More Roleplaying with Middle-Schoolers

It’s always wonderful to see what young players come up with.

As I often find, first characters are usually based on favorite characters from other properties. Typically they have little more than the serial numbers filed off, and then they’re off on adventures. I myself and almost all of my gaming friends have been guilty of this, and I consider it to be one of the Great Unspoken Traditions of tabletop gaming.

This year, running adventures in the same world as last year for the Middle School kids has yielded some fascinating results. Perhaps most fascinating for me was the fact that no less than two different kids made their new characters be directly descended from their previous character, and another player is simply playing their old character again.

I love the fact that several players feel the desire to make a connection with the…