Kids of the Borderland: Carnaval 2022 Actual Play Report

Yesterday was the last day before what we call "krokusvakantie" or "crocus vacation" also known as Carnaval Vacation. Carnaval being the Catholic dress-up feast before the start of Lent, also known as Mardi Gras, but not the Louisiana version of it. That's not to say that for some adults it's not also a bacchanal, but it's mostly a party where kids dress up and have a fun day. There's often parades etc.

But yeah. The kids were not in the mood for lessons, which I had anticipated. So, we played a roleplaying game. I only got to it with one group, which was a group of 9 year olds. I chose to run Keep on the Borderlands with RISUS, but have it more geared towards young kids. I know one of the kids in that class is easily upset by violence in stories etc.

I started the game with narrating that the kids went to school, all ready for Carnaval, wearing their outfits. But when they entered the school, they were suddenly in a castle. Their costume were also no costumes anymore. So who were they? We had a Pirate, Minecraft Steve, Angel and Respectful Army General. Taking a page out of some FATE quick start game rules, this just became their higher RISUS cliche, at 4 dice. They met a bearded jester ("Teacher! That's you!") who explained them that they were in a world of adventure and they could go where they want. He gave them options, and they chose the caves.

They did not meet anything on their way to the caves, and in the caves they wanted to explore their surroundings first to decide which cave they went into. The pirate was like "I for sure have a spyglass whit which to look", which I found awesome, the angel flew up and looked around from in the air, before giving up on the game and just keep coloring. This showed them the teamwork rules from RISUS, which turned out to work so well, that they kept trying to do things together afterward. Almost alway someone would roll a 6 to add to the result for the leader.

Anyway, I explained some of the creatures they saw, they decided to go for the giant. As I asked what they wanted to do, the Pirate asked if he had an atomic bomb. I asked him why he would have it. He explained he was basically not only a Pirate, but also an Explosion Loving Inventor. This then became his second cliche, at a value of 3. I then decided that an atomic bomb would be very hard, and set the target number to casually having an atomic bomb with you at 20. Since that would not be possible, he didn't get it, but I gave him a classic, big cartoon pirate bomb. Like that black orb with a fuse coming from it. "Aw, that's lame", he said, with a smile.

The others also wanted to see if they had some artillery. Minecraft Steve installed a mod (this kid, for real) which made it possible to craft hand grenades. And he succeeded. He had a hand grenade. The Army General also rolled to have a hand grenade and for sure had one. They all chucked their artillery n the cave, surprising the Giant (5) and with their teamwork beat him. I didn't want to extend this fight, it was basically an ambush, and it succeeded, so they won. The giant stumbled out, all covered in soot, and fell down, K.O. (Home-Alone rules of violence).

I asked what they wanted to do. Did they want to see what the giant had on him or did they want to see what was in his cave. They decided they wanted to go into the cave and see if there was something to eat. (I dunno why, but I guess they were hungry). I decided that yes, there was something to eat. But no, giants do not eat the same as humans. Inside they found, in a cave, a classmate, in their outfit, ready to be turned into a pie or something. They went about trying to open the cage and they also found a treasure chest. Then the bell was about to go as they decided to keep looking for treasure, and I narrated the end.

"... and then you wake up. It was all a dream, and today is the last day of school, before carnaval vacation. You're exited to come to school, all dressed up."

All in all, a great success.

Cancelled Class Actual Play Report: Kids of the Borderlands

 Yesterday there was a storm called Eunice rampaging through the country.

Nothing as bad as storms in the USA seem to get, but enough that parents went to pick up kids from school before school was out. It made it so that I had only one pupil left of the three I normally had. This means that I skipped the normally planned lessons and we played a game.

She liked the weird games with the dice I sometimes play with kids, so I opened B2-Keep on the Borderlands and ran it for her using RISUS. I helped her make a character, which ended up being the following the following one:

The picture the girl chose
for her character.

Eliza-B

Huntress (4)
Sweet Danser (3)
Make-up Artist (2)
Lumberjack (1)

Asking her what she wanted to do and pointing out the areas on the map, she decided to head into the forest to look for friends to do a make-over with. Not what I was going for, but I like it. We did some encounter rolls, but none of them were pretty enough for her. 

As if it was a story about a girl with golden lock in a house owned by bears, she found some dwarves, but they were too old. Then she found some priests, but they were too male, and then she found some bandits, but they were too ugly.

The bandits —besides being too ugly— also tried to steal the goat she had hunted after giving up on finding friends for a while and take some time to eat. I feel ya, sometimes when things get rough, you just need a little snack. There was a chase as she hunted the bandits and shot them in the back until they dropped her food and ran off.

By then, we had to wrap things up for the game since the bell was going to ring, marking the start of the weekend.

She seemed happy with the game, but there were some points in the game that were kind of disappointing. For one she tried and tried and couldn't find a friend. Next time I should get her a friend and the random encounter roll might tell what trouble that friend was in. She had some bad luck rolling, and playing RISUS with a single PC is kind of hard, since some of the ways you could influence enemies with cliches that are equal or higher than yours are not available. So next time I might give her a friend that was visiting to help. Something like that.

All in all, it was a successful little session.

Kingdoms of Pegolia 2022: Actual Play Report #2

Year one resolves in the kingdoms of Pegolia as the kids gave their reactions to what happened.

There's two kids — who happen to be neighbors on the map — that want to play this as a game of Fortnite and immediately geared up for war. So there's a war in the mountains. For one of them (King Vili of Vil) it's reasonable, since he wants to take the volcano on the map to build a lair in. It just so happens that Johny King's capitol city is located there. Johny King though, seems to have only skimmed the information given and payed no heed to his citizens disappearing in the north, before going to wage war in the south, so he now finds flying pirate ships abducting his citizens from the actual city now that his armies are away. But at least he won the first bout of the war. He's going to need to make some decisions. King Vili will also need to make some decisions, but he has a war-hungry general (General Moustache) who is feeding him ideas.

Others immediately started sending out feelers to see who's around. De Adder (The Viper) already questioned Rita Van Dieren (Rita of the Animals) wether or not they can make a deal. He didn't specify, so he's going to have to spend a whole other year to work this out with Rita Van Dieren.

Rita seems to be the hub for that area, having made contact with all the players as Sofia De Beste came visiting her as well. To her only the two War Bro's in the mountain are unknown and all of the NPC kingdoms. Rita seems a bit concerned as well, (perhaps of hearing the boys talking about war) and started training hunters and fighters. 

Pasteur Clara seems to be the only one taking any interest in the disappearing parents plot and keeps investigating how to find and free her parents. So far she has been able to find evidence of her mom in the swamps up north (they found her jacket in piles of waste) and had a vision of her parents being able to slip their bonds and jump over the edge of a flying pirate ship. She doesn't know where they are now though.

That's it for now!

Kingdoms of Pegolia 2022 - Actual play report #1

With my fifth graders (10-11 year olds) in religion class we learn about what a good leader does or what leadership is supposed to be with King David as an example (both a good example and a bad one). To make this more fun and to test what the kids understand of it, I devised a game to play with them. They all got to make a ruler of some kind and name their kingdom. They are all living in the World of Pegolia (PEGO is the acronym for protestant an evangelical religion education in Dutch) and they were allowed to go wild with their imagination. 

I based the rules off of RISUS since that's my go to with older kids. Going all Pendragon-y each turn will be a year, but today was the starting event, which I kind of based off of their cliches. (I wasn't a stickler for how to define a cliche here. I've only got 50 minutes twice a week and have to give the actual lessons.) They had to put one cliche at 4 (being the best at), one at 3 (being good at), one at 2 (beging normal at) and one at 1 (being bad at it).

Now every week they can tell me what they want to do for the year and I will roll all relevant dice to see if it works. I've also have some rulers of my own in the mix, but plan to only use them as they come up (I might make some countdown clocks for them, I dunno yet. I've got a week to decide.)

But anyway. Meet the players:

Vili from the Kingdom of Vil. Dark-blond hair, brownish green eyes and looking cool, wearing normal clothes and known for being lazy. This kid just described himself.

• Highjumper (4)
• Guy who can grab a shield quickly (3)
• Prison breaker (2)
• Fast Runner (1)

Rita van Dieren (of the animals) from De Frisse Bergen (The Fresh/Cool Mountains). She is environmentally conscious and always polite to her subjects. While she can be bossy, she remains respectful and is good in playing chess. (none of this is reflected in her cliches, lol)

• Gardener (4)
• Guitarist (3)
• Ruler (2)
• Not a nosy person (1)

Johny Koning (King) from the kingdom of Justice. He's dumb, beautiful, drinks a lot and is very strong.

• Fighter (4)
• Handsome One (3)
• Justice! (2)
• Drinker (1)

The Viper from The Snakewoods. He's a giant red snake that can talk. He can easily be recognized because there's snakes all around him.

• Snake Whisperer (4)
• Poison Resistant Snake (3)
• Snake Caretaker (2)
• Anger Manager (1)

Sofia De Beste (The Best) uit De Beste Land (The Best Country, but with a wrong article). She's friendly with the entire kingdom and has curly black hair and black eyes. (I think another self-description, though this time with a name that is more different than the other kid's)

• Helping Hand (4)
• Female Athlete (3)
• Cook (2)
• Calm and Collected Person (1)

Pasteur (Pastor, in French) Clara from Brakka. (description missing? I think she did it, but I haven't written it down yet.)

• Prayer Warrior (4)
• Person That Is Good At Doing Meetings (3)
• Athlete (2)
• Fashion Icon (1)

This one is inspired by a gender swap with her dad (Who's a pastor), if I'm not mistaken. Also, some strategy here, being like "This is a game for religion class, so I'm going to be best at praying". Also, it might say something about what she thinks of her father's fashion choices.

Then I'm having three other kingdoms as NPC's to add to the mix:

Robotbrein (Robot Brain) from Robotstad (Robot City).

Robotbrein is a big computer that kind of looks like a brain, but made out of electric wires. Robotbrein always talks about us/we, never about I/me. Robotbrein rules all robots in Robot City and controls them directly.

• Many Robots, One Brain (4)
• Inventor (3)
• Builder (2)
• Person with Empathy (1)

De Grote Stinker (The Big Stinker) from De Zwavelputten (The Sulfuric Pits).

De Grote Stinker is the boss over the Sulfuric Pits in the swamp. He loves trash, stank and unhealthy food. The more things stink, the more comfortable he feels.

• Stinkers (4)
• Tamed Swamp Animals (3)
• Cook (2)
• Cleaning Person (1)

Scheurbek de Luchtpiraat (Rip Maw The Air Pirate) from Het Woestijnland (The Desert Lands).

Scheurbek is an air pirate that ambushes and robs people from the desert with her airships. The airships look like pirate ships combined with hot air balloons. She only allows girls to join. Boys get taken prisoner.

• Tough Pirate (4)
• Strong Girl (3)
• Airship Captain (2)
• Prinses (1)