Vacation from Ravenloft

[Jack the Reaper]

Do you also feel sometimes that the darkness of Ravenloft is heavy on your soul, and you need some change?

As Nietsche said, when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you. After long journeys in all imaginable kinds of darkness and horror, I sometimes feels the need for a refreshing setting. A bright-lit, light-hearted, innocent one, where joy and goodness are more abundant, and beauty doesn't disguise dangers. Something like a fairy world without dark twists, or some childhood heaven. I actually find myself searching the net for episodes of My Liitle Pony!

Perhaps I'm getting old, or maybe having 5 little children had this effect on me. Don't worry, it passes with time, but I think a pleasant refresh can also be good for DMs and players alike after long time in darkness.

My question is, do you know about appropriate settings of this kind, in some other RPG? I heard Deliria might fit, but wasn't able to find a copy yet. The 3ed corebook of Big Eyes Small Mouth describes a setting of heaven like world, but it gives only a short description, and I haven't found expansions of it.

Additionaly, the concept of a mirror-world of RL, with "Lightlords" and domains which are exemplars of goodness and light, has been discussed several times in the past (at least I remember it from the mailing list). Did anyone ever made anything fertile with it?

Waiting for your replies. In the meantime, I'm going to watch some Care Bears (First season only. The second is too scary)...

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

Toon.

You play cartoon characters.

You can't die.

[Manofevil]

Or just play Pokemon. PIKA CHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!

[riMkrad]

You could always try the card game: Munchkin

Good mostly-clean fun for the youngest at heart.

[The Giamarga]

Check out this thread on ENWorld about settings/games for kids as you have a whole group to play with (Also check out this RPG with kids compilation thread)

Check out Blue Rose, the Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy and progenitor of True20.

Or how about Mouseguard (here's a great review of it) or Faery's Tale (also available as a print version) or Kids ,Castles & Caves (Review), an open game license fantasy role-playing game system designed for children.

Little Fears, a horror game where you play children and encounter the things kids truely fear, might be a bit too dark for your specifications, but i think ti still deserves a mention.

Or for something completely different check out Og: Unearthed Play a caveman who only knows a few words. GO BANG HAIRY FOOD!!! (Review)

Or check out the list of Furry RPGs.

For a few free but still excellent RPGs check out:
Risus the anything RPG, Cumberland's "universal comedy RPG" - a free "rules-lite" game for late-night sessions when the brain is tired but the imagination won't quit.
Dungeonslayers, a tongue in cheek, fast, trim, dungeon-crawling, monster-hacking, treasure-thieving game.

[HuManBing]

Second on the Munchkin.

Also by Steve Jackson Games, Chez Geek. A great game for anybody who remembers what it was like to be living in student dorms in college.

[Jack the Reaper]

Check out this thread on ENWorld about settings/games for kids as you have a whole group to play with

Indeed... Since you mentioned it, what my two boys (8 and 6 years old) like the most is to play the roles of Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, another of my childhood's loves which I've introduced them to. We don't use rules, dice or anything, just one of us (usually the elder son) is spontaneously DMing and the others are the players. Cindar is our favorite character...

"BY NATURE'S HAND, BY CRAFT, BY ART, WHAT ONCE WAS WHOLE NOW FLY APART!"

(Recognize this one? Pity they stopped this series after just 13 episodes...)

Thanks for all the replies. I wasn't aiming exactly at children RPGs (though my remarks about My Little Pony and Care Bears might have implied so...), but actualy for a light-hearted setting for mature players. I'll check some of the entries you mentioned.

[The Giamarga]

I edited the post above to include More Stuff(tm). Most of the RPGs are suitable for children but can still be great fun for adults.

Also seeing that Munchkin and Chez Geek get mentioned, I want to plug Aye Dark Overlord.

My Life with Master, an indie RPG, of villainy, self-loathing and unrequited love, might also be a bit dark, but i hear it is awesome.

[Jack the Reaper]

Little Fears, a horror game where you play children and encounter the things kids truely fear, might be a bit too dark for your specifications, but i think ti still deserves a mention.

Little Fears is great, both 1st and Nightmare edition, each in its own way. I tried to do some of it on my boys, but then I had to cope with their demands to keep the lights on in their room all night, or to come to sleep in our bed, so I changed the theme... (They aren't great heroes, my children. Telling them about scratches from the closet, or finding a drawing of themselves with blood-red line on it on a tree in the forest, was enough to freak them out! Gotta do some more work on their brainsw programming...)

Recently I found the game Grimm, which is also great for roleplaying children, and has a very cool setting. There is also the WoD: Innocents. Those games are dark, which is excellent for me most of the time - just not now.

[Jack the Reaper]

Speaking about my children, here's something funny that happened yesterday. Every evening my boys want me to tell them a story about warriors, super-heroes and such before they go to sleep.
Yesterday I decided to tell them the summary of the novel Shadowborn, and it went something like that:

ME: "Once upon a time, there was a noble knight named Alexi Shadowborn. His mother was the great paladin Kateri Shadowborn, but he didn't knew who his father was."

AKIVA (my elder son, 8 years old): "Eh, he must have been a vampire, or a demon or some other monster. Right?"

ME: "Errr... we'll see later. Well, this knight..."

AKIVA: "Am I right or not? Tell me if I'm right!"

ME: "I said we'll get to that later. Well..."

[Going on with the story]

ME: "And when the sun was supposed to shine on him, there suddenly was an unexpected eclipse, as if God didn't want to accept him as a paladin."

AKIVA: "Surely because he was the son of a vampire or a demon! Right?"

ME: "Well come to that soon".

[After ending the story]

AKIVA: "You know how I knew it? All those books have the same ideas, so I always know what to expect."

* * *
The boy is only 8 years old. He didn't even read Lord of the Rings yet. We don't have a TV or an internet in our home. Is the world of fantasy literature so transparent and cliche-full, that even a little child can recognize the plot's summit from the very beginning?...

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

You could always go for a post-War of the Lance Dragonlance game and have all the kids play Kender.

[Isabella]

Is the world of fantasy literature so transparent and cliche-full, that even a little child can recognize the plot's summit from the very beginning?...

"There is nothing new under the sun", and that includes the quote and the book the quote came from.

But now that you bring it up, a little, yeah.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

That story is hilarious, Jack. Kids are the best.

[BedrockBrendan]

You could also try to run Ravenloft as a comedy if your up for that. I normally mix up my campaign settings, for this very reason (I just get bored with Ravenloft all the time, or modern crime all the time). A while back I was running a Gothic Earth campaign, and one of my players really didn't like horror (however he had a great sense of humor). To accomodate him (and to create a change of pace) I ran it as a situation comedy (A big dinner party for investors at the estate, but Uncle Hector is turning into a monster---the players must court the invewstors while keeping them in the dark about U. Hector's condition. Hilarity ensues). It actually went very well (I was surprised).

[Manofevil]

Good one!!