This blog is part of my summer camp series as a tribute to the 10 wonderful summers Fairview Lake provided me with. What I wanted to focus on here is RPG, or role playing games, a staple activity. I'll briefly describe the activity and then explain how I learned to run it effectively this past summer.
Table Of Contents
RPG is camp's take on Dungeons and Dragons. RPG is played outdoors around a picnic table, but without the elaborate basement setup seen in the movies. Dungeons and Dragons was simplified to fit the 1 hour a day / 5-6 days a week format of camp, and to accommodate younger audiences. It was run for a long time by Paul Russel, an FVL legend and fantasy author. Andrew Izzo, a true chaos god if there ever was one, ran it for a brief summer. Stefan Jandura, another bearded fantasy savant, took over when Paul left summer camp. In the summer of 2019, a rotating cast of counselors tried to fill the shoes left behind by these pioneers of geek culture at camp.
Because there was no official activity leader for RPG this past summer, the program director's plan was to put counselors in RPG who he thought might enjoy it. For that reason I ended up working it almost every single week (including specialty). As the senior-most counselor in RPG, I was in the unique position of being an unofficial authority figure on how the activity should proceed. This is because historically RPG was a one-man show, a cult magic. Campers and staff (including myself) expected one Super Geek to run the whole entire thing. This kind of unofficial authority (inherent to summer camp), coupled with my consistent assignment to the activity, allowed me to experiment with the way things were run.
On the first day, explain the rules of RPG. Give an example of what a typical turn looks like. Then have the campers choose a theme. Finally, go around in turn order making characters. Counselors write down character stats. Finally, the DM gives a detailed exposition to set the scene for the campers. All the other days of the week would begin with a recap of the previous day's happenings. At the end of each period, a new thing would be foreshadowed for tomorrow to get everyone excited and make them feel like the plot is progressing even if nothing much gets accomplished. All the time in the middle of each period is spent taking turns in a circle. If the DM can't remember who went last yesterday, whichever camper rolls the highest gets to go first.
On the first two days, every turn consists of a perception and an action. The order of the two doesn't matter, and both are optional. However, it is the DM's job to discourage campers from doing nothing on their turn (no action nor perception). A perception roll lets the camper ask a question using any of their five (or more if their abilities specify it) senses. The clarity of the DM's answer to the question depends on how high the roll is. Keep in mind that young kids don't know how to formulate good questions in their heads and sometimes the perception might sound like an action (eg: "I want to look around for the nearest water" or "I want to listen for footsteps"). It's ok if a camper does this, so long as the perception does nothing more than give them information. The purpose of the perception roll is to help the campers understand the world around them and make sure they all have the same mental image of their surroundings. Some kids learn better by asking questions and exploring rather than listening to the DM's exposition. After the first two days, perception rolls aren't necessary and some campaigns work better to ban them earlier than that even.
Based on 7 weeks of collected data, I give you the following statistic. For a typical campaign, where each turn is 1 simple action, it takes about 10 minutes to get through 6 campers' turns. It is important to keep track of the time, because no camper wants to wait longer than they have to for their turn to come around. This could mean breaking a group of 12 campers into 2 separate campaigns on the first day, or it could mean that the DM takes executive action to accelerate people's turns if campers are taking too long (more on this later).
Some campaigns are structured around a single "bad guy." The best day to fight the bad guy is the last day of the week, but the DM should introduce the bad guy's character before the last day.
Other campaigns are structured around some goal, such as a prison break. The fate of the party should be determined on the last day of the week, but tricking them into thinking they succeeded before the last day is a cool trick too.
Sometimes campers decide to splinter off from the rest of the party. This could be because they don't like working in teams or don't understand how to work in teams in an imaginary setting. In rare cases, they have a completely different goal than everyone else. More often, there are pirates that want all the treasure that the rest of the party is looking for all to themselves. All of these situations are ok if the DM feels comfortable managing divergent story lines. Ideally, all of these story lines can be woven back together by the end of the week.
The DM's main job is to provide order to an otherwise extremely creative and hands-off activity.
coming soon
About 8 campers became magical creatures imprisoned in a huge prison complex run by Orks. Their job was to break free.
In the far far future when Earth is ravaged by climate change, mutants reign supreme. They are called Outlanders. The last surviving humans live under air conditioned domes the size of cities. These domes are managed by Dome Corp. The corporate executives, who are partially responsible for destroying the ozone layer, rule over the humans. (Their logic: if you destroy the ozone layer, everyone has to pay $$$ to live under your dome). The borders of the domes are heavily guarded against invading hordes of mutants. Campers got to decide whether they wanted to be Outlanders or employees of Dome Corp.
On the first day, it was revealed that Dome Corp