesting.

My daughter turns 14 next weekend and she just told me that for her party she wants to host a D&D game.

When she was younger I used to host D&D and HackMaster games that she would crash. She never showed much interest in doing anything other than stealing dice but now she is older...

I have nearly every version of D&D since the blue book up to the "basic set" of 4th edition, among other RPGs. What I am wondering is which version would be best for her to being with.

I am partial to the 1981 Basic D&D set (Moldvay) as it is very easy to learn and play.

Suggestions?

Comments

  • 4th ed is very easy to pick up and play. It sort of depends on what her friends are like. It couldn't hurt for them to come up with ideas and tell her.
  • edited February 2013
    I'd say Basic is best. The higher the versions go, the more tools they gave to the players. Kids (who aren't already well bought into D&D) don't want to worry about skills or feats or dailies any of that crap.

    Basic makes it easy on the DM, as you can just say "what do you want to do" and pretty much any result is a single dice roll away (if you need to roll dice at all). The only downside is that Basic is deadly as hell and is played best as a resource managing war game on a small scale by pedantic paranoid accountants.

    Maybe just go light on the combat (end the night with a saving-throw vs. death ;) ).
    Post edited by DevilUknow on
  • I'm running a Moldvay Basic game based on the pathfinder module "The Wormwood Mutiny" for a group of college+ aged friends that have never played before pretty soon. It was my first D&D edition and it's strengths are in the simplicity. It does have some issues with lethality though.

    If you're going heavier on the RP, any edition can work. And if they don't demand "D&D" specifically, there are better games for a one-shot. There's also the cleaned up rules of some "retro-clones" of the old basic games and such that make things slightly more legible like wanting to roll high instead of low to hit things and such. I apparently have Labyrinth Lord, Castles and Crusades (more of a 1e clone), and Adventurer Conqueror King (not quite as much of a clone but similar enough).

    OD&D 1974 is also pretty good for first times. It's even more bare bones.

    That said, you could also try the 4e basic set if kids are expecting a tactical skirmish game.
  • Swords and Wizardry is a free (for the pdf) OD&D clone for those interested.
  • Play the Moldvay Basic. They will love making maps.
  • Spelljammer
  • Figure out what kind of adventure she wants to run. Each edition of DnD plays very differently. Also, 4th Ed has the advantage of (for now) a decent amount of support by the publisher.
  • If you don't mind not rolling a d20, there's Dungeon World. Otherwise, if you're already familiar with Moldvay, use that.
  • Best non-D&D option is probably Inspectres.
  • edited February 2013
    Best non-D&D option is probably Rifts.
    Search your feelings, you know it too be true.
    Post edited by DevilUknow on
  • edited February 2013
    dafug?
    Post edited by DevilUknow on
  • I have a mostly relevant story, though second hand and I'm not sure how useful. New Jersey eight year old girl wanted to play a game of D&D for her birthday party, but neither of her parents were gaming people, so they went to their local gamestore. The game store said that they could provide a DM. Jaimie Hatton (friend since the earliest CTcons, author of this webcomic) was asked by a local game shop to run it. As he was setting up the dungeon, the girls asked if they could draw on it. He ran with it. The game was a huge success, so he translated everything over to Pathfinder. He's still running that campaign. He says it's the most interesting one he's been part of yet.
  • Best non-D&D option is probably Recon.
    Search your feelings, you know it too be true.
    If you are going to play a Palladium game, at least play a half-decent one.
  • edited February 2013
    Well, today has been interesting.
    Your daughter is awesome.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • Best non-D&D option is probably Recon.
    Search your feelings, you know it too be true.
    If you are going to play a Palladium game, at least play a half-decent one.
    A half-decent Palladium game exists?
  • In my experience, Palladium games were lists of proper nouns with inconsistent, too-crunchy mechanics bolted onto the side.
  • edited February 2013
    They're more like infinite clouds of wicked radical ideas with inconsistent, too-crunchy mechanics bolted onto the side.

    It is very easy to get someone interested in the idea of Rifts as it is basically a (mechanically unsound and broken) "who'd win in a fight" engine where everything has rules (or at least resemble something close enough that you could use them as "counts-as").

    Not everyone is interested in roguish fantasy men stealing treasure from dragons, but Rifts, by default, has SOMETHING a geek will be interested in and can be slotted in with anything else. "I like Ninja Turtles", "I like Wizards", "I like Batman", "I like Robotech" pretty much describes every Rifts player group ever.

    You need to be invested in the idea of role playing to really get frustrated with Palladium, at which point you move onto a system that works.

    RIfts is a gateway rpg.
    Post edited by DevilUknow on
  • Best non-D&D option is probably Recon.
    Search your feelings, you know it too be true.
    If you are going to play a Palladium game, at least play a half-decent one.
    A half-decent Palladium game exists?
    Yeah, Advanced Recon is pretty fun and fairly simple when you have a good group to play it with. It's about playing a recon team in the Vietnam War and it's well-known for having a character attrition rate matched only by Dark Heresy. The rules are kind of old and janky by comparison to new, slick RPGs and I never did figure out how ammunition tracking was supposed to work, but the core game is a pretty solid, simple RPG with fast character generation and a good theme. It's also the only RPG I've ever played where gunplay was only partially awful instead of complete, unmitigated stupid.
  • Ran a quick session for my daughter with girlfriend jumping in as a second player. Used B2 for simplicity and it went well.

    Daughter is excited to play again even though her thief was captured by goblins. For some reason they ignored my warnings about how the caves are dark and they lacked torches.
  • Burning Wheel is better.
    /obligatory
  • It's better at what it wants to be better at.
  • Burning Wheel is better.
    /obligatory
    For experts only.
  • Burning Wheel is better.
    /obligatory
    For experts only.
    This. I tried to get my party to play it, and I was the only one who understood it -- and I'm still not expert enough to GM, which I needed to.
  • This morning she told me that she wants to be a DM so she can torture her friends in subtle ways...

    Need to work on that with her.
  • DMing is great experience about a lot of things, like why not to be a dick to your friends. :P
  • Burning Wheel is better.
    /obligatory
    For experts only.
    There used to be a fantastic "demake" of BW's core dice mechanic at http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/one-hour-roleplaying/, but it's gone now.

    The short version: Decide on a genre you're interested in playing with. Have everyone write down how old their character is and what their name is. List some 'positive' thing they are known for. List some 'negative' thing that can cause problems for them, and a person that was affected by it. Now you have some relationships and miniaturized BITs to mine for situation. Work out an interesting conflict to play using everyone's characters. The GM should ask some questions and write down five skills for each character.

    Explain the rules now - you're going to be rolling a bunch of dice, and you want to roll 4+. If you do something covered by the skills on your sheet, you roll 5 dice. Otherwise, you roll 4 dice. If you get help from someone, they can give you an extra die. You have a black chip which you can use that to reroll sixes for more successes. You have two red chips, which you can use to add more dice before you roll.

    I played it one-on-one with no prep, with someone who had never played a roleplaying game before in their life. They grokked it immediately and the game was more satisfying than any 'light' system I've ever used.
  • Spelljammer
  • Spelljammer
    Ravenloft. Kids these days love vampires.
  • Spelljammer
    Ravenloft. Kids these days love vampires.
    Vampire: The Masquerade. Bonus difficulty: Everybody's Nosferatu, and the Toreadors all hate you.

Sign In or Register to comment.