Little Fears Nightmare Edition

[cyrano]

Little Fears Nightmare Edition: The Game of Childhood Terror by Jason L Blair


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Caveats: I have not read the original Little Fears. I have not played this version. I just finished reading the book, having torn into it as soon as I could get one off the truck. I'd heard glowing things about the (out of print) original, and I knew that Blair was really enthused about the chance to fix things he felt hadn't gone well in the original.
I love the concept--kids fighting the monsters that grown ups can't see any more, because they're the only ones who will. And I think I could still get that out of this game. But.... I think the book slants a little *cute* for what I want.
The things real kids are afraid of aren't cute. They're really scary. When he described Grimm's Fairy Tales as 'lighter and more fanciful' I was a little concerned. I don't want to run a "Scooby Doo Babies" game. And the game is treated as a television show--stories are referred to as 'episodes' and a campaign is a 'season'. The various types of die rolls--straight, contested, and prolonged--are labelled quizzes, tests, and exams.
However, If I ignore the nomenclature I don't like, there is at least some support for the kind of game I want to run, and I like the system aside from the 'casting and directing advice'. The balance between older kids and their increased ability and younger kids and their belief (and the magic that goes along with that) is very pretty.
I would occasionally get frustrated because they would describe an effect or game stat and then not tell me how it affected game play, but at the back of the book is a handy collection of cheat sheets that concisely lays out what things are and what they do, so that did get resolved.
Closetland has potential (I'd have to change the name, I think) but I'd want to go in and put things together so they fit my vision more closely. (There's some neat creepy stuff, and only a little cute, but I think I want it to be more like Mirrormask, or Mad City in the excellent Evil Hat production "Don't Rest Your Head".)
Unfortunately, my big pet peeve came out--lots of editing errors. Words missing, added in, or misspelled. If you're already a month or two late coming out, please take a couple of days and let a copyeditor go over your stuff. Of course, I'm sure that Jess or Fred or one of my friends with some actual experience with getting published in the gaming world can tell you why That Just Doesn't Happen.
All in all, I'm glad I picked this up and I hope I get the chance to give it a test run. I think it's got potential.

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Comments

[spideyj.livejournal.com]

I've played the original and I thought it was awesome (of course the gm has something to do with that too). I've always wanted to do a Little Fears slumber party - sit around in our pajamas eating popcorn and drinking soda and basically telling scary stories like we did when we were kids (and man, my brother came up with some seriously scary stuff). (Although the soda is likely to be upgraded to something more potent, heh.)

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

This is very good news! Play experience trumps reading the rule book. (: