A year ago, during one of the attempts to get the Nightmare Edition going, I laid down a few edicts. One of them was a list of movies that the system had to be able to emulate. One of them was The Monster Squad, which I talked about last week. And as much as I love that movie–and I do!–the number one “kids on an adventure” movie of all time is 1985′s incomparable kid action flick The Goonies.
Now, The Goonies is not a horror film. It’s straight-up adventure pulp. But what folks can learn–what I learned while rewatching it recently–is how to create and portray amazing characters. Every character stands out, from the kids to the criminals. They all have gentle quirks and endearing personalities. You can’t help but love each and every one of them. (Including the main villain of the piece, Anne Ramsey’s brilliant criminal mastermind “Mama Fratelli”.)
When thinking about how Qualities work in the game, I often went back to “How would I stat Data with this?” “Can I make Mouth? Chunk?” Because it was important to me that this game hold up while recreating one of the seminal films of the 1980s.
When it came to the system, it was co-conspirator Caz Granberg who talked me through the “I Believe in You” mechanic using Andy’s tense try at tickling the old bones as a prime example. That made it fall right into place.
While the tone may be different, The Goonies touches on some of the core aspects to the systems. Aspects that soon became pillars.
If you want a really fun session of Little Fears Nightmare Edition, that takes a big step to the left of its horror roots, have the players stat up the Goonies and send them on a run deep under the coastal town of Astoria. You’ll have a blast.
Though I cannot guarantee the game will let you recreate this madness.
“Good enough for me! Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeeaaah!”
The second installment of 13 DOORS is up at Flames Rising! In this exclusive preview, we take a look at the characters in Little Fears Nightmare Edition.
As the writing is winding down on Little Fears Nightmare Edition, thoughts about how the game will look and feel start to creep. A lot of the feel is in the text—the words and pacing and setup and fiction—but the graphic design, layout, and illustrations do some heavy lifting there as well.
For those curious, a returning favorite is providing the bulk of Little Fears Nightmare Edition‘s interior. As we near release (“The Day the Door Opens”), I’ll put up some of the artwork for you to check out. It’s gonna be good stuff, I promise you.
Also present in the books are plenty of butterflies and blackbirds. It’s not just a poetic motif—there’s a story behind it—but you’ll need to read the book to find out what is up with all these winged creatures.
More will be shown when it’s time to do so. Until then, sleep tight. And bite the bed bugs back.
When it comes to kids fighting monsters, there are some great sources of inspiration. One of the most endearing to me is 1987′s The Monster Squad. This movie has a lot of charm and throws just about every notable monster at its protagonists. Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, a mummy, a fishman, and, of course, a wolfman are all there.
I picked up the DVD some months back, on an LFNE inspirado run, and was surprised that it had held up better than I expected. This is no masterpiece, but it’s fun and it’s got a good variety of kids. For the purposes of Little Fears Nightmare Edition, I particularly paid attention to how the kids were written, how they interacted, and what roles each played in the group.
The group has a leader, a best friend, a rebel, comic relief, and even a dog. Not a bad selection of characters, if your players are looking for role models, even if the references and definition of “cool” are pretty dated. Throw in a tagalong little sister, the best friend’s older sister who the rebel longs to impress, the oblivious-til-the-end parents, and the Scary German Guy down the street (who actually turns out to be pretty dang cool) and, folks, that’s pretty much the formula for an over-the-top Little Fears game.
Bottom Line: If you’re putting together a Little Fears Nightmare Edition campaign, it’s a solid rental, especially if you watch it with your group.
Starting tomorrow, Wednesday July 22nd, Flames Rising will begin running 13 Doors, a 13-part glimpse into the world of Little Fears Nightmare Edition. Every Wednesday, I’ll reveal something new about the game. I’ll talk about the differences between the versions, give a look at the new system, show previews of the art, upload some layout samples, and more.
Every Wednesday for 13 weeks, I’ll be opening doors that lead into the heart of Closetland. Are you brave enough to look inside?
The phrase “Nightmare Edition” has been bandied about for years now. I first uttered the words back in 2002, not even a year after the original Little Fears debuted. And it’s come up time and again in the seven years that followed. Work has started, stopped, and restarted at least four times that I’d consider to be an actual effort. The last big push was in September 2008 when I started compiling all the notes I’d collected over the years and started drafting a definition for what the Nightmare Edition would be.
The biggest sticking point was the system. I wanted Nightmare Edition to be a fresh take on the roleplaying genre that Little Fears pioneered. I drafted my buddy Caz Granberg to help kitbash a few established systems and dabble at putting a new one together . A lot of systems were considered and we even made good progress on a couple conversions (of which Caz did the heavy lifting) but none of them did what I wanted Nightmare Edition to do in a manner I’d consider thematically appropriate and elegant. They were fine systems for what they did but they didn’t do what Nightmare Edition needed to do.
So the project sat. And I pretty much locked it in a box and put it away for good.
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