View Full Version : Children playing with matches, fantasy style

2011-01-05, 10:19 AM
So I got the general idea of running a D&D game or maybe even a World of Darkness game of sort sort where some punk teenager gets control of a powerful monster or some other nasty force and childishly misuses it. Maybe they found an artifact or stumbled on to a magical item. Maybe said kid pulled a thorn out of something's nasty's foot. The source of the monster/power isn't important.

I've seen this story in a lot of fantasy and sci-fi shows but it's often the case that these adaptions are difficult because PCs don't follows scripts.

What I am worried about is how best to maximize the roleplaying potential here. I fear the PCs would just bring down the weakling monster controller real quick and end the encounter. Even if they want to take him a live it would not be particularly difficult in any game system. True this could not stop the monster threat as it could then go rogue but I'd feel the roleplay opportuniteis would already be shut down by then.

Any thoughts on applying this story type to actual games?

2011-01-05, 10:29 AM
You could give a talented kid artist some magical paint, ala Inuyasha episode 17: "Cursed Ink of the Hell-Painter."

Then, the kid would be able to make enough foes to keep the party busy for a long time. Also, maybe the paint isn't only good for making demons, maybe it can make objects, too as in the Marvellous Pigments magic item.

2011-01-05, 11:04 AM
consider keeping the controller hidden for quite some time and just have the monster behaving very oddly for such a creature. You could make it a bit of a mystery, and/or reveal to the party that if the controller doesn't cut the creature loose correctly it will run amok doing far more damage than its current controller was having it do.