I read the Demo for White Wolf’s new “Changeling: The Lost” game today.

It’s a much different and yet very similar game to the old world, I think. Though the origins of the Changelings and their ultimate goals are much different, and the “True Fae” are out there, and are frightening. The way they should be.

So, in celebration of that, I’m going to talk about three different Fairy Tale games I’ve had the pleasure of reading, and/or playing, in the past few months. These are all mini-reviews.

Fairy’s Tale
This game runs pretty fast. It’s very freeform, with nothing but guidelines really for how powers work. The GMs decision is law, but it’s not that strict. (And in my case, I tried to help each player shine at different points in the game that I ran.) The game also has great write-ups for how to run it for children at different age ranges, and so it’s a great kid’s game.

The overall premise is that you play Fairies who live in a place called “Brightwood.” There’s a town / village / whatever where humans live, and the children can see you and interact with you. You try to stop the activities of the goblins and the “dark” fairies.

Your power is measured in Essence, which you regain through heroic deeds or the like. Essence is also used to track damage – each round of combat you lose costs you an Essence point. (Only one Essence Point, regardless of how poorly you did.)

It uses D6, you look for evens, and on 6′s, you re-roll.

I like this game for one-offs. You could potentially run it as an ongoing game, moreso than most indie games (that is the biggest flaw of most indie games, as far as I’m concerned – I can’t see an extended game of any of them.) But I give this game a big thumbs’ up – though I’d have to try extended play to see how that ran.

The Zantabulous Zorceror of Zo
Man, I hope I spelled that right, since I’m doing it from memory.

Chadu Underkoffler and I seem to have a lot of common interests and devotions – superheroes, fairy tales, the state of the soul – though I’m only judging this from the games he’s released (1). (Truth & Justice, ZZZ, and Dead Inside, respectively.) Truth & Justice, as I stated earlier, was clearly a labor of love, and is useful for any super-hero game. I’ll now say that ZZZ is the same in regards for fairy tales. Even if you don’t run ZZZ, the advice and research in it are worth it for ANY fairy or fairy tale based game.

ZZZ uses a simplified version of the PDQ system, which I didn’t think was possible. (My original skepticism came, I think, with a statement like “Yeah, and here’s the rules light version of rock-papers-scissors as well.”) But it’s in there – it’s not too different, but it definitely is simplified. So I’m not going to dedicate much time about the system. My thoughts on the PDQ system

There’s a lot to like about ZZZ, and not much to dislike. I’ve heard people complain that it seems like a campaign diary, but those things are useful – they give insight into how one GM can handle problems, and frequently it’s different than you would. GMs sharing information is a great idea. (Which reminds me that I need to post more real-play stuff up here.)

The handling of supernatural powers and such is pretty intriguing, and I’d adapt some of those rules for a game like T&J as well, at least when dealing with ‘big powers.’ (If your power does more than one thing, that is.)

My favorite part, though, is that the game rewards you for failing dice rolls. You can get Learning Points – which are a kind of XP – and it’s about time an RPG does this. We learn best from failure, and so while people who succeed at dice rolls might move the plot, those who fail dice rolls should get more XP or something.

Again, I give ZZZ a big thumbs up. It’s informative, and a fairly solid game.

Seven Leagues
First off, I think this book wasn’t originally written in English. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, since I’m sure if I were to try to write something in French, it would be clumsy. This is just an observation I’m making.

That said, this game is yet another surprise treat. It was purchased for me by a friend, and I’m very grateful now.

Setting wise, this book is pretty sparse. It’s mostly rules. It talks a little about the nature of fairy tales and such, but really, I would like to see more background.

But the system? I’m in awe.

It works like this – it’s all narration at first. If combat starts, you make a “courage” roll (for initiative), and then starting with the first player you declare your intentions, and then you begin to narrate your actions. Each time, you gain a bonus of +1 to +3 (or maybe, maybe higher). Bland explanations could net a penalty.

This continues until one of the players declares this to be over (and this could be the GM), then everyone rolls a die and adds appropriate attributes, ‘aspects,’ and the sum of their bonuses. The highest roll wins.

It’s the narration part I like. It’s a nice touch.

And for that reason alone, it’s worth the $20 to pick it up.

That’s it for now, folks. Another post will be coming in the next few days.

(1) Despite similar interests, I think we take different approaches to it. Fortunately, the games he writes can take my tendency towards starting out bleak and moving towards hope – I like to start with ruined worlds, and then get people to move forward to hope.