A few rules questions

[Pariahic]

I've read through the games a few times
now, while I am for the most part highly
impressed with it, I have come across a
two points that I'm unclear on:

1) The book states during the character
Q&A that choosing your age is very im-
portant, and that there are advantages
and disadvantages to each age.

What I can't figure out is why anyone
would make anything other than a 6 year
old. They start with a higher innocence
than an older child, and the older child
doesn't appear to get anything in return.

2) Under the Guided quality, a
reference is made to something called
Mouths of Babes. Is this missing,
or is it actually listed somewhere and
I'm just not looking hard enough?

[Jason L Blair]

What I can't figure out is why anyone
would make anything other than a 6 year
old. They start with a higher innocence
than an older child, and the older child
doesn't appear to get anything in return.

a) Mathematically, you're correct. But Little Fears wasn't written for number-crunching. The biggest impetus to play a 12-year old? In less than a year, you'll be free of the monsters. Character creation was designed with the idea that players would make characters based on concepts, not "oooh, I get a higher Innocence" and, frankly, playing a six-year old is tougher than playing a 12-year old. 12-year olds are closer in intelligence and attitude to most gamers and tend to know more (yes, yes, a 6-year old and a 12-year old can, technically, have the same Smarts score but that's not what I'm talking about here). To be honest, the thought of someone min-maxing Little Fears is a wee bit frightening to me. In short, the incentive is idea-based and not number-based.

2) Under the Guided quality, a
reference is made to something called
Mouths of Babes. Is this missing,
or is it actually listed somewhere and
I'm just not looking hard enough?

a) No, unfortunately, it is missing from the book. Ack. I'm a moron, sometimes. This will be on the new LF site's errata page but I'll put it here as well since it'll be a few days before that site is up. A character with Mouths of Babes tends to say strange, yet usually insightful, things at odd moments. Okay, in reality, the GM informs the player that the character says something since the child is usually unaware they've said anything until someone asks them about it. It's Narrative name is I say Strange Things.
_________________
Jason L Blair
Editor-in-Chief
Key 20 Publishing
http://www.key20.com">www.key20.com

[ This Message was edited by: Key20Jason on 2001-08-15 00:11 ]

[Pariahic]

On 2001-08-15 00:09, Key20Jason wrote:
a) Mathematically, you're correct. But Little Fears wasn't written for number-crunching. The biggest impetus to play a 12-year old? In less than a year, you'll be free of the monsters.

I got the impression that no one was ever
free of the monsters and that the Blindness
just made them easier pickings for the Closet-
land creatures. When you factor in that this
also means that the character at the most only
has one year of playtime, it doesn't exactly
strike me as an advantage.

To be honest, the thought of someone min-maxing Little Fears is a wee bit frightening to me. In short, the incentive is idea-based and not number-based.

I understand that, but I ran into a problem
when creating a group of pregen characters
for an adventure I'm currently writing where
the numbers don't support the idea.

I wanted the "leader" of the children to be
slightly older and a little more competent
than the others. The problem I ran into, was
that it seemed that the older I made him, the
less capacity for competence he had. (was that
even a sentence?)

Please, don't get me wrong. I'm *greatly*
impressed with the work you've done on this
game, and I am very much looking forward to
running it for my group.[1] The only thing I'm
trying to do here is gain a better understanding
of the game.

Also, thanks for the update on I Say Strange
Things. It'll definately be making it's way
into one of the character's I'm writing.

[1] We're all renting a cabin up in the mountains
this Halloween for an all weekend horror gaming
marathon. The adventure I'm preparing for Little
Fears is on the schedule for Saturday night.

_________________
--
Pariahic

[ This Message was edited by: Pariahic on 2001-08-15 19:16 ]

[Jason L Blair]

I got the impression that no one was ever
free of the monsters and that the Blindness
just made them easier pickings for the Closet-
land creatures. When you factor in that this
also means that the character at the most only
has one year of playtime, it doesn't exactly
strike me as an advantage.

Closetland cannot _harm_ those who have crossed the age of 13 (unless their Innocence is retained), just subtly or forcably manipulate. The loss of Innocence only makes things easier on Closetland if the Blind one is under 13 years of age.




_________________
Jason L Blair
Editor-in-Chief
Key 20 Publishing
http://www.key20.com">www.key20.com

[ This Message was edited by: Key20Jason on 2001-08-15 19:35 ]

[archangel_2]

I'd have to disagree with your assessment. They may not be able to rob an adult of his or her innocence (as an attribute) and their soul may still be their own, but look at what the Defiler did to Jimmy's dad in the "Dark Dreams" variant ending for "Hide and Seek." He's lost his son, probably going to go to jail or die as a result of this, and all the while thinks he's fully to blame for these horendous attrocities. I think that qualifies as being able to destroy the lives of adults as well as children, and they don't even get a chance to fight it, not realizing where it's coming from! You turn 13 and you just don't get to know who or where the evil is coming from, but it still affects you till the day you die, and maybe afterwards...

The thing that a 12 year old would have over a 6 year old is experience. They've survived 6 years of this crap, whereas the 6 year old is just learning about it. As a GM, I'd give information to the older kids first. "Oh this is definately a closet monster" or "this is definately the work of the Boogeyman - I've seen this kind of thing before." Balance the tables by letting them KNOW what's going on, and how to deal with it, far better than the younger kids...

Daniel

[Jason L Blair]

True enough. What that should have said is that Closetland cannot _directly_ _physically_ harm adults who have lost their Innocence.

Good catch, Dan. And good questions, Pariahic.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

The thing that a 12 year old would have over a 6 year old is experience. They've survived 6 years of this crap

Closetland Mythos: Roll 2d6, score under your age.

[peteramthor]

I started using a homebrew character creation rule with my group.  Basically the younger you are the less playground points you get during creation.  I feel this balances out well with the younger characters getting the higher innocence.  Also it makes logical sense considering that a 12 year old would be stronger, etc than a 6 year old.

I have the rule up on my site in the Red Tinted Glasses section.
http://peteramthor.darkgod.net

PeterAmthor

[Epoch]

I just got the game the other day after reading the many and copious praises of it on the web.  Jason, it looks like a good, solid product.  I've not read the book terribly thoroughly at this point.

Anyhow, reading the rules, I was also struck by the lack of differentiation between older and younger characters.  Now, obviously, the system is meant to be quick and unobtrusive to avoid interfering with immersion, so you want to keep it simple, at least in play.

One thing that you might do for a quick and dirty benefit of age is to, if the child is 6-8, block off two wound boxes from each category of the wounding scale.  If she's 9 or 10, block off 1 box.  If she's 11 or 12, keep it wide open.

Or you might just give a flat penalty or bonus to the character's, uh, what's the strength and endurance attribute?  Proper names and I don't get along.

Neither of those should change how quickly the game plays.

[Jason L Blair]

Or you might just give a flat penalty or bonus to the character's, uh, what's the strength and endurance attribute? Proper names and I don't get along.

Muscle. Proper names are one of the _few_ things I'm good at.

Interesting rules variants, btw. I'm not much of a system monkey but what you suggest and the PAP scale that PeterAmthor uses sound very cool.

[Synicism]

Hi guys - first of all, let me say I love this game. This RPG evokes emotions far more effectively than many other horror games I have played, and I'm looking forward to playing more.

One character creation variant that seems to work fairly well is giving older children more playarond points to put into their stats. This means an 11 year old really is tougher, faster, or smarter than his 6 year old younger sib. Right now, a 1:1 ratio seems to work pretty well.

[Clinically Insane]

What do you think about this rule change?

Muscle, feet, hands and smarts Cost higher the younger you are

11 and 12 cost 1
8 through 10 cost 2
6 and 7 cost 3 playground points per increase

While spirit remains the same.

That way 6 and 7 year olds will only be able to increase most stats only twice.

8 and 10 year olds will be only be able to increase most stats three times.

Where 11 and 12 year olds have no such limit, the benifit of being close to 13

[archangel_2]

Just thought I'd interject that if you look at the STATs of the adults, you could make one with the rules for the kids. A 12 yr old is stronger than a 6 IRL, yes, but then, an adult cop is stronger than a 12 year old. The idea of the STATs in Closetland was not to mimic reality, but to give a basic idea of what the character is capable.

Besides, everyone is forgetting one thing - the first sentence in the book under Stats: "Stats determine the RAW POTENTIAL of your child." We're not talking about how strong the child is, but how strong the child could potentially be (perhaps when grown up?) That in mind, if you REALLY want to compare Stats, just say that if you're older, the Stats outrank those of the younger kid. So a child of 12 with a muscle of 3 is stronger than a 6 yr old with the same score...

Forgive me, but I just don't see the need to add more complexity and rules. All the things I've suggested for this game have been in the vein of adding guidelines to the role-play, not rules to add. I don't think the game requires such - in fact, I think it's detrimental to the style of play that's being discussed here... But that's my take. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, after all. *s*

Daniel

[Clinically Insane]

I don't see it as making anything complex. Some people want a little more realism in there games mechanics.

And the fact is adults are set apart from children by being able to roll 2 dice.

Claiming that suggestioning any rule variations are detrimental?

Didn't mean to damage Little Fears and the one and only way it can be used or modified or discussed, how thoughtless of me.

Sorry Jason for destroying your game and hell I think I may have brought the whole of the role-playing industry to ruin, oh can I ever be forgiven?


Seriously...or not so seriously

Here is a sample from my manifesto

stats now range from 1 to 6000
First we begin with varation A which only 6 year olds born on a thursday can have. In varation A we multiply the whole sum of the square root, times the decimal fractions, add 12% if it was a light rain the day they were born and 14.76% if it was a heavy rain. Take this number and add it to 500 if a boy and 600 if a girl. If they have red hair they get +100 new varations points which can be added to the sum root of the square multiplied by 10 -500.....

My new rules consist of a 5000 page manifesto, which also includes my "How to conquer the world in 30 days or less or your money back"

:smile:









[ This Message was edited by: Clinically Insane on 2001-08-25 03:11 ]

[Clinically Insane]

No way I'm ending a post on a 13, forget that.