Jig

Wolf Manor

aaaaaand, now everybody is. Thanks for that. Barf.

Wolf Manor

I'm trying to make a joke that isn't puerile, but there isn't one.

_{Hehehehehe poo flying at high speed}

Wolf Manor

Heck, my dad and I do that sort of thing already when we shoot the shit

@AuntFlavia

What crazy lives you live in the US.

Wolf Manor

@Jig Aww, I was hoping it would be more aimed towards teens or something. Curses. I was thinking of watching Sliders tonight though, since I've never seen it.

@AuntFlavia

I think Mona's supposed to be 10ish, so I'm assuming the intended audience is like 8-12 y/o.

Wolf Manor

Since it's kids, who presumably kind of get their inspiration from an amalgam of not-well-understood media, maybe you could kinda run it as a parody game, using the kids' naivety to make meta-commentary and shizz? But then, that might be my penchant for trying to include as many irrelevant asides in games I'm in as possible, just to amuse myself.

Wolf Manor

That sounds kind of amazing and how did you know I wanted to watch something after warming up my vaporizer when I got home what the hell you mind reader

@AuntFlavia

It's very much a kids' tv show tbh, standard two-shorts format. Would only recommend as research (and it seems bang-on the money for what you're going for tbh) or with the addition of chemical fun-upgraders of one variety or other. I just watched an episode and, apart from now being able to just about distinguish a Canadian accent (as opposed to generic American-sounding) and a bit of nostalgia, I didn't get much from it.

When was it made?

'90s I guess.

Wolf Manor

Mona the vampire was a Canadian kids tv show featuring three normal kids who would basically decide whenever they saw something weird or somebody was mean to them or the universe wasn't bending to their kiddy wills, that it was secretly a monster of some kind in disguise as a human. They all had like monster-battling personae, Vampire (featuring weird braids and vampire teeth), Princess Giant (had high heels and a mop wig) and Zapman (a sort of... superhero alien with antennae), and each episode would kind of have artshifts (depending on the typical genre of the monster of the week) to indicate when it was being seen from their perspective, and when it was normal shit as viewed by a less imaginative person.

So, like, an ordinary episode would feature, say, a new weird kid comes to school and Mona decides that because they're not friendly, they're actually a demon goblin goldfish (legit kind of Mona the Vampire monster, not me being ridiculous) and whenever they were chastised for dressing up and pretending to shoot lightning bolts at them (yes, vampires shoot lightning bolts according to Mona) it was because all the adults were under the demon goblin goldfish's spell.

Have a joint and dig an episode out on Youtube. I bet it'd be great.

It's totally on Youtube.

Wolf Manor

Mona the Vampire-styley?

And yeah, I'm afraid I'm in the 'has a limited range' category. There's a really useful guide on writing as kids in the guide section, though, which might be worth referring to if your idea hits the light of day and also maybe even linking to.

Wolf Manor

Tbh, there's also a butt-tonne of luck. With this game, if anybody had had permanent IRL stuff to deal with and had to drop out permanently, we'd probably manage to recover, but the dynamic would be totally different. If I hadn't previously played with any one of you, there would be a complete wild-card in the group, which in larger games which can more easily accept a drop-out is fine, but in this wouldn't be. Essentially, a GM is only as good as their players allow them to be - and vice versa.

Something to think about is whether you as the GM want to participate in the plot personally. In this, 'my' characters are very much plot devices/NPC's, in the sense that, while one or more of them may or may not play a directly antagonistic role, they also facilitate whatever personal exposition you guys want to achieve.

I also recommend, when asking players what they want, especially if you don't know them well personally, is to primarily give them two or three options and invite suggestions as an extra. It stops players from being cowed by having to take responsibility for a bad idea, because all they have to do is lend support to their preference.

What've you got in mind, anyway?

Wolf Manor

Encourage all the schmoozing you can from your players. :3

1) Know your players. Small groups containing precisely zero dickheads are pretty easy to manage.
2) Keep secrets. You can always fix inconsistencies later if nobody knows they're there... ^^
3) Make sure that everybody is engaged in at least one strand of plot at most times
4) Allow players to approach the game from whatever angle they want to come at it from

I think that's basically what I'm doing in Wolf that's working well.

Edit:

+5) Active OoC participation. The reason that I think this game is working is because you guys like it (hopefully :3), and if that's right, it's because I'm paying attention to the OoC and directly asking people what they want from this - whether they want to slow down or boom ahead.