RPGs and Stuff

So, I have been running the teen program for a little over a year and at least three of the teens have been with me for most of it.

I have conflicted views of the program. Overall, I really enjoy it and will continue to do for a long time. I feel that I'm giving something back and it is something I enjoy. However, for a lot of these kids it is a big chance to blow off steam. They enjoy hanging out as much if not more then the game it self. I appreciate that, and in many ways this is a reason that I get together with my friends.

This can distract heavily from the game. I want them to focus but I don't want to be a tyrant. I was a substitute for a while and learned to manage these kids you had to put your foot down the second they entered the door. I don't want to do that so I only get on them when they are especially rude.

Sometime this results in them taking over. This can happen in a classroom, too. The kids can literarly take over and you loose all control. I'll then come up with these ideas to change things but after waiting for a week a loose all resolve. The other problem is for some reason when they are little devils one week they tend to be angels the next.

The game itself has gotten a lot better. For the first year they were running around in a made up setting. I had created a map of a city and some general areas around that. They were bound to an evil wizard named Venzer who cast a spell that if he died all the PCs died and if all the PCs died he died. After a year they finally managed to break the spell and kill Venzer but Venzer's last action was destroying the city with a massive earth quake spell.

After that I didn't know where to put the kids and it lost all continuity. The kids seemed to loose interest. I didn't have the time nor inclination to come up with my own setting so I borrowed the Forgotten Realms book and dropped them in there.

It worked and the kids have been more interested in the game. They are still full of chaos and enjoy creating havoc.

I've also been playing in a few other games. I just finished the first of a three part Mage: The Ascension game were everyone plays students at a Mage school ala Harry Potter only on a smaller school (18 students instead of the hundreds in Harry Potter). I ran the game once before but this time I'm being more experimental and it has been successful. I ran a game where 2 players got to play a PCs important NPCs. One adventure involved a time loop where the same repeated and only one player could tell (the other players had to try and repeat their actions from the previous loop) and finally one player died, became a ghost and didn't know similar to "Sixth Sense."

So the roleplaying is still strong. I am also playing in a Dune GURPS game, Heavy Gear and then our continueing Ptolus game which has been a ton of fun.