Jumping Into Little Fears

Last Friday, I got home from work to discover 3 out of my 4 Exalted players already gathered there (an hour early) and they informed me that #4 wasn't coming and they wanted a 1 shot game.

I don't mind one-shots, but I don't run them all that well because I tend to create story goals that can't be resolved in 2-4 hours. I thought of Inspectres but didn't think I'd be able to run it with zero preparation- same with Sorcerer. I hinted at "Once Upon A Time" in an Exalted setting because I'd gotten the cards the previous day but my Simulationist-loving players gave me looks ranging from puzzled to bored.

So I pulled out Little Fears and described its premise as "You'll be playing children in a dark modern world of terror" and after only a couple of wise cracks, they agreed and I printed out character sheets and started handing them around. The fun began almost immediately.

I've never had an easier time explaining character creation. I'd given them three perimeters for creation: all three characters had to be siblings aged 6 to 11 years old, and they had to decide together the family ethnicity and then the family lifestyle: upper class, middle class, blue-collar, or trash. They chose to be brothers, white trash. One of my players asked for crayons before I could even suggest it. They had their sheets done, concepts solidified and each with its own stylish artwork within 20 minutes of me printing out the sheets and worked together, without prompting, to create a family background (alcoholic father, mother was supposedly killed in tractor accident but none of the kids wanted to believe that).

Within 45 minutes of suggesting the game, we'd started playing. One of the three little characters had Innocence removed almost immediately- he was playing an 8 year old with a penchant for killing little animals with a tagalong 6 year old brother who lived in a constant state of awe-fear of him. During one of the early scenes, while the oldest 10 year old brother is out trying to dumpster dive for dinner and is temporarily trapped inside a dumpster with a dead corpse of a little girl, the middle brother killed a crow with a sling shot and is cooking it up for the littlest brother, claiming it was "fish sticks" to make him eat it. Further, he left the feather and guts on the floor of the kitchen for big brother to clean up... and big brother passively did after a few vieled threats.

My players were completely enamored with the game and the characters. There was a lot of in-game shouting and hand-waving. The characters often failed dice rolls without players getting frustrated and some of the funniest one-liners I've ever heard come out of an RPG session occurred, without the kid PCs themselves get played in a slapstick manner. The entire game session involved a lot of very dark comedy and suspense. The characters ended up running away from home together in Atlanta and taking a Greyhound to a little town called Arkham, following a picture of a mysterious mansion overlooking a cemetary the eldest brother had found in their father's things while looking for money. All they had to go on was an inscription on the back in their mother's handwriting, describing the mansion as "home".

After about 3 hours of playing, one player said he had to quit and go home to sleep but all of them begged for game to be frozen and continue on Friday instead of Exalted. All of them (with 20 years of White Wolf experience between them) said it was the best game they'd ever played. Together, this group has played Exalted, VtM, and All Flesh Must Be Eaten and never shown the energy level and instant rapport with inter-character dynamics.

From a Storytelling perspective, it was amazing to be able to get them that involved in and entertained by a game and with so little time-energy from my part.