BRP for children's game

[Jeffrywith1e]

Last night our family watched The Rescuers. Not a bad movie, actually. Hadn't seen it in decades. What I'm wondering is-has there been a project creating a setting similar to the film? I found a book at HalfPrice Books for the Tri-Stat System/BESM that is exactly along the lines I'm looking for, just the wrong system. I don't really get Tri-Stat.

Big Ears, Small Mouse (BESM/Big Eyes, Small Mouth) by John W. Nowak - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

[Chaot]

Just replied to this over at RPGNet. Below are my basic thoughts on it.

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BRP could work really well. All it would need is for you to do is play around with scale. Mice as Halflings, Cats and Birds as Humans, Dogs as Bruisers, Men and Women as Giants. Tweak as appropriately to give them the right 'flavor.'

Alternatively, you could try and keep it on the same scale. Give the critters high Dodge, Move Quietly and Hide skills and a ton of Fate points and you may be golden. I've wondered whether a game on the small size scale could work or not, or whether it would just fall apart mechanically.

By the way, here's the write up of Cats (from CoC Complete Dreamlands)

STR 1D3

CON 2D6

SIZ 1

INT 2D6+6

POW 2D6+6

DEX 2D6+24

Bite 30%, 1D4+db

Claw 40%, 1D3db

Rip 80%, 2D3+db

Dogs are in the current BRP rules. You'd have to rig up something for mice.

Sounds like a fun idea though.

[GianniVacca]

There was a thread on the French BRP mailing list aeons ago on how best to represent Smurfs in a hypothetical Smurf BRP-based rolegame. Some people were in favour of scaling everything based on the smurfs, i.e., SIZ 3D6 for the smurfs; some others were in favour of using the RAW. I found it stupid to scale everything on 1 to 3 SIZ if all player characters were to be Smurfs... How could the GM scale anything?

[RosenMcStern]

After trying to "scale up" characteristics for mechas and finding out that it is not necessary for anything except damage (yep!), I can say that scaling everything to 1d3 is ok. Otherwise Roland and Pirouli should have SIZ and STR 70-100.

Also, as all this sort of settings would be heavily based on non-lethal combat and non-combat conflicts, I think the best system for Smurfs or the Rescuers is HeroQuest. Maybe re-labeled as ToonQuest

[Jeffrywith1e]

re-labeled as ToonQuest

That's good!

[Conrad]

The Disney stuff would go well with Other suns rpg!>:->

[seneschal]

Just curious. Did you ever decide on a system and run that mouse hero game? Inquiring cheese-nibblers want to know.

[Ian Absentia]

...I think the best system for Smurfs or the Rescuers is HeroQuest. Maybe re-labeled as ToonQuest

I found that HeroQuest worked surprisingly well with very young gamers. AP-bidding had to be simplified (or set aside all together), but the rest of the mechanics played simply and intuitively, and lent themselves well to non-lethal conflict.

!i!

[p_clapham]

I think it was Worlds of Cthulhu four or five, had complete rules for playing cats. The Call of Cathulhu game it was called.

I would just scale things for a Rescuers Game. If rodents are going to be the main characters in the game use the human or halfling level stats for them. Humans can be represented using the stats for Giants and so on.

If you are looking for a set of rules or book for inspiration, I'd recomend Gurps Bunnies and Burrows. It's less Recuers / Secrets of Nhym and more Watership Down. Still it's a fantastic book, and well worth it for the inspirational background material. Theres also a section on combining Bunnies and Barrows (or any animal game) with Call of Cthulhu.