Does anybody know of any games designed around coming-of-age visitation fantasy? Thinking more Narnia than Alice in Wonderland. Feeling drawn as though through a wardrobe to start a new hack, but don’t want to jump in if it already exists!
Does anybody know of any games designed around coming-of-age visitation fantasy?
Does anybody know of any games designed around coming-of-age visitation fantasy?
The only recent RPG I can think of is Heroine, by Josh Jordan, but it’s not PBTA.
Does it have to be PbtA?
Heroine is great! I played with the idea of modifying that to make it a family of kids together, but it isn’t quite hitting the experience that I am going for (mentally at least, I may hack that up and do a playtest to see what happens there for multiple visitors…)
Thank you though! Definitely going to be looking to Heroine for some inspiration!
Paul Taliesin It doesn’t necessarily have to be PtbA, but given the enormous amount of PbtA games coming out, I thought it was a good place to start looking! I’m also more experienced messing around with PbtA games than other ones, so if I try to work something out it’s what I’ll likely use.
James Mullen’s “Troublemakers” is a work-in-progress, but would be suited to playing adventurous kids – not, however, to the zero-to-hero coming-of-age kind of story.
Ooo! I’ll have to check that out! Kid adventures are awesome!
There used to be a game-in-development called “First Quest” (by Judd Karlman), but I believe it’s MIA by now – it was years ago.
I wrote a simple game which could work well for your purposes, too:
http://www.story-games.com/forums/discussion/20513/thus-began-the-adventures-of-eowyn
I’ll check out First Quest and This Began The Adventures of Eowyn! Thank you, Paul Taliesin !
The Magical Land of Yeld (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/603898497/the-magical-land-of-yeld) and an old in-playtest game by Ben Lehman called Land of 1000 Kings (which I can’t seem to find a copy of, online) spring to mind.
.
.
Not PbtA, and very specifically Narnia: I tooled around with how I might run a Narnia game in Fate, where the PCs are children transported into the thousand-year gap between The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. I only have a character sheet for it, but I tried to think through how the essence of the conflict in The Chronicles of Narnia is moral rather than a test of skill, and adapt the rules of Fate to that.drive.google.com – LAoN Sheet (Corrected) – Google Drive
Oh man, Yeld is ADORABLE. I’m definitely going to look into that!
Jeremy Downey Yeah, that is where I’m hitting the meat of what is making this tough and interesting. I’m very interested in looking at the ideas of growing up and aging out of fantasy, of building morality, of avoiding dark adult decisions in the interest of hope.
I think I’m going to play with some basic moves, Agenda, and whether it looks like it would shake out in an interesting way.
Thank you all so much! This is all excellent things to look into to find the right niche for the game!
Troublemakers is indeed a work in progress, but you can check out a current draft of the main rules and playbooks here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B1iTjRUomaBXUGlhREs2cDdVdm8?usp=sharing
Any feedback appreciated as usual.
Way darker than the source material you mention, but thematically similar: Bluebeard’s Bride.
Storm Hollow, formerly Story Realms! It’s a Kickstarter game that should be shipping (at long, long, long, long, long last) next year. Human kids are transported to a world where fables and folklore are real and help out the locals, meeting a colorful cast of characters and trying to do some good.
Christian Griffen can probably do this more justice than I can.
kickstarter.com – Meridian: A Story Game of Journeys Wondrous and Fantastical
James Mullen Thank you very much for linking that! I’ll check it out! It sounds super interesting and definitely something I’d want to play, not sure if it quite hits what I’m looking for!
Folks, I had NO idea there was this much childhood coming-of-age adventure already available!
Kassidy Helfant Storm Hollow looks super pretty and interesting, but looks like it may be a bit tone-lighter and more board-gamey than I’m looking for. Thank you very much though! 🙂
I have a question about this topic. This games and the one Brandon Leon-Gambetta is wanting to make, are they children themed to be played by adults? Or games intended to be played by kids? Or both? I find the topic very interesting and challenging, since kids are, in their honesty, usually the most ruthless critics!
.
Another game which might have been forgotten: The Princes’ Kingdom, by Clinton R. Nixon. It’s a hack of Dogs in the Vineyard, about young children solving other people’s problems.
I’ve also just uploaded a new draft of Troublemakers with more MC guidance at the same link as previously.