 With the dual launch of the first novel and RPG for Questlings - A Children's Book Series and RPG Adventure, I was excited to schedule an interview with the game designers, Banana Chan and Tim Devine, as well as the author, Dan Letzring, about these two products. I’ve interviewed Banana Chan at High Level Games and reviewed Tim Devine’s North Sea Epilogues at d20 Radio, so I was eager to learn more about this all-ages franchise. EGG EMBRY (EGG): Thanks for talking with me. What is Questlings - A Children's Book Series and RPG Adventure? DAN LETZRING (DAN): The stories and RPG are all about finding your inner hero. In the So You Want To Be A... series of children’s books, the characters find themselves looking at what they aspire to be without realizing that they may already embody the ideals of those to whom they look up. Each story is a heartwarming tale that sees our characters on journeys that involve friendship, heart, and being true to oneself. BANANA CHAN (BANANA): Questlings is a tabletop RPG that’s based on that series of kids’ books! The players take on the roles of kids who are trying to accomplish their goals by gathering items. When they get to a challenge, they call upon their Inner Hero for help, just like the book series. TIM DEVINE (TIM): Questlings, the RPG is a great introduction to new players and new GMs and a fun way to get the family together to create amazing stories. EGG: For the RPG, how does the system work? BANANA: The RPG uses a map and each location has two sides to them, just like the characters have a reality version and a fantasy version. When a difficult challenge happens, the location turns into its fantasy version and that’s when the kids become their Inner Hero. The Game Moderator uses a storybook full of prompts to read through that will guide them through the map. It’s heavily inspired by Choose Your Own Path systems, so newer GMs can get a handle of how to moderate the game. TIM: All of the information a player needs to play is right on their character sheet, in an accessible and kid-friendly way. When the GM asks for a dice roll, players will roll one six-sided die if they are their kid, or one eight-sided die if they are their Inner Hero. The outcomes are narrated by the player and GM together. The sheet also has a place to track Boosts, which are a cool resource that players earn when they roll low and things don’t go their way. Boosts can be used later on to re-roll dice, move more than one space or bargain with the GM. Questlings has safety rules built right into the character sheet, with three face icons; green, yellow and red, which players can tap to indicate if they are really enjoying something, would rather not keep talking about something or simply remove something from the story. Teaching kids this way of playing really empowers them and makes for a much better experience for everyone. EGG: What’s character creation like? Are the main characters from the book playable within the game? BANANA: There are 6 different pregenerated characters that the players can choose from (these are the characters from the books), but players can definitely make their own if they want to! We have a blank sheet for players to draw and fill out. TIM: Players can really make their characters their own, even if using the pregens, however they imagine their character or Inner Hero. As they describe their actions and how they face challenges, they can be totally unique. Players will give their character and Inner Hero names and assign stars to their three stats; Creativity, Determination and Problem Solving. Finally each character will need a goal, or the thing they are trying to accomplish by the end of the game. EGG: Questlings is a series of kids books created by Bryce O'Connor, Nicholas Yu, and Dan Letzring with illustrations by Jacqui Davis, correct? You’re launching with the first book (of six) and the RPG, why kickstart the first novel and the RPG at the same time? DAN: We were originally going to release the first two kids books together. However we decided that since these are RPG inspired stories it would be a lot of fun to launch the first book with an RPG set in this IP. Once we really thought about that idea it seemed smart to be able to hit multiple age ranges and audiences within the same campaign! If all goes well we will plan to launch each kids book one at a time paired with RPG supplemental material. EGG: What age range are the books and RPG for? DAN: The kids books are targeted to ages 3-7 and the RPG is for ages 8+ (though suitable for younger). BANANA: I’ve played this with adults and they also seem to enjoy it, so it might be good for new roleplayers as well as a gateway game, before they get into something crunchier! EGG: How long is each book? How many pages will the RPG be? Will these fulfill and deliver together? DAN: The children’s books are 32 fully illustrated pages and the RPG is still in process but is expected to be around 40-50 pages. BANANA: We just keep adding more and more pages to the RPG! I’m thinking we’ll have more supplemental stuff for the next Kickstarter. EGG: While the content points towards an RPG, what was the catalyst to actually create that game? DAN: Banana and I had met years ago and had run into each other again at PAXU last year. I approached her about making an RPG set in the world of one of my previously published games, Groves. Both of us were not all in on this project for a multitude of reasons and while casually taking I mentioned the Questlings line of books. This sparked a fire in the creation process and we had a solid plan for the RPG quickly. Banana then went to work making something truly special. She then recommended bringing Tim in on the project and I must say that it has all come together better than I hoped. BANANA: It really is a really great team! Initially when Dan reached out to me, I had an idea of what to do and I did a quick brainstorm with Mabel Harper, who has experience with planning out TTRPG adventures and I wanted to get her take, before putting anything on paper. Once I had a good understanding of what the world look like and how to make it accessible, I did a first draft. I had a chance to playtest it a few times with adults (parents), but when things started moving to a digital sphere, I needed to bring on someone else. Tim has kids at home so he can continuously playtest with them. TIM: Having played and designed RPGs for my son since he was 3 years old, I was delighted when Banana approached me about joining the project. I’ve enjoyed playtesting and running this game through it’s iterations and seeing the joy on the faces of the kids and adults playing. EGG: What stretch goals are you hoping to unlock? DAN: Additional prompts and materials to supplement the RPG as well as additional art within the RPG booklet! BANANA: We’ll also have a pledge level for backers to play with streamers! Lysa Penrose and Gabe Hicks are the two streamers who we have the pleasure of having on the project as guest GMs. EGG: Beyond this project, what else are you working on? TIM: My partner and I have a long format campaign adventure coming out soon with Hunters Entertainment and Renegade Games for the Teens in Space RPG. We also have some awesome RPG podcasts over at the Roll to Play Network! BANANA: I’m working on a TTRPG with the podcast Crypto-Z! It’s a game about the world after climate change has destroyed everything and cryptids roam the earth. We’re expecting to launch that sometime in 2021. I’m also working on a few things with Austin Knight, Sen-Foong Lim, Sadia Bies and Jason Slingerland that are in the works! DAN: We have been working on two lines of games. One is Adventure Tactics, a campaign based encounter driven miniatures TTRPG inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics. The game is releasing early next year and we have a lot of expansion content in the works. We also just released a standalone expansion to our 18-card game Squire for Hire as well as a digital app of the game. We are working on more 18 card games both related to squire for hire as well as separate. EGG: I appreciate you talking with me. Where can fans learn more about your work? TIM: I am half of Dice Up Games [website here] and [a third] of the founding members of the Roll to Play Podcast Network. You can find me on Twitter @GMTimD. BANANA: Game and a Curry’s website is [here] and you can find us on Twitter and Facebook @gameandacurry. As for me, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at @bananachangames! DAN: Our website is [here] and I am on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @letimangames Questlings - A Children's Book Series and RPG Adventure! from Letiman Games and Game and a Curry End Date: Thu, December 10 2020 10:00 PM EST. “Questlings is an RPG-inspired children's book series and RPG game system about finding your Inner Hero.” Egg Embry is a freelance tabletop roleplaying game journalist writing for EN World, Knights of the Dinner Table, RPG News, d20 Radio, the Tessera Guild, the Open Gaming Network, the AetherCon Convention Magazine, GAMA’s Around the Table, and more. His areas of focus are RPG crowdfunding projects and RPG reviews as well as interviews with a range of gaming professionals from freelancers to CEOs. Beyond journalism, he dabbles in freelance writing and producing gaming zines for the roleplaying zine-aissance, including POWERED by the DREAMR, a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG zine about living out your dreams within other’s dreams.  Lynne Hardy, Associate Editor for Call of Cthulhu and Line Editor for the Rivers of London RPG at Chaosium, has a new campaign setting coming, The Children of Fear for Call of Cthulhu. Over the years, I’ve spoken with Michael O’Brien at Chaosium about the HeroQuest trademark, his thoughts on the Alliance shutdown, the upcoming Rivers of London RPG, and more. With The Children of Fear, I get to discuss the project with the creator and associate editor to learn how much work goes into creating a 400+ page campaign setting. EGG EMBRY (EGG): I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. At Chaosium, you wear several hats, but the first one I’d like to discuss is that of author of The Children of Fear. What can you share about the latest tome for Call of Cthulhu? LYNNE HARDY (LYNNE): Set in 1923/24, it’s a large campaign spanning parts of China, Central Asia, Northern India, and Tibet. Although primarily written for Classic Call of Cthulhu, we’ve done what we did for Masks of Nyarlathotep and included Pulp Cthulhu stats blocks for major NPCs, along with suggestions on how to tweak the campaign if you’d prefer a more Indiana Jones-style game. It’s intended to be player-led, so they get to choose the path their investigators take through the story’s central core. We’ve also made it scalable in terms of the degree of Mythos content--ranging all the way from the Outer Gods down to a more low-key, occult-focused version; that way, the Keeper can tailor the campaign to their own group’s particular likes and dislikes. EGG: What kind of twists should players expect? What can you reveal about the larger evil they’ll face? LYNNE: It’s fun to keep the players and their investigators guessing so there are definitely some twists and turns, but I can’t really reveal too much about them or the larger evil the investigators face as it might spoil things. Let’s just say that it’s all to do with a terrifying individual known as the King of Fear and the schemes of his followers. EGG: 416 pages stretching across 1920s Asia, what inspired this project? LYNNE: Many things. Initially, research I’d done for a previous campaign but hadn’t used and a conversation with Jeff Richards at Gen Con in 2015. Delving into my old notes and doing more background reading so I could present a fleshed-out pitch to Chaosium actually led me away from what I thought the campaign might be. The research kept bringing up a couple of specific topics, including the places visited by the monk Xuanzang in his epic quest across the region (immortalized in Journey to the West), so I decided to stop fighting it and go where it was leading me. The Monkey TV show was huge in Britain when I was a child, so it was fun to learn more about the monk behind the legends and use his journey as the basis for the one the investigators will take. EGG: With the 1920s Asia setting, what steps did Chaosium take to insure this book is culturally sensitive? LYNNE: First, a lot of research, but that can only take you so far. From the outset, I was very mindful of cultural and religious sensitivities, and hopefully our work with a multicultural team of play testers and consultants during the various phases of development has helped us address that. Two ordained Vajrayana Buddhists offered their assistance after reading about the campaign on social media, and as the campaign features many elements of Tantric Buddhism, their feedback was much appreciated. They checked the manuscript for me and corrected me where I’d misunderstood a term or concept, so the material is as accurate and respectful as it can be. EGG: That is excellent news and I appreciate you going the extra mile with that. The cover states the book is by “Lynne Hardy and Friends”. I love that, it sounds like your band or a group of superheroes. In this case, who are the “Friends”? LYNNE: Everyone who helped bring the finished book into the world: all the artists, cartographers, play testers, editors, and consultants, plus members of the Chaosium team. While I am its author, books like these rely on a host of incredibly talented people--in this case, from all across the world--often working completely behind the scenes. We couldn’t get everyone’s name on the front cover, but I wanted to acknowledge that without their hard work, The Children of Fear wouldn’t exist. EGG: The Children of Fear was announced over four years ago and is just about to come out. As Associate Editor, Call of Cthulhu, was that a long development cycle? Are there any learning moments that you can share from this project? LYNNE: It was a long one, yes! Book development is an odd thing--some books come through the pipeline quite quickly, others take longer for a whole variety of reasons. When I began The Children of Fear, I was a freelancer; financially, I couldn’t afford to devote all of my time to it, so it chugged along in between other writing and editing projects for various companies. I’d almost completed the first draft when Mike [Mason] asked me to work on Masks of Nyarlathotep. Chances like that tend to come along once in your career, and while I wanted to get my campaign finished, I knew I’d be missing an important opportunity if I turned Masks down, so Children went on hold. Masks took a couple of years to get right, and it took a little while to get back up to speed with Children after that and finish the raw document. Besides being checked by our Buddhist consultants, the campaign also went into playtesting with multiple groups to make sure it worked and their feedback from the various different stages of testing was then worked back into the text and additional material written where required. You also need a lot of art and maps for a book this big, and that all takes time to commission and approve. Then the book needed to be edited and proofed. Again, a large, complex campaign like this takes time to check and correct. In amongst all of that, I was taken on full-time by Chaosium as Associate Editor on Call of Cthulhu. We have many books in different stages of development and production for the line at any given time, so The Children of Fear had to slot into place with those others and wait its turn in the queue. As you can imagine, it’s also taken a while to lay it out and proof the pdf. Thanks to Nick [Nacario] and our artists and cartographers, it’s a lovely thing to look at. Hopefully people will get as much enjoyment from reading and playing it as they will looking at it. One of the main things I learned on this project was not to be stingy with the amount of art you need for a book like this. I was a tad over conservative in my original estimates, but it all turned out okay in the end! The other learning moment was that, after writing two of these massive campaigns on my own now, I don’t feel the need to do another one any time soon. EGG: I laughed when I read that last bit! I can only imagine. Keeping with your Associate Editor hat, what other projects are you guiding for Chaosium? LYNNE: I’m currently editing A Time to Harvest, which was the Call of Cthulhu Organized Play campaign in 2016. It’s being updated and given all new artwork and maps ready for a full release. A new solo adventure, Alone Against the Tide, is just about to go into layout, and I have several other projects which haven’t been announced yet that I’m helping to develop, edit, and commission art and maps for. EGG: Switching hats, you’re also the Line Editor, Rivers of London RPG, correct? I spoke to Michael O’Brien about that license when it was announced and, more recently, you spoke with Charles Dunwoody about the game. Are there any updates that you can share about the RPG? LYNNE: I am! Several chapters of the book are pretty much complete and ready to go into editing. The rules are currently out for the first round of external playtesting and we’re getting some very useful feedback from our testers that’s helping us to refine the system so it best supports telling stories in Ben [Aaronovitch’s] wonderful world. I’m also about to start approaching artists and graphic designers so we can begin developing the book’s style and design. EGG: Beyond Chaosium, you’re the designer of the ENnie-nominated steampunk RPG, Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks. Are you planning to revisit that game in the future? LYNNE: I would dearly love to but, for the moment, Cthulhu and the Folly have me fully occupied. I had been about to start on a US and Canada sourcebook for the game, along with a small campaign, when I started working for Chaosium as a freelancer. As with all small, personal projects, if it comes down to working on that with no guarantee of financial return or taking on a job with a firm pay cheque at the end of it, the reality is you go for the one you know is going to pay you. I do still run Cogs at conventions, and it’s always a great deal of fun to do. So, you never know--one day… EGG: Thank you for talking with me. For fans that want to pick up The Children of Fear and your other work Chaosium, where can they go? LYNNE: The PDF for The Children of Fear will be released first on the Chaosium website; like our other games and supplements, it should also then be available on DriveThruRPG. The advantage of buying the pdf direct from us is that you then get the cost of it off the print version, should you decide to purchase that as well. Usually, print copies of our books arrive 2–3 months after their electronic release and will be available from our website and your Friendly Local Games Store. The Children of Fear from Chaosium “A Campaign Across Asia For The World’s Best Horror Game! A mysterious telegram plunges the investigators into an epic journey of intrigue and horror.” Egg Embry is a freelance tabletop roleplaying game journalist writing for EN World, Knights of the Dinner Table, RPG News, d20 Radio, the Tessera Guild, the Open Gaming Network, the AetherCon Convention Magazine, GAMA’s Around the Table, and more. His areas of focus are RPG crowdfunding projects and RPG reviews as well as interviews with a range of gaming professionals from freelancers to CEOs. Beyond journalism, he dabbles in freelance writing and producing gaming zines for the roleplaying zine-aissance, including POWERED by the DREAMR, a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG zine about living out your dreams within other’s dreams. |
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