I'm intrigued but I'm not a member of ENworld, which appears to be a requirement of viewing the file.

Hey gang! Been a while since I popped over here (lucky I used the same login as ENW or I'd never have remembered it).

If people can't reach the ENW link then I can repost the text of the game here. Or if there is a way to upload a file then I could do that. Let me know.

It fits on three pages in Word in pretty large type so I'll just post the whole thing...

Game in a Jar

This game is different because I (Samantha) made it up AND it fits in a jar.

Making a character:
I (Samantha) will give you a character sheet. I made this too. On the sheet you will put stuff about your character. Stuff like…

Name – Name it whatever you want. I might have some suggestions.
DM (Date Made) – This is today’s date.
Favorite Color – You can pick your favorite.
Favorite Shape – Just pick your favorite shape.
Wepon – You will pick your wepon from this list. This is in addition to your wand: Dragon Hook, Knife, Hammer, Speer
Kind – You will pick a card from a jar that tells you what race you are. Human, Halfling, Half-Orc, Dwarf, Half-Elf, Elf, whatever. This is what is special about you because of your race:
Human: +1 to Skill (non-fighting) rolls
Halfling: Reroll any die in the game 1/scene
Half Orc: +1 to attack rolls with weapons
Dwarf: +1 to Block rolls
Half Elf: d8 for Detect Magic and always goes first
Elf: +1 to Magic rolls
Level – You will start out on Level 1. Each game you go up 1 level.
GM – Is me.

Spells – You will get three spells in this game. You start with Detect Magic:
Detect Magic – You can sense if somebody is doing magic, if an object is magical or if there is magic happening nearby.

You will also get two more spells. One now. One later. You will pick your spells out of a jar. Those spells are:
Floating (d6)– You, or someone you cast this on, can float on air up about as high as a tree. This spell can make light objects (feathers, pencils, pillows, squirrels) float and heavy objects (boulders, tables, horses, rams) lighter.

Control Fire (d6)– You can make a path through fire, make shapes with it or even attack somebody. This spell doesn’t create fire.

Ice (d6)– You can make an ice sculpture or path or freeze somebody in place for one turn. If you have this spell then you never fall down on the ice unless you roll a 1.

Control Animal (d6)– You can talk to normal, non-magical animals and tell them to do something. This can even make animals attack that normally wouldn’t.

Your Saplise – Your starting saplise are:
Paper (100 pieces)
Spellbook (you can write in it!)
A candle (at night you can work by candle light)
A quill (you will write with your quill)
Ice skates (on a winter day you can have some fun!)
Pet (pick one) – Bird, Rat, Horse, Dog, Hampster, Ram

Life – You start out with 5 points of life.

Playing the Game

I will give you your dice. No need to bring any. You may bring them if you want. Ok.

I will pick your names out of a jar so we know who goes first. You will sit in this order around the table. This will stay the same for the whole game. You can’t go out of order because that will mix me up.

If you want to attack you roll the dice for that spell or weapon. You need at least a 4 for success no matter what dice you roll. If you hit somebody, they get a chance to block it. If somebody hits you, you can try to block. To block, you must roll higher than the roll they got to hit you.

If somebody fails to block, they lose a life. The main characters (bad guys and you) get to roll 2 dice to block if they are on their last point of life. The highest dice roll counts. If you lose your last point of life then you are unconscious for the rest of that fight.

If you want to do something besides attack (like climbing a tree) then I will decide what dice you roll. You will still need a 4 to succeed.

Any questions, ask me at the game.

The End.

Makes sense to me. I'd play. I like her permanent initiative order, too.

I like the distilled combat system (including the initiative rules). It's extremely concise, getting right to the bottom line, and that's cool.

I've not written up anything specific about the individual play experiences. I can only say that attention span can be a bit of an issue when the GM is 7 (fortunately I was there to nudge her to keep things on track a bit). It helps that the games run relatively short compared to standard Con games (averaged about 2.5 hours). And she definitely improved significantly each time she ran the game in terms of focus and how the game flowed.

She ran the game four times total including the playtest, once at the NC Game Day and twice at the DC Game Day. By the final time she had it really dialed in.

She now plans to run a followup adventure at the next NC Game Day in January.

When I get a chance I'll post the adventure she came up with.

Too much handling time with combat for not enough payoff. FAIL, SEVEN YEAR OLD.

Posted By: Jared A. SorensenToo much handling time with combat for not enough payoff. FAIL, SEVEN YEAR OLD.

Who wants to bet me this mechanic will show up in Jared's next game?

James, very cool. I'm always interested in rpg's for kids, so I will be watching this. Thanks again.

ME

Posted By: MikeRMHow do you get life points back?

Getting life back is for pussies. More seriously, though, you'll have to ask Rel or his daughter ;-)

Permanent initiative order = very good idea.

Crap! I just wrote a big post answering some of these questions and I got logged out! I'll try back tomorrow.

Ok, let me try this again...

"How is she with the smaller die -ype harder/bigger die-type easier aspect? I'm guessing she usually hands out d6 for rolls?"

She almost always does a d6 for skill rolls but I've encouraged her to use other dice if she thinks that a character should have a better or worse chance than average for something like that. For monster attacks, after I initially explained the math concepts in play, she has a pretty good grasp on how to assign higher dice for tougher monsters. I should also note that, during the course of the adventure, the PC's get some training and their initial magical abilities improve to a d8. In addition they get new spells that start at a d6. They also get wands that do a generic magical attack (no special effects) with a d8.

"How do you get life points back?"

That's not codified into the system and I think it needs to be to run it as generic fantasy. For the adventure she ran, most of the combat encounters were episodic with weeks or sometimes months between them (remember she's modeling this on Harry Potter so the adventure represents an entire school year). As a result she usually just indicated that the PC's were fully healed after each encounter. There were a couple exceptions that made healing necessary however.

First, the opening series of encounters happen in fairly rapid succession so she wanted to have some healing available. The first battle is with an "Icicle monster" and when he is destroyed he turns into a pile of 4 snow cones (vanilla flavored). Each snow cone heals 2 Life. Later in the game, prior to the climactic fights at the end, the PC's learn to put special enchantments on their wands. One of these is a "Wand of Healing" which allows the PC to heal 1 Life with a successful Magic roll and gets three uses out of that before the Wand loses the enchantment.

"I'm most intrigued by your comment that she runs the game for you and your wife. What is that like? Is the dynamic different when she is playing with kids?

What RPGs has she played?

What does she "prepare" for play? Does she ask you for help? If so, what kinds of questions does she have?"

The games she has run for my wife and I have tended toward the more free-form and silly. And that's fine. She's a kid. However these games can sometimes ramble a bit aimlessly until we tell her that she needs to "wrap it up so we can make dinner". As a result I guided her to come up with an idea that had a beginning, middle and end for the game she wanted to run at the Game Days. I should note here that, with one exception, all the games she has run have been for adults rather than kids. At the DC Game Day one of the sessions had two children of friends in it and two adults (notably these were not their parents who were playing Dread at the time). All of the games ran pretty smoothly, increasingly so as she got more and more familiar with the flow of the sessions.

Her first "roleplaying experience" started when she was 3 when I made up these little "LARP" style adventures in our home and back yard. These had no codified rules and were more like exercises in basic problem solving using lots of props and maps and such. Later I got the Descent boardgame and she started to play (and soon run) games using that system but without the adversarial aspects of the RAW game. Her first bona fide RPG was Savage Worlds (I'm sure you can see its influence on Game in a Jar) using the awesome and hilarious Low Life setting. More recently she and my wife made 4e D&D characters when I wanted to test out that system to see if it was to my liking.

Her preparations for running the home games with my wife and I have usually included her paging through my collection of RPG books and looking for pictures of monsters or scenes that she thinks are "cool". She writes these down and usually selects several which she puts in the game. She grabs miniatures from my (hodge-podge) collection and uses those but doesn't usually bother with a battlemat.

She doesn't directly ask me a lot of questions. In fact while she was running Game in a Jar, most times when I interjected an opinion about how she should handle something, she gave me "the look". You probably know this look that says, "I'm the GM here so shut up!" She's stubborn like that. What I try to do instead is (outside the actual game) ask HER the questions. Things like, "What do you think would be exciting for them to encounter next?" or "What's behind that door that you said needs a magical key?" and "Is there anything guarding the door?" I don't really want to build the game for her but I think it's important that she think about these types of questions in advance in order to run games that are fun.

I think that covers most of the questions so far. If I missed yours then ask again. Also I think I'll post the adventure so you guys can see how this system was put into practice. That might clarify things more than me answering questions piecemeal.

Before game starts...
*Hand out the Jars*
*Let them draw Race Cards*
*Let them draw First Spell Cards*
*Help them finish Characters*

Starting Scene: You are going to the Redhurst Academy of Magic. It is tricky to find because it moves around every full moon. Tonight is a full moon so you must get into the school tonight or you won’t be able to have school for this year.
You must find the school on place that the people here call Redhurst Island. It is located in the north and a boatman is taking you there across a cold lake that could freeze any day. The four of you met because you are all in the same boat.
The boatman tells you “Good Luck!” as you get off the boat onto snowy ground. You see lots of trees and rocks and there is a big mountain in the middle of the island. A light snow is falling.

*Make Detect Magic Rolls to notice magical trees*

You see a tree that doesn’t have snow on it. It seems to be magical. As you get closer to the tree you notice another like it deeper in the forest. A trail of similar trees leads through the forest.

*Make Skill Rolls to notice Raven and Detect Magic Rolls to see that it is carrying something Magic. They can either control Raven or follow it to its nest. If they fail to notice it, it will poop on them.*

The path of magical trees leads you to a big cliff. There is a cave on a ledge on the cliff above you.

*After two character get up cliff, the Icecicle Thrower walks out and attacks. D6 Attack and 5 Life.*

After you defeat the Icecicle Monster you notice that he has turned into a pile of four snowcones (vanilla flavored). They heal 2 Life each.

The cave leads downwards into the mountain and gets hotter as you go. You come to a lava river with a stone bridge across. But there is fire on the bridge. There are five fire crabs playing in the fire.

*Put out map of lava river. If one of the crabs is controlled or floated then the others attack. D4 attack 2 Life*

The passage goes back up a little and gets cooler again. It opens into a large room. You see two Ice Wolves on either side of a door.

*Put out map of room. There is a sleep gas trap just inside the room (Make a Skill Roll or fall asleep). The door is locked and can be opened with the Raven’s Key. The wolves attack. D6 attack 4 Life.*

Entering School For First Time: As you open the door you are greeted by a Dwarf in wizard robes. He introduces himself as Professor Murin Rockblaster. He says, “I am your main teacher here at Redhurst Academy. Other teacher will teach you different classes. I will teach you Potions and Magical Creatures. You are the last group of students to arrive so let’s get right to work.”
You have made it into the school! Congratulations!

You begin classes the next day after eating a big breakfast. Your first class is your most important class: Wand Magic. This class is taught by Professor Vendela, an old but still pretty Elf.

Professor Vendela lets you choose a wand from a basket that the school has had specially made for new students. After a little while you each have a wand that you think will work for you.

*Describe how each person has a wand that shoots their favorite shape and color. Tell them that they may use their wands to attack now as a d8.*

A few weeks go by as Professor Rockblaster takes you outside the school to a new location where you can see different creatures that live in the strange places that the school travels to. He also has you gather ingredients to use in his Potions class.

Also Professor Vendela teaches you more ways to use their wands to make magic easier. During one class you even manage to change your pet into your favorite color!

*Pick new Spells from Jar & First Spell goes up to d8*

Time for Potions Test at mid-term: It is finally time for your first major test in Potions. Professor Rockblaster wants you to make an Ice Sculpture Potion. You are competing against Professor Vendela’s class. You prepare your ingredients and take turns stirring them into your cauldron with your wands.

*Lay out map of Potions Lab (Snake had d8 attack 5 Life Extra Roll) and have them make a Skill Roll for Potion.*

As you mix the ingredients together you see a shape forming in the cauldron. Suddenly a gigantic ice snake pops out of the cauldron and attacks!

Investigation After Snake Attack: After the attack Professor Rockblaster scolds you for letting your experiment get out of hand and you get a bad grade on that potion.

(Adventure was too long for one post so I'll post the rest below...)

Awesome!

Of course, I immediately knew something was up with Professor Rockblaster: after all, we all know Dwarves can't be Wizards! :)

I have more questions:

-Where do you think your daughter got the idea to write her own roleplaying game?

-Whose idea was it to write and structure the adventure in this way? Has she seen official, published adventures, to use as a model, or was this format used in reaction to your suggestions?

-Does anyone ever die (i.e. not succeed) in this adventure? Is there any real risk? If there is, is she aware of that?

Ha! I was thinking more of risk for the GM: what happens if they CAN'T defeat Rockblaster? What happens next?

Has she considered that possibility, and, if so, has she made preparations to deal with it (even if it's just "I'll wing it")?

In some ways, I think the answer might give some interesting insight into how she perceives the role of the GM and the role of "the story" in an RPG.

"-Where do you think your daughter got the idea to write her own roleplaying game?"

I have no real idea. She's always been a creative kid (in fact she got an award for being best at language arts in her class at school on the basis of her very creative stories and excellent vocabulary for being 7 years old). I assume that she took what she'd seen in other games and adapted it to her own ideas. I can say for certain where it first manifested however. She started to set up these mini-adventures with my Star Wars figures (she LOVES some Star Wars). She grabbed a big pile of d6's and indicated that "whoever rolls higher loses a life". The "good guys" played by her mother or I were usually outnumbered by the bad guys played by her. But the good guys had more life points and that's how they (usually) prevailed.

As far as this game in particular goes, when I got home from GenCon this year and the family picked me up from the airport, the first thing my daughter said was, "Next year I'M going to GenCon. And I'm going to play one game and run one game." Leaving aside for a moment the unfortunate fact that I probably won't be going to GenCon 09, I explained that, if she was going to run a game at GenCon she needed to practice by running one at the NC Game Day first. I told her that I'd help her but that I wasn't going to do all the work for her and the ideas had to be hers. She got right to work and we knocked out the basic design in fairly short order.

"-Whose idea was it to write and structure the adventure in this way? Has she seen official, published adventures, to use as a model, or was this format used in reaction to your suggestions?"

She may have looked through a few published adventures (I don't own man, generally preferring homebrew) but I'd say the format was mostly my prompting. Left to her own devices she was going to try and run the game with a notebook page of scrawled notes (ironically this is about as organized as I am for most of my games). I don't know how much experience you guys have talking to 7 year olds but, especially when they are excited, their manner of speach usually goes something like this: "And...um...you go into the room...and...um...there's like a DOOR! There's a door with a keyhole in it that looks like it matches the...um...what's tha...OH...the key you found with the raven! That's what the door looks li...OH WAIT...there's also some wolves and they have a d6 attack and 4 life!"

Needless to say, having her thoughts a bit more organized so that she'd be less nervous and more coherent was mandatory. So I had her sit with me at the computer and I just asked her, "What needs to happen first? Ok and where does the game start? Ok and how do you want to describe that?" simply typing out, usually verbatim, whatever she said. After we'd done that I decided to color code it to give her another visual cue about what happened when and what she should read aloud.

"-Does anyone ever die (i.e. not succeed) in this adventure? Is there any real risk? If there is, is she aware of that?"

The adventure is designed for the PC's to succeed. It's not guaranteed but it is highly likely. If the players grok some of the tactics that suggest themselves then it becomes almost a cake walk but there were at least a few tense moments or runs of bad PC luck in each of the games she ran. I'd say there is no real risk of any of the PC's dying.

"As an aside, I'd argue that not being able to participate fully, even if for only a short time ( your character is knocked out) is an actual risk, especially for younger children ( and many adults, actually)."

Interestingly, she had the "King Spider" have the ability to Web people, causing them to lose their turn. I had to encourage her a bit to spread that around among the PC's so that the same person wasn't losing their turn over and over. An unintended side effect of the whole Web thing was that she ruled (reasonably in my opinion) that you couldn't Block while webbed. So she usually had as many of the lesser spiders attack the webbed PC as possible and took a couple of them down like this. Bloodthirsty little bugger she can be!

"Ha! I was thinking more of risk for the GM: what happens if they CAN'T defeat Rockblaster? What happens next?

Has she considered that possibility, and, if so, has she made preparations to deal with it (even if it's just "I'll wing it")?"

I asked her this at a few points in the game where it looked like there could be "show stoppers", for example, what if they don't notice the Raven with their Detect Magic rolls? I told her that, if they all failed, that they should still have a way to notice it but get some kind of penalty for all failing. She came up with the "It will poop on them! They'll notice THAT!" idea. Kids love the potty humor.

In terms of the endgame and them failing to defeat Rockblaster, I think that she'd most likely deus ex machina them out of that by having the rest of the teachers show up and run him off. In a couple sessions the players helped set the stage for this by sending pets into the castle to "get help". Like any good Harry Potter story, the adults did the nice thing and stayed out of the way so the kids could solve the mystery. ;)

I'll also say that, in practice, Rockblaster suffered from the Solo BBEG syndrome where he got beat down due to having only one action to the PC's four each turn. We beefed him up a little each time she ran the game to try and make him more of a challenge. By the final run he gave a decent fight but the outcome was still never in doubt after about the 2nd round.

Ahh this takes me back to the games I used to run for my Dad, though I was more like 10 than 7, and my designs were not informed by a big roleplaying history, so they weren't as boiled down as this. Ironically as I got older the rules for my games got simpler (when I was about 13 they were very like this sort of roll a dice, get a 4+ or loose a life kind of thing) and then much much more complicated again when I got exposed to published systems like AD&D, Stormbringer, Runequest, WFRP and the like.

What games do you think have influenced her design the most?

Ah, slick, this is the daughter of local Rel from the gamedays and the like (I met you briefly before your 4e game at the meetup over at All Fun and Games). Rock on!

-Andy

Hey gang! I've not forgotten about the thread but I've been crazy busy with work the last few days (which is good; I'm self employed!). I'll try and get back to answer any further questions tomorrow when I've got some more time. And yes, Andy, that's me.

I'm about to take the author off to school but I asked her about the Levels. We talked about it for a minute and she decided that on even Levels you get +1 Life and on odd levels (after 1st) you get +1 to skill rolls. I mentioned to her that the bonus to Skill Rolls would soon make the characters automatically successful at all such rolls if she maintains the threshold for success at a constant 4. She doesn't seem concerned about it.

This could mean that, as levels progress, she expects the characters to encounter skill tests that are more difficult. It probably means she's not thinking about it because 7th level is impossibly far away. ;)