The Roleplay Workshop

November '03
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“Through Abantey I’ve gained confidence and teamwork skills, along with comfort in math, science, and critical thinking.” Alicia Otis-Levins

“Abantey is a safe space for young people to try things out and make mistakes without real world consequences” Anonymous Roleplay participant

Hello All!
(If you would like to be removed from this email list - please let me know!)

Welcome to the 3rd newsletter installment. I’m getting a lot of great feedback from parents about the newsletters. If there is something in particular you would like to see in these newsletters, please let me know. Also, if you have a friend who would like to receive the newsletter or know of a program parent who is not receiving it, have them send me an email and I’ll put them on the list for next month.

Finally, I’d like to introduce Liberty Winn, parent of participant Morgan Rain, as the editor of our newsletter.
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Liberty Winn On Board as Editor

Dear Abantey Parents,
Welcome to the newsletter designed to inform and communicate with you about this work that your children participate in. My daughter and her friends have been involved with Becky’s wonderful Roleplay program for 8 years running, and I have observed all of our children grow under Becky’s mentoring.

This newsletter will strive to provide information you wouldn’t get otherwise, such as the philosophy behind the workshop, as well as basic administrative information about schedule and enrollment.

I will be conducting a series of interviews with Becky to illustrate her approach, and will include some young people’s voices as well on the Roleplay methodology.

We welcome suggestions and appreciate your expertise – the more input from you - the better this newsletter will be.

Cheers!
Liberty Winn
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The Roleplay Workshop working with Piedmont Schools
The director of the Piedmont Schools Special Education Department, Dr. David Roth, has recruited Becky to run Abantey sessions for Piedmont Schools. Becky is running sessions after school on Mondays and Wednesdays for mixed groups of kids. Their first sessions were fantastic!

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Parent Questions/Discussion
Each month we will publish a question or topic for discussion from a parent. The contributors will remain anonymous, and we will try to get everyone’s question addressed – please email to becky@roleplay-workshop.com.

“Becky, the kids often talk about the fighting they do with other characters in the game, and how powerful they are – why the violence?”

Well, this is a difficult question to answer quickly. Certainly some the kids’ focus on the power of their characters has to do with young people psychologically working toward and looking for power in their lives. Another part of it also may have something to do with our culture’s obsession with power and dominance through fighting and conflict. Another part of it may be due to how TV, the media, books and movies all have a lot of ‘action’, violence and conflict, and how the strong tend to win. Additionally, many of the games kids play, now and in the past, have to do with violence and conflict: computer games and cowboys and Indians are great examples.

Why do kids talk about this in relation to Abantey?

This I can address more clearly. One of my biggest goals in working with kids using the Abantey game is to teach them to evaluate situations of all kinds, to be able to identify options for response and to make choices with the understanding that they are responsible for their choices. To do this, we often give the kids’ characters situations that have many possible solutions. We attempt to distinguish between action and violence, and most importantly, we teach that violent solutions are never the best answer. We ‘load’ the games so that if they choose a violent solution, they fail in one way or another.

Let me give you an example that illustrates action versus violence.
The characters are presented with the task of guarding wagon caravans against bandit attacks.

Their first task is to be prepared for possible attacks, to have their character be alert, establish watch schedules and make plans to protect the wagons.

If they do not prepare effectively, they are surprised by a bandit attack, which has several possible outcomes including the characters being unable to protect the wagons.

If they prepare effectively, they can take action before the attack happens, because they are aware of when the attack is coming. Their options include: 1) making a show of force enough to dissuade the attack; 2) initiating a dialog with the bandits; 3) using a type of mental power to stop, slow, misdirect the horses or the bandits themselves; 4) defending themselves and the wagons using non-lethal force; and lastly, 5) defending themselves and the wagons using deadly force. In all of those cases, the group can choose to 6) try to capture the bandits.

Note that all of the options (including deadly force) are action - not violence. A violent solution (which some groups have chosen), would be for the party to 7) chase the bandits away, and then hunt them down and brutally murder them, even if they offer no resistance. There are many other things the players could choose to do - they often surprise us!

For each of these options, we have a different possible results.

1) The bandits don’t attack. But now, the party must look at the greater picture - what about other wagons? How are they going to be protected from attack?

2) The dialog would lead to discovering the bandit’s motives. We would see if the kids could come up with alternatives for the bandits. For older groups, we might present a moral dilemma, perhaps the bandits are being forced to do this through circumstance: they are outcast, or being threatened by a greater power or simply have no understanding of other ways to do things.

3) Their method would work for the current attack, but they would then need to consider the greater picture.

4) They would successfully repel the attack, but would then need to think about the greater picture.

5) They would stop the attack, but may gain personal enemies - any surviving bandits. Additionally, they (if older) would discover the circumstance of the bandits and have to deal with it.

6) If they captured the bandits or the bandit leader they would be rewarded by the Teamster’s and Guard’s Guilds.

7) If they chose this, they would discover the tragic circumstances for the bandit’s behavior and have to deal with, perhaps, supporting a group of starving children, or the families of the bandits they killed, as well as gaining a reputation for violence which will affect how their characters are treated and what sorts of jobs are available for them.
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Upcoming Holiday Sessions November

If you are interested in any holiday sessions, please call or email Becky as soon as possible.

Tuesday November 11.
We have only one student signed up for this session. We need at least 3 more students to hold the session. The deadline for enrollment is Saturday, November 8th, after that if enrollment is not 4, we will have to cancel the session.

Friday November 28.
We have two students signed up for this session. We need at least 2 more students to hold the session. We have 10 total spaces available. Deadline for enrollment is Saturday, November 22nd.

Monday November 24 through Friday November 28.
I have had a few parents inquire about holiday sessions during this week. Several schools are on vacation for the full Thanksgiving week. It may be possible to have sessions on these dates, however, I need to hear from interested parents by no later than 11/10 so that I can arrange staffing.
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Session Summaries
The continuing saga of each day’s adventures! Keeping you up to date on your students’ games.

Mondays
We have no current enrollment for Mondays. If you would like to start a Monday group (4 students minimum), please let me know. We can enroll up to 12 students.

Tuesdays
We have 2 groups on Tuesdays, a group of 5 (ages 12 - 13) run by Becky, and a younger kids group (9-10) run by Greg. We have space for 2 more players at Greg’s table, and could begin a 3rd table if we get 3 more students ages 12 - 13.

Greg:
Operation Gum-Ball. None of the Adventurers truly know what it is yet. All they know is it's taking them all over the world, and every question that's answered only raises new ones. They've taken the Magic 8-Ball of Os'Plajet to the Temple of the Eye, where they met an elderly Plajet named Malibu. He transported them to the land of Feesha, and told them to head north, to Lake Bayor where the next step of Operation Gum-Ball will be revealed. Strangely though, he never refereed to the 8-Ball as an it, but rather, as a he. It's almost as if he described the 8-Ball as having a personality... what is it that's really going on here?

Becky:
The team has tracked Satoko Mori to the town of Sabo - a backwater town on a remote island. There, they met up with a street urchin (Derek) and a Marked Baluud Wilderness Scout (Wolf) (both player characters), at the docks. Wolf and Derek seemed to be a great source of information. So, the adventurer group took them to lunch - hoping to get information for dessert! Unfortunately, the adventurer group was not consistent in their negotiation strategy: some of the players attempted to bribe and some tried threatening Derek to get the information.

The end result was that Derek, and his information about Satoko Mori, ran away. Under the urgings of the Mage’s henchwoman (Destra), the party helped her capture Derek and finish questioning him. The party thus discovered that Derek and Wolf had been sheltering Satoko Mori for the last week, and raced off to an abandoned warehouse to collect her. Derek and Wolf hurried after them to the warehouse to protect Satoko!

At the warehouse there was much bribery, confusion and conflict between the adventurer party and the street urchins. In the confusion Destra dragged an amnesiac Satoko out of the warehouse, followed closely by the party and Wolf and Derek. While the party was holding Wolf and Derek at bay, Destra quickly questioned Satoko, and then spoke a bizarre code phrase causing Satoko recite a secret message into Destra’s ear. This revealed that Satoko was a Grand Master Messenger, and as such untouchable by law! Once Satoko had finished, the reluctant, but determined Destra killed her (with no interference from the party!) and then teleported away!

This puts the players into a tough situation - they’re involved in the murder of a Messenger! What will the players do next? How will they resolve their differences?

Follow up: The players have chosen to NOT follow up on the murder of the messenger. Their characters will have to deal with the consequences of this - namely, the Messengers Guild will not accept messages to or from them, and they have a reputation for taking illegal work. This may, if it continues, end up getting their characters expelled from their Guilds. The group has chosen to begin a new adventure with new characters - more next month!

Wednesdays
We have no current enrollment for Wednesday. If you would like to start a Wednesday group (4 students minimum), please let me know. We can enroll up to 12 students.

Thursdays
Our Thursday group stems from an All-Girls table formed last spring, however, it is open to anyone. 4 out of 6 players are girls, aged 10 to 12. We have just split this table into 2 groups. Alicia Otis-Levins will be running the second table. We have spaces for 3 more players at each table.

Becky:
Ah, politics… The Thursday group, after making some great characters, stepped into a deep puddle of politics. Two of their parents are messed up in the elections for the new Guild Head of the Fighters Guild. They’re under house arrest for their efforts to help their candidate get the job. One evening, the whole extended family has a special dinner meeting. Their parents tell them a little of what’s going on, and give the kids a mission. Their candidate (a good guy) is going to lose, unless something (the parents won’t tell the kids what it is) is recovered from deep in the jungle. The evil opponent has guards watching all of the adults, so they can’t go get it. The plan is to send the kids to their aunts house about 6 days travel away - for their safety. Actually, what they’re going to do is evade anyone following them and head into the Jungle to get the object for the good candidate. Their oldest sister has a map and other knowledge to enable them to do this. Their parents admonish them: “You must not be followed! They must not get hold of this!”

The kids get packed and ready and head off to get a good night’s sleep before leaving in the morning. However, they’re woken around 2:30 by sounds of fighting downstairs in the inn. Quickly, they grab their stuff and head out a back stairs to the stables. They quickly grab some horses and race out of town - not as quickly as they’d like, however, since most of them have never ridden a horse before! After about 15 minutes of hard riding and running (one of them is too tall to ride a horse), they stop to rest. As they’re checking around with magic, looking and listening to make sure no one has followed them; they discover, with magic, a group of 4 horses galloping after them -- about 2 miles away. They quickly make a plan: the older sister and three others will head directly into the Jungle after the object. They will hide themselves from magic and take no horses - as they are easier to spot both physically and with magic. The others will take all the horses and continue down the road towards their aunts, hoping to draw pursuit away from the team looking for the object.

Fridays
Friday is our fullest day. We have just had one space open up, however. If you are interested, please contact Becky via email (becky@roleplay-workshop.com) or phone (510.654.3582) as soon as possible.

Becky:
The players have spent the month working on their very special characters. Their characters are from two special cultures: the Blue Sakeet - a secretive and little known group of sakeet/ta’as hybrids who conduct trade with the rest of Abantey by intercepting trade ships and negotiating for goods; and the Runts - a group of Sakeet who resist the core Marked Sakeet culture (which is all about brawn and might) by pulling intelligent but physically weak children from the brutal fighting pits. The Runts live on the fringes of Marked Sakeet Clan homes, avoiding conflict and honing their mental skills. The Blue Sakeet have sent a group of 5 adventurers to journey into the land of Sakeet, to their ancestors abandoned clan home to retrieve some items. They have contacted the Runts to guide them safely there and back. There are two problems - first, the land is crawling with dinosaurs - including T-rex and giant velociraptors, and the second is that if any regular Sakeet find them - they will be killed on sight!

Greg:
Jacky Johnson, the Marked Feeshan, has escaped! Using every dirty trick in the book, he foils the Adventures, and gets away. Now the party needs to find him, because only he knows where the priceless Mesmeric Feeshan statuette is. Using Magic, they track Jacky to a secret basement Black-market hideout. After breaking inside, and capturing Jacky (hopefully for the last time), a few Black-market members return to the base, and discovering the intruders, a battle breaks out. The adventurers decide "Discretion is the better part of Valor," and instead of fighting it out, escape (with Jacky in tow) down a secret exit out of the Basement. Where will the exit take them? How much time do they have before the Black-market hunts them down for "Breaking and Entering"? Where is the Mesmeric Feeshan?

Cody and Marcus:
The investigation continues this month for the mysterious Sciocco, the shifty Wa'la man who always seems to have just left the place you're looking. The party has learned, through the all-knowing Librarian's Guild, that someone doesn't want this man's past known. Acting on a tip, they began investigating the slums and seedy back alleys of Desolation, only to butt heads with the street gang that controls this area of town.
Fortunately, luck finds them again as a friendly street urchin and a not-so-friendly bartender point them to an abandoned building that he has been living in. But just as they arrive, his street urchin friends vanish into the night, and they are left with only the remains of his residence. Tired, they retire for the night, only to be awoken by burglars, leaving them with many more questions than they can answer.

Saturday (1st & 3rd)
We currently have two tables. Becky’s table is full with kids aged 12 - 14 years old. Greg has 2 spaces available at his table of 11 - 12 year olds.

Becky:
Our story begins with a mixed group of adventurers escorting a Messenger through the dangerous outback of Katman. The outback is crawling with ferocious and dangerous predators, including Velociraptors, T-Rex and packs of giant hyenas. Fortunately, the group is highly skilled and the 6 day trip has been uneventful. They spent one day resting at the remote estate of the Messenger’s client, and have begun their journey back to the city of Katman.

Three days travel from Katman, around mid afternoon, the party’s travel was interrupted by sounds of battle off to the south. A keen eared member of the group declared that it didn’t sound like wild animals. At this, the mages of the party, using emerald magic, looked to see what type of minds were battling. They discovered several families of rogue Sakeet, including children, in fear for their lives, apparently being attacked by a group of Utah Raptors! They also noticed a solitary Sakeet running in from the north east, also apparently coming to the aid of the farmers. The party began racing to the families’ aid. As they crested a hill over looking a fertile, farmed valley, they saw a horrible sight: the farm in flames and the Utah Raptors…and their riders… running people down…

Greg:
Things started out with a bang for Saturday. Riding down the street on the coolest bicycle ever, is Marked Plajet J.J. Henderson. Everyone wants a ride on this Bike. But before the party can, a pack of Evil Clowns come and steal it! J.J. Henderson needs it back. It turns out J.J. wasn't supposed to be driving it around in public. It's a prototype Super-Bike made by Plaj-E-Tech Industries. If J.J. doesn't get it back soon, he'll be in a lot of trouble! That still leaves to wonder who those Evil Clowns were. Were they just trying to cause trouble for Henderson? Or perhaps something more sinister is at work...

Saturday (2nd & 4th)
The 2nd & 4th Saturday of each month has one regular group (full) and 1 to 2 tables of training for our assistant program. Assistants (ages 13 and up) play in advanced games that stress the more difficult aspects of the Abantey game. They are polishing their skills in preparation for assisting with the summer program.

Dominic & Eric (regular group):
The party is taking a break from the hard work of do-gooding and is hanging out in the trade center of Tabur when they are approached with a mysterious invitation. They follow its directions and learn that they are invited to take part in the biggest change in gaming ever to hit the streets since Monopoly! The eccentric Feeshan/Plajet Leon, the creator of the game, challenges the group to run around the city of Tabur, solving clues, collecting items, and racing against four other teams to reach the finish line. The catch: the game is played all night, starting at sundown. As the team races off to conquer their first few clues, they end up in some odd places. The Mages Guild? The ARA? Meeting a shady looking character with a briefcase in a dance club? Perhaps their is more to this game than there seems....

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Rebecca L. Thomas
Director
(510) 654-3582
The Roleplay Workshop
http://www.roleplay-workshop.com