Woodland Creatures (*W for kids)

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Woodland Creatures (*W for kids)
« on: March 07, 2012, 08:56:06 PM »
Just threw this together. Might be something here. Then again it has been a weird week so far.

Set up:
Each player takes a creature and four tokens. 

The Mouse
Sneaky: +2, Courageous: +1, Selfish: +1,  Helpful: -1
Special Power: Being small. 
You took something from one of the other creatures, tell us what it was and take a token from them. 
You owe one of the other creatures for helping you, tell us what they did and give them a token. 

The Bear
Sneaky: 0, Courageous: +1, 
Selfish: +1,  Helpful: +1
Special Power: Being strong. 
You got in a fight with one of the other creatures, tell us what about and take a token from them. 
One of the other creatures is your best friend, tell us who and why and give them a token. 

The Pig
Sneaky: -1, Courageous: +2,
 Selfish: +1,  Helpful: +1
Special Power: Being sturdy. 
You got caught by one of the other creatures taking things from the food tree, tell us who and take a token from them. 
You stood up for one of the other creatures when they were being made fun of, tell us what happened and give them a token. 

The Rabbit
Sneaky: -1, Courageous: +1, 
Selfish: +2,  Helpful: +1
Special Power: Being speedy. 
You and one of the other creatures were running away from trouble and you got away but they didn't, tell us who and what the trouble was and take a token from them. 
You came to the rescue of one of the other creatures, tell us about why they needed saving and give them a token. 

Everyone starts each game with four empty harm slots. If they are all filled your character takes -1 to all rolls until the start of the next game. 

When you do something Sneaky; 
10+: No one sees you or you take a token. 
7-9: Someone wants to know what your doing. 
6 or less: Someone tells on you. 

When you do something Courageous;
10+: You impress people or you take a token. 
7-9: Someone thinks you were too risky. 
6 or less: You take one harm. 

When you do something Selfish;
10+: What you did or got was exactly what you wanted or you take a token. 
7-9: Someone saw you and is disappointed. 
6 or less: Someone was hurt by what you did. 

When you do something Helpful ;
10: Someone saw what you did and is proud of you or you take a token. 
7-9: Someone thinks you are doing it selfishly. 
6 or less: It costs you something to do it. 

When you use your special power you may use tokens 1-for-1 to increase your result. 

How to play:

Some woodland creature has a problem and wants some help. Play to find out what happens. 

All characters are woodland creatures and they are names Mr. or Mrs. Whatever-they-are. 

If no move is triggered say yes. 

Let the results of the rolls guide play. 

Re: Woodland Creatures (*W for kids)
« Reply #1 on: March 12, 2012, 12:33:18 PM »
So let me tell you a bit about what I want to accomplish with this hack. First I wanted rules that were understandable and consumable by children (5+ is the goal and I'm sure I've missed that mark as of yet). Second, I wanted to create a game that played like a cartoon. I've been watching a lot of PBS programming for kids and wanted a game that pushed that sort of story. 

I'm trying to figure out if there is enough here to go on. Am I breaking some things down too much? Am I not being simple enough with other things? Am I breaking some cardinal rule by not having character specific moves? What are your thoughts?

*

way

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Re: Woodland Creatures (*W for kids)
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2012, 05:18:12 AM »
Three things cross my mind.

1. What are special powers? You always succeed if you use that? Or just color? I think stating them as actions would be a lot better.

2. I think (physical?) harm is completely unnecessary in a formalized way. Shifting relations and emotions are the way to go. Becoming envious, sad, disappointed are all cool, but harm serves no purpose.

3. It would be cool to have tokens for these emotional states and play could revolve around resolving these. If Mr. Rabbit has a sad token, it will be strong hint for the players to try to cheer him up. 

+1 Episodes can start with some external event that needs reaction, and can end when every "bad" token is resolved.

way

Re: Woodland Creatures (*W for kids)
« Reply #3 on: March 19, 2012, 08:33:37 AM »
Way,

1) Each animal has, in it's desciption, a Special Power. This is the thing that it does better than anyone else. They key off the "When you use your Special Power" move and allows them to spend their tokens 1-for-1 to increase their roll. Each 10+ result has a way for them to gain a token that they can then spend if they choose to make the fiction a bit more interesting. I'm thinking of adding in a secondary way to earn tokens, see below.

2) What if, instead of taking one Harm on a 6- result, you go too far?

3) I'm thinking that on a 6- result for each of the moves I might add in that if you choose to take a negitive token (suspicious for Sneaky, headstrong for Courageous, greedy for Selfish, and gulible? for Helpful) you also get a token that powers your special power. Players can only ever have one of each negitive token and each of the negitive tokens means that they are at a -1 to the associated roll.

I also like your idea for an end game mechanic for each session though I'm not sure it would keep to a reasonable time period. Oh! Idea just struck me! What if instead of handing a negitive token back in once it is helped, the player flips it over and it is now a positive? That way the limit on four tokens limits the play time. Also once it is flipped to positive it stays that way until the end of session.

I'll need to think about advice on how to judge if a negitive token should be flipped (some play should reveal some obvious answers there) and I need to come up with a better name for the tokens that power your special powers now that there are more tokens in play.

Thanks for your feedback!

Re: Woodland Creatures (*W for kids)
« Reply #4 on: March 31, 2012, 07:58:44 PM »
Had a great playtest of WC today. Played half an hour with some non-RPG friends of mine who really dug the "kids TV show" vibe. The game was short, which was good, and the play was tight. The end game mechanic never came into play and we only rolled 7-8 times with a lot of open narration. The scenario we ran was Mr. Frog and Mr. Snake fight over a fish. The initial conflict got us into the action quick and the ramifications were widespread through the rest of the game. Can't wait to play it again!