The Clubhouse Chronicles 2023 - Episode 4: With A Little Help Of My Friends

 The last one in the series, where the friends will need to work together to an end, just like the four friends of the lame man had to work together to get the man to Jesus, by making a hole in the roof!

Next week is fall vacation and with that a new chapter of the lessons will start, which means the Clubhouse Chronicles are done for now, after this session report. I do feel like, when I find the time, the energy and the focus, I could really turn this into something to publish. Unfortunately I rarely have all three of these at the same time.

Anyway, we only got to this one in one school, no fault to the player in school #2, but there was a day off, which meant that we couldn't get the game in before the story could be told, and playing the game only to remember it still after a week-long vacation is a tough call for the kid.

So we only got to close things off in the Movie Bunker, and the story of Tom, Tom, Tom and Toby (and more).

THE STORY OF TOM, TOM, TOM AND TOBY

The kids had made new characters and this resulted in us having a bunch of player characters with the same name, which I let fly because it was funny. And of course, gotta keep things moving if you only have about half an hour.

Tom (the human) was in the woods with Tom (the cat) and Tom (the dog). Unfortunately Human Tom was not very careful and fell from the tree. He broke his wrist and foot and needed to be helped since he could not move. Cat Tom and Dog Tom had a big problem, they didn't have hands to build something with or voices to call the doctor with. But Tom the Cat had an idea that had worked before (though I'm not sure I remembered to record it in these reports) The mobile Tom's raced to the clubhouse and Cat Tom used his claws to write the problem on the wall. For some reason he can read and write! 

Wilfried and Evy rushed ahead, as did Toby the dog. They called Doctor Apple who could not come because she was simply too busy. So they decided to build a sled-type thing that the dogs (Tom and Toby) could pull to the doctor. Working together they were able to get there just in time for the bell.

Happy End! See ya next year.

Weird Idea #3: You Are A Wolf

THE FIRST HOWL: In which a wolf howls at the moon to tell her what the general idea is.

Again a picture on social media sparks an idea in my weird noggin, and I can't stop thinking about it. I hope this post will get it out of my system.

I came across this on Instagram on the massive.archive account, which is all kinds of inspiring images.
Do check it out. Apparently the original quote is from ― Clarissa Pinkola Estés in Women Who Run With the Wolves

Anyway. Use this list as a general rule for how Wolves behave and decide how well your furry, toothy, wolfy self fits into that list, or how deviant from it you are. Use a very simple resolution mechanic for play. I suggest something like Roll 4 Shoes or 50/50 and tinker from there if need be. The system isn't the interesting thing here, these general wolf rules for life are. They, and your wolf's interaction with them will provide the drama.

THE SECOND HOWL: In which the wolf ask the moon what it means to be a wolf.

So you're wolves ... now what? Good question, here are some questions in return to help your group decide what they find interesting or important. Decide also if there are things you do not want to see and howl these at each other. Be safe.

• Are you all in the same pack? If so, who is the leader of the pack? What are your roles in the pack? If not, how do your packs relate? What is your history? Roll some dice or otherwise resolve it if no resolution can be found through discussion. The roles in the pack(s) might already be a good source of drama to begin a game.

• Where are you? Probably a forest of some kind, but is it dark, wild and rampant, or is it tamed and being encroached by humanity on all sides? Has a disaster recently happened, like a flood or a fire, that might have changed things or attitudes?

THE THIRD HOWL: In which the moon, from her high vantage point, howls back what's in the wolves' path, for well or for woe.

Let's be a bit fanciful and call the GM the Moon here. Place obstacles, dilemma's or other interesting scenes in front of the pack(s) to see how a fulfilling story emerges from this cocktail. Give them opportunities to live out the General Wolf Rules For Life in the picture, but sometimes make living that Wolf Live challenging.

1. EAT: Give them interesting prey, or sudden strange competition, or an unexplained abundance (or rumors of it further ahead).

2. REST: Make moments of rest opportunities to develop relations and deepen your understanding of the pack and its (perhaps changing) hierarchies. At times, make finding rest difficult, a price to be cherished.

3. ROVE IN BETWEEN: Where do they rove to, what do they find of interest, be it curious, beneficial or horrific? Give reasons to rove. Is the prey dying out? Is there sickness or disease? Maybe Human hunters?

4. RENDER LOYALTY: Give opportunities to the wolves to prove themselves loyal. Test loyalties. Where do your wolves' loyalties really lie?

5. LOVE THE CHILDREN: What does it mean to love the children? Protect the children? Prepare the children? Teach the children? How can things happen to the children?

6. CAVIL IN MOONLIGHT: Have a meeting under the moon where, as in a senate, discussion is had. Let different positions clash, let nervous posturing, growling and pacing take place as the grayest of wolves have differing stances or the younger ones want to let themselves be known. Wolfish politics.

7. TUNE YOUR EARS: Look out for danger or cries for help, from prey, pack or foe alike. Find things out. Hear what others have to say, and what they really want to say.

8. ATTEND TO THE BONES: Especially in the difficult times, when prey is hard to come by, attend to the bones, and eat their marrow. Dig deep and find the hidden strength. Attend the bones as well to sharpen tooth and fang, so as to be stronger and more deadly.

9. MAKE LOVE: Find a mate and raise a litter, make the pack grow. But what is the right mate, and are all pups good for the pack?

10. HOWL OFTEN: Let your voice be heard, communicate, even from afar. 

The Clubhouse Chronicles 2023 - Episode 3: The Disaster

 After the cleaning and learning adventures of last episode our friends find ourselves faced with a disaster, except, it's not them directly, but one of their friends who is in trouble. Will they help their friend in need? How will they do that? And will they stubbornly break out of my "real world slice of life setting" approach to this game? 

(The answer to that last question is yes. I guess slice of life needs some action or sci-fi at some points in its run.)

This week's adventure revolves around a BIG PROBLEM that someone they know (or they are currently not playing) has. They hear about it, and seeing the helplessness of their friend's situation, hopefully they will come to the rescue.

This will then be linked to the story of the Raising of Lazarus where our recurring characters from the last story (Mary and Martha) ask Jesus for help with their sick brother, who is also His friend. (What he did will surprise you!) 

There's a lot going on in this story, but we're focussing on friendship and helping your friends, which is kind of slightly besides the actual point of the story, but thus dictate the lesson plans.

THE MOVIE BUNKER: Missing Puma!

In the first school I gratefully reached for a problem that was created in the first session, where the hunters that hunted for Super Ryan the Puma had narrowed down the location of where he's at to the forest the Movie Bunker is in. Since no-one was playing Super-Ryan and took my chance and pounced on this problem (Kind of like a Puma. See what I did there?) and told them that they noticed that Super-Ryan's food bowl was staying full for a few days now...

Strange...

And so our friends, some of them new, head out to the forest to try and find him. They find tracks that lead to a cave and there find some hunters that are discussing how much a Puma's pelt can be worth. They split up and while some, including Toby the dog, distract the oafish goons, others go and get the Puma out of his cage! A big celebration is had!

THE CHURCH ATTIC: High Maintenance!

In the other school I had doctor Apple check in again on the pastor with the broken foot, only to have her car not start again. What a disaster! She's got more patients waiting on her! Apparently the solution is obvious to Waïl. "I call my robot motorcycle".

uhm... I guess? We didn't establish it beforehand, but this was a kind "Yes, And" situation.

Sure, he gets there, but now what? Well, turns out that the robot is a good mechanic, besides being good at "Going Fast", well, mechanic isn't a technical talent, but he rolled well. And working together with Waïl, he was able to fix the car and the doctor could visit her patients. She also got a giant cake to reward the helpers and a party was had (the ban on candy being lifted for once).

The Clubhouse Chronicles 2023 - Episode 2: The Visit

 After dealing with a sick or wounded friend in their clubhouse, and comparing it to how Jesus of Nazareth helped his friend's sick relative, we now move on to the next story, to compare it to another bible story.

This time they will get a visit from someone that can teach them some new skills, but the clubhouse is a mess and needs to be cleaned. How will they deal with it? This will link up to the story where Mary and Martha host Jesus in their home.

School #1: The Movie Bunker

First off, Super Ryan kept in hiding and did not see play this game. Instead his player made a new character, a bulldog called Toby. I guess humans are too boring to him.

Evy's character just played Evy again and I played Wilfried again, but only as a background character, since they are already with two and don't really need the third friend for things to be interesting. In this episode, having a GM-PC actually worked against me in this group, since it took some of the gravitas of the dilemma at the center of the episode away from it.

Anyway, Evy, being a singer, gets a letter that a famous Belgian kids-pop group called K3 wants to visit her at her clubhouse. They heard she likes to sing and want to hang out with her and maybe teach her some things.

The Pop-Group in Question

And so it happened, they came over, but the Movie Bunker was still a whole mess and could they host them when everything is a mess? They really wanted to come in though as they had heard rumors of an escaped Puma being spotted in the area. (A consequence I carried over from last episode.)

And so in they came and Evy and Wilfried started cleaning up while the pop-stars were distracted by the cute little doggy. There was a timer though, and an amount of mess to get through (I would change the numbers to make it harder now, in hindsight) which I made clear (the pop-group had a show later that day). So after a while Evy starts to hang out with them and they teach her some dancing and some other tricks that I don't recall, while Toby and Wilfried keep cleaning up. In the end Wilfried was the only one cleaning while Evy and Toby were learning new tricks (and talents) from the V.I.P.'s. 

See how it took away some of the burden. Maybe I should've let Wilfried get more upset that he ended up cleaning all alone at the end, but I was in the moment, and excited for my players...

I had planned to end it there, but they asked if they could go to the concert with the group, and that was such a nice finally. They were even called up the stage for the encore and did a number, that was televised, and gained the V.I.P. status for themselves. Great cheers were had.

I think in a next run, I should focus more on the dilemma at hand, making the choice actually hard for them.

School #2: The Church Attic

Everyone stayed the same here, characters wise. Tibo for the pupil and Grietje for me. Having a GM-PC here was good, as there would be no other possibility for team-work.

Here the visitor was a friend of Tibo, called Wail, who was in the same soccer team. They wanted to practice for the game the next day, but Wail (pronounce "wa-heel" I guess?) didn't have much time and the attic was a mess. And so they showed some of the things to the side, with Grietje doing most, so that Tibo and Wail could get some training in. They also learned from each other, receiving new talents and then they got to show them off in the actual soccer game, where I let the pupil roll dice for all the players on the field at once (I think it were 24 dice in total) versus me for the other team, which did not have their edge of practice (I think 22 dice). They clearly won, and rolling handfuls of dice was great fun (luckily I had a container to roll them in).

Next time, a very bad thing happens!

The Clubhouse Chronicles 2023 - Episode 1: In need of Medical Assistance

Wheeeeeeeeeeeelp! Time flew away from me and this blog was collecting cobwebs like nobody's business! I thought to post more in the vacation times, but I actually found a TTRPG group laying one-shots in a nearby city that I started frequenting reasonable regularly, and the rest gotten up by household catch-up and spending time with my lovely wife. But now I'm back, because I'm playing games in class again, and that's my main jam on this blog, so it's time for Actual Play Reports again!

We're starting this year with the one that works best, but that I still have to write down for other people to use. FRIENDS OF THE CLUBHOUSE. I changed the dice mechanic because I lost my heaps of six sided dice somewhere at the end of the last school year. But other than that, the concept is the same.

Some friends set up a club house, where they come together. The clubhouse itself, as well as the friends have a strength (or talent) and a weakness. When using your talent, you can use more dice and when working together, you can roll all your dice together and add them up. The story prompts are still related to the Bible story we will be working with after the game.

This year I work in (only) two schools, which means that there will be two clubhouses reacting to the same stories. The age of the players is 7-8 years old (for the children) and 39 (for the teacher).

The Clubhouses

School #1: The Movie Bunker (2 pupils, 1 teacher)

The clubhouse here is a Bunker deep in the woods. Its benefit is that it has a movie theater, while the disadvantage is that it's far away from everyone. The friends we start with are:

Evy, a black haired, black eyed girl who likes to wear pink. Her talent is singing and her problem is that she's not good at drawing.

Super Ryan (three guesses what the player's name is), who is a puma that escaped the zoo. His talent is hiding and escaping (I grouped this together) and his problem is that they're still looking for him.

Wilfried (everybody calls him Friet, which is dutch for french-fry) who is an extremely tall boy. His talent is cooking and his problem is being too tall for most things.

School #2: The Church Attic (1 pupil, 1 teacher)

The clubhouse is in the attic of the church. It has the benefit of having a playstation, but as a drawback there's no candy allowed. The friends we start with are:

Tibo, who has a talent for football (soccer) but is poor.

Grietje, who is good at investigating nature but is bad at reading and writing.

***

Episode One: The sick friend.

In which a friend falls ill or otherwise in medical trouble and the friends are asked what they do about it. This will be followed up in the following lesson hour by the story of Jesus healing Peter's sick Mother in Law. (Matthew 8:14-15)

In the first school there are two friends without my GM-pc, so I let my character fall ill while in the clubhouse of the bunker. Now what will Wilfrieds friends do?

As it stands, his human friend Evy (a shy player, red.) didn't know what to do, so Super Ryan, the Escaped Puma decided to go to the doctor, but he needed to be careful that he wasn't spotted by the Zoo people still looking for them. He was not very successful at that, and he needed to hide.

Meanwhile, Evy decided to try and call the doctor, as she was waiting and nothing was really helping or happening except for her making soup. She was able to reach Doctor Apple (Doctor Apple is a recurring character through the years of playing these games, red.) who came immediately.

Super Ryan seeing the lights go on decides to go home. I ask if he's sure. Does he know what's happening? He looks at me, thinking for just a heartbeat. "I can smell it, I think, that the doctor is going to our bunker." he says. "Oh, sure", I reply, with a laugh, and roll with it, since it actually helps us stick together.

He gets home but finds that being an escaped dangerous animal is a bigger problem than he would have thought, in this slice of life type setting. (He previously played a knight character in a Troika game. Different feel completely.) He finds that he has to hide to not scare away the doctor, while the doctor works on Wilfried.

Wilfried heals up and the doctor is befriended and is available to pick up as a PC in the next games. Due to rolling the maximum amount on a searching roll, Evy gained (or rather discovered) a new talent: Cooking.

Super Ryan's player decides that next game he'll want to play something less difficult than a Puma. Like a dog. We'll see how that goes (well, I kinda already know, as we've already played the second episode, but I can't seem to find the time to type these up).

In the second school there's only one pupil, so to encourage friendship and working together, I played along and let someone else fall ill. Since their clubhouse is in the attic of a church I had the Pastor working below, decorating the church with streamers and stuff and falling down from a ladder, hitting his knee, unable to move it. I ask the kid what the pastor's name is. "Mohammed", he immediately says. The screams of pain alert the characters Grietje and Tibo. They go down and try to help. 

Tibo runs for the doctor (with soccer as a talent he could roll 3 dice, but could not beat a 10, so he wasn't there very quickly, but not too late either) and tells her (Doctor Apple again) what happened (incorrectly, but not too much off the mark that she should bring the wrong stuff). They get ready to go over to the church.

Meanwhile at the church Grietje tries to find an ice pack or other materials with which to help the man, but she can not (and I could not roll high for the life of me) crawling into a corner and crying. This is what Tibo and Doctor Apple find when they arrive. Tibo tries to comfort Grietje while Doctor Apple works on Pastor Mohammed. While Doctor Apple is an automatic success since none of the involved characters are players, Tibo has to roll to try and calm down Grietje, failing miserably for multiple rolls, resulting in her running away, him going looking for her, visiting her house and looking with the parent, only to find her hiding and crying in an abandoned treehouse in the forest. 

Tibo speaks some questionable words of wisdom that I can no longer immediately recall, but imagine a 7 year old trying to comfort someone with words. Not always a success. But here, as the bell rang, I decided it worked. Both because we were out of time, and were veering off topic quite a bit in relation to the Bible story it's based on.