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View Full Version : Grimm Fairy Tales + High Fantasy RPG?



Creed
2011-01-26, 05:32 PM
This all started with a question posed by my friend as we sat in a History of Film class.
We had just watched the film adaptation of Snow White, post reading the Grimm tale "Snowdrop".
Both being avid gamers, the question arose, "Whoa, wouldn't it be cool to have an army v. army wargame scenario called "The Battle for Snowdrop's Body" between a dwarf army riding a menagerie of animals versus a cult of warlocks? 1 flag-ctf style?
The idea stewed in my head for a few years.
Now, the bare bones of an entire RPG based on the Grimm's Fairy Tales in a generic fantasy light has been cooked up.
So I ask the playground for help, during my busy schedule, to take the favorite tales from your childhood and help me make them your soon to be favorite gaming system.
Uh-huh. System. I want to start from squat and work or way to AWESOME.
We can, however, borrow bits and pieces from other sources for mechanics.
So, ideas?

flabort
2011-01-26, 05:46 PM
What other sources?
As Grimm is your 'primary source' as I understand it, would 'Artemis Fowl' be an acceptable 'secondary source'?
Or, by other sources, do you mean '3.5' and/or 'pathfinder'?

Creed
2011-01-26, 06:17 PM
1: Artemis Fowl is not a series I am familiar with, but if it's dark fairly tale than I suppose its passable. Mind giving me a rundown? I've also considered using The Arabian Nights.

2: They could be sourced for some stuff, but I want to pull alot of new work.
That, and I'm not familiar at all with pathfinder. If there are rules here and there that are useful, copying would work for me fine.

I meant other systems for rules, but other inspirational sources could also be worked in.

Debihuman
2011-01-26, 07:48 PM
I love Grimms Fairy tales but you are looking for High Fantasy or Dark Fantasy? I am a huge sucker for anything in that genre for 3.5 so I've got a fairly extensive collection.

High Fantasy would suggest Blue Rose (published by Green Ronin) and Folkloric Gallia (published by Dog Soul Publishing).

For Dark Fantasy, I liked Grimm d20 but it was a niche game as you played a kid (such as the Bully or the Dreamer). Unfortunately, it isn't available from e-retailers such as rpgnow.com and paizo.com. Folkloric Baba Yaga (also by Dog Soul Publishing) also fits in this category.

If you want to avoid already published settings, there are many creatures and classes on this forum that would work. If you like, you can look at my Fairy Godmother Prestige Class (check my signature for my creations and it will link to it). I've also statted up Maleficent from Disney's Sleeping Beauty. She's my favorite villain.

Debby

Creed
2011-01-26, 08:29 PM
A plethora of suggestions from one who's name has reached my ears as far south as the FFRP forum.
Grimm d20 definately had it's hand in the inspiration of the game idea, but the niche-y-ness was bad. Very bad.
And Dark High fantasy is believable!
For example, the seven dwarves are non-named in Grimms fairy tales, so we could have a high fantasy Brondo Axe-Slinger, an axesmith, as well as Creeper, a, well, creepy, Dark Fantasy dwarf. The challenge here is fitting the two together and offering something for both types of gamer.
Your suggestions go in the big stack of stuff I have to check out.:smalltongue:

Debihuman
2011-01-26, 09:42 PM
Dark High Fantasy works for me. How dark do you want to go? Should be incorporate sanity and madness checks?

Debby

Creed
2011-01-26, 09:48 PM
Dark High Fantasy works for me. How dark do you want to go? Should be incorporate sanity and madness checks?

Debby

In some scenarios, especially if I take the turn that the players are not from the Grimm World, and are slowly becoming insane from seeing their childhood bedtime stories brutally fight in a world all too real.

Debihuman
2011-01-27, 12:53 AM
I highly recommend Folkloric Gallia. It has Talking Beasts (Puss-In_Boots, and of others), Melusine (right out of the French myth -- dragon form and all) and a host of other standard fairy tale creatures. It's definitely high fantasy.

For a grittier feel, I'm particularly fond of the Sword and Sorcery version of Ravenloft. It's tragic Gothic Horror, but the fairy tale aspects are awesome. The Shadow Fey would certainly fit. With minor tweaking, you could use Carrionettes (basically evil Pinocchios), Changlings (humans who as babies were stolen by Fey creatures and have lost some of their humanity) and other creatures from Denizens of Dread. Some aspects would need revising since the book is campaign specific, but it would be rather easy.

It probably wouldn't be difficult to tweak Grimm d20 into a more standard (i.e. grown-up) version. It's mostly language and swapping out some abilities for ones that are more appropriate. The mechanics aren't bad just the names in many cases.

Debby

Eldan
2011-01-27, 04:36 AM
If you want a dark take on Snow White (well, darker even than the Grimm Version), try Neil Gaiman. (http://www.holycow.com/dreaming/stories/snow-glass-apples/)

Debihuman
2011-01-27, 02:08 PM
Thanks for sharing that one. I'm a huge Neil Gaman fan. There was nice horror movie in the late 90's called Snow White: A Tale of Terror with Sigourney Weaver.

Debby

Knaight
2011-01-27, 06:44 PM
Look at Fate, The Shadow of Yesterday, and Titled (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dLz59cxeHwXyd8oq1EQ9qB3eZKK1hr54E6igXR-Rlww/edit?hl=en). Fate is a free system used in commercial games (most notably Spirit of the Century), The Shadow of Yesterday is a commercial system, and Titled is my tested homebrew, which may be expanded.

Temassasin
2011-01-31, 11:22 PM
Artemis fowl is about a 14 year old super genius criminal named Artemis Fowl who discovers fairies and kidnaps a elf named holly in order to get a ransom from the fairies for gold to finance a operation to russia to find his criminal father who was presumedly killed by the russian mafia for cutting into there business.

Creed
2011-02-01, 07:44 AM
Artemis fowl is about a 14 year old super genius criminal named Artemis Fowl who discovers fairies and kidnaps a elf named holly in order to get a ransom from the fairies for gold to finance a operation to russia to find his criminal father who was presumedly killed by the russian mafia for cutting into there business.

:smalleek:
Um, I was thinking this would be more... middle aged as to the timeline.
The russian mob snaking it's way in against the Seven Dwarves... might be to good to pass up

Dust
2011-02-01, 02:39 PM
The Big Bad: (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigBad) Baba Yaga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_yaga)

You might also glean some inspiration from Snafu's 'Ever After' (http://ea.snafu-comics.com/), however brief and unfinished. Unfortunately, most of it stars River Tam as Red Riding Hood, but there's a few cameos with an appropriate darker lean that you might draw ideas from.

Creed
2011-02-01, 05:02 PM
*adoring face*
And now Dust aids me with the great power of Dusty-ness!
This could very well turn into an actual good idea!:smalltongue: