I’ve been gathering material for a dark, grimm-inspired fairytale sandbox, but I’m having trouble settling on a system to run it in. My group consists of family members–my children (proud GM dad here), and semi-reluctant wife. Beyond the Wall fits the campaign sweet spot with its playbooks and YA feel. However, I’m forever ruined of d20 style games and I believe DW would be easier for the group to learn. I’ve toyed with the idea of modifying the BtW playbooks for DW or changing the BtW mechanics to more resemble a PbtA game. Thoughts?
I’ve been gathering material for a dark, grimm-inspired fairytale sandbox, but I’m having trouble settling on a…
I’ve been gathering material for a dark, grimm-inspired fairytale sandbox, but I’m having trouble settling on a…
What kinds of challenges do you want the players to encounter and what kinds of solutions do you want to encourage to those challenges? It might be easiest to start from DW and then tweak it for your setting/goals, but it does start from a D&D inspiration and therefore inherits some of its violent problem-solving roots.
Good questions Dan! I intend on abusing many clichés since fantasy is mostly new to them. There will be strong, easily-identifiable elements of light and dark with a save-the-world tale woven through the narrative. You’re right about violence being the prime means for problem solving in D&D inspired games. Perhaps another system would be a better fit… MouseGuard or an easy-to-learn BW hack with appropriate challenge mechanisms for more than just a hack-and-slash game. You’ve got me thinking.
Maybe start with World of Dungeons? You could almost use the Beyond the Wall playbooks as-is, and just tweak which class abilities they get.
Golden Sky Stories might be worth looking at
Jeremy Strandberg I hadn’t considered WoD. It’d definitely be easier to hack.
Joshua Faller Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll certainly check it out.
Legend of the Elements is a fun PbtA game heavily inspired by YA anime like Avatar and Korra. It tends to have a lot of action without being all-murderhobo-all-the-time.
There’s also Do:Fate of the Flying Temple, which is very similar genre with totally different mechanics.
Ryan Baxter if you do hack up a Beyond the Wall/WoD thing, please share! I’d love to see it.
Marshall Brengle Yet another game that I’ve never heard of. I’ll give it a peak. Thanks!
Jeremy Strandberg Will do! BtW is copyright. I’m not sure how cool flatland is with hacking their material.
Marshall Brengle Hadn’t heard of Legend of the Elements, I’ll have to check it out!