BLUF: Any recommendations for session zero, game systems to run, and co-dming with teens?
As a bit of background:
I used to run Hero Kids games with my wife back when the kids were 8, 6, and 4. They enjoyed them and we occasionally run other games with them now, but the younger ones aren’t as interested in them anymore, so getting them in has been more difficult. All of them have differing levels of ability to sit through a game, and keeping combat turns quick has been a key focus.
My eldest is now 12, and is interested in playing more TTRPGs and learning to DM her own games. She’s been playing D&D 5e weekly with a group of teens at a FLGS, but she’s probably one of the youngest ones there. She’s also neurodivergent, as are several others in that group. So there’s often been struggles with things not being done “the right way” as well as attention spans growing short and wandering. The gaming group has already grown too large and unruly and been split once, so now it’s two different games meeting every other week each instead of one game meeting every week.
The owners of the FLGS have expressed interest in having other people help run games for teens there, and I’m interested in helping, but I’m less fond of D&D 5e myself, especially for teens with short attention spans. So my idea currently is to come up with a “Survey of TTRPGs” and just run one shots in multiple systems, and end with offering some games where interested teens can run a one shot and I’d just serve as co-dm with them. I’d be available to help plan, as well as to help run the game day of.
My thought process here is that experiencing several different systems would help expand their experience of play styles, and would hopefully make it easier for them to accept players at their table having different preferred play styles. The experience would also hopefully illustrate different situations and scenarios in play, and make it easier to accept new ideas at the table. To me, the ideal help for the ongoing situation is to have a group of teens willing and interested to run games for other teens, and my daughter is interested in being one of those teens but isn’t comfortable doing so yet.
I want to start by coming up with a session zero that is geared for teens, and then do some very rules lite systems for the first few weeks. The goal being to introduce some role playing concepts and decision making options without a lot of rules involved up front, then work to other systems that have additional rules as time goes on. I imagine we’d start with something like Heroic Tales, work in Tiny D6 based games, look at some OSR type stuff, check out some PbtA, and end on D&D 5e and/or Pathfinder 2e. When we make it to the point of offering co-dm sessions, the kids could pick anything we’d run already as the base system.
My personal struggle is that I enjoy a lot of systems, and am interested in a lot more that I haven’t gotten to play yet. So I’ve been trying to work several of those into this idea. I tried to work out a list of systems, and eventually had 13 one shots I was going to try and run, with multiple options in systems at basically every one of them (and multiple genres to boot), and I feel like it is probably just a bit too ambitious, and want to pare it back further.
So does anyone have:
- Any tips to offer for running games for teens (current group is ages 12-17),
- Suggestions for systems that have quick combat turns to help maintain the interest of short attention spans,
- Extra tips for Session Zeros that come up more often with teens than adults
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I’m running a Candlekeep Mysteries adventure for my teens right now. The thing I seem to need to focus on is making sure the both get time in the spotlight. One of them is loud and takes up a lot of space while the other tends to wait for an opening to join in. I make sure those openings happen.
As for session zero stuff I’d go with pre-made characters for first timers/noobs.
As for systems I just found out about Numenera. Looks rules light and interesting.
I have the Numenera starter kit and the main Cypher system book. There are several concepts in the system I’ve heard about and want to explore more, but haven’t managed to sit down and actually do yet. Just judging by the size I’d have thought it closer to crunchy than to rules lite, but I haven’t actually looked up the rules yet (I’ve had the cypher book about a week now too…)
I’d heard about candlekeep mysteries, but hadn’t actually looked at it. It did sound interesting as one offs to add in or run alone though for sure!
For session zero, I’m more looking for stuff that would apply across multiple systems and genres. I don’t plan on running an actual campaign at this time, and I don’t think we’ll spend more than a week or two with most systems before moving on and trying another. I’ll likely have pre made characters available for each system we try, but the first few are really simple to create for!
Have you run into anything you’ve had to curtail or shut down that it would be worthwhile just mentioning up front that we’re going to avoid those things? I haven’t been able to make it to all the game nights they’ve had so far, so I’ve only heard about the problems that were big enough they were still talking about it the next day. Which I imagine is often the ones that weren’t resolved while still there anyway.
I know I’ll need to mention some safety systems and options there, and some things we’ll avoid in gameplay. But I’m really only familiar with what to warn my own daughter against doing that she’s tried in the past. I’m not sure what else commonly comes up as I don’t get to spend that much time with other teens these days. I’ve been doing a lot more with elementary aged groups and am only just now getting the chance to work more with teens now that my eldest is 12.
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