Little Fears

[Dav]

My Thursday night group has started Little Fears.  First, let me say that the character sheet, more than almost anything else, truly helps the character development stage.  Filling in the "these are my friends, but I like best".  These are great tools.

I am running the game, three players (ages 8,7,6).  I'll give a synopsis later, as Ron is one of the players, and giving it away would just be mean.

One of the traits that truly helped our group dive into a more Narrativist level of the game was for me to write-up a one-page scenario of what the kids grow-up to become.  

They are all losers, criminals, and low-lifes.

Through the game, however, should they be able to conquer their fears and resolve the situations presented them, they can alter their futures.  Our system for this is to eliminate a line, or change a few words of their future everytime a session ends with the characters overcoming fears or doing "good".  

I like this, because it really gave me, as a GM, a chance to put something at stake for the characters without constant mortal danger.  It also gives the players something to strive for (as Little Fears doesn't seem to have an experience or development mechanic).  

All-in-all, however, I am having a great time with the game.  I love the creepiness and scariness of the game.

More on the plot later, but these are my initial observations.

Dav

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

One interesting phenomenon during play was that our in-game time was frequently editorialized by us, in terms of what WE were like as little kids of that age. In other words, we'd made up characters with some effort for them not to be autobiographical (this was not agreed upon, we just did it) - but during play, when I had my li'l Donald do something, I'd occasionally also tell everybody what I, li'l Ronald, was like or would have done. Everyone else was doing this too. So not only did we have a great session about our imaginary kids; we also had kind of an encounter group about our "inner children" as well.

Best,
Ron

[Paul Czege]

Hey Dav,

One of the traits that truly helped...was for me to write-up a one-page scenario of what the kids grow-up to become.

They are all losers, criminals, and low-lifes.

This sounds like a great narrative device for Little Fears. Ron described it to me after your game, and it immediately recalled for me the scene at the beginning of The Sixth Sense, with Donnie Wahlberg in the bathroom. His character isn't the little boy grown up, but the effect is the same. Throughout the movie there's the undercurrent of tension of knowing what the fate of the boy will be if Bruce Willis doesn't help him.

Very cool mechanic.

Paul

[Dav]

Thanks Paul.  We've been trying to hammer it into shape a bit, and it seems to be working nicely.  While I think it could be a bit more developed, and I would like it if a player could take a direct hand in changing it to a "better" future, though obviously it needs some sort of tooling mechanic to guide and insure that the player keeps it in line.

When it is done, and Ron puts up the review, I would like tot ry to hash out a system for it and post it up.  I hope.

Dav

[Dav]

Whoops, double posted.  My bad.

[ This Message was edited by: Dav on 2001-10-27 23:19 ]