Looking At Little Wizards - An All Ages Fantasy RPG

After a brief pause, +David Rollins gives up some opinions on Little Wizards, an all ages fantasty RPG from Crafty Games. There is also a free preview available of the game on RPGNow.

By David Rollins

Another Gen Con has come and gone and as the dust settles down on this year's ENnie Awards you may be sifting through the winners looking for gold, but if you are a parent looking for a good RPG to play with your kids you should be looking at one of this year's nominees.

Little Wizards from Crafty Games was nominated for the Best Family Game ENnie and while it did not win, it is worth considering if you are looking for a quality RPG to share with your kids.

The layout works well on multiple formats. I read the the pdf copy I received for review on my laptop, my desktop and even my phone. The two columns on square pages worked well on a wide screen and the columns fit easily on my phone screen so I could read a half-page at a time with no trouble. I also printed it out so I could get a feel for how the art worked in the book form.

Arnü West's illustrations are brilliant, with plenty of action in every scene depicted. It's clear at a mere glance that this game is all about young wizards doing cool stuff. West's style mixes the familiar with the fantastic to open up a world that is both magical and comfortable for a brand new player. Some of the choices West makes, such as the viewpoint and the form of the buildings, reminds me of illustrations from old copies of Peter Pan which gives everything a classic feel.

The mechanics of the game are based on a roll of two, six-sided dice. The player rolls and adds a trait to meet a target number based on difficulty of a chosen action. That much is familiar to most gaming parents but there are some innovations that encourage a certain type of play. Traits are rated as Good (+0), Better (+1) or Best (+2). No character can be the best at everything so the players will need to work in teams where everyone has an important role to play. There are also rules for cooperation that allow other characters to help, so players only need to come up with a reasonable way their characters can contribute to start stacking up +1s on their friends' action rolls.

Character creation is easy, with a handful of choices and random tables that players can roll on, choose from, or simply use as inspiration. My daughter had a great time rolling up her Little Wizard's personality with the tables.

The Magic system is open-ended with plenty of room for players to get creative to use their magic to solve problems and plenty of suggestions and examples to help them along as well. There are different types of magic so again, teamwork is emphasized in the design.

There are no hit points or health in this game. If a character gets hurt it becomes a problem that needs to be dealt with. The violence in the game is on par with what you would find in a cartoon program like Scooby Do or My Little Pony so it's not likely that the players will find themselves dealing with character injuries often.

My favourite part of this game is the setting! It's wonderful how the original french author, Antoine Bauza, and the english language developer, Amanda Valentine, managed to blend so much of my favourite fantasy fiction for young readers into Coinworld. I see echoes of Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea in the Archipelagoes and the role wizards occupy as problem solvers. Terry Pratchett's Discworld shines in the shape of Coinworld and in the types of magic. A game about young wizards can't escape comparison to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and it certainly shows in much of the visual aesthetic and technology level of the Little Wizards setting.

Coinworld is a disc with two sides, a light side with mischievous creatures like fairies and a darker side with monsters like goblins and vampires. The two sides are a mirror of each other, with each cluster of islands forming an archipelago that has a counterpart on the other side of the world. These archipelagoes have their own personality and features. What I like is that they are described in broad strokes with a few paragraphs of basic description and what kind of adventure would likely happen there. The more detailed descriptions of the archipelagoes come at the end of the book in the three sample adventures. Each adventure gives a little more detail about its location in the introduction. This choice implies that the world is not really defined until the characters actually visit there. This sand-box approach is a great way to get your kids used to the old-school style of play. The sample adventures give players and new “Narrators” a great place to start and plenty of hooks for adventures to have after each of the ones provided.

The only drawback of this game is there is no visual component. Most of the game is theatre-of-the-
mind style play without maps or miniatures. My youngest daughter is a visual learner so the games with paper miniatures tend to hold her attention better than this style of game. My oldest, on the other hand, is an auditory learner so this game turned out to be a great fit for her. I found it to be more of a feature than a drawback because I prefer the theatre-of-the-mind style of play to maps, grids and miniatures but it is something to consider.

Little Wizards is a wonderful table-top role-playing game to play with kids. It's a great introduction to the game and has a decent experience system so it can work well for long term play too. I like that the material that it draws on for inspiration doesn't force the same old fantasy tropes and assumptions on new players. They are offered a new world to explore and make their own. If that sounds good to you, head over to the Crafty Games' website to find out how you can get your copy!

A panelist on the Geeky Voices Carry podcast, +David Rollins talks about gaming, fantasy fiction and other interests of his across social media like Google+. David also plays games. A lot of games.

The Dangers of Daggermore Kickstarter

Here's a Kickstarter project that blends two things I love together -- RPGs and movies. The Dangers of Daggermore project aims to create a film that is a good representation of what it is like to go dungeon delving in a typical RPG (in this case, 3.X/Pathfinder).

The general setting of this project is as mentioned above -- a pretty standard (fantasy) RPG. The main characters in this film are an elf, knight and wizard. There's a dungeon, monsters, combat, and hopefully lots of experience and loot. Most of the things you want in your adventure.

The rewards for the pledge tiers are where things get a bit different. It seems that the film will be presented as a web series and, thus, free to watch (though, correct me if I am wrong), so the rewards are not the film itself but tie-ins to it. These rewards escalate based on the pledge amount and each tier has two sides to it -- a gamer side and a film buff side. For example, the first tier (US$10) comes with character sheets and concept art of the main characters (the gamer side) and the shooting script (the film buff side).  As you go up the tiers you get more and more adventure material and more behind-the-scenes material.

On to the critique, I should start off by pointing out that the project has hit its funding goal -- as of this writing it is sitting right on it. It's done what it has set out to do, so I'll throw my guesstimates at what might have helped it get there (and what might have helped it get further). The funding goal is fairly low at US$1,000 -- it seems that this is to help produce a pilot episode, so that might be enough (I assume there is additional funding being put into the project). There is also the video on the page -- one that you should watch if you have any interest in this project. I typically skip the videos on Kickstarter pages and move straight into the text -- if you do that on this one you'll be missing out. The text on the page does give a general overview but it is far weaker than the video. The video is quite good in general and shows off some of the potential the film might have, it also shows that the project's crew does at least have a decent A/V setup (though there is some audio quality issues in one section). You also get a lot more information about the project and get to see the faces and personalities behind it -- that's all good. The pledge tiers, however, are not quite as attractive. The prices tend to be fairly high for what you get. If there was a bit more offered on each tier it would make them more enticing. As it stands, you basically are pledging more on the basis that you really want to see this project go through -- which does attest to the dedication of the backers who helped it reach its funding goal. Still, its a bit of a hard sell to the average joe.

If you would like to know more about The Dangers of Daggermore be sure to check out its Kickstarter page and be sure to watch the video.

Mark Plemmons' Corporia RPG Now On Kickstarter

Have an itch for corporate shenanigans and Arthurian fantasy but don't know how to satisfy it? Mark Plemmons does, with his new project, and recently launched Kickstarter, Corporia.

Perhaps the best way to describe the Corporia setting, from what I have seen so far, is to take Shadowrun, make it a bit less grimy, add more Arthurian fantasy inspiration, and update its near future setting to be more in-line with current projections and expectations of the future. To get a better feel for it, though, you can head over to the Kickstarter page and download a preview PDF to get a taste (it's the link right above the pledge levels image).

The rulebook is nearly complete (as the Kickstarter mentions) and I can definitely confirm this to be the case. Which, as I have mentioned before, is something I really, really love. But, the most important question, what will it cost you?

You can snag a PDF copy of the rules for as low as $15USD, however, that lower pledge level will not grant you access to the testing phase. To get access to the testing phase, and the rules soon after the Kickstarter ends, requires the next pledge level at $25USD. That level also gets you an additional PDF and any digital stretch goals that may be reached. To get a hardcover copy of the rules will cost you $50USD and also covers rewards from all the previous tiers.

We will have an interview with Mark Plemmons in the near future, so if you are interested in Corporia, its Kickstarter, or other knight-hacker-wizard-accountant related topics, be sure to tune in next time on Dorkland!.