Hello,

As I described in my review, our play of Little Fears added a future-history device. After we made up the characters, Dav (the GM) wrote future histories for them beginning in their teens. They were very unpleasant histories, as the characters grew up to be weak, hopeless, and depressing adults.

Each session of play, based on what had happened to Fear, Innocence, and Soul, Dav decreed what had to STAY and what could be CHANGED in each story. After the in-play story was finished, we finalized the future stories.

I'm very interested in what other fans of Little Fears think about this approach to play.

I am going to post, one by one, the result. This post includes MY write-up of Donald Kinley, from initial character creation.

Best,
Ron

LITTLE FEARS: DONALD KINLEY

The Kinleys are a middle-class family who are really just one step out of the working class. The dad was a farmer and rancher who is now the owner of a new-car lot; he's been doing this for seven or eight years. His brother Barry still owns the ranch part. Therefore Donald, the eight-year-old third kid, knows about "the ranch" and has been there two or three times a year all his life, but he doesn't really know much about life except for their split-level home and driveway in middle-class land.

The dad is very clear in my mind: no bullshit, to the extent of laying a clip 'round the ear without thinking much about it. Not a bad man per se, but not really a good father, and not really in his element among the born & bred middle class. The oldest son in the family is pretty much a hood, although he likes his little brother well enough. His parole officer Sgt Blake also likes Donald and doesn't mind listening to him. Still, Donald's favorite person is "Uncle Berry" because he lets him ride horses and so on.

Donald is a loud, skinny, clownish, obnoxious kid who picks up words like "vagina" way too easily, and is good at irritating adults when they are too busy to deal with him. One of his listed advantages is "Knows the principal, Mrs. Hansa," and that doesn't necessarily mean in a good way (although she knows that he is not a liar, by the way).

His older sister is kind of a slutty, sullen type who basically ignores him or diverts parental attention toward him. His younger sister is a bit spoiled and princess-like, and all the other siblings are well aware that she has it way better than they ever did. The mom in the family is pretty much harassed and almost given up on any semblance of function in the family, although to be fair, the whole family is capable of piling into the car and having a fine day at the ranch or seashore, given some guaranteed tantrums and slaps and scolds along the way. Still, life at the Kinley house has a dreary, defeated quality on the holidays, for instance.

Let's see ... Donald has an assortment of kid stuff (including a fake knife and some real bullets); his favorite things are a pack of cards and a silver horse his grandmother gave him. He hangs out with Carl, Wayne, and Tony, but really likes Darryl, the mildly retarded kid down the street (he never tells any of the schoolkids that he hangs out with Darryl). He fears the stuff inside people and animals; when he gets scared, he counts to 10 really fast many times; he gets adults' attention when monsters are around (much to the adults' annoyance). He wants to be a racecar driver because you don't have to talk.

Smarts 3, Muscle 3, Hands 4, Feet 3, Spirit 4
Soul 10, Innocence 6, Fear 0

He has curly red hair and blue eyes. He's definitely considered a hyper-active, obnoxious, disruptive, troublesome kid by anyone who knows him, even other kids.


[ This Message was edited by: Ron Edwards on 2001-11-09 14:40 ]

And here I continue with Dav's INITIAL FUTURE STORY for Donald, after seeing the character sheet.

Again, the GM wrote this, not me.

******
Donald Kinley, while not labeled "habitually" criminal, is more-or-less a cowboy in a time when they have long since gone the way of disco.

Everything began to go south when he let Carl and Tony beat-up Darryl in grade school. While Donald didn't actually have a hand in the beating, he was expelled for guilt by association. The expulsion sent Donald's father into a rage, which ended with the mother calling the police, and Donald being sent away to Uncle Berry's for a long time. Dad committed suicide later, partially over guilt for his breaking up of the family (Don's mom filed for divorce shortly after he beat Donald) and partially over his loss of the car dealership.

Donald knew all of this, on a less-than-conscious level, and it drove him to greater acts of delinquency, culminating in his being turned back to his mother and father when Uncle Berry said he was "out of control". Shortly after, Donald was admitted to a detention center at age 16 after a stint in grand larceny.

He is married, unofficially, though the state has declared it a common-law marriage. Donald has three kids, that he is aware of, Kyle (4), Gavin (6), and Sarah (2). Sarah is the only child by his "wife" Carol. Donald is between jobs, constantly, his ex-wife, Margaret, sold the ranch during his last stint in prison, which led to another jailing for 30 days due to harassment and destruction of property. Margaret, mother of Kyle, has moved to New York, and is filing for a full-custody of Kyle, which is uncontested by Donald. Gavin, his oldest son, is the only child he likes; though his mother, Fiona, has filed a restraining order against Donald.

Lately, Donald has been drinking even more heavily than usual. He has hooked-up with Brett, a drug courier for the Mexican mob. He hopes this will lead to some regular money, but in reality, the DEA has set-up Donald for a sting operation. While Donald is unaware of the monitoring, it will eventually lead to his death in an anticlimactic shoot-out where he fumbles for his own gun when SWAT comes through his window.

After the first two sessions of play, here's what happened to Donald's future story. You'll have to compare the changes by yourself; the boldfaced text represents stuff that was rendered permanent.

*****
Donald Kinley, while not labeled "habitually" criminal, is more-or-less a cowboy in a time when they have long since gone the way of disco.

Everything began to go south when he let Carl and Tony beat-up Darryl in grade school. While Donald didn't actually have a hand in the beating, he was expelled for guilt by association. The expulsion sent Donald's father into a rage, which ended with the mother calling the police, and Donald being sent away to Uncle Berry's for a long time. Dad didn't contest the casting away of Donald, as he needed to spend more time working on his troubled dealership.

Donald knew all of this, on a less-than-conscious level, and it drove him to greater acts of delinquency, culminating in his being turned back to his mother and father when Uncle Berry said he was "out of control". Shortly after, Donald was admitted to a detention center at age 16 after a stint in grand larceny.

He is married, unofficially, though the state has declared it a common-law marriage. Donald has three kids, that he is aware of, Kyle (4), Gavin (6), and Sarah (2). Sarah is the only child by his "wife" Carol. Donald is between jobs, constantly, his ex-wife, Margaret, sold the ranch during his last stint in prison, which led to another jailing for 30 days due to harassment and destruction of property. Margaret, mother of Kyle, has moved to New York, and is filing for a full-custody of Kyle, which is uncontested by Donald. Gavin, his oldest son, is the only child he likes; though his mother, Fiona, has filed a restraining order against Donald.

Lately, Donald has been drinking even more heavily than usual. He has hooked-up with Brett, a drug courier for the Mexican mob. He hopes this will lead to some regular money, but in reality, the DEA has set-up Donald for a sting operation. While Donald is unaware of the monitoring, it will eventually lead to his death in an anticlimactic shoot-out where he fumbles for his own gun when SWAT comes through his window.

After the third session, it turned into this.

*********
Donald Kinley, while not labeled "habitually" criminal, is more-or-less a cowboy in a time when they have long since gone the way of disco.

Everything began to go south when he let Carl and Tony beat-up Darryl in grade school. While Donald didn't actually have a hand in the beating, he was expelled for guilt by association. Donald was sent away to Uncle Berry's for a long time. His dad didn't want to send him, but he could think of no other way to influence Donald to grow up.

Shortly after, Donald was admitted to a detention center at age 16 after a stint in grand larceny.

He is married, unofficially, though the state has declared it a common-law marriage. Donald has three kids, that he is aware of, Kyle (4), Gavin (6), and Sarah (2). Sarah is the only child by his "wife" Carol. Gavin, his oldest son, is the only child he likes; though his mother, Fiona, has filed a restraining order against Donald. Donald is between jobs, constantly, his ex-wife, Margaret, sold the ranch during his last stint in prison, which led to another jailing for 30 days due to harassment and destruction of property. Margaret, mother of Kyle, has moved to New York, and is filing for a full-custody of Kyle, which is uncontested by Donald.

Lately, Donald has been drinking even more heavily than usual. He has hooked-up with Brett, a drug courier for the Mexican mob. He hopes this will lead to some regular money, but in reality, the DEA has set-up Donald for a sting operation. While Donald is unaware of the monitoring, it will eventually lead to his death in an anticlimactic shoot-out where he fumbles for his own gun when SWAT comes through his window.

After the fourth session, it read like this.

******
Donald Kinley is more-or-less a cowboy in a time when they have long since gone the way of disco.

Everything began to go south when he let Carl and Tony beat-up Darryl in grade school. While Donald didn't actually have a hand in the beating, he was expelled for guilt by association. Donald was sent away to Uncle Berry's for a long time. His dad didn't want to send him, but he could think of no other way to influence Donald to grow up. Shortly after, Donald was admitted to a detention center at age 16 after a stint in grand larceny.

He is married, unofficially, though the state has declared it a common-law marriage. Donald has three kids, that he is aware of, Kyle (4), Gavin (6), and Sarah (2). Sarah is the only child by his "wife" Carol. Margaret, mother of Kyle, has moved to New York, and is filing for a full-custody of Kyle, which is uncontested by Donald. Gavin, his oldest son, is the only child he likes; though his mother, Fiona, has filed a restraining order against Donald.

Donald is between jobs, constantly. Lately, he has been drinking even more heavily than usual. He jumps at his big chance for a heroic cowboy moment, working as an informant and inside contact for the DEA. He hooks up with Brett, a drug courier for the Mexican mob and manages to get in on a big shipment. However, Donald's "shot at the big time" leads to his death in the crossfire, as he fumbles for his own gun when SWAT comes through his window.

[ This Message was edited by: Ron Edwards on 2001-11-09 14:39 ]

And here's the final result, after five sessions of play and the completion of the "adventure" (or whatever you call a Little Fears story-unit; scenario maybe). It's fixed now, so everything may be considered boldfaced. This is what happens to Donald.

*****
Donald Kinley is more-or-less a cowboy in a time when they have long since gone the way of disco.

At age 16, Donald was admitted to a detention center after a stint in grand larceny. Donald was sent away to Uncle Barry's for a long time. His dad didn't want to send him, but he could think of no other way to influence Donald to grow up.

He is married, unofficially, though the state has declared it a common-law marriage. Donald has three kids, that he is aware of, Kyle (4), Gavin (6), and Sarah (2). Sarah is the only child by his "wife" Carol. Margaret, mother of Kyle, has moved to New York, and is filing for a full-custody of Kyle, which is uncontested by Donald. Gavin, his oldest son, is the only child he likes; though his mother, Fiona, has filed a restraining order against Donald.

Donald is between jobs, constantly. Lately, he has been drinking more heavily than usual. He jumps at his big chance for a heroic cowboy moment, working as an informant and inside contact for the DEA. He hooks up with Brett, a drug courier for the Mexican mob and manages to get in on a big shipment. However, Donald's "shot at the big time" leads to his death in the crossfire, as he fumbles for his own gun when SWAT comes through his window.

Hmmm... Doesn't quite sound like you won the game. The man's life was still relatively sloppy and he leaves three orphans in the end.

If you had more sessions would that have made a greater difference in your ability to change the future of the character? Perhaps the level of bad stuff in the character's life should be relative to the length of the scenario? Or you should be able to change things proportionally?

Or was it just that you played so bad, Ron, that you didn't get enough conversion points or whatever to save your boy? :wink:

Mike

Hey Ron,

How about some of the mechanical details? How did you decide what stuff got deleted, or changed? Did you and Dav negotiate that? What game event would trigger a deletion or change? And how did you decide what stuff got made permanent? Was that all Dav? Was it the loss of Innocence that would trigger making something permanent?

And beyond that, what was your personal strategy for asking for the deletions and changes that you did? You saved the father from suicide. You prevented the loss of the car dealership. You Kept Margaret from selling the ranch, and nixed the resulting 30 day prison sentence. Why those things, instead of consolidating the multiple illegitimate children under one mother, or ditching the tragic death?

Paul

p.s. It's an awesome mechanic.

Hi Ron,

i think this is a nice idea, but i think you didn't get the chance to change that many things. I'm a futur LF GM, and i'll try to incorporate it in my games. I'll report how things went.

Right now, i think i'll connect some of the elements to specific events/actions in the scenarii, so this will be my (gamemaster's) guide to see how easely and what part of the story my player will be able to change.

Can you give more info on how your GM had run this thing ?


Thanks

Hello everyone,

I suggest that no HONEST story about childhood may lay claim to the possibility that everything could work out wonderfully in the end. Little Fears included some hard choices, and it's a Terror RPG - if the terrors mean anything, it's that you DON'T get to grow up all happy, no matter how bravely you face them.

Therefore a fully happy outcome for Donald was impossible. It wasn't stated as such. We all bought into it nonverbally, for all of our characters, that a moment of goodness and a sense of hope was the best we could shoot for. I think the outcome was far, far more satisfying than one wife, three happy kids, and a fine job answering phones at the local Office Depot.

Donald did a couple of heroic things, in kid terms, during play. To me, that means he gets to die as (or, what in our grubby world passes for) a hero.

It so happened that I perceived the slightly abusive father as the most wrenching element of play, especially following our first session. "Fixing" that became a high priority, and frankly I couldn't care less about how many women Donald ended up banging, in comparison.

Best,
Ron

Paul and everyone,

All the negotiations about the changes were carried out at the end of the sessions, with everyone freely commenting on each one. We didn't have any sort of conversion mechanism (OK, you lost 1 Soul, so this has to stay fixed) but it ended up being a lot like that.

To clarify my earlier post: Donald ended up helping to defend Darryl, instead of standing by as he was beaten. That, to me, DOOMED him to die in a crossfire, not to SAVE him from that. The thing to change became why he was there.

A lot of cool correspondences ended up taking place, such as the Hotwheels game in-play, which later turned into Donald running over the pock-faced man with a magic car in Closetland ... so that all of us went "doink!" at the end of the session and realizing that Donald's grand larceny HAD to get established as unchanged (stealing a cool car!). And I swear to God we never even planned a bit of that, even though he wanted to be a racecar driver when he grew up - we spotted THAT correspondence in the middle of play.

Donald's final scene in play, by the way, was having a root beer with his dad.

Best,
Ron

creepy...reminds me of the movie, 'Frequency'.

without spoiling too much, this guy whos father died in a warehouse explosion (he was a firefighter, was trying to rescue someone), breaks out his dad's HAM radio to see if it still works...he turns it on, and gets...his father, 30 years ago, two days before his death. The movie goes into the son convincing the father to do something differently (and he saves the person, yay!), and thats just the beginning...somehow, his father's survival caused his mother to die at the hands of a serial killer...

It's a cool movie about fighting to change the future when it doesn't wanna budge.

Uratoh,

I hope it's clear that although we, as players, knew the potential futures of our characters, the characters did not. They were not consciously trying to change their futures like the character in Frequency was doing.

Best,
Ron

I haven't read the entirety of this thread, but I feel like commenting anyway.

When I first read about this "mechanic" in one of Ron's posts, I still hadn't finished reading Little Fears . I thought Ron was referring to an actual rule in the game, and my immediate response was "that's a damned fine idea - now I really want to play that game". I was a little dismayed to find out it wasn't "official", but rather a house rule. Not that house rules aren't great, but it fits so well with so much of the source material (I'm not a fan of King, but It and The Body leap to mind) that it's a shame it isn't a part of the core system.

It's a kickass idea that does a lot for an already great game.

- Moose




[ This Message was edited by: hardcoremoose on 2001-11-10 20:39 ]

Wow.

I have to disagree with Mike--I'd say you clearly "won", Ron. Through play, you managed to change your character's future life so that his father doesn't beat him, causing divorce & then committing suicide, & Donald goes from being a "chump" who gets killed when he's suckered by the DEA to a tarnished hero who gets killed working with the DEA. That's a profound change. I mean, every PC we play will (theorectically) die at some point. You changed the circumstances of his death, and his father's death. Again, I say Wow.

As for the car theme--I love it when stuff like that happens. That's a great counterpoint when people ask "But how can narrativism work? With all those people co-authoring a story, won't it just be a mess of stuff?" No way, because all those associations we see in literature are often associations we create with our minds. Humans create patterns & associations. Get a group of people together with the firm goal of co-creating a story, & associations are bound to happen--or rather, they're bound to start seeing associations, & then consciously & subconsciously working to firm those associations up.

This is in response to little nicky waaayyy up near the beginning.

I ran Little Fears based on the following premise:

I had all the players give me a few paragraphs about their homelife and stuff, then worked with that.

Mostly, the players "created" the monsters through character actions. For instance, Donald learned of a savaging by an animal in a nearby field. After careful inquiry throughout many adults, he seized upon "Hyena" as the culprit. Soon, hyenas, laughing sadistically (and not at all in an animalistic fashion) became a central focal point.

Also, I had the main bad guy ("the Pocked Man") act more as an archetype (which is how Little Fears was meant to be played by my interpretation of the reading). Therefore, the Pocked Man wasn't a "creature", but an embodiment of male brutality. At times, the Poced man had Donald's father's face, the face of a mean Uncle, a school bully, and other men who displayed overly aggressive behaviors. Conquering him ultimately required each child to "make amends" to the Pocked Man (for instance, Donald said to the Pocked Man in the final encounter, "I'm sorry, dad, I'll try to be more responsible, and I forgive you"... Donald's father was big on responsibility). Once all the characters confronted the evil in this way, it wilted and died.

Also, to respond to other posts about "winning":

I would say that Donald did conquer the main crux of his problematic future. That, in this case, being conquering male dominance and brutality. He turns it around in his family, and thus, it changes his future. Should we return to these children in the future, other things could be changed as we dealt with other issues in the lives of the children.

I agree, they don't turn out "well", but they make significant improvement. Kayla, our female girl, goes from drug-addict prostitute with two illegitimate kids to drug-addict with two illegitimate kids who turns her life around and settles down with a nice man.

The other boy, who grew up to be a serial killer, now just has a bad temper that gets him into trouble.

Donald's future and changes were much more "personal" than the others. Partly due to Ron's style of play, and partly due to the fact that his future was very tailored to his description given to me in the beginning. Other players gave me less, and got more "template" futures.


In all, I think Little Fears is a wildly fun game that does require some discussion about the children before beginning (more dialogue between GM and Player before play). This is a good thing to my mind. It allowed me to tailor the terror to play on their fears, as well as have monsters that reflected life around them, and were given shape by their own suspicions and fear. The character sheet goes a long way to helping this work. By filling it out completely, most Players form a round (as opposed to "flat", remember English class?) character that has a chance to become very dynamic through play.

My overall assessment is a very strong game that lends itself to a very personal exploration of childhood fears... when done right. It can quickly degenerate to hack'n'slash maniac on the loose if you're not careful, but the foundations are there.

And a side note: let the Plaers run wild with Belief Magic, it makes the game.


Dav

Has anyone had a character's future involve investigating a Cthulu like mythos or have they all turned out relatively normal? In fact, has anyone used Little Fears as a segue to CoC? I guess this would only happen over a prolonged campaign. The characters would lose their childhood innocence but gradually become aware of powers beyond their understanding.

Sorry, as you can probably see, I've just been exposed to the Call of Cthulu RPG (I know I'm late) and that's where my thoughts have been lately.


Pete