Looking for help: Scenarios for 10 year olds

Community Larp discussion
#1

Hey folks,

NZLARPS South Island has been approached and asked to provide help for someone who is going to run a 1 hour/week “drama/LARP club” at the Te Anau primary school. She says that she has 7 girls and 5 boys, and she’s looking for some scenarios to run them through. She says the boys are “well equipped” (although I don’t know exactly what that means at this stage) and they are very keen on boffer larp, and they have their own set of rules including hits on count from the shoulders to the knees and if a limb is hit it can’t work.

She’s keen to have some boffer combat but she’s also looking for some Theatreform type scenarios to go along with it (she doesn’t say directly, but it sounds like the girls aren’t so keen on the combat scenarios)

Does anyone know of anything that would be appropriate for a group of 10 year olds? In particular I think @Bryn and @Jared have done some work with some younger crowds.

Thanks all
Matt
NZLARPS SI Regional Director

#2

That’ll be why there have been membership signups (which have never followed through) from Te Anau then.

@Bryn doesn’t have backstage access (he’s not on a committee anymore, and we no longer have the Wellington Friends group). You might want to post this or move it to a more public group?

#3

And in terms of actually useful advice: Down and out in Middenburg and Graduation Day are kid-friendly. Freeform Games also has a specific section of games for kids, and I have Way Out West and A Heroic Death which have specific kids versions.

#4

Ah ok, have moved to Larp/General

1 Like
#5

Here’s the old thread on the KidsLarp @8w_gremlin and @Bryn ran in Wellington. There’s a Facebook page for it here.

#6

I’ve now added a section to the NZLARPS resources page on larp for young people. If anyone has any suggestions on things to add to it, please post here or email secretary@nzlarps.org.

#7

I have run many larps for kids, typically in the 7 to 10 year age group.

The main thing is to Keep It Simple. All kids instinctively know how to use a sword (or other larp weapon), so I reckon what you need to do is provide character classes that shine in different ways.

Assume you have a rule in which if you get to 0 HP you are incapacitated, so must lie on the ground (this allows Healers to figure you who to heal).

You only need 4 classes:

  1. Fighter - can use shields
  2. Mage- can use simple spells such as Magic Missile (throw a spell packet, 3 HP damage), Wall of Flame (2 mages holding a rope between them, 3 damage if touch and the mages can maneuver the wall), Shadow Self (Mage gets to run into the fray and do as much damage as they can, but after 2 hits their Shadow Self is gone, and the Mage returns to where they start, having taken no damage)
  3. Healer - Can heal others (this is a good non-combat character)
  4. Rogue - Can hide next to any large tree/shrub by putting their hands on their heads. The encounter for this class is some kind of guarded artifact that either the guards at too powerful or you can’t afford to let anyone know that the artifact has been stolen. Have one artifact per Rogue and send them in. The guards should make a big deal about “hearing” the rogues sneak through the forest, but whenever they look over at the rogues, the rogues are using their power to be hidden. It works really well if the guards talk about it amongst themselves and one says (pointing at a rogue) “I heard something over here!” and the other says “You’re dreaming! Stop wasting time !” The rogues to the feeling of danger, but ultimately get the job done, while all the other PCs wait and hope.

What we did was have a totally linear plot arc.

i.e.

  1. Start here (typically the entrance to the park).
  2. The SItuation: an NPC who explains the Danger and What Needs To Be Done, and also Why The Adults Can’t Do It (i.e. it’s up to the kids, and only the kids)
    3, The Encounter (not far along the path) with a Major NPC (lots of talking, perhaps some challenges for the kids in the vein of “solve this riddle” or "do this cool thing right here (such as a specific shape with their arms) etc.
  3. They get told how to get to the next Encounter (which will assist in The Quest)
  4. Somewhere along the path, are attacked by the Bad Person’s Hench-People (and the kids always win, especially when it looks most desperate!)

Repeat 3,4,5 until they get to the Finale

The Finale is basically a Boss Level. At this point, the kids should have everything they need to defeat the Boss, and it’s a matter of fighting their way to the centre of the Boss zone and then Implementing The Mechanism (a ritual, putting the Artifact In The RIght Place, whatever).

I must stress that the kids always win, and the job of the adults is to provide tension and challenge only.

3 Likes
#8

From memory some of the spell effects in Graduation Day need to have their duration reduced. This would especially be an issue if playing with younger players