Review: Amazing Tales

Awhile back I was looking for a game that would be appropriate and fun to run for kids and be enjoyable on the GM as well. I read up on and looked at all the usual suspects but none did what I wanted them to do (becuase I wanted a game to be able to easily pull of any genre I wanted and to merge well with any character concept the kids could come up with). I came across a recorded play of Amazing Tales on YouTube and I was sold. The author, Martin Lloyd was kind of enough to send me a pdf and a physical copy for review and demo purposes.

Presentation: This hardcover book clocks in at 96 pages of full color including the covers, legal pages, etc. The words and art is set against an aged parchment color of paper - something like the color of an old an old map. The art itself is very whimsical and ethereal. It instantly captures the soul of Peter Pan, The Legend of Zelda, Grimm's Fairy Tales (in very light hearted way), The Princess Bride, The Labyrinth, The Last Unicorn, all of Hayao Miyazaki films, etc. All of the art is full of color and detail which makes it enjoyable to read and seems to hold even the most distractanle kids attention.

Character Creation: The process of creating a character is very simple and straight forward. You ask the player what is their characters name, what do they look like, and what they are good at. When you get to the last point you want to discuss what four skills their character has and what they think they should be best at, then what they are next best at and so forth. Then you assign a skill dice to each skill; a d12 for their best skill, a d10 for their next skill, a d8, and finally a d6. You should try to keep the the skills broad that can be used in a variety of situations. You younger kids are going to need more guidance in this area but make sure they feel like their character is theirs. That is it for character creation! No attributes, no saves, no hit points (yep, you heard me), no movement, and no complicated maneuvers.

Resolution System: If the character tries something that has a chance of failure or if succeeding would be interesting choose one of the related skills and roll it (the game is player facing so the GM does not roll). On a result of 3+ you succeed. This is the main reason you want skills to broad and you also want to really encourage the players to use their skills in creative and out of the box ways to solve problems. Due to the nature of the game, you are advised to avoid hard flat failures and are encouraged to go with the "no, but..." model that makes the situation worse. There is also some great advice given about asking the player how they fail. 

Crunch: Ummmmmmmm, there is none.

Final Thoughts: I have logged in hours of running this for kids and even adults (yes, it works amazing for adults) and it is a blast to run for any age group. In addition, the book is crammed full of GM advice for running games for children, how to use the system, and there are four examples settings (Tales from the Deep Dark Wood, Tales from the Magical Kingdoms Long Ago, Adventures on the Pirate Seas, and Adventures Among the Stars). I would easily recommend this for running games for kids (obviously), introducing new people to roleplaying games (all ages), and even running a campiagn for adults.

There is also great support for Amazing Tales:

• Martin Lloyd's Blog
• Actual Play
• An amazing article about What I learned from Playing AMAZING TALES...
• Facebook

You can find the game on Drivethrurpg and Amazon. The simple and elegant character sheets can be found here. The version depicted below is designed for the players to draw their character and their skills. A secondary version is included in the download that is designed for writing the same.