The Land Beyond: first draft

[Nathan]

Greets everyone,

The Land Beyond is a roleplaying game about children and their fanciful dreams in the Dreamworld. Think Labyrinth, Neil Gaiman's A Game of You, Wizard of Oz, Mirrormask, the Never-ending Story, and Alice in Wonderland. At night, the children's dreams take them to the Dreamworld, where they must survive and deal with issues carried over from Reality.

The characters are children, ages 6 to 13, and their Friends (imaginary friends/playmates/etc). A session consists of their journey through this ancient world, magnificent and terrifying. They will quest to cure ancient evils and find a path home, solve riddles from bizarre creatures, deal with their own fears, make friends, enjoy tea with talking rabbits, fight marauding goblins, and more.

The players craft their characters with various traits -- abilities (skills and actions), passions (fears, weaknesses, strengths, emotions, feelings), connections (links with other characters and creatures), and goals (long term and short term objectives). They also can devise a story arc that ties into the fears of their character, and the Human or Friend will have some resolution to the issue over the course of the session.

Example Group

Dorothy, a 10 year old girl in a pretty blue dress. She's not sure if she likes the Dreamworld, so she wants to get home. However, she has some serious self-doubts (due to her failure in a spelling bee last week in Reality). Her gifts include Singing and Standing Up to Bullies.

Sir Heart, a walking teddy bear with helmet and sword. He is Dorothy's protector and close friend. He has strong connections to Dorothy and great ability in "monstrous strength" and "sword swinging". He is very frightened of spiders and hopes to someday find a damsel in distress to rescue and fall in love with.

Dr. Cube, a multi-colored floating puzzle cube with a pair of spectacles for eyes. He is the brains of the bunch, with "impressive IQ" and puzzle-solving skills. His body shifts and changes according to his moods. He also has the wicked cool abilities of telekinesis and is eager to understand Human emotion (very bizarre to such a logical chap as he).

With that introduction out of the way, please feel free to download the PDF and enjoy the read. The work is unedited -- this is the first rough draft.

http://www.mysticages.com/dreams/the-land-beyond.pdf

Questions

• First, general comments are welcome. What are you first impressions of character creation and the game mechanics?
• I attempted to make the mechanics simple and straightforward. How does the flow of the game feel to you? Do you see any snags in the basic resolution and approach?
• Group character creation is a new thing for me. Do the examples and commentary provide enough support? Do you see any snags here?
• Negative traits are essentially positive in the game. Does this work? What do you think?

I'll be adding bits of worlds and creature ideas in the coming weeks. Playtesting is welcome.

Thanks for your time,
Nathan Hill

[Michael]

First, general comments are welcome. What are you first impressions of character creation and the game mechanics?

Well, I'm not much of a freeform/RP gamer, but I like this game. Character creation is pretty simple, which makes it easy to get quickly into a game. Task resolution is pretty simple as well.

I think the concept is great. I particularly like the duality between Reality and the Dreamworld. Questing in a dreamland opens players/characters up to many possibilities. Also, it's an interesting twist that characters wouldn't "turn in for the night" but "wake up for the day".

I attempted to make the mechanics simple and straightforward. How does the flow of the game feel to you? Do you see any snags in the basic resolution and approach?

The examples in the pdf lead me to believe the game has a pretty smooth flow. I don't see any snags that couldn't happen in any other freeform game.

Group character creation is a new thing for me. Do the examples and commentary provide enough support? Do you see any snags here?

Chargen is pretty straight forward. Group creation is actually a very interesting angle. Many GMs have trouble (with other systems) establishing a sense of group cohesion with the characters. With your system, it's already implied at character creation.

Negative traits are essentially positive in the game. Does this work? What do you think?

Sure, as the same element is used in FATE with Aspects. Really, "negative" and "positive" traits are subjective. A character who is "good with a sword" might find that other characters frequently want to duel. A character who is "afraid of spiders" might have an easier time fighting them in order to get rid of them. Any trait can be used in a negative or positive way, if one is creative enough.

[Nathan]

Well, I'm not much of a freeform/RP gamer, but I like this game. Character creation is pretty simple, which makes it easy to get quickly into a game. Task resolution is pretty simple as well.

...

Sure, as the same element is used in FATE with Aspects. Really, "negative" and "positive" traits are subjective. A character who is "good with a sword" might find that other characters frequently want to duel. A character who is "afraid of spiders" might have an easier time fighting them in order to get rid of them. Any trait can be used in a negative or positive way, if one is creative enough.

Thanks for your comments, Michael. I really appreciate them.

My goal was to make the game straightforward to read and what not -- I have a lot more material to add, especially rounding out rules and providing more information/idea on the play between the Dreamworld and Reality. But -- if it is fairly easy to pick up and understand, I am on the right track. I was a little nervous about subjective traits (a much better way to describe them), but they are indeed growing on me.