RPMiller: Faery's Tale

[Naryt]

In the What are you playing? thread, I posted that I occasionally run Faery's Tale for my kids to which RPMiller said:

Faery's Tale!!! What do you think of it? Any feedback?

It has good entertainment value and my kids love it! I like the ability it has to run a fast paced game (key for young children with shorter attention spans). We play using the diceless option (we use black and white stones pulled from a bag for determining success) as noted on P34.

Do you have any play session write-ups?

No write-ups. They have managed to save Jack from the Giant though. I made heavy use of RPG-SoundMixer to help create atmosphere for that tale. The Giant snored loudly; birds chirped, frogs croaked, and bees buzzed as the faeries walked/flew through the forest; and Jack's village was full of farm and people noises.

The next tale saw them rescuing twins from two goblins and a swamp troll. The two Sprites sacrificed themselves distracting the troll while the children and two other faeries (pixie and brownie) escaped on a pooka turned horse (I play the pooka, a sidekick to the pixie). The children were cowering in their home (a little hut) in the corner, under a table with their parents equally terrified and they could all hear the troll finally coming up the way. The pixie was down to 1 Essence and the brownie had no idea what to do (she's 4 after all ). The pixie, in a grand epiphany, turned to the pooka and asked, "Can you be a big scary bear?" The bear barely managed to best the troll and send it packing (down to 1 Essence for the pooka). The sprites revived and reached the hut just in time to learn that Jule, the brownie, had revealed herself to the family and so would have to find a new home. The other faeries are now trying to figure out how to find Leanan to ask her to allow Jule to remain with her human family.

The next little jaunt will see them at the Tournament of the Fey where they'll meet Princess Joy of Merry Brook. If all goes well, the faeries will end that jaunt as Knights of Merry Brook, with a promise from Princess Joy to intercede with Queen Leanan for Jule and with a hint that "something dark" lurks in the heart of Brightwood.

Do you play using the Dark Essence at all? How do your kids do with that aspect?

Yes we use it and three of them are horrified that their precious pixie (sprite or brownie) might become a dark faery and so avoid even talking about {breathy whisper}Dark Essence{/breathy whisper}. The fourth, however, is lovingly known as Gozer, has a penchant for the dark (Darth Vader was his hero for a year or so) and is fascinated by what Dark Essence might do to his sprite, Cort. So far, they've all managed to avoid gaining any Dark Essence.

Do they have a favorite type of faery? Would you have any interest in adventures, settings, or *ahem* maps for it? Do you have any questions about it?

The boys both like sprites (but not pookas), one girl likes pixies and the other brownies. Personally, I like pookas.

I would LOVE more adventures, settings and (oh yeah!) maps for it! I am actually in the process of making a map for Brightwood as I'm going to need details on where Merry Brook is or where Jack's villiage was or what lies around the "Heart of Darkness" in the center of Brightwood that is slowly becoming corrupted.

[RPMiller]

That is really great feedback thank you very much!

[pyrandon]

I enjoyed reading that, too, Naryt. My kids, unfortunately lost interest in the game--well, mainly my son (age 5) who could never get excited about playing a miniature faery; I think, unfortunately and despite its nice, simple mechanic, this game is a tad girl-centered. Perhaps a stereotypical thing to say, I know, but in my one case it was true. I found myself trying to go the Peter Pan-ish sprite route for him, introducing creatures and "higher" adventure, allowing my son to be as macho a sprite warrior as a miniature figure can be (even allowing him to be an otter, one of his favorite animals), etc.

I have toyed with the idea of modifying the game to be less "fey" and more fantasy, but I think I will create my own game instead. I'm not sure why you're asking about it, RP, or if you're thinking about freelancing on that game, but I think a niche the game may be able to expand into is leaning toward more "boy-centered" adventures. A tough sell, I think, but worth the time.

[RPMiller]

Thank you for the feedback as well Don. Pat Sweeney and I are friends. I've worked on several of Firefly's projects either play-testing or even co-authoring. That's all I'll say about that.

We played sessions of FT with my kids (boy 11, girl 12) and several adults and had a great time. My son enjoyed it, but he is already a roleplayer so that might have something to do with it. Pat ran the game, and it didn't really have a 'girlish' slant, but there was a fair amount of action going on as well.

[Naryt]

The book is exceptionally girl centric so my first concern was "How do I run this with boys too?" [Ahem] I was ranting so I'll just say that the perception that girls are good, magical and beautiful and that boys are non-magical or homely or evil that comes from the book was really off putting at first. Otherwise, I love the whole thing. If I were to suggest a way to mitigate that perception, it would be to give equal time to boy pixies and brownies as well as girl sprites and pookas. Also, making one or two of the goblins or dark faeries as girls would also help. It just needs a bit more balance...oops, ranting again.

Thinking about where the story will go from here, I'm leaning toward exploring the impact of Dark Essence more. It seems Boan, Lord of Gloaming Glen, needs help as someone has blocked the Gloaming stream and his beautiful glen is withering away. The Princess Joy gives the quest to the newly made Knights of Merry Brook. Unbeknownst to the knights and Princess Joy, Boan is already tainted by Dark Essence and by the third day, visible signs of change will creep into Boan's appearance. Will the knights be able to save Gloaming Glen? Will they be able to help the once noble pixie lord, Boan, to purge himself of the Darkness growing in his heart?

[RPMiller]

Regarding the gender bias, that is an interesting perspective and one that should definitely be fixed. I hadn't noticed any sort of gender bias personally, but then I would be looking at it differently. It is feedback like this that really helps make a game better so I appreciate it as will Pat.

Could you tell me more about where the perception of gender bias comes from? Is it the character stories, or examples, or something else?

Regarding where you are going to be taking the story, it sounds like a lot of fun. I hope you'll share more of it with us.

[pyrandon]

Well, RP, I am definitely not slamming the game, that's for sure. Tell Pat I like it; I bought it "cold" & never regretted the purchase.

It's just that I think the very notion of miniature faeries is the "culprit"; this is built into the milieu, the concept itself. My boy somehow, by nature, is very "boy"--sports, wrestling, etc. are his thing (& it's odd, because neither my wife nor I are Joe America six-pack NASCAR construction worker types [although I have close friends who are] who fostered this; it's just him, just the natural make up of male vs. female.) My son would love "D&D" type fantasy, & I may go that route someday, but since he's only 6 I wanted to hold off on that for awhile yet.

Anyway, the mechanic behind Faery's Tale is so age-appropriate, clever, & clear that I'd like to see it reworked. If you have seen the "Zorcerer of Zo", this sort of literary fairy tale setting is much closer to non-gender specific, I think, & would be a great for Sweeney's game mechanic.

(& as a side note, it really cheesed me off when I tripped across that "Zo" game, because I was about 10 pages "in process" of creating a world exactly like that, thinking that for once I had come up with an original rpg idea!! I hate being beaten to the punch--and every single time, too! It's just like the time in the 70s I had the idea for computers to talk to one another over phone lines...)

[RPMiller]

Oh, I didn't think you were slamming it at all so no worries.

I'm just really curious about where the gender bias is since that never once came up in our play-tests or personal games. I'm wondering if perhaps it is the adults that are creating it more then the kids thinking there is one. Of course, another interesting approach would be to not show the book or talk about its name to a child. Just mention generically things like "you get to play a wielder of magic who can ride steeds and joust and fight monsters". If you never say the word faery until you are well into the adventure I wonder if most kids would ever notice? Anyway, as I said I'm really curious about this observation and I have invited Pat to come take a look at what is being said. Perhaps he'll make a guest appearance.

[pyrandon]

I know this is kind of off-topic for our forums, but it's a nice conversation; if Pat decides to show as well, that would be great, too. As I said, it's a good game.

I am surprised the gender bias never crossed your minds--and even more surprised it never appeared in playtesting. In fact, when I first "found" the game I was convinced the design concept was to manufacture a young girl-friendly rpg. You may be right, RP, that I created a bias in my trying to compensate for that with my son, who as I said, is very "boy." I'm not sure. I should say he did not dislike the game, for he chose to play a (guess what..?) warrior sprite, so I had him confront a troll, use his feats of power as much as possible (which equals tons of dice rolling!), etc. But it was (in his words) "not Lord of the Rings". Maybe I'm just a crappy GM.

[RPMiller]

Well we are in the General Discussion topic and as I mentioned a while back you need to have a free for all conversation area to make the forums feel more homey and show people that they can hang out and just chat.

I got an email back from Pat and his schedule is very busy, but he has read through the posts and will try to visit.

No, I highly doubt that you are a bad GM. You are far too creative. I think the trick is to make the setting more Tolkien like if that is what he wants.