This morning, I’m writing an important piece on creating characters for Troublemakers and I want to make sure I’ve got the tone & message right.
Off the Record
There are a number of things you might expect to be required to state about your character, or assumptions you might make about them that you feel need never be voiced, but above all you should just play your kid as a kid. None of the following are required attributes for any kid when creating them, but if you are going to state them definitively, you are encouraged to think carefully about your choices.
Age: This is a game of kids vs. the rest of the world, so there’s little if any need to pin down the exact ages of any of the kids. There’s probably one who is the youngest (The Shrimp) and one who is the oldest (The Mountain or The Sitter) but beyond that, the only reason to specify the any kid’s age is if it’s crucial to the character you want to play; for example, The Devil works well as part of a coming-of-age story arc, with the character testing the boundaries between being a kid and an adult; or The Crush can be one half of pre-romantic storyline, where adolescents discover a new depth of feeling for each other and build up to their first kiss.
Gender: Parents and other adults often assume gender roles for children and mould them to fit their preconceptions, but the toys children love the most, and the way they dress, are separate from their biological identity. It’s almost inevitable that gender pronouns will be used in your game, but don’t assume that the kids identify with any particular gender: feel free to play a boy who likes sewing and collects toy ponies, a girl who goes rock-climbing and loves tinkering with engines or any and every combination of those.
Ethnicity: Again, kids only see skin-colour when the adults around them draw attention to the differences; a suggestion of different ethnic origins can be subtly inserted into the game through the use of names & favourite foods for the kids, but take a free-for-all, mix-&-match attitude to them as with gender roles. If Patrick’s favourite food is sushi and Sunil can’t get enough of mac & cheese, you’re just being true to the basic premise of the game, that kids are kids and don’t think twice about these differences when they’re playing together.
Ability: No-one should cease to be a viable choice as a character just because they wear glasses, sit in a wheelchair, use an inhaler, have a hearing aid or need to visit the hospital for regular treatments for a condition. As with the subject of age, feel free to make the child’s capabilities & well-being part of the story you want to tell, but don’t assume that changes how the mechanics work for them or even how the character feels inside. The only playbook which has a significantly different internal life is The Dog and that’s solely because they are a pet rather than a human being: the issue most commonly faced by children with physical or mental disabilities is the attitude of adults who assume they won’t be able to cope with or understand certain things, so don’t make that mistake when playing a character with these traits. The golden rule is always that kids will be kids.
Anything that should be added, changed or removed from that?
Also this:
Prosperity: We assume the kids in the game have a supportive family that can afford to feed & clothe them adequately (in fact The Brat has more than that and is markedly over-privileged in direct comparison to the other kids) but there is a lot of story potential in playing against these assumptions. If your parents are rich, famous & powerful, but you have the same allowance and toys as all the other kids, does that mean that your parents neglect you? Or that you reject their privilege in order to be more like your friends? At the other end of the scale, if your family is barely supporting itself on the welfare they receive, then where did you get your favourite toy from? Is it a beloved hand-me-down or a gift from a compassionate neighbour? What do either of these backgrounds say about your favourite food, your allowance and your chores? As with other choices, none of this should change how the mechanics of the game work for your kid, but the story options open to them will be refreshingly different from the expected.
Although I agree that kids are mostly non-racist, if you think about it, they’re very ageist. They’re much more conscious of small differences in age than adults are. Six and a quarter beats six. I don’t know if you want any sense of “pecking order”, but the one kids most naturally tend to form is based on age. For that reason I would propose that age is not only important, but it should be stated in both years and months.
The problem there is that it directly advantages your kid if they are ‘bigger’ than another kid, since you can pick on smallfry instead of picking a fight, so I don’t mind if any play group informally agrees on this pecking order, but I don’t want to codify it into the rules and make it a necessity.
This is so inspiring and important.
This game really sounds great.
Since your game uses siblings, I think it’s worthwhile to look at love/bullying dynamic.
Also, I’d love to know how to make the following Playbooks:
-The photographer/Detective (Who gets what they want through piles of evidence, even if it slows the group down)
-The Twin (played either singularly or jointly)
-The Underdog (Who strives and fails to compete with their Other, Off-Screen Sibling; perhaps this is the same space as the Shrimp)
And some look at how every child in America loves Minecraft now. The Gamer?
And let me know if you accept custom books since I’d be fine writing these up.
I can definitely imagine The Snoop fitting into the game and taking pictures everywhere; The Twin would also be a great concept, using moves on one playsheet to represent two similar but separate siblings (separate trouble scores?
I’m not sure what moves The Underdog or The Gamer would bring to the party: what would their practical advantages be, that would enable them to keep up with the other kids?
Custom playsheets are more than welcome and I’d love to see what you come up with. 🙂
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1po78KlTWv9RI-UvWhWN19DyZkaws2_5FbWpjYiIZITI/edit?usp=sharing
The Template.
The Snoop:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nv1aegfRAK2OA24sqAfM2oEpEgcF2E7rkYTRJNdquBE/edit?usp=sharing
I’ve posted some comments on The Snoop, where I’ve made some suggestions about the moves, but please take these with one caveat: just because I wrote the game doesn’t make me an expert on it! 😉