Picking up a Goosebumps book almost twenty years later (we kept them around for my little brother, and now even he's too old for them) got me thinking.
They're often (justly) mocked for being incredibly stupid - but one of the reasons I liked them so much back in the day, I think, is that they're stupid in a very specific way: the way a child thinks.
Now, I know children aren't stupid, but it struck me that a lot of authors trying to go in that direction seem to fly off too far in the other direction and apparently assume children are enlightened zen geniuses who see the "truth" to life through their powers of "innocent" and exist in a dreamland of "whimsy" and "wonder". Alice's Adventure in Wonderland or Die unendliche Geschichte are terrific, but let's not lie to ourselves here: no kid could've possibly imagined their contents. Kids just don't think like that. On some level, more than anything else, they make too much *sense*. Kids don't do symbolism. They don't do philosophical messages.
Kids imagine that their least favorite teacher is actually a werewolf, and don't give a second's thought to how little sense it makes if the principal knows about it and doesn't tell the parents ("It'll be so much paperwork!")
All that's a long-winded way to ask:
1. How do you think kids think and how do you feel about the way people try to imitate that with games for or about children (inevitably never made BY children)
2. How would YOU make a story designed to imitate the way children think.
3. How would you apply this to an RPG directed at children - that's actual children, not fantastic wonderchildren or people trying to "connect with their inner child" (or rather, some kind of idealized dream vision thereof)
>>55390057
>Talking shit about my boy Slappy
Nigger I will cut you, my sister collected all the original books before that new generation crap, and Monster Blood shit's all over Juiblex and Ghaundaur, but fuck IV man, shit was the blob remake as fuck with how unforgiving it was.
That one Goosebumps adventure where you get your shit-reamed by fire ants was one of the spoopiest too.
I think a RPG aimed at the way children play would have to integrate a "group DM" kind of aspect where the players contribute heavily to the story direction and world building.
>>55394696
Perhaps something like FATE? It really pushes the whole group creation angle with its system.
Props to OP for the interesting thread. The crafting of media for children is fascinating especially horror which I feel they could use a bit more of. On a related note the movie Monster House would make a great kid's horror RPG adventure.
>>55394696
Calvinball rules would be utterly appropriate.