Amazing Tales

Creating Kalopia, world building with Amazing Tales

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Jospeh Wolf took Amazing Tales to KublaCon 2019 and ran an awesome session of Amazing Tales that mixed world building with adventure. Here’s his account of what happened, and check out below for the map the kids came up with and a whole Gazeteer you can download detailing it.

The world of Kalopia. Watch out for the Araknos (Spider Monkeys) and the Matzecoatls (Feathered Serpents) and the Penguins – the Penguins have a plan…

“Oh whatta journey! I just got back from KublaCon 2019 and even though I’m weary and worn out, I’m compelled to create. Well, as they say, no rest for the wicked. Time to get to work and hammer out a manuscript so the kids and parents can revisit our peril-filled yarn.

I’ve been doing this for a while. I got my start when I was twelve, by my ogre-math that’s around 36 years of which means I’ve been gamemastering for around 35 years. I’ve attended too many conventions to count sometimes as player but usually as a gamemaster. I guess you could say I’m most comfortable behind the GM screen.

Well KublaCon took a lot out of me this year. I ran 20 hours of games in just three days, ten of those hours were on the same days as the Amazing Tales kids game. You’d think I would be sick of it, not so. I ran many games that weekend but the kids game was special for a lotta reasons. Unlike many of my games, this required a lot of preparation. Running games for kids isn’t the same as running for adults, not by a longshot. You have to be more patient, more nurturing, you have to watch your language (something I struggle with), and reign in 35 years of hardwired gamemaster instincts. You have to strike a balance between Sithlord and loving nurturing English nanny.

Well call me Darth Poppins. When gamemastering for kids, you’re making an indelible mark on those young minds, every act and word has an impact good or bad.

So yeah, preparations but not just mental ones, I had to pull together a lot of equipment. So in addition to the laptop I brought along a projector, cords, and all the cables. This setup allowed me to project our evolving world map in real-time as we built the playspace. It worked far better than I could have imagined. The kids were totally into it. True some wandered in and out but whenever they sat down they were keen to contribute and boy did they have opinions! It was structured chaos and I loved it. It was wonderful to just turn them loose.

Generally, I’m a bit of a lone Wolf (snrk!) used to doing a lot on my own. I prefer it that way but sometimes collaboration can be a joy. So while I worked the digital stylus and keyboard and asked guiding questions the kids did most of the heavy lifting. Ultimately, this wasn’t MY world, it was OUR world. We hashed out most of the continent in less than 30 minutes. Yeah, those kids were creative dynamos.

Once we had the rudiments of the world, it was time to populate our world with people and creatures the kids would enjoy playing. Now with all the media available to kids, it’s a challenge to get kids to actually create their own stuff. Inevitably kids draw from what they’ve seen so tabletop roleplaying games frequently feature orphaned wizards, magic arsenal wielding ninjas, transforming robots, and adorable animal gladiators. As a creative I urge the kids to bring new content into our games by taking their ideas and interests and tweaking till it has the flavor but not the exact shape of the inspiration. The kids did not disappoint me.

So once we had characters and some truly great art on the character sheets (I just love adding crafts to my games) we embarked upon the adventure one featuring a nefarious lizard wizard who was stealing all the clouds creating droughts and hardship in a bid to conquer the world. Our young heroes would not stand for such selfishness and cruelty.

Yup, quite a journey. So the long and short of it. What follows is a brief taste of a very rich world. As designer and cartographer, I took a few liberties, added and tweaked here and there, a few coastlines changed but everything the kids came up with is here, and more.

I hope you enjoy exploring the World of Kalopia.”

The World of Kalopia
Kalopia World Map

Perspective Taking and Amazing Tales

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I’ve recently been reading up on the excellent work of the folk at Game To Grow. They’re a group who focus on the therapeutic value of role-playing games, and through doing so they’ve identified a number of areas where role-playing games can be of benefit to any child. The areas they’ve identified are

  • Perspective taking
  • Frustration tolerance
  • Creative problem solving
  • Collaboration

Thinking about these areas can be a great way to build interesting encounters. In this article I’m going to take a look at the first of those – perspective taking, and how you can build it into your games of Amazing Tales.

Perspective taking

Perspective taking is the understanding that other people have different ideas to you, and people usually develop it between the ages of two and three. Perspective taking is a key skill for understanding and resolving social conflicts so it’s going to be part of any role-playing game. Here are five ways you can build encounters around perspective taking in a role-playing game.

T-Rex and Rabbit often see things very differently.

#1. Identifying emotions

When my kids were four they started school. And one of the first topics they had was learning about feelings and emotions. In particular, what do they look like and how do we identify them. They drew pictures of smiley faces and frowny faces. They talked about what it’s like to laugh and cry. It’s important for kids to know when someone is sad, or angry or happy or lonely. You can bring this into your games by describing emotions rather than naming them. So instead of saying

“The goblin looks sad”

say

“The goblin is sitting quietly in a corner and looking at the ground. You can see tears on his cheeks”

Now it is up to the players to work out that the Goblin is sad. With older children you can use more subtle clues or simply adjust your tone of voice or body language to convey an emotion and see if they pick up on it.

#2. Understanding the preferences of others

Not everyone reacts the same way to the same things. Indeed some people don’t like things other people really like. Being able to work this out and act appropriately is an important skill.

The witch of Tom’s Hollow has her pet crow sing to her all day. She likes the singing so much she has cast a spell to make it really loud. This is upsetting for the people of Tom’s hollow who think the crow’s singing sounds awful.

The witch will not be persuaded to stop if people tell her the crow’s singing is bad. To her it sounds great. If someone explains that other people don’t like it, then she might listen.

Situations like this could also arise because of things the heroes have done. For instance if they’ve put out a fire by flooding a valley then not everyone is going to be pleased with them. Next time they might learn to think in advance.

#3. Telling socially acceptable lies

Some research into perspective taking has focused on whether people recognise when it’s appropriate to tell a socially acceptable lie. Examples from the research included being polite about someone’s appearance and expressing gratitude when presented with an unwanted gift. It is easy to imagine either of these challenges coming up in the context of an adventure. For instance…

The starship Entrepreneur has settled into orbit around the planet Grox Four. After the captain sends greetings the Groxians respond by sending the crew a present. Six tonnes of cow poo! The Groxians seem certain that this is a fabulous gift – what do you do?

Groxians are huge fans of cow poo. That’s why they’ve just sent you six tonnes of it!

#4. Resolving disputes

Resolving differences between different factions is something heroes are often called on to do. Sometimes all that is needed to resolve the challenge is to understand where both parties are coming from, and explain it back to them.

Brogor the Troll won’t let anyone cross the bridge to the village. This is because he lives under the bridge, and the sound of feet crossing stops him getting any sleep (Trolls sleep in the day). He just wants to be left to sleep in quiet. The villagers want to cross the bridge. Can the heroes resolve this problem?

In this example there might be some easy solutions. Maybe there’s another bridge Brogor could sleep under, or maybe the villagers could cross somewhere else. Whatever the resolution, this is probably more interesting than a situation where the troll is causing a problem ‘because he’s bad’.

#5. Explaining things

Being able to explain things in terms someone else will understand is often a challenge for children. In adventures it is often the case that the help the heroes need is only one good explanation away – but children often struggle to realise that the people they’re talking to might not know all the things they do.

The heroes have travelled to a far away land to retrieve a magic crystal that will save their home from a magical hurricane. But the people in the far-away land have never heard of this problem, or the land where the heroes come from. If they get a clear explanation they will help. If they don’t they won’t.

If you want to practice this don’t allow children to skate past these moments. Have your NPCs ask questions about the things they don’t understand. Have them leap to (wrong) conclusions based on poor explanations. If you make them a little foolish then this often becomes funny rather than frustrating for the players.

In the course of a quest heroes often have to explain what they’re doing again and again. This is a good chance to both practice the skill, and to reinforce the story you are making up with your children.

Finally, older players might learn that they should vary their explanations based on who they’re talking to. Should you really tell the castle guards you’re here to steal the king’s crown?

Not just for kids

By now you’ve probably realised that perspective taking is a skill we need every day, as adults as well as as children. So if you find these techniques working well for you in games of Amazing Tales, don’t hesitate to dress them up a bit and bring them into games with adults as well.

Amazing Tales?

If reading this has left you thinking, ‘that all sounds great, but I need a roleplaying game to play with my kids’ then I’d like to introduce you to Amazing Tales. It’s a tabletop role-playing game designed for kids aged four and up to play together with their parents.

Explore this site to learn more about it, or order a copy by using the links below

Playing Amazing Tales with Adults

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Amazing Tales was always meant to be a kids game. It’s got very few rules, it’s intended to work with very few players, it makes no pretence at game balance. And yet not long after it came out I heard about it being used by grown ups. And so, I too gave it a go. Here’s what I learned.

It’s a ton of fun! both games I’ve tried with adults ended up being a blast, in a silly, high paced, crazy kind of way. Both featured pirate animals, both featured a lot of action. One featured a psychic bar-tender who poisoned a cthuloid monster with a giant cocktail and one included a chimpanzee pirate riding a T-rex through the gates of the bad guy’s fortress. They were those kind of games.

He could be your character.
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More on non combat encounters

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Last week we looked at two ways to create non combat encounters – natural hazards, and contests. This week we’ll look at a few more. Tasks where violence is simply not an option, troublesome individuals and peaceful high stakes tasks.

When violence is not an option

“Break into the castle, get past the guards, sneak into the Prince’s bedchamber and steal his prized gauntlets. If you’re seen – you’ve failed. If you harm any of the guards, you’ve failed.”

In this situation it’s clear that the challenge should involve no violence. Perhaps the patron simply doesn’t want to be responsible for bloodshed, perhaps the quest need attract no attention. Perhaps the party are having to carry out their activities on friendly territory. For whatever reason every challenge that would ordinarily be resolved at the point of a sword now has to find a different solution.

I think it’s telling us to use our brains?

If you’re going for this approach put the onus of finding the non-violent solutions onto the players. Just because the task has to be resolved peacefully doesn’t mean that doing that is going to be easy. Make them impress you with their ingenuity.

You might also find that having solved one seemingly ‘combat ready’ problem peacefully they start to take the approach more frequently when it’s not explicitly required, something which in my experience often leads to more enjoyable games.

Troublesome Individuals

A character doesn’t have to be actively hostile to be a problem, some people are just difficult to deal with. Here are some options for troublesome encounters

The shadow has decided to follow the heroes around for a while. It could be because they think the heroes are interesting, it could be because they think the heroes are up to no good, it could be because they’re the hero’s biggest fans. It’s hard to be stealthy or secretive with a shadow, and they might get themselves into trouble and need rescuing.

Remember that heroes are often remarkable individuals, it’s only natural they’d attract attention.

The diligent have a job to do and are determined to do it well. Perhaps they’re a guard. Perhaps they’re an inspector. Perhaps they’re a particularly fussy chambermaid. Regardless they have a task to do and will do it to the best of their ability. Might this delay the heroes? Yes it might. Might it cost them money? Yes it might. Might offending the diligent mean they can’t get what they want at all? Yes it might.

Here’s Alan Rickman encountering a particularly diligent sales assistant

The grifter is someone who is out to relieve the heroes of their hard earned cash. This is particularly easy for a grifter who is travelling one way while the heroes are travelling in another. Perhaps they have valuable information on the lands ahead. Perhaps they have holy water or magical herbs for sale (how would you tell them apart from regular water and herbs?). Heroes are naturally disposed to believe stories about mysterious goings on, magic items and the like, making adventuring parties easy prey for con-artists.

If you’re looking for cons to run on your players there’s a wealth of ideas in this book.

High stakes tasks

Try giving your party something to organise that should have nothing to do with violence. Don’t just ask them to travel through the jungle, ask them to take an expedition of 200 through the jungle, supported by elephants. Or perhaps the king has made them responsible for the famously hard to please prince’s fifth birthday party. Their budget is unlimited, but if the prince isn’t pleased, the dungeons await!

I once ran a game in which the players were soldiers in a Napoleonic era army. The officers ordered some men from the ranks (the party) to prepare a dinner party for them.

The party had one factor in their favour – one of them was a butler’s son, and one against them – the NPC chef was blind drunk.

Do the job well and they’d impress their officers, perhaps gain useful information and a chance to help themselves to some choice supplies. Do it badly and their officers would remember them for all the wrong reasons.

As part of the game the dinner party was a great success, forcing the players to dive into parts of their character sheets usually left undisturbed and drove a lot of role-playing as the enlisted ranks struggled with the idea of needing three spoons per person…

So there you have it, a whole range of ways to keep a game moving without asking anyone to roll initiative. If you’ve got ideas of your own – leave them in the comments.

Interested in Amazing Tales?

Non combat encounters : Natural hazards and contests

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With Amazing Tales being a kids game I’m sometimes asked about how parents can keep combat out of it. The answer of course, is not to put any in. The challenge, is what to put there instead?

A lack of combat shouldn’t mean a lack of conflict, as I wrote last week if you’re going to have much of a story conflict is essential. But as last week’s article pointed out, the range of possible conflicts is huge.

This article isn’t about how to write the perfect mystery or an investigative scenario. It’s about having more options to go in that gaming space where you’d usually say ‘And then the bandits attack, roll initiative!’. This week it takes a look at two kinds of non combat encounters – natural hazards, and contests.

Bridge_out
What do you do when the bridge is out and the river in flood?
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RPG Theory: Creating conflicts

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A band of adventurers armed with sword and spell venture underground to kill monsters and claim treasure. That was the original dungeons and dragons concept and it’s propelled the hobby for the subsequent forty years. But games don’t have to be about violence, and, there are lots more ways to set up a good conflict.

The good news is any kind of conflict, whether it involves violence or not can be summarised in the following form

  • I want …
  • I can’t have it because …  and …
  • If I succeed… but if I fail…

The appeal of violence in role-playing games is straightforward, a fight provides the essential narrative elements in condensed form. You’ve got a conflict, you’ve got stakes, you’ve got motivation, all of it right there in the time it takes to say ‘there are five goblins in the room’. If your story isn’t going to feature violence it still needs those things. So let’s look at them one at a time.

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Shadow vs T-Rex

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Kris and Big sent us this account of their first ever game of Amazing Tales. As you can see they had an epic and prehistoric time. If you’ve got an Amazing Tale to share send it in, or share it in our Facebook group.

Big (a real life five year old boy with a great imagination) is a crystal raptor. This is a raptor dinosaur made of crystal so that he’s almost invincible. His name is Shadow, and his best talent is clawing and tearing things with his razor sharp claws. He can also run super-duper mega-fast (adjectives supplied by Big), build things, and swim.

Amazing Tales Character

Shadow lives in a hilly forest with a nice stream running through the middle and between the hills. One day, as Shadow takes his morning walk to the stream for a refreshing drink and to catch a few breakfast fish, he hears a small mewling sound. Upon investigation, he finds a tiny baby triceratops (Meepmeep) who seems to be all alone.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Tyrannosaurus Rex can be heard in the distance. He’s coming closer! Shadow grabs Meepmeep and takes off running.

[Roll for run. Miss!] Shadow’s weighed down by Meepmeep and can’t get away as fast as easily as usual. T Rex is now right behind Shadow, almost in chomping distance.

[Roll for build. Critical hit!] Shadow quickly puts Meepmeep down and, with his outstanding building ability crafts a strong wall out of forest material right in front of T. Rex. As T. Rex moves to go around the wall, Shadow builds even further. Eventually, there is a wall dividing the full length of the forest into two halves – Shadow and Meepmeep on one side and T. Rex on the other.

Shadow and Meepmeep settle down to enjoy their belated breakfast and rest for a bit. T. Rex can be heard thumpthumpthumping along the wall looking for a way to break through. Just as Shadow starts relaxing, he hears a desolate sound from Meepmeep. Meepmeep explains that he’s sad and worried because his mother is caught on the other side of the wall with T. Rex.

Shadow comes up with a plan to save Meepmeep’s mom. He’ll hide Meepmeep in the safe half of the forest, then take down a small portion of the wall atop the river. He’ll swim through the river so that T. Rex doesn’t notice him.

[Roll swim. Hit!] Shadow stealthily swims underwater past T. Rex. T. Rex continues stomping along the wall while Shadow searches the dangerous side of the forest for Meepmeep’s mom. He finds her and begins the trek back to Meepmeep on the safe side.

[Roll swim. Hit!] Shadow and Meepmeep’s mom make it past T. Rex by swimming underwater to the safe side of the island. From his hiding place, Meepmeep spots his mom and runs over in excitement. The rush of movement catches T. Rex’s attention, and he once again tries to break through the wall. He finds the weak spot where Shadow had to remove part of the wall to cross over. T. Rex starts making his way through.

[Roll build. Miss!] Shadow tries to hurriedly rebuild that portion of the wall, but does not finish in time. Now T. Rex is on the same side of the forest as Shadow, Meepmeep, and Meepmeep’s mom! T. Rex gets even closer, eyeing the group hungrily.

[Roll fight. Hit!] Shadow uses his razor sharp claws to defend Meepmeep and his mom. T. Rex is injured in the scuffle and takes a few steps backwards.

[Roll build. Hit!] In the brief period while T. Rex is recovering from Shadow’s attack, Shadow very quickly rebuilds the missing portion of the wall, effectively shutting T. Rex on the other side of the forest again.

Rex continues thumping along the wall looking for another way through but seems to be stuck on his side of the forest. Shadow, Meepmeep, and Meepmeep’s mom live together happily ever after as a family, safe from T. Rex.

Amazing Tales’ big day out

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About a month ago my friend Juliette asked if I’d like to give a talk about Amazing Tales at the company where she works. I said yes, not just because I like talking about Amazing Tales, and because Juliette is a great friend, but because Juliette works for Lego.

lego-logo.jpg

The brief was simple. Come along, be inspiring, tell us stuff about playing with kids that we don’t know.

Note: Simple is not the same as easy.

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