GURPS Lite in the Classroom, Session #9

For the previous session, click this link.

Rules Explanations

I explained parrying vs. unarmed attacks, and used my house rule (1/2 damage).

Recap

I did the short recap again, but kept it short.

Play

We started with the Unknown Soldier by the pool. He advanced to the oncoming sound with his candle. Something lunged out of the darkness - a loose-skinned white-eyed undead of some kind, dragging a stiff leg. They fought - he slashed it a couple of times while parrying it, and it palmed aside his sword thrusts.

He then realized (IOW, was advised by the GM) that it's harder to parry a sword bare-handed if the person swings. So he did that, cutting the thing. It hit back, twice, but its nails couldn't penetrate his mail. He held his breath each time his DR 4 was tested by the undead's 1d cutting nails.

He finally put it down with a hard sword swing that broke its spine. He advanced past it without hesitation.

He made his way down a narrow and low tunnel (5' tall, 3' wide) for about 10 minutes or so. He eventually found a larger cave, and sucked along to the right wall with his hand. Good thing for him - ahead was a steep drop off that would have forced him to climb or suffer damage.

He found another tunnel, which split - right and up, left and down. He chose left, maybe for the first time. He started down the tunnel and heard a growling ahead. He decided to go back and up.

Back and up eventually lead to a cave where he saw flickering flames and heard a whistling breeze on and off.

So he use Stealth to sneak up slowly, wanting to see if people were there.

Instead, he saw a trail of coins and gems leading to a pile. On top of the pile was a 20-22' dragon, sleeping. The flickering fire and whistling were the dragon's snoring and jetting flame.

I figured the money might tempt him. Not at all - he walked past a spill of gold, silver, and gems, and sneaked past the dragon.

He eventually found daylight and was out into the wooded hills near the fortress. He headed back to his base back in civilized country.

And that's where the mini-campaign ended.

Notes:

There was a bit of a magician's choice here. The escape route was linear - any way he chose would eventually have led him out or dead-ended him and sent him back to the way out. Sandboxes are nice, but railroads get you to the destination you need to get to. Besides, freedom of path isn't a big deal to me - freedom of how to handle that path is, especially in a classroom! Had he went down the growling critter's path, he would have faced a bear guarding its cave and could have fought (or run past it) to escape. The other way, the dragon with the twin troubles of needing to sneak and the temptation of treasure.

All in all, he seemed to enjoy the game. He got some good listening and speaking practice in. I gave him optional summer reading homework - his own copy of his PC and of GURPS Lite. Truly optional - I just want him to have it, not tell him to read it. School could take the fun out of anything.

This was a lot of fun. I'll keep doing this if he comes back in the Fall, and I'll modify the game a bit to get more speaking and so on in there.

GURPS Lite in the Classroom, Session #8

For the previous session, click this link.

Rules Explanations

None today.

Recap

I did the short recap again, a bit longer.

Play


We last left the Unknown Soldier heading back the way he'd originally escape from. Instead of veering back toward his cell, he took a disused and cobwebbed corridor going the other way. He felt his way down the corridor, in the dark, wounded, as the fortress's soldiers looked for him on the upper levels.

He eventually felt a door on his left, and opened it. Inside was a faint glow.

He opened the door wide, then stepped in and closed it. There was a small room beyond, with a hairy man sitting by a table with a candle on it, reading a book. The man said hello, asked who he was, but really just wanted to sit and read his book. The Unknown Soldier drew his sword and tried to wave him away from the candle, wanting to take it for light. The strange man grabbed the candle and turned away, continuing to read.

So the Unknown Soldier slashed him with his sword. The man tried to dive aside but was cleanly hit for 11 cutting damage. The candle hit the floor - I said it would stay lit on a 1-2 in 6, and rolled a 4. It went out.

The Unknown Soldier felt around until he found the candle, and his flint and steel, and lit it. The man was gone - no blood, no nothing. The PC ignored the book, etc. and left the room and continued on his way.

(So much for the helpful NPC who could tell him how to escape, help him in various ways, etc. Chop! Die, I need that candle! Heh.)

The Unknown Soldier headed down the corridor until it widened out into a cave. He stuck to the right wall until it lead to a watery cave lit by phosphorescent slime. He stopped and bound his wounds and ate his looted food.

Until he head a scratch-stomp, scratch-stomp, of something coming!

Notes

Geez, PCs will kill anyone. I should possibly have made the NPC more obviously helpful, but I figured he'd ask some questions, not just right for "kill him for the candle." Oh well.

One more session, possibly ever, next time. I'll put in another way out past the creature that is coming, so we can end this campaign on a good place to end and/or restart when the next school year comes.

Munchkin simplified for kids?

Has anyone taken Munchkin and simplified it down for kids?

I don't mean Munchkin Treasure Hunt. I'm not in the market to buy a new game. I mean, the original Munchkin set, stripped down to very fast, very easy to learn rules for kids. Something explainable in, say, one minute tops, without reference to rules sheets.



I've got most of the early Munchkin sets, all the way up to Half-Horse, but I've split off my base set in the hopes of turning it into yet another ESL game. Something fun, easy to learn, and where part of the challenge is telling me what you've doing and the other part is reading the cards so you know which ones to play.

That's one reason I use the earlier edition of Fluxx with my older ESL students - it's a reading challenge combined with a game-play challenge. Plus I can teach it inside of one minute and one turn of play.

But before I do the work to make a game out of Munchkin that uses what's on the cards for some kind of play, I'd like to see if someone else has.

GURPS Lite in the Classroom, Session #6

For the previous session, click this link.

Rules Explanations

None today.

Recap

I did the short recap again. It felt like it got the ball rolling properly.

Play

When we last left the Unknown Soldier, he had barred a tower door behind him. He spun, and saw a spiral staircase going down, a ladder going up to a trap door, and in the corner was a chained-up cross between a hyena and a dog. The hyena-dog lunged at him, and its chain was just long enough to grab someone on the stairs or the bottom of the ladder.

He wanted to go up or down, and heard banging at the doors to the tower. So he threw his torch at the hyena-dog, missing it. But it flinched away, so he took a running jump and grabbed the ladder! He shimmied up to the top, sheathed his sword, and opened the trap door. He went right up - lucky for him no one was waiting.

At the top was a crenelated set of tower battlements, a tripod-mounted heavy crossbow with stubby bolts, and no much else. He saw orcs and men trying to get into the tower from both doors. (This was important, as he forgot I'd said both doors.)

He saw he was about 40' or so up off the ground, and climbing would be a little tough.

So he climbed back down halfway and jumped to the other door. The hyena-dog lunged at him and missed. But the doors were being battered, and the alarms were going crazy. He realized he couldn't leave that way.

So he ran to the stairs to go back down, deeper into the now-alert fortress. The hyena-dog lunged at him and bit him, failing to penetrate his armor but getting a grapple on him for 2 CP. He tried to hit it with his sword and missed. It tried to haul him down and failed - his Wrestling skill is solid. So he hit it for a lot of damage - 9 cutting against its 1 DR. It was wounded but still up. It tried to bite him but missed, and he hit it again for 9 cutting. It staggered and fell. He quickly ran down the stairs.

We stopped there.

Notes

So my 2-3 session "escape the fort" is turning into 7+ "explore the alert fort at a full run." Players will do that.

What starts as: "You are at point A. Point B is there. You need to get there at all costs as fast as possible."

Becomes: "Okay, I'll explore point A for a while. Hey, it's harder to get to point B now. Uhm, I'll look for some totally unrelated point. Perhaps someday, I can come back to point B, maybe when I'm better equipped. Maybe not."

Heh.

Honestly I'm not sure what I'll do. It's getting more and more likely he'll be surrounded, cut off, and captured again. Which means I need to think of another "escape" scenario to run. I won't kill off his guy unless he kills off his guy (or the dice randomly dictate he's totally dead.) It's English practice, and he'll get more by surviving than by making up a new guy.

GURPS Lite in the Classroom, Session #5

This was a shorter bit of gaming - lots of non-gaming work to do, so much that I had to cram it in.

For the previous session, click this link.

Rules Explanations

How cutting damage deals with DR, and crippling injuries, came up. So did quick contests and critical hits!

Recap

I did the short recap again. It felt like it got the ball rolling properly.

Play

When we last left, the PC was face to face with a guard in a tower full of stuff including ropes, boxes, poles, etc.

He had a lot of options - the one he chose was to yank the door closed. The guard tried to stick his foot in the way - we had a Quick Contest of DX. I stated the guard's DX was 11, and I rolled a 9, so he made it by 2. The PC rolled an 8, had a 12 DX, and made it by 4. The door was slammed.

He jumped back, waiting for the guy to open the door and be vulnerable to attack! Good idea, but the guard saw a mail-armored foe out of nowhere so I made a roll for him. He chose to bar the door and sound the alarm.

The player had his unnamed guy run back to the first tower. He ran right past the stairs as the guard he'd bypassed was coming up. He went out the other door - and saw a guard coming at him. So he charged, figuring he could get past that guy.

He did, actually - they fenced for a few seconds, and the unnamed PC rolled a 4 and cut his foe's hand! Sadly he rolled 3 damage, minus DR, equals 3 injury. Enough to get his foe to miss, but not to put him down. He blocked a shot and then rolled and hit again - this time doing 6 damage (7 injury) and crippling his foe's hand. The guard dropped his sword, dropped to his knees (Knockdown and Stunning). The PC ran past, slammed the door and bolted it in the third tower and turned around . . . and that's where we left it.

Notes

Fun segment of gaming, here. PCs never do any of the things you expect. He could have talked, run, fought the first guard and taken rope so he could escape, jumped, fought the guard coming up the stairs . . . whatever. He chose none of those. Gaming is great.

GURPS Lite in the Classroom, Session #4

This was a shorter bit of gaming - lots of non-gaming work to do, so much that I had to cram it in.

For the previous session, see this link.

Rules Explanations

None. Nothing new came up.

Recap

I decided to do a quick, 30-seconds to 60-seconds Dragonball Z recap each session just to get things rolling, ending with, "Now, what do you do?" I'm a big believer in game-starting ritual.

Play

Nothing really interesting happened, but it was a good test of my student's ability to reason and explain.

He went up the stairs from the basement of the tower, and found a room with two boxes set up to make a table, two chairs, a burned-out candle, and some dice. He heard pacing footsteps above the enclosed staircase. He checked the boxes and found rolls of cloth (but didn't think to open them - I realized he didn't know cloth rolls usually aren't packed in boxes) and rations.

He headed up to the next level, intent on going straight up to the level above that - bypassing the guard. I gave him a 50/50 shot that the guard wouldn't see him, contingent on a successful Stealth check. He made that exactly, and the dice came up that the guard was around the wrong side of the stairs. He made it past him undetected.

From there, he made it out onto the battlements. Another guard waved at him as he went to the next tower in the box-shaped fortress. He moved into the next tower . . . and came face-to-face with another guard in a tower packed with stuff.

We stopped there. I told him - as a hint of what the game could be - that he could attack, try to trick the guard, talk to him, whatever he wanted to try. We'll see. There is sufficient gear in the tower ahead to allow him to escape. If he does, I have some ideas of what I'd like to do with him next. Either a dungeon, or a town adventure - perhaps something like Caravan to Ein Arris, modified to fit the world as I'm imagining it.

GURPS Lite in the Classroom, Session #3

For the previous session, see here:

GURPS Lite in the Classroom #2

Rules explanations:

This session I got to explain Impaling damage, Cutting damage, Crushing damage (at least in brief), Stunning, defenses, and Damage Resistance. That's quite a lot to go over.

I went over it as needed. I didn't explain anything that the player didn't need to do, but I did tell him the rolls of the opponent (but not why) and then rolled against them.

Play

We started with the still-nameless PC jumping out at the sleepy orc guard with a shiv. He didn't have Knife skill (oops, my bad) so he defaulted it to DX-4 for an 8, and missed. The orc stumbled back and drew his sword. Nameless chased him and stabbed, but the orc failed to parry him and took 3 impaling damage and was Stunned and fell back against the wall. Nameless stabbed him again, this time for 4 impaling, and the orc had to roll HT to stay up - he rolled a 13, and failed.

The orc was too tired and confused and foolish to call for help. This left Nameless in the hallway. He took the orc's sword, made sure he was really knocked out, and saw he was in a corridor going right about 20' to a door, left as far as he could see, lit by torchlight. There were more cell doors but they were open. He checked the door and found it padlocked. He thought about kicking it down but decided it was too noisy, so he went and got the keys.

Sure enough, one let him in. He pulled a torch off the wall and searched the room. His Search roll was so-so, so it took him a few minutes to find his equipment and get into it (mail, shield, sword, pack, personal basics, etc.) and determine the other things were old and uncared for.

He headed back and to the left. There he found a T-corridor with doors. He started to the right but heard what might be voices. So he went left. He passed the doors and found another T, and heard booted footsteps. He moved as quickly as he could move while being quiet (which called for a Stealth check, made by 2) and found the corridor sloped up. He eventually made his way to the base level of what his experience told him was a tower, with spiral stairs up.

We cut it there - it's hard to get a lot done in a 10-15 minute slot in a classroom and I can't spare any more.

Notes:

I ran the orc as a weak orc assigned crappy duty, so he was ST 11, HP 13, HT 11. 14 injury was enough to make him check for consciousness and he failed! The dice helped me out, here - we rolled on the table and I announced the needed rolls before I made them. Yet the orc with Broadsword-13 and a ready weapon got shiv'ed a couple of times and went right down.

It's fun watching someone strain to express what they want to do, and then pull it off in a way I can clearly understand. That's great English practice. My Japanese would be better if I could play RPGs in it, for sure. We'll see where this goes.

GURPS Lite in the Classroom, Session #2

I ran another, very short, bit of GURPS Lite for my speaking-skills student.

First, though, I needed to give him two bits of information about the game.

Skills - I told my student that skills are just what you are especially good at. You can try anything, given the right situation, but your listed skills are just what you do well.

Criticals - I told him 3-4 always works, usually especially well. 17-18 usually means a really bad failure - it doesn't work plus something goes really wrong. That came up his first roll when he rolled two out of three dice and could see he'd failed. Yes, 6 and 5 versus an 11 fails . . . but what if you roll another 6?

Next, we picked up with his character in the dark room.

He carefully searched the room, and eventually found a broken-off wooden handle from what used to be a wooden spoon. (This wasn't planned, but I figured, he searched carefully - I used this Search roll to determine how long it took to find anything, with only a critical failure meaning he'd missed this in his cautious feeling around in the dimness.)

Then he tried to scrape a hole in the door. The door was much too thick for that.

Next he tried to pick the lock with his broken wooden spoon handle. It didn't work; in fact it got stuck. (He missed his default Lockpicking roll by 10.)

All of this woke up the orc guard, who saw the door jammed. Not realizing in his just-woken state that this was a bad idea, he jammed in a key and opened the door. Instead of a shackled prisoner, my student's PC jumped out the door with his wooden shiv to attack.

We stopped there, and agreed to extend the time for GURPS a little next time.

Next up, a simple combat.

And even more chances to explain actions in English, which is practice he needs.

Gaming in the Classroom underway

So at long last I'm getting to use RPGs in the classroom again.

I have a solo young student who particularly needs speaking practice, yet has a solidly high level of English. So I've introduced him to RPGs. It's kind of the perfect tool for the job - his challenge is finding the English words to express what he's trying to express. Give him a paper man, and have try to solve the paper man's problems with his words and some dice.

So I made up a character using GURPS Lite.

The system is simple enough - roll low to accomplish things, roll high for effect. Four stats. Four secondary characteristics. A few skills. A way to roll for skills you don't know.

His guy is a warrior in a generic TL3 world which may or may not be the same one with Felltower on it.

We didn't have a lot of time. I made three mistakes:

- I forgot to do any prep until right before class. I remembered to bring my stuff, but I really did need a little more prep. I'm not sure he noticed but it would have been more smooth if I had more than just a character and a rough idea.

- I should have just started off playing with less explanation.

- I gave him his character sheet all at once instead of revealing stats and elements as needed.

I decided I'd make it a fantasy game, start him off as a prisoner (make him focus on what to do, not what he has) and let him escape from a simple area. Once that's done,

The situation was that he's a warrior-scout who wants to be a great and famous warrior, and he and some other men were scouting the borderlands where the orcs live. They were attacked and he was knocked out. When he came to, he was a prisoner in a 10 x 10' cell and shackled to the floor, and an orc told him he'd be back later. We started there.

(I started him as a prisoner as I figured he'd be less likely to play "find the thing to roll against" given that he had nothing to try and use. I was right.)

He quickly searched around, making a Search roll, and examined the shackle. He found the shackle was meant for his ankle but they'd clamped it around his wrist. He said he wanted to try and work it free. A default Escape roll taught him about trying things you don't know how to do, he made it, and he got free.

(I had decided on these details as I described the room. I was pleased with how quickly he went from "What on this sheet is the answer?" to "Check everything around me and try stuff that makes logical sense." And how well he expressed the idea in English, which is the entire point of the exercise.)

He moved to the bar-windowed wooden door and decided to kick it open. I pointed out that he could do this but it would be noisy - still okay?

No! He decided to listen at the door, and quietly check if it was locked. He heard nothing, and it was locked . . . but peering through the keyhole he could see a snoozing orc guard with the keys on a stool just across from the hall.

That's where we ended. He's got a couple weeks to think it over, and I told him we'd spend 10-15 minutes on this each class if he's finished his other work. Given that he's an enthusiastic and hard worker, that should be no issue.

I figure I'll let him escape from the (small) orc-held fortress and then let him go on adventures with some hired help or recruited soldiers at his side. Maybe I'll use S1 In Search of the Unknown*, or a modified Caravan of Ein Arras, or just make up my own small dungeon or outdoor area to explore.

Oh, and because I get lost in GMing just like players get lost in gaming, I ended up running a bit long. It was like, "What do you do? Oh, wait, think it over until next time, class ended a while ago." Next time I'll keep it tighter. Fun, though, and it's a place and student for whom I think gaming is really ideal.

I briefly considered S&WL or even D&D5, but I decided those would take more explanation than GURPS Lite does given pregenerated characters. Besides, I could run it with no books, no lookups, no nothing - and it's about speaking practice more than gaming. The fragile lethality of S&WL and the complexity of character details of D&D5 seemed like they could get in the way of him getting the speaking practice I want.

Fun, and we'll see how it goes. You may see more updates on this as long as I can easily file off the details enough to avoid any privacy issues.




* Speaking of which, what the heck edition is that for? My two copies, 1st and 2nd edition, are for Basic Set. Yet both feature a Dwarf (race-as-class) with 18/54 Strength, which is an AD&D or OD&D Greyhawk feature (where Dwarf is a race but not a class.) What the?

Oops, the GM forgot the PC record sheets

Ah, crud. I think I forgot the record sheet for my student's GURPS character.

I hope I gave it to him and he has it.

However, I can't find the other sheets I had with it - I probably put it in my bag, and took it out with the other spare RPG stuff I brought to show him.

Oh well, I'll scribble one up quickly, and welcome him to the world of "the GM forgot your sheets." It's common enough. I have only a short time before he arrives . . .

Maybe I'll tell him about the time I forgot to bring the entire adventure and had to run The Ebon Stone from memory.


Update! Thank goodness, I gave him the record sheet to take home. He walked in early for class and just pulled it out. Whew. I made a copy so I can stick him in GCA, and why he's not in GCA already I don't know. That's where I made him up for goodness' sakes.

Basic Fantasy or GURPS Lite: He chose . . .

My student chose GURPS.

It might have been because I said I could teach him Basic Fantasy, but I could run GURPS from memory. Still, he looked at my GURPS books, my Moldvay Basic Set book, and Basic Fantasy, and had looked at Swords & Wizardry at home . . . and chose GURPS. Can't fault him for that.

I made him a 140-point guy, who I may post at some point. I ran him through an intro scene to Caravan to Ein Arris. He found the tavern where they were doing the 3-touch fights to select guards, talked to the recruiter, and then went and won the fight - barely, but he did it. Nothing fancy - straight-up rolls and no one rolled a critical. He got recruited and now has to find the caravan overseer.

It was fun, and we'll keep it up as the finisher English practice game if he enjoys it.

I figure if he gets really into it and/or wants to run it for friends, I can hand him Caravan, help him with chargen, and run other a different adventure. That's also why I chose Caravan - I know it back-to-front, and I don't mind starting him on it and then handing it off.

His homework was an essay and to read GURPS Lite (after doing his real homework, of course.)

Good stuff.

What To Teach: Basic, or Lite?

So Thursday night, if we have time after grammar exercises and essays, I'm going to explain role-playing games to a student of mine.

I'm still debating:

Basic Fantasy Role-Playing, and I run a quickie session with an adventure by Tim Shorts (although "drop him in room 1 of Stonehell" is also in the running)?

GURPS Lite, and I start him rolling on the Caravan to Ein Arris?

It's not really my decision - I plan to show him both and ask him. Does he want something easy he can run with minimal prep for his friends, or something I can run for him but might need more prep if he does it himself?

I have a copy of Basic Fantasy Role-Playing for the former, and I have a copy of GURPS Lite ready to go for the latter. In fact, I have a copy of GURPS Lite to give him (and will, regardless). Swords & Wizardy isn't in the running because it's gigantically large and I can't print it at home or justify printing it at work for him. Basic cost me under $5, I can loan it to him and I know he can pick a copy easily.

I also need to see if he prefers sci-fi to fantasy. His writing indicates he might, so if he does, GURPS wins, because I can also run sci-fi games with it without effort (and it wouldn't be terribly hard for him, either.)

But ultimately, yes, it's what he wants from me.

I packed my GURPS Basic Set books and GURPS Martial Arts to show him. In all seriousness, most people don't believe I wrote a book until I show them the "About the Authors" sections. I guess the odds that there are two Peter V. Dell'Ortos out there, both of who lived in the same part of Japan and do the same sports and play the same game must seem vanishingly slim. It's too many identical points, I guess. They all still say, "Really?" Yes, really. I typed lots of it sitting in Skylark Gusto on the unnamed main street of my town in Japan, too.


By the way, I have to say - I wish Basic Fantasy Role-Playing went with one saving throw (like S&W) or Reflex, Fortitude, and Will like 3.x. I find those easier to explain and, importantly, to remember, compared to the old, old, old school "Save vs. Wands" and "Monster saves as F8" kind of stuff. Too much to look up, when my goal is "zero lookups." The Attack Bonus method is easy, though, and something I like a lot.

I also wish All In A Night's Work was out for 4e GURPS, and that there was a one-book Powered By GURPS fantasy or sci-fi game I could just hand him.

Oh well. But yeah, if he wants to play, I'll give him the choice - my preference to run, or what's easier for him to master on his own and run for others?

Yes, I can teach you how to play D&D

So tonight one of my (advanced, native-English-speaking) tutoring students asked me if I knew how to play D&D.

We were doing a writing prompt using Rory's Story Cubes (great for teachers, let me tell you) and he asked about dice in general. I pulled my dice bag out of the pouch it lives in (since my work bag is also my laptop bag for game). I showed him the collection I use for gaming. I told him some of them were from my old D&D sets, since I play RPGs although I don't play the current version of D&D.

And he asked me if I can teach him to play D&D.

Yes, yes I can.

Heh. I told him about my three faves: GURPS Lite, Swords & Wizardry Complete, and Basic Fantasy Role-Playing. And that I'd teach him one (probably GURPS, maybe BFRP) and show him some books next time. I forgot to mention Labyrinth Lord, but I may bring it. He took down GURPS Lite and S&W in his notes to go check out, and he'll try to go look them up before next week. He's not allowed to play video games, so he's way into the idea of an imagination-and-reading based game.

Naturally, I'm also going to bring GURPS Martial Arts, because, hey, it's nice to have a book with your name on it.

But yeah, maybe if we've got a spare 10 minutes next time after essays and grammar, I'll show him the basics. I'd rather play GURPS, but it might be easier for him to run Basic Fantasy Role-Playing . . . and maybe I can get him running games for his friends after I show him the ropes.

Can I teach you to play D&D? Heck yeah.

Gaming in the Classroom: No Sooner Said Then Not Done

. . . so no sooner than I decide to just write up a lesson plan and go for it with an RPG, than I get my new schedule . . . and find I've swapped classes with another teacher. So the class I was considering as the perfect change to introduce RPGs as a test is now gone. Aargh.

Oh well, that means I have more time to consider what I want to do, and figure out another chance to try it out. Maybe as a summer activity . . .

Gaming in the Classroom: More Thoughts on RPGs for ESL

I've been mulling over the RPGs-for-ESL thing some more. I've also been perusing this excellent stuff by Pete Figtree, who has been very helpful. So was everyone who commented on my last post, too. So thanks, and keep the suggestions coming!

Amount of Reading Needed to Play - I took a look at a few games recommended to me last time. Some are very cool, but a few would require a lot of ability to read, understand, and articulate fairly advanced English. The operative term is "ESL" - English as a Second Language. For some students, it's more like EFL - English as a Foreign Language. As interesting as, say, Lady Blackbird is, imagine reading that in your 1st-year Spanish class. It's a bit much, and my Japanese skills aren't equal to the task of translating or explaining bits they don't get.

My GM Skills - I also think I need to be familiar with the game end-to-end, and have real mastery of it. That argues for a stripped down D&D clone or GURPS Lite pared down by myself, or something home-brewed and easy to run (something I could give out for free.) That takes care of other systems I'm not deeply familiar with - even pretty straightforward ones like T&T. I'd like the only unknowns to be how it works in class not how it works, if you follow me.

Minimum Setup - I've been thinking that part of what I need is an role-playing activity that takes very little setup. I think I could do a dungeon, or a rescue-the-captured-children, or a find the pirate's treasure kind of game pretty easily. They'd take very little pre-game setup, especially given my tendency to run games with dungeons and/or pirates. I'd also be able to keep the motivations really simple, allowing the kids free rein to just do what they'd like to try.

Homework For Me

I also have to think more about:

- how to ensure it's an educational activity.

and

- the logistics of ensuring second-language speakers are able to play.

A lot of the rules stuff is more secondary. It's the structure of how to play, what I need to bring to the table, etc. that is trickier. I may have to try doing a very short adventure or set-piece that I can bust out and run at the end of one of the longer classes for slightly more advanced students, and see how it flies there. Then I can use the experience to see what else I can try. If I do that, the first part - ensuring it is educational, is simple. All I need to do is get them to speak and listen for a while, since the class I have in mind is all about improving their comfort and usage speaking.

I still need to sit down and outline just what I'd want to hand out, how many PCs I need, how to explain the idea, etc. but the discussion from last time really helped me get more thoughts more from "what if-" to "when I do this . . . "
Basically, I need to draw up a lesson plan, and figure out how long it'll take . . . and then try it.

Gaming in the Classroom: Thoughts on RPGs for ESL

One thought I keep mulling around is playing RPGs with my students. I teach ESL at a private school. My students are almost all native Japanese speakers, with a small mix of native bilinguals and the occasional English-primary Japanese-secondary speakers. I keep thinking, I'd like to run an RPG for them. And that RPGs are a great way to engage with the language, use it, and give you a direct and consistent need to learn it.

First, you might want to plow through this article on the subject:
Collaborative Non-Linear Narrative Tabletop Role-Playing Games in the ESL Classroom

Some of what I discuss below is covered a bit in that article.

The main obstacle, really, is making it an educational activity. I wouldn't be running the game for free, and thus parents would be paying tuition/class fees for each and every game session. Education would need to be primary. In simpler terms, the game must be worth paying to play, and the game must directly benefit the English skills of the players each and every class. It would be different if I was running the game for free, but then the parameters change greatly - not the least of which is that I'd be running the game for my fun, not their education. The rest of this post assumes running a game as a school/ESL/learning activity that costs money to participate in.

I've tried games in the past that were fun (Awful Green Things, for example) but didn't require a lot of English to succeed, and thus weren't very educational. I've also some that require a surprising amount of English to master (Fluxx 3.0 is my favorite, but Go Fish is exactly like this). I've run games that needed no English (Chess), but taught them with English. RPGs require a lot of English and have a bit of a learning curve - you can probably add English-weak students to a group but not start an English-weak and gaming-inexperienced group and expect to get much.


Below is a mix of ideas, quandaries, and other issues I'm mulling over. This is very early drawing board type stuff; I have no plans yet to present this as a school club or after school class.

Logistics of Play

Rotating Player Pool. I'd need to deal smoothly with missing players, changing players, one-try drop ins, etc. Death of a PC would need to be smoothly handled with a replacement or repair because the goal isn't a challenging play experience but learning English though use. "You die, next time do better" is the same as "Stop using English, class is over for you." Ever been in a spelling bee and got knocked out early? Not very productive. In a one-on-one class, I could do it that way - simply start over - but not with a group.

Naturally this would also mean I'd need to deal with totally new player with no game experience. I'd have to assume that at any time a new person might join.

Rotating Caller. I think a caller would be a good idea. This allows those with strong speech to shine, and those with weaker speech to have to talk. It would also organize the game a little - it wouldn't be many-on-one teacher. The teacher/GM can assist the caller or players, but the caller would be responsible for passing on what happens.

It also feeds into the Japanese cultural tradition of student-directed activities.

I think a rotating caller - every X minutes, say - could be a good approach. This would both allow those who speak English better to assist those with weaker English. Rotating may also prevent those with poor English from being shielded from speech.

I'd allow the caller to parrot speech from better speakers - basically, being a mouthpiece for things they don't know how to say. Especially for children, I've seen this work wonders. I've taught games and had teachers or other students coach kids on what to say line by line or word by word . . . and they start to pick it up by rote at least and then catch the meaning and usage. If other students do the prompting, it's even better - it gives confidence to the prompter and the kids seem to pay attention more and try harder to remember it. Peer pressure beats superior pressure, I guess.

How about the system?

So what about the rules?

Point Buy

If you're worked with kids, fairness is their primary concern. They define fairness differently than adults, too. In my experience they like fairness of results more than fairness of chances.

I've had a kid get really upset because I gave everyone a chance to read one sentence out loud, and then opened it up to volunteers to read more . . . as he saw it, dividing 15 worksheet sentences amongst 9 kids meant some people got 2 tries and some didn't, and it bothered him. Not only that, one kid went twice before he went twice, but he'd read sentence #1 and she read #3, so to him she was going out of turn. From a teacher's perspective, it meant everyone got to try reading, and I was able to dish out an extra challenge to the better readers and to the ones who really needed extra work. I've had kids cry because someone going first wasn't fair because that kid got to go first during a previous teacher's class so it wasn't fair that I let the kid go first, too.

So "It's fair that everyone rolls 3d in order" sounds like a great way to get crying kids who didn't roll that well. "Everyone gets 100 points" or "everyone gets an 18, a 16, a 14, a 12, and two 10s to put where they want" is going to save me a giant load of tears and arguments. And vastly speed up chargen!

If I run GURPS, I'd probably use very simple templates (basically, nearly complete characters with a series of A or B menu choices) or the Buckets system from Alternate GURPS III.

System Mastery Isn't An Obstacle.

I'd like a relatively simple system, so I'm split between an old game (Basic D&D, say) or stripping down a new game (GURPS Lite). A lot of rules isn't a big issue, though, because to master the system they'll need to master English. Rewarding players who demonstrate reading comprehension by finding rules that benefit them, or knowing the good rules option - that's no different that scoring kids higher for reading, writing, spelling, etc. I'm fine with rewarding kids who put extra time into learning the game rules.

Still, the basics of the game must be simple enough that "mastery" is "getting better" not "learning how to play effectively in the first place." That's why I'm thinking GURPS Lite or Basic D&D or something of that sort. Both require extremely minimal explanation.

Easy to Consistently Implement. It would be nice if I could quickly and easily teach other teachers how to run the game. That way they could cover my class when I'm away and run their own RPG-based classes. The consistency aspect would mean that we'd be running it in a close enough fashion that the classes were accomplishing the same things and not establishing a different standard for use of English or acceptable levels of native language usage for a given grade level.

Cost. Ideally, the materials would be cheap or free, so I don't need a layout or a big reimbursement request.

Kid-Safe Materials. Sorry, no nudity, guys doing bloody Mortal Kombat death strikes, cursing, murderous rages, etc. in the illustrations or examples. I work for a school, so this is non-negotiable. I'd want to be able to encourage the parents to look into the system without worrying that they might find something adult-oriented in their kid's class materials.

Non-Confusing Game Name. This might make D&D a no-go, unless Next is so awesome that I run that. If I play D&D with the kids and they like it and go to the store and buy D&D, it's going to be a different edition. If I play Swords & Wizardry, they might end up with Complete or White Box or something else. This is pushing me towards something like GURPS Lite - there is only one extant version of GURPS, and finding 3e stuff is harder than finding 4e stuff. It makes games like Basic Fantasy Role-Playing slightly worrisome because there is also Basic Roleplaying, and it's not the same game at all.

Good Grammar! Seriously, games with weird writing styles or grammar/spelling errors are out. It's an English class! I love Labyrinth Lord but it's got some odd phrasings in the book. I love AD&D but Gygax makes up his own words sometimes, and uses oddly stylized tones occasionally. Vancian English is great, but it's not ideal for ESL.

Those are my thoughts so far. I'll keep digging at this until I feel like I've thought through the issues enough to make it worth proposing and trying. I think it's an activity with an enormous upside for the students who participate, but it's not without its complications and problems.