[RPG]: Faery's Tale, reviewed by grandmaster_cain (4/5)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12347.phtml

Master Cain's Summary:

An excellent game not only for kids, but for anyone who feels the slightest bit jaded at the whole hobby of gaming. Bring me your jaded, your weary, your rules-lawyers yearning to be free, and harken back to a simpler time.

Go to the full review for more information.

[Wood]

Any game that can get a couple of eleven-year-old girls involved in character has to be a Good Thing.

[Firefly Games]

Thank you for the excellent, and very thorough, review.

I'm sorry to hear about the difficulty you had printing out the PDF. This is the first I'm hearing about this problem, so I'm concerned - have others also encountered this? I wonder if it might be an Acrobat version compatibility problem? Anyway, I'd like to get to the bottom of it if possible so we can tweak the file if necessary - there's no reason for the game to take so long to print out on a normal-quality printer. Any additional details, from the reviewer or others, would be appreciated. Thank you.

[C. Chapman]

Originally Posted by Firefly Games

Thank you for the excellent, and very thorough, review.

I'm sorry to hear about the difficulty you had printing out the PDF. This is the first I'm hearing about this problem, so I'm concerned - have others also encountered this? I wonder if it might be an Acrobat version compatibility problem? Anyway, I'd like to get to the bottom of it if possible so we can tweak the file if necessary - there's no reason for the game to take so long to print out on a normal-quality printer. Any additional details, from the reviewer or others, would be appreciated. Thank you.

I used two different printers to print out my copy; a laser-printer which whipped the pages out every few seconds, and an ink-jet printer several years old, that managed without difficulty as well (though it was obviously slower because it's a slower printer anyway). No print problems in either case. I keep my version of Acrobat updated, so if it is an Acrobat issue, it's not one I would've encountered.

cheers!
Colin

[C. Chapman]

In case folks missed it, here's an overview of the two sessions I ran a few weeks ago for a handful of the kids I teach:

Well, read the rules, immediately understood them, sat down with 5 kids from my Year 4 class (they're 9) this afternoon with no planning at all, and created characters and started running an adventure for them.

Within 15 minutes the entire group had been led through chargen, created characters, and had the rule system explained to them ready to play. Nice.

They took to the game like ducks to water, especially as I was able to relate many of the fae to characters they'd encountered in the Spiderwick Chronicles (I read the class all five books during storytimes this year).

Because I said I'd award Essence for creative thinking and heroism (being nice and good, not just heroic) they played up to that aspect brilliantly.

The adventure was a basic one, winged from the start, based on the idea that they said they'd like to "stop some bad faeries doing something wrong." So, I made it more personal, by having a band of goblins intent on invading the house the two brownie PCs were looking after, intent on wrecking it, ruining the brownies' reputations, and maybe even hurting them in the process.

Basically, the two pixies, sprite, and two brownies have encountered and befriended a really naughty pooka (who wanred them of the goblin plot), and started to organise their defense of the house, while the sprite and one pixie rushed to the woods nearby to enlist aid. The player of the pixie spending Essence to ensure they met a stag in a woodlnd clearing, the sprite then talking to and using Essence to convince the stag to help them fight the goblins.

So, in an impromptu hour of play, they created characters, grasped the system, and had a lot of fun (and inter-character roleplay).

The second session:

Well, the kids finished the adventure this afternoon. Much fun was had as they prepared to defend the house. A spoon was used to catapult eggs, tacks were placed on the floor inside the cottage door, pixie dust was used to create a sword and bow and arrows, as well as an area of deep sticky mud outside of the door. A deodorant can and match were used as an impromptu faery flamethrower, the befriended pooka was convinced to assume the form of a skunk and "fart at the goblins" (their choice of words), the stag charged the goblins from behind, the queen of a wasp hive was sweet talked into lending her warriors in a rear attack on the goblins, and two ducks from the pond were summoned into the fray.

Needless to say, between facing a determined sprite, a pixie with a bow and arrows, a barrage of eggs, a moat of sticky mud, a floor covered in tacks, a few gouts of flame, an entire swarm of wasps, the barreling charge of a stag, the stinky spray of a skunk, and a pair of angry ducks, the dozen or so goblins found themselves outclassed, humiliated, and fleeing for their lives.

The faery queen awarded them all small medals, and the honorary titles, "Lords/Ladies of the Cottage".

Several of the kids now want to buy .pdf copies of the game.

cheers!
Colin

[Destriarch]

Hehe sounds like you had a lot of fun! I like open freeform plots like that best, where you can really use your imagination and ingenuity to deal with the problem rather than being presented with a preconceived plan or fait accomplis by the GM.

Ash

[red dragon]

My copy printed without any problems or noticeable slowness on an HP inkjet and using Adobe Reader 6.0. I had a lot of trouble in the past with Necessary Evil for Savage Worlds but none with Faery's Tale.

[hyphz]

Regarding the comment about pixies, I wondered if this might be intentional. I already noticed that the game puts clear limits on magic for most of the other fairy types, but doesn't describe any clear rules about what pixie dust can and can't do, thus meaning that it could be used to turn invisible, travel, etc. or duplicate any of the other types' gifts. At first I thought this was a bug, but based on what you've said above, it may be because that type is intended to be the "default" (as the classical perception of a fairy) and the others are options included for colour for anyone who doesn't want to play that default.

I also found the Boon rules a bit confusing - the rules talk about "spending Boons". At first glance, it looks like spending Boons means calling in favours, but the book later mentions that a fairy can spend Boons by "issuing a few of her own". This seems a bit odd - a fairy can get another fairy promoted by making a particular number of promises to other people, which might be nothing to do with the promotion?

[Firefly Games]

Originally Posted by hyphz

Regarding the comment about pixies, I wondered if this might be intentional. I already noticed that the game puts clear limits on magic for most of the other fairy types, but doesn't describe any clear rules about what pixie dust can and can't do, thus meaning that it could be used to turn invisible, travel, etc. or duplicate any of the other types' gifts. At first I thought this was a bug, but based on what you've said above, it may be because that type is intended to be the "default" (as the classical perception of a fairy) and the others are options included for colour for anyone who doesn't want to play that default.

Interesting. I definitely expected pixies to be the most familiar type of faery to most people not versed in faery folklore, but I didn't consciously try to reflect that in the rules. It's just that while other fey magic has some basis in folklore, and therefore some inherent limits, pixie dust seems to get used for almost everything in the source material (admittedly, more movies & stories than folklore, in this case). So to be true to the sources folks would be coming at Faery's Tale from, pixie dust in the game also had to be pretty flexible.

Originally Posted by hyphz

I also found the Boon rules a bit confusing - the rules talk about "spending Boons". At first glance, it looks like spending Boons means calling in favours, but the book later mentions that a fairy can spend Boons by "issuing a few of her own". This seems a bit odd - a fairy can get another fairy promoted by making a particular number of promises to other people, which might be nothing to do with the promotion?

Oops. Sorry for the lack of clarity.

Your faery can spend Boons she has acquired for titles or other benefits, regardless of the source. Or she can use them in the story to call in favors, such as the example of a faery using a Boon from a guard to pass through his castle gate. Boons she gives to others don't have any rules effect - they are just favors that the other folks can redeem from her later on, making them good story hooks. Also, remember the rules say faeries are not expected to give Boons to friends, since they are supposed to help each other anyway. This prevents clever players from simply trading Boons around until everyone has enough to buy more titles.

[grandmaster_cain]

I don't know if the printout issues were an acrobat problem, or the fact that we were using an older-model laser printer. I will say that my Kinko's copy had the mysterious vanishing "Y" issue, where the lower-case y's in the fiction sections refused to print, no matter what they did. Nobody else has reported anything like it, so I'm inclined to think that it was a glitch on their part. The second printout, while slow, didn't have anything resembling this problem.

Interesting. I definitely expected pixies to be the most familiar type of faery to most people not versed in faery folklore, but I didn't consciously try to reflect that in the rules. It's just that while other fey magic has some basis in folklore, and therefore some inherent limits, pixie dust seems to get used for almost everything in the source material (admittedly, more movies & stories than folklore, in this case). So to be true to the sources folks would be coming at Faery's Tale from, pixie dust in the game also had to be pretty flexible.

I see where you're coming from. It's just that when you put out future supplements (and you better! ) you'll need to really punch up the folklore and cultural references for the other three types of faeries. Tinkerbell and the butterfly-winged type are just too popular as is.