I ran a session in my experimental RPG about Magical Children with 8 players yesterday, aged 6-43 (7 children one grown man, three boys and four girls!). I use a liberally adopted version of D&D rules and a whole lot of improvisation and spin the story very much on the spot. The premise is that in 2012 something happened awakening magical abilities in children (and possibly some adults) and subsequently special summer camps have been developed for such kids in Iceland - in other countries special schools have been set up .... yep - there is definitely a Pottereseque element at play here... The summer camp Huggusnudur is where three campaigns they have been on so far are based... and in the last one there is serious involvement of sci fi, what with the enemy being a mysterious alien. It is implied that somehow the 'event' of 2012 is connected to these alien visitations, but this remains unclear and for a later date to specify (or not). I experimented with allowing the players to have cell phones and this has some interesting consequences.... running a game with this large number of players, especially children, is a challenge, but on the whole I think we had a lot of fun. The last part of the adventure was complete instant creation where they had a class in IT magic, in which they conjured forth a ship, a spaceship, a sword, a star, a chair and last but not least a dragon's egg! All items that will be crucial in their future endeavours - after they return the Princess the rescued from Gomliholkur the alien to her palace in the mountains.... or while this goes on, I'm not sure.
My daughters and their friends have really enjoyed these session, even though they have been few and far between. They get their creative juices flowing - there is a lot of laughter (I enjoy going for things being a bit loony) .... there is excitement and even occasionally it gets a little bit scary.... It is important to have simple mechanics - my approach to DM-ing clearly favours story and fun above technicalities - just like my teaching style does. I really recommend trying this out - getting to know a little bit about RPGs and then just setting up a little game - if it fails miserably that's a lesson in itself, like we say in Reykjavík:
það fer ekki verr en illa!
Good gaming!
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