Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Pulp => Topic started by: BugPope on July 06, 2016, 02:08:35 PM
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So my seven years old nephew (let's call him V) saw pictures of my Pulp Alley terrain, and decided he wants to play it with me. Which I get, I'd want the same thing if I found out my uncle had cool toys. And I love playing games with him (even if he sometimes get upset over there being rules), and I've read all these articles about people talking about playing tabletop wargames with children and being surprised by how well it went.
So here's a few thoughts I had:
My sister kinda disapproves of V playing violent games. Cartoon violence is okay, but more realistic violence against humans or animals is probably pushing it. The easy way to solve this is if I play monsters, but it also made me wonder how one could make a non-violent Pulp Alley scenario, where the focus is purely on getting Plot Points instead of fighting each other. Can you do that without it turning into both players basically playing by themselves, without affecting each other much?
While the basic rules are very simple (in my experience, the only thing new players tend to have trouble with is dice matching, and once they grasp that, it's fine), I worry that the cards would become a problem. V can read (some) English, but keeping track on which cards he has, what they do and when he can play them will be difficult. The simple solution to this is to have both players play with open hands (so I can help him with the cards) or have another adult assist him, but would it also be possible to play Pulp Alley without giving Fortune cards to players? You'd simply just have Extremely Perilous Terrain, and so on. Would this overly simplify the game? Note that I'm not suggesting this as a rule change, just something to make the game a bit easier to grasp for a child.
Also general thread about playing wargames with younger people, I suppose.
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As someone who plays pulp alley solo all the time without fortune cards, I can say that the game works just fine without them.
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2 suggestions for you
1. Simplified Stats
When I play PA with younger kids, I use only one set of dice for each character. A set of 3d10 for Leaders, a set of 3d8 for Sidekicks and other elites, and a set of 3d6 for all the other redshirts. They don't have to remember or look up different dice combos for different attributes. Using the cards will work with the simplified attributes.
After they've played a couple of games, I start adding special abilities to their leaders and we slowly work more toward the standard rules each game after.
2. Social Adventures!
My daughter will occasionally play games with me. She will play straight up wargames, but she sometimes enjoys a modified game where the "combat" isn't violence, but banter between the characters and the worst outcomes are hurt feelings. I have 2 batreps of Christmas Holiday Balls as examples...
2 Christmases Ago
http://govgensectorsix.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-goodwill-ambassadors-tour-ep-1.html (http://govgensectorsix.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-goodwill-ambassadors-tour-ep-1.html)
Last Christmas
http://govgensectorsix.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-3rd-annual-princess-sophies-holiday.html (http://govgensectorsix.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-3rd-annual-princess-sophies-holiday.html)
Hope this helps...
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2. Social Adventures!
My daughter will occasionally play games with me. She will play straight up wargames, but she sometimes enjoys a modified game where the "combat" isn't violence, but banter between the characters and the worst outcomes are hurt feelings.
As a roleplayer, I love this idea. Also very pulpy. How do you handle that, mechanically? Just rename the Shoot skill as "Banter" or something?
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Take a page out of some of the old pulp stories. Doc savage did not kill his opponents intentionally he subdued them and then sent to an institution to be reformed. I often changed the idea from dead to KOed (The language of Hero clixs) so no one ever dies ;) This requires only a change in language not game play. Tell the kids they are shooting tranq darts 8)
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.....it also made me wonder how one could make a non-violent Pulp Alley scenario, where the focus is purely on getting Plot Points instead of fighting each other. Can you do that without it turning into both players basically playing by themselves, without affecting each other much?
Yes and yes.
There is a scenario in our Vice Alley book called "Social Affair" that does not permit any combat. No shooting. No brawling. Instead, the characters have to use their Cunning, Finesse, and so on to outwit their opponents.
Also, we do co-op scenarios in Pulp Alley. Basically, this changes the opposing characters from enemies to "friends". You can still add some wandering baddies to the table if you still want a little fighting. Otherwise, this makes the scenario more of a race to see who can collect more plot points before time runs out. FYI -- the rules do not permit attacking your "friends". The rules are already designed for this sort of play as well.
...would it also be possible to play Pulp Alley without giving Fortune cards to players?
Certainly, I still forget to play most of my cards anyway! lol lol
Just make all perils a random card flip will work perfectly fine.
Take a page out of some of the old pulp stories. Doc savage did not kill his opponents intentionally he subdued them...
Yes, that is how Pulp Alley works. Although characters get KO'd, they can be right back in the action in the next scenario, or you can choose to roll for a Harrowing Escape.
A player can choose to kill off one of their own characters, but this is normally done as part of their storyline. I always felt this also represented how characters reappear in old cliffhanger serials and so on.
I think the youngest that I have seen play Pulp Alley was an 8 y-o. And he caught on far quicker than some adults. I think it was because of the video games. ;)
When you play, don't try to explain too many rules at the start. I find that it is best to just start playing.
HAVE FUN
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As a roleplayer, I love this idea. Also very pulpy. How do you handle that, mechanically? Just rename the Shoot skill as "Banter" or something?
As Mr. Phipps wrote above, there are Pulp Alley official scenarios that use the "Cunning" and "Finesse" attributes, and that's pretty much how we run them for our Pulp Alley Social games.
"Cunning" becomes the primary "combat" skill, and "Finesse" works like Dodge.
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This is one of three reasons I love this game!
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BugPope, a couple of things you could point out to your sister:
1. Pulp Alley was developed in playtesting with kids, particularly Dave's daughter Mila.
2. The violence in Pulp Alley is somewhat abstracted. As you know from playing, the game doesn't get graphic in its results, such as having an arm blown off or a big hole put into a lung, and players don't see how long it takes for a character to bleed out and die. The health level effects and getting knocked down and knocked out, with many characters surviving, are a lot softer and more abstract than the combat results in some other games. I'd say it's "kid friendly."
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Never said my sister was opposed to Pulp Alley. Just that my models have realistic guns, and that tends to be where she draws the line. Also, different parents have different boundaries for their kids, so the "other parents say it's okay for their kids" argument is kinda strange.
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Very cool! I hope you let us know how it goes. :D
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Could you explain how the non-violent conflict (ie talking) rules worked in Vice Alley, or do I have to buy the book to find out?
I should also add that when V asked what Pulp Alley was, my answer was that it's an adventure game where you collect treasure in the jungle. While this is of course a simplification, I really do see Pulp Alley more like an adventure game than a wargame (which is the perfect tone for a pulp game).
One thing I'm curious about is how he'll react to the narrative aspect of Pulp Alley, especially Perils. When I've played with adults, nobody's really been interested in imagining what "roll two hits with Finesse" actually looks like within the story of the game. It's just a dice roll you make so that you can win the game.
Which is fine, but I have a hunch that children would be more into the storytelling aspect of the game, making up what kind of dangerous predicament their hero just fell into, and how they overcame it.
I think that's more interesting for a child than military tactics, which is why Pulp Alley seems like a good place to start for him.
I'll probably treat all perilous terrain as extreme, since I don't think V has the patience to keep cards on his hand for very long, and it makes it feel less personal when it's not the opponent who causes bad stuff to happen to him.
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Basically heath is abstracted. 2 wounds doesn'mean a wounded arm and a grazed head. It means you may be unable to continue the fight...Or the argument. I could mean the you'very been insulted so bad you have to leave. Instead of rolling combat stats (Shoot, brawl or dodge) you roll non combat stats (Finesse, cunning or might). If you miss your finesse roll maybe you did really bad in the break dance fight:)
Follow?
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I get that, but which skills are used for "offense" and "defense"? Is Finesse used for every "attack", or is it just for close combat, etc. That's the kind of stuff I'm asking about. I understand the concept, I'm asking about the mechanics.
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In the Vice Alley scenario, "Social Affair" --
Attack: the attacker (active character) may choose any of their Action skills (Might, Finesse, Cunning) to attack an enemy.
> Note, represents an attempt to intimidate, trick, or embarrass the target -- it is not an actual physical attack.
React: For this scenario, the defender must use the same skill selected by the attacker.
> Note, this meant there is an advantage to being the attacker. And even a low level character can be fairly effective if you pick your fights. ;)
Now that you know what dice each character is rolling, you resolve it like a normal fight....
1. Roll
2. Attacker can match/cancel
3. Count hits
4. Roll Health checks (if needed)
I hope that helps.
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Thank you. Follow up question: are these rolls affected by multiple combats, running, range and other penalties?
It would make sense: it's hard to sound cool when you're out of breath from running and are shouting from twenty meters away.
I'm over at the family summer house right now and brought some terrain and models, but V doesn't seem interested anymore. Seven years olds are fickle. We'll see if he changes his mind again tonight when I'm setting everything up on a table and play with his grandpa (my dad).
I also asked my sister about the violence, and as I predicted, she thinks that V is not ready for games where humans are fighting other humans, no matter how little gore there is. She likes the ideas of humans against monsters or replacing the violence with the social conflict rules. Either are fine with her.
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I'm pretty sure there's a free download. The full version is really inexpensive also!
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No need, he just told me the rule a couple of posts ago.
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I was referring to your follow up questions. The download is free and would answer all or most of your questions.
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Oh, please, JUST BUY THE BOOKS!
I'm pretty sure you will enjoy them and have memorable games with your family! ;)
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I will buy the book (I already own all the other Pulp Alley books), when I'm not dead broke. Ten bucks for one rule (that I'm not even sure I'll use) in a book that is outside of the genre I'm currently collecting is a lot for some of us, and you're acting like I'm trying to steal the whole game. Calm down, and don't be so dramatic.
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Thank you. Follow up question: are these rolls affected by multiple combats, running, range and other penalties?
It would make sense: it's hard to sound cool when you're out of breath from running and are shouting from twenty meters away.
Short Answer = No
Long Answer =
1. For this scenario, because it is intended to be occurring at some sort of important social affair (wedding, party, opening night, political event, business meeting, and so on) - running was prohibited. You can't run, so the penalty can not apply.
2. The "social jousting" can only occur when you are in base-to-base contact with an enemy, so range modifiers can not apply.
3. Multiple combats penalties only apply when rolling Shoot or Brawl. Neither could be rolled during this scenario so this penalty can not apply.
I hope this helps.
HAVE FUN
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Anyway, just played the game with V and his 4 (soon 5) years old sister J, and it was... interesting. Also went better than I expected. I can't provide a full length battle report (since it took all my energy just to keep up with the kids), but here's a summary:
Set-up
First, I opened my bag of terrain and told them to set up a nice-looking jungle. While this created a rather lopsided battlefield (most of the LOS blocking terrain ended up in a corner), this was fun for them, and balance wasn't really a goal here. Interestingly, just as I was going to explain that some terrain was perilous, V began to declare that there was "traps" in the statue and the jungles. In other words, he had already started introducing the concept of perilous terrain before I had even told him it would be a thing in the game, because he expected there to be dangerous places in a jungle adventure. This made it very easy to explain Perilous Terrain, and decide where it was (around the statue, on the ruin floor, in the crocodile filled water, under the hut and near a spiky plant.
I kept army building as simple as I could: everyone got to choose three models each, and decide which of them would be the Leader, the sidekick and the Ally. I took the advice to keep stats simple, so the Leader had 3d10 in everything, sidekicks rolled 3d8 etc.
They also decided to name their characters and leagues before I had to ask them to. Adults players I've met usually find naming characters a chore, so that's an interesting difference right there.
The rules were slimmed down a lot (movement was handled loosely, and we skipped modifiers), but V wanted to do stuff like flying and "special sources of power" (power-ups, basically). So I'll try introducing the cards next time.
Things that went well:
They grasped some parts better than adult players do. When V's Leader got attacked, he declared that he wanted to jump away, which was easy to represent with a dodge move. Meanwhile, I've played with veteran wargamers who just can't wrap their heads around dodging.
And while I handled the math parts, they both quickly grasped concepts like characters rolling smaller dice when they get hurt or both fighters hitting each other at the same time, and nobody ever complained about the outcome. Overall, the fact that they had never played a game like this before actually helped a lot, since they had fewer preconceived ideas than adult players.
Things that caused problems:
Initiative was very confusing to them, and caused some angry complaints. For example, J would have the initiative for a while, and V would become impatient that it didn't become his turn to direct. And when J eventually lost the initiative, she got confused and upset that it suddenly wasn't her job to direct. It felt random and unfair to them, and bogged down an otherwise very fast game.
It didn't help that since I handled matching, I couldn't really explain what a clear victory is.
Note that the initiative system has baffled many adults I've played with too. Sure, part of it is that it's different than the normal turn system, but it's honesty one of the least intuitive parts of the Pulp Alley rules.
So the next time I'm playing with kids, I'm replacing it with a more traditional system where we take turns.
Overall, it went very well. We went on for one and a half hour before I decided that it was time to stop, but they wanted to keep going. My sister was amazed, because neither of them have ever been able to sit and concentrate on something like this for this long.
It's now 02:25 in the morning, so more details will follow later.
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Short Answer = No
Long Answer =
1. For this scenario, because it is intended to be occurring at some sort of important social affair (wedding, party, opening night, political event, business meeting, and so on) - running was prohibited. You can't run, so the penalty can not apply.
2. The "social jousting" can only occur when you are in base-to-base contact with an enemy, so range modifiers can not apply.
3. Multiple combats penalties only apply when rolling Shoot or Brawl. Neither could be rolled during this scenario so this penalty can not apply.
I hope this helps.
HAVE FUN
Thank you for being helpful and polite, unlike certain others here.
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Cool stuff. THANKS for posting the pic. And it is always nice to see what other players think of our rules.
As always, we strongly encourage players to change the things they don’t like. A traditional my-turn/your-turn sequence may work better for you guys.
When we designed Pulp Alley, we really designed it for the way we enjoy playing. Because we really play. A LOT! lol
We wanted the Initiative to be engaging and meaningful. We wanted it to be more like initiative in the real world, rather than a child’s boardgame. We wanted it to be based off of events occurring in the course of the game, rather than some arbitrary die-roll or predictable I-Go/You-Go sort of action.
Anyhoo, that’s a few reasons why we like the Pulp Alley Initiative system the way it is.
I’m so glad to see y’all playing and having fun. THAT’S what matters. ;)
HAVE FUN
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I'm not saying the initiative system is necessarily bad, but it confused the children. Part of this is that one of the few preconceptions they had was that when you play games, you take turns. And keep in mind, I handled the dice matching, so from their point of view it was completely arbitrary if they got the initiative after winning a fight or not.
Another issue that I had with both them and adult newcomers is that to a beginner, it's hard to really see the point to it. It just appears unnecessarily complicated to them, especially next to how intuitive the rest of the game is.
They usually get it after a while, just saying it's a very common first impression in my experience. I also should have used a hat or something to mark who has the initiative.
Another thing about the initiative system that slowed us down was that we were three players, so an element of "pick me! Pick me! Why didn't you pick me!?" appeared.
J tried to solve this by inventing her own house rules on the spot.
When it was her time to direct, she would pick up a random die and declare something along the lines of
"I'm gonna roll this, and if it becomes a... four, V moves. And if it's any other number, Bugpope moves." and it would be different numbers every time.
It was adorable, but really slowed things down.
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I'm not saying the initiative system is necessarily bad, but it confused the children. Part of this is that one of the few preconceptions they had was that when you play games, you take turns. And keep in mind, I handled the dice matching, so from their point of view it was completely arbitrary if they got the initiative after winning a fight or not.
Another issue that I had with both them and adult newcomers is that to a beginner, it's hard to really see the point to it. It just appears unnecessarily complicated to them, especially next to how intuitive the rest of the game is.
They usually get it after a while, just saying it's a very common first impression in my experience. I also should have used a hat or something to mark who has the initiative.
Another thing about the initiative system that slowed us down was that we were three players, so an element of "pick me! Pick me! Why didn't you pick me!?" appeared.
J tried to solve this by inventing her own house rules on the spot.
When it was her time to direct, she would pick up a random die and declare something along the lines of
"I'm gonna roll this, and if it becomes a... four, V moves. And if it's any other number, Bugpope moves." and it would be different numbers every time.
It was adorable, but really slowed things down.
All very helpful, thanks all. I have a seven year old and a five year old, so I will get around to playing with them some time. Good ideas and helpful guidance. Food for thought.
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All very helpful, thanks all. I have a seven year old and a five year old, so I will get around to playing with them some time. Good ideas and helpful guidance. Food for thought.
If they're anything like V and J, they'll do great. I'm going to test the game on another nephew of about the same age later, but this far Pulp Alley seems to work well with kids. The most important thing is to just jump in and play, rather than trying to explain the rules beforehand, or bother them with memorizing modifiers and exact stats.
Here's a paraphrased example of how we handled combat:
Me: "My rock monster moves out of the jungle and attacks Tarzan."
J: "Tarzan cuts it with his knife!"
Me: "Okay, roll these dice."
[Tarzan gets 2 hits, the rock monster gets 3]
Me: "Okay J, you decide: should both Tarzan and the rock monster get hit a lot, or should Tarzan defend and get just a little bit hit instead?"
J: "Hm... I want Tarzan to defend."
[I match two of my dice with two of hers, leaving one hit on Tarzan]
Me: "Okay, roll this [health] die."
J: "I got a two."
[I mark one damage on a paper]
Me: "Tarzan got tired from wrestling with the rock monster, so he won't fight as well for a while. He might feel better soon, though. You can move one of your figures now."
J: "Okay. I'm moving Monkey Boy to go help him."
Note that in the above example, I technically broke the matching rules quite a bit (according to the rules, it would be up to me how the dice were matched, but it's more fun for them if they get to decide. And I kinda forgot, honestly) and I didn't really factor in the rule about dice having to be equal or higher than the ones you match them with. But we had fun, so no problem.
Also note that J decided she wanted to have Tarzan as her leader even before she saw that I had a model of him. Can't have a jungle adventure without Tarzan, after all (I think she's seen the animated Disney version). V kept calling him Zlatan, as in the Swedish football player.
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that's a really great summary on how to use narrative to describe the actions instead of using game mechanic terms - i'll have to remember that.
you didn't just say Zlatan as a leader of a pulp alley league did you? because now that's given me a really crazy idea. globe trotting soccer players working for undercover spy organization. hey it happened - the US did it in wwII with baseball.
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Just had Experiment #2. This time with my older brother kids : L (boy, about 7 years) and N (girl, about 5. Yes, about the same age and order as their cousins).
When he saw the game I did earlier in the summer, my brother was interested in seeing my terrain and models (he used to paint a long time ago).
However, when I started unpacking the stuff he told me to not actually play the game, I would just show the models to the children and maybe let them set up some terrain.
Now, I'm not really sure why he didn't want us to play, but it was pretty close to their bedtime, so it's understandable that he didn't want me to start something when there's little time, and the kids were tired.
I also think he might think that the rules would be too complicated, despite it evidently working well with their cousins. Who knows.
Anyway, we set up terrain and look at some of my models, and my brother goes for a walk, leaving me (and their grandma, as support) with the kids for half an hour.
L and N were content at with just looking and moving models around for about five minutes, but then they ask me to teach them how to play.
20 minutes to teach Pulp Alley to children who have never played a miniature game? I can do that.
Similar setup and rules as before, but even simpler:
Everyone pics a model they like, that's your entire league. Everyone roll 3d10 for everything, unless they get hurt.
Penalties are ignored, and no players have cards. Perilous Terrain is Extremely Perilous. There are a bunch if plot points on the table, go get them.
Note: as an experiment, and to save precious time, I replaced the initiative rules with a simpler "take turns clockwise" system, and it went a lot quicker.
Again, I'm not saying the initiative rules are awful and should be removed, I'm just noting that in my experience, it's really more trouble than it's worth, especially with beginners, and when I don't have time for mistakes or explaining to the kids that it's not as unfair as it feels when you're five years old and suddenly it's not your job to decide who goes first anymore.
Also, initiative becomes a lot less important when everyone have a single model.
Interestingly, I observed some things that were very similar to the earlier game, while other things were a bit different:
Again, children get the idea of perilous terrain immediately, and when it came to declare where the Perils were, they picked pretty much the same as their cousins (if there's any water anywhere in a jungle, of course it's gonna be full of crocodiles. Duh. And ancient tiled floors are always booby-trapped.
It took about two seconds for them to understand what a hit is (and that the number of hits is much more important than getting high numbers on the dice), despite never having played a game like this. I still handled the matching, but they never got confused by it, and understood how challenges work.
Shifting down due to wounds also seemed to be very intuitive to them. I handled the bookkeeping for that, but they seemed to get why a tired or hurt model rolls smaller dice. Things are harder to do when you're hurt, that's just common sense.
The biggest difference was that L and N were a lot less interested in the storytelling aspect of the game. They didn't want to name their models or come up with backstories and narration like their cousins did, but I chalk that up to difference in personality, and the fact that they don't know me that well. And L and N are Germans, raised on super abstract German board games, which might also have something to do with it.
They seemed to have fun anyway though, and it went much, much quicker when we didn't have to pause the game to describe a cool flip or listen to a model's backstory.
Long story short, we had to strip down the game to the bare bones to fit it into twenty minutes, but it went well. My brother was surprised.
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Very cool. THANKS for sharing. :-*
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Forgot to mention: the day after that game, it was too rainy to play outside, so L, N and I played a full six turn game.
Same simplified rules but with two changes:
Leagues consist of a Leader and two Sidekicks.
L picked the two biggest monsters he could find, N picked three of the Lucid Eye Simians (they're very popular with young girls, apparently). I picked "Teddy" (Roosevelt) and some other white explorers.
I also let them pick the Plot Points, and the main Plot Point was a cat stuck in a tree.
Instead of Extremely Perilous terrain, we used the cards. However, the cards could only be used as Perils, not to get bonuses.
This turned out better than expected: the kids took great delight in playing perils on me and each other (to make it easier for them, I made sure to announce when they had an opportunity to do so, like when a model went into terrain or went for a Plot Point). They also didn't take it personal, which was good.
So I'm definitely using the cards next time I play simplified Pulp Alley, but I'll reduce the starting hand to one or two. Three cards was too many, since when you only use them for perils, it's really hard to run out of cards.
CAUTION: Before playing with children, put your cards into sleeves!
Long story short, they did great, and we were all impressed that we managed to play for one and a half hour. N got bored and dropped out by turn 3 (but she does that with all games), so I withdrew my League and took over for her.
She still had fun: she later said that playing games (Pulp Alley) with her uncle was her favorite part of her vacation. And I don't think you can get a better review than that, Phipps.
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... she later said that playing games (Pulp Alley) with her uncle was her favorite part of her vacation. And I don't think you can get a better review than that, Phipps.
Indeed! THANKS so much for sharing. :D
Your use of cards was quite clever as well. Well done!
HAVE FUN