No, simply giving N gauge trains for Christmas wasn’t enough….
It was the Christmas day family party game called ‘The Adverb Game’ that gave me the idea for this. This game consists of one person having to guess the adverb from the others answering questions in the style of that adverb. Somebody (I can’t remember who) described the game as a form of roleplaying, and it got me thinking; if my neice and nephew (8 and 10) can cope with that, they could cope with a ‘proper’ RPG.
I decided to use Fudge as the system; something easy to pick up. My first thoughts were to use an adventure I’ve run before, “El Tigré” featuring Mexican masked wrestlers and three legged aliens, but following some discussion on the Gamers mailing list, I went for a ‘generic fairy tale’ setting instead, featuring a Knight, a Princess and a Wizard as the three player characters. The plot was simple; Bandits had captured the prince (prince Jugears), and the heroic player characters had to rescue him. The bandits turned out to be agents of the rival nation, Vulgaria
The game was a great success, much better than I had expected; the players (aged 8, 10, and 39) picked up the game mechanics instinctively and got into character very well. The game ran for just over an hour, when I wrapped up the game because dinner was ready! It also demonstrated to me what a joy Fudge is to GM, and how easy it is to improvise mechanics on the fly. For example, in the climax of the adventure the Wizard challenged the enemy’s magician to a magical duel. Since none of the basic spells I’d give him were really combat orientated, I improvised a magical combat system on the spot; a series of contests of Magic attribute, with the loser taking the margin of victory as damage. Needless to say, the good guy won, Prince Jugears was rescued, and everyone lived happily ever after.
And they want another game. I can see this becoming an ongoing campaign…
