This post is a sort of self-reflection from a GM on the practical side of the campaign, rather than a narrative review, like other posts are.
Early in 2020 I set up a monthly open campaign for Tales From the Loop, an 80’s Kid’s-on-Bikes style game based on Simon Stålenhag’s narrative artbook of the same name, both published by Free League Publishing. With this I decided to use the Mystery Landscape prompts included in the core rulebook to make up these sessions that were open for players to come and go. The plan was to start with a few of those prompts and build out from there with the player’s setting the Mysteries.
All the characters were Kids, aged 10-15, who are from the same school, and being in different year groups made for interesting connections.
At the time I went for a low-prep approach, and I had a great time with it, though were I to do it again I would like to give it a more over-arching plot that I had at the time. Tales From The Loop is a game that is much more collaborative and includes the players in more than just their Kid PCs. The dice are entirely player facing (unless the GM is rolling a table to decide something. The game is played out in scenes that don’t always involve each Kid, which allow other players to step in as NPCs to explore scenes from every day life (certainly helps take a load off the GM from interacting as more than one character in a scene!) and it’s worth noting thatKids take on Conditions as they push their rolls. There is no damage in this game and Kids cannot be killed by anything, only broken. Which leads to small scenes of recovery in clubhouses or with Anchors, trusted and close people who help Kids recover from their conditions.
The other noteworthy element is that each Kid has a number of Luck points according to their age (where an older Kids can have more skill points, younger Kids get more Luck points). This was tricky for The Mystery Landscape open campaign as each session was, in a way, a 3 hour one shot and so there were lots of Luck points that got used before conditions would take effect, which I felt lessened the impact or urgency of the sessions. If I were to pick this up again, which I’m inclined to, I would probably include an “age limit” of 13 – 15 rather than 10 to 15, which will help create a much more cohesive experience for the group I think.
Cover art by Simon Stålenhag
Archived Campaign
Tales From The Loop