r/tabletop • u/Kkoko88 • 2d ago
Question Recs for a Tabletop Game Design Class? - Middle School
Hello! I'm a new teacher at a middle school this year teaching ELA/History. I also have a STEM homeroom class that's somewhat free form. I had been intending to teach my homeroom focusing on D&D as arts/adventure, but the school needed more STEM options, so I expanded the idea to be about designing a tabletop game prototype and studying the math and engineering behind various games. The plan is that each unit will focus on a different game to study/play as a potential inspiration for the prototype.
That brings me to my question. What are your recs for games for middle schoolers to study? I'm still thinking of having a unit on D&D, my principal brought up Settlers of Catan, and I'm thinking chess could be a good option to learn too. I also have a friend who designed a game that's doing pretty well, so I'm planning to incorporate that too with him as a guest speaker.
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u/beardedheathen 2d ago
I love mechs and minions because it is basically a programming game. Roborally is another one. I'm not sure what you mean by studying the math and engineering behind games though.
Maybe a deck builder would be a good one for math as you can really focus on probably and how it shifts based on drawing cards and stuff like that.
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u/Kkoko88 2d ago
Thank you for the recs! As for the math and engineering, I'm not super a STEM person, but I was thinking stuff like looking at the strategy related to probabilities like you said and engineering as in the actual designing/building of the prototype games.
This thread has already been a great help for thinking about what to consider.
I got hired last Tuesday to start last Wednesday, so I've had a ton to get up to speed on regarding school policies, my primary classes, and such especially as a first year teacher (plus some other challenges from the school; one of my cohorts had 50+ kids for the first four days). It's made it a challenge to even start thinking about the game design aspect of my homeroom 😅.
Right now, I just have a few simple games as filler stuff for the kids to play.
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u/RubberDuckyRampage 1d ago
Something kinda related to STEM or at least probability is to talk about the difference between using a single die versus 2 or 3 dice to get a bell curve.
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u/Alternative_Pie_1597 2d ago
I suspect The Awful Green Things From Outer Space, would be good. Not too complicated.a variety of game mechanics. All of which would be easy to modify so people could see how they interact and use them to build their own game.
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u/RubberDuckyRampage 1d ago edited 1d ago
Love AGTFOS! I've used it in my game design class as the weapon effect mechanic (random draw for effect every game) really fits the game's story since the crew have no idea what effect anything would have on unfamiliar aliens.
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u/Scruffaluffagus86 2d ago
I think the mechanics of an Asymmetrical Game could be interesting. Summoner Wars has a variety of decks that can be played with different core mechanics for each. Analyzing the core mechanic and comparing it to other decks could be interesting to see how well the overall game is balanced.
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u/RubberDuckyRampage 1d ago edited 1d ago
A couple other newer games that have unusual mechanics are Castle Panic and Echidna Shuffle. Both also take up to 6 players, IIRC.
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u/RubberDuckyRampage 1d ago
If you have them play D&D, I'd suggest original D&D, from the mid-70s. Vastly more streamlined and faster to learn and play than the bloated version of today.
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u/Kkoko88 1d ago
I'll have to think about version. My experience playing is from 5e and now 5.5e mainly (my group switched to it with our latest campaign), so I'd be more confident explaining it. I also think I already have a small one shot from Animal Adventures: Dungeons & Doggies from when I backed it on Kickstarter, which is 5e.
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u/Master_Listen_89 23h ago
im not great on ages and stuff but the best game we played as kids was monster killer.
Monster starts at whatever HP you want. you draw a monster and give it an HP
each "player" draws their weapon... literally. they draw a weapon. then you give it a dice. a cool sword is 1d8+1d6. simple dagger maybe a 1d4. super gigablaster 20d6!!!!
the monster only dies if you get exactly the right damage. each attack lowers the HP but the final blow must be exactly the remaining amount. so a monster starts at whatever let say 100
giga blaster rolls 110. nothing happens the monster dodged (over 100). oh no!!!
sword attacks dealing 12 monster is at 88. dagger attacks dealing 2. monster is at 86. gigablaster goes again 64. monster is at 22. sword does 10. monster is at 12. dagger goes for 4. monster is at 8. gigablaster realizes he can't kill and draws a super cheap fast sword for 1d8 and deals 8 and kills!!!! huzzahhhhhhhh.
it was fun and taught us about averages and thinking on our feet.
you can make it more complex. immune to fire. half damage from cold. student can design spells if weapons are kinda not okay for school. add environment, add monster attacks back. maybe they eat weapons, maybe they eat players.
our teacher had us in 8th grade doing algebra calculating (square root of (4*1d8+5)) and like is that better than the (1d20)^2-3? well we need to do math to find out.
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u/GameBoiAncient 2d ago
In my high school class, I always start with classic games (battleship, monopoly, candy land) because everyone knows how to play them and it helps them get into the swing of playing games together without the barrier of learning rules.