The Adventures of Cheese and Rose

Posted by Jim Henley on August 14, 2006 at 11:47 PM

All you talk about is roleplaying with your kids, Jim!

Uh, yeah. And this is more of it.

I don't want the mashup and so-far fragmentary gender discussion (fragmentary on my part) to utterly dominate consideration of Clinton's cool new game for parents and kids. So this thread will be the actual-play-in-progress thread for our campaign.

After we determined that my daughter was determined to play a princess, not a "girl prince," we got on with the rest of chargen. The most important number in the prince-creation process is your Prince's age. Your age gives you, first of all, that many six-sided dice that function like attribute dice in Dogs in the Vineyard. If you're 10 years old, you get 10d6 in basic power. You roll all 10 at the start of every Struggle, the TPK name for a conflict. You don't split them up into attributes. Also, your age determines how many Strong and Troublesome qualities, and how many Strong and Troublesome Relationships, your Prince gets. Another cluster of differences from Dogs comes up here:

• The d10 is not used (no, not for Fallout either);
• All Strong qualities and relationships have a value of 1d8;
• All Troublesome qualities and relationships have a value of 1d4;
• No qualities or relationships are scored in d6s - only Age ("Power" for Guide characters);
• No single quality or relationship is worth multiple dice - there are no 2d8 or 3d4 qualities/relationships

The above are much of what makes TPK into "Dogs Lite." It certainly seems easier for kids to grasp. Also, by eliminating the d10, you take away the possibility of "instant death" Fallout. It's still possible to get "dying/healing struggle needed" fallout.

It seems like the consolidation of the attribute dice into a single score will make escalation a less pressing issue. Moving from talking to fighting will only get you any dice you have in fighting-related qualities or belongings, not a bunch of possible attribute dice on top of that. Of course, Fallout changes too. At a guess, it makes resorting to violence less tempting.This is an interesting change, and I wouldn't dream of calling it good or bad in advance.

So, my six-year-old daughter decided her Princess would be named "Rose," since Briar Rose was Sleeping Beauty's other name. My son decided his Prince would be named "Cheese." After Proving his Prince (the TPK analog to Dogs Achievement) he ended up with a Troubled Relationship with a wise owl named "Eggs."

The way seriously fascinating thing to me here is that this is a chance to observer gamer/geek silliness-as-defense-mechanism in the wild. My son can't quote a single Monty Python sketch and has never seen an episode of Star Trek or crawled a dungeon. But here he is, presented with a "narrativist" RPG and the first thing he does with his authority is get a little silly.

And yet, and here again the breed proves true, his enthusiasm for the game is genuine and he's really throwing himself into it.

Ages! Both kids skewed old. My daughter wanted Rose to be sixteen, but these go to twelve, not 16, so she settled on 11. My son. After that come qualities and relationships. Everyone has to have "I'm a Prince/Princess" as a strong or troublesome quality. The rest are freeform, and help constitute not just the PCs but the game world itself, e.g. by sighting in the magic level the players want. What follows are the pre-Proving writeups:

Princess Rose, 11 years old

Strong Qualities (2)

• I'm a Princess
• I have a green thumb

Troublesome Qualities (3)

• I sometimes sneak off without telling people
• I hate fighting
• Claustrophobia

Strong Relationship (1)

• Prince Cheese

Troublesome Relationship (2)

• Bacon the squirrel
• TBD

Belongings

• Princess Cloak, pink, yellow and purple (Good - d6)
• Magic Wand (Awesome! - d8)
• Sword (Good - d6+d4)
• Shield (Good)

Prince Cheese, 12 years old

Strong Quality (1)

• I can talk to animals

Troublesome Qualities (3)

• I'm a Prince
• I'm squeamish about insects
• I hate the sea

Strong Relationship (1)

• TBD

Troublesome Relationships (2)

• Princess Rose
• TBD

Belongings

• Princes' Cloak (Good - d6)
• Sword (Awesome, shoots energy beams too - d8 + d4)
• Shield (Good, w/ rollers for ease of transport - d6)

We absolutely see some real life issues coming into play here. My son really is squeamish about insects, to the point where it's hard for him to have fun outside. And the real-life brother-sister relationship is pretty well encapsulated in that Strong on one side / Troubled on the other side dichotomy. OTOH, my daughter never sneaks off without telling people and my son does not hate the sea.

In general, so far my son "gets" roleplaying in a way my daughter does not. I'm not sure where the age divide falls but they're definitely on opposite sides of it. For instance, Bacon the Squirrel exists because I read the examples of troublesome relationships from the book to my daughter when she was blanking and a squirrel that's always trying to steal your food was one of the examples. She liked it and picked it.

Next up: We Prove the Prince and Princess. That'll go in comments with an update here.