I saw the Kickstarter for Knave 2nd edition and backed that, but I think that is a ways out yet. I don’t have the 1st edition yet though. I didn’t realize it was created with grade school kids in mind, that’s pretty sweet! It was certainly already a contender, but I didn’t realize how big of a heavy hitter it was likely to be here.

I’ve heard of Fiasco, and am interested in it, but I hadn’t seen any way of increasing the player counts and wasn’t sure how well it handled 6+ people, since it describes itself as only up to 5. That was the biggest reason I haven’t gotten it yet, my gaming group is 6 people, and my family is 6 people now as well. Do you have experience with it, and are there ways to make it work with additional people?

I was definitely planning on something PbtA. I’ve already got Avatar: Legends, Masks, Dungeon World, and Monster of the Week. And I either already have them in print or I’m waiting on a delivery or a Kickstarter to get them in. I’ve not gotten to actually play one yet, but I know several people itching to try Avatar so I’m just waiting on the opportunity there.

My idea for an initial system was Heroic Tales which is quite rules lite at three pages for the entire system, including generators, and play tips! The PDF hits six pages via a cover page and two pages of blank character sheets… I’ve been having a lot of fun playing it online the last several months.

Before discovering Heroic Tales my favorite system had rapidly become the TinyD6 line from Gallant Knight Games and I still enjoy playing it quite a bit, and was planning on making it one of the offerings as well. It has a section on doing ranges for combats in theater of the mind that I have used with several groups and enjoyed. It also has quite a bit of different genres to play with as options and I’ve gotten most of them in print by now.

I was also considering throwing in a level zero funnel from Dungeon Crawl Classics, in part because the dice chain seems like a really neat concept, and the spell tables seem like a delightful way of handling getting more powerful as a mage over time.

I also have found I very much prefer less crunch in my games, but I know a lot of the teens hear “D&D” and want to actually play that as well. So I figure I’ll include it, but way at the end after they’ve gotten to try lots of other things. Hopefully I can help them learn many of the main mechanics and decision making skills before then so that all the rules don’t bog everything down too much!

Have you much experience playing with teens? Any things of note to make sure to mention we’ll be avoiding in a Session Zero? I really only have experience with my 12 year old in that regard, and am only just now getting to spend time around more teens due to involvement with her.

I’ve been playing a fair amount of Heroic Tales lately, and it has a Solo section and is available for free. It’s a D6 dice pool system with two “kinds” of dice. You can have 1, 2, or 3 Check Dice (success is if any of them roll a 5 or a 6) then your character can get up to 6 Skill Dice (success if it rolls a 6) for a roll based on stats or gear. The difficulty of what you’re attempting determines how many total successes you need from a roll. It also has a failing forward option where there can be partial or mixed successes, where you get some or all of what you wanted, but something goes wrong as well.

I’ve also heard a lot of people grab Iron Sworn and use the solo tables as the oracle to run any system in general solo!

I’ve never been diagnosed with anything, but I strongly suspect I’ve got ADHD, so perhaps at least a similar head space as where you’re coming from. My main drives have often been solving problems, troubleshooting, creativity, variability from day.

There are options for programming that aren’t web pages. If you find a company that makes a software application rather than a website or a web service, there would be easier to find options there. Several things in private sector as well as in government if you’re close enough to a government site for that to be an option.

How are you with hardware? You could do stuff a bit closer to hardware potentially, like firmware development. Also an option could be QA for a company that makes hardware. I spent almost 7 years in “Operations” at a company that made hardware and software. I helped write functional tests that tested new hardware as it came off the assembly line, I inspected returned hardware to identify the failure (or if it was user error). I was a little linux sysadmin and managed my own VLAN off the main corporate network. The task needed had TONS of variability, and lots of problem solving, which very much helped me last as long in that job as I did. I can do hyperfocus on things I enjoy, but stuff I don’t enjoy is incredibly difficult to even get started in. Doing the “same thing” day after day gets old and becomes difficult. But if I’m doing one thing half of one day and then switching after lunch to something else, then spending a couple days fiddling with a functional test, then finish off the week by troubleshooting returned equipment. That kept me occupied and engaged for years! I don’t know that I would do as well in pure QA, but a smaller company where it required wearing multiple “hats” in just the one position offered the variability that kept me engaged.

I finally left there for better pay doing embedded firmware development for a primarily hardware company in the IT space. I enjoyed that a lot, but they didn’t quite come up to the amount I asked for, and had to leave to better support my family. So now I’m doing a bit of government contracting type stuff. But I wouldn’t have been able to get this particular position without all the prior software experience I had. They’re currently open for people with less experience now though, so it would be an easier time to get on board at many places.

So you could also consider things that have the ability to be programmer adjacent. They have programming bits, but it might not be the sole focus of the position. IT, Sysadmin, Tech Support, QA, Engineering, just to name a few potential options.

I can do short bursts of web backend stuff, but web service and DB stuff just wears me out faster than almost anything else I’ve tried so far. I’ve never made a “portfolio” myself, but I also have been avoiding the web sector of programming, which is where that seems more beneficial. So it might just be that you need to shift directions out of web services and web sites for a bit to see if you have any better luck?

Hopefully this helps a bit with ideas at least!

hah, yep. Very much sounds similar.

It was a bit disheartening that when my eldest was diagnosed with dyscalculia, they were just like: It sounds like you’ve already taught her some workarounds for it, and that’s basically all you can do. It’s not as well understood yet, so we don’t really know what else to do to help still. The linked article kind of implies there something for young enough children, but doesn’t go into details at all. The clinic we saw though, just makes it sound like those one on one treatments are just learning these workarounds…

I’ve never been diagnosed with anything myself, but hearing all the things that were pointed out as symptoms for my child, and it’s all the same stuff I did/do… I imagine I probably could get diagnosed, but I don’t think it would help with anything at this point.

No official diagnosis, but I’m pretty sure I have it. My eldest was actually diagnosed with it recently though.

I’ve learned some shortcuts that let me do math in my head, albeit incredibly slowly as compared to others. If I’m at a computer then I just use that for math instead though whenever possible. It wasn’t until I took calculus that I really became able to do any of the basic math operations in my head as anything beyond memorization though. I have to break up the simplest of math problems into an algebra equation to solve it, and doing that just takes time.

I only wear an analog wristwatch now, because I’ve realized if I go about a week without having to read an analog clock face, I have to re-learn how to read it. It’s never a quick glance and know the time though. The hour hand close to the next hour throws me off about 100% of the time.

I also just can’t track the month and day of the month in my head. Tracking the day of the week works fine, but the date doesn’t just update for me. I have to look up what the current date is and then just remember it as best I can for the rest of that day. If you ask me on the following day what the date is, I will just give back the prior date unless I’ve looked it up again though.

I’m also hopeless with directional navigation. North, South, East, West? I’ve memorized the directions some roads run in, but it’s taken me years to have any chance at all of going the correct direction on the road without* GPS navigation running.

I also recently learned about hyperlexia, and I suspect I have that as well. Super great at reading/literature stuff. Super bad at math. Everyone flabbergasted. heh.

Edit: fixed mention of GPS navigation to correctly reflect that I can’t drive much without it running.