E.N. Mini-Games: Tiny Terrors

[Morrus]

Tiny Terrors is a brand-new d20 mini-game that lets players take on the Boogeyman and other fears of childhood, fighting for innocence and childhood spirit as living toys, sworn to defend their owner against the REAL monsters under the bed.

The forces of nightmare are on the march, targetting children all over the world, lurking under beds and in dark closets, down in the basement and up in the attic, hungry for the innocence of their prey. The only thing that stands between the minions of the Boogeyman and his helpless victims are toys, righteous defenders of innocence. Action figures, construction kits, stuffed animals and even security blankets rise to answer the call to duty, taking on the Boogeyman and foiling his sinister schemes.

Tiny Terrors lets you take up the role of these stalwart defenders and join the fight. With feats like Kung-Fu Grip and Die-Cast Construction, new advanced classes like Dog Rider, Collectible and Haunted Toy, and all-new monsters and abilities, Tiny Terrors proves that small scale means big fun.

 

[Pinotage]

E.N. Mini-Games: Tiny Terrors is a pdf product from E.N. Publishing. Written by Lee Hammock, Tiny Terrors lets players take the role of toys to take the attack to the Boogeyman and his minions as they threaten to steal the innocence from children. It includes detailed rules for running toys, avoiding pets and humans, Boogeyman minions and much more all within the confines of the d20 Modern system. This pdf has a page count of 48 pages - 1 page is devoted to OGL declarations and 2 pages to the front and back covers, leaving 45 pages to immerse you in an imaginative game as an action figure or stuffed animal. E.N. Mini-Games: Tiny Terrors normally retails on RPGNow.com or DriveThruRPG.com for $3.95.

Initial Impressions:

Tiny Terrors comes as a single, fully bookmarked pdf (useful given that there is no table of contents or chapter designation - not something to be printed out). Art is sparse, and consists mainly of a few simple drawings or black and white photos of toys. The layout is simple as well, but often makes it difficult to discern section headings from content, although for the most part you can figure that out. The writing is concise and clear, with only the occasional error slipping in, but, truth be told, none of this bothered me that much, since this is a great little game and it's one of the few things I've read recently that's actually got me excited and bubbling with ideas and imagination.

Tiny Terrors is a mini-game where players control toys and face the hordes of the Boogeyman and his minions from the Nightmare Lands. There are a number of different toy types to choose from, such as action figure, doll or even the amazing constructive, and each toy type comes with its own accessories that are governed by accessory feats. Toys can take base classes such as Defender Toy or Yard Toy or advanced classes such as Collectible or Toy Champion, and together as a group they can prevent the Boogeyman's minions from stealing a child's innocence, while fighting minions, avoiding pets and adults, and making sure that their children still play with them so they can restore their strength. It is a very well done and inventive little game, and full of potential - something new to spark the imagination and I'm sure that many will not only play this as a one-shot, but can create whole elaborate campaigns from it. It is a game not to be missed.

The Details:

The pdf starts with an introduction explaining the origin of the Six Beasts, of which the Boogeyman is one. Toys, filled with Spirit, come alive to defend children against the Boogeyman, as he is the Beast that most likes to prey on the innocence of children. The Boogeyman is imprisoned in a prison in the Nightmare Lands, but he can still influence creatures there to do his bidding, and steal Spirit and innocence away from children in the real world. The concept relies quite heavily on the idea of Spirit, almost like a life force for toys. It's a universe that we're all familiar with - the monsters under the bed, the creature in the closet, and this makes it come to life in an elegant, though probably too detailed for younger children who I think might also enjoy this. Don't let that stop adults playing this - it's a great imaginative game! Though, with kids around, you'll never have a lack of miniatures in your game!

The Rules: Tiny Terrors is based on the d20 Modern rules, and this section of the pdf describes some changes or deviations from those rules. Rules are given to govern the size of toys, their size relative to humans and pets, rules for Spirit (akin to action points), rules for equipment (accessories - Barbie will have a field day!), etc. Most, however, is unchanged, and anyone familiar with d20 Modern or even d20 D&D should easily be able to play this game.

Character Creation: This is a meaty chapter, describing the types of toys, their base classes and general character creation, including Spirit, feats, particularly accessory feats, talent trees, and skills. I wish they'd put the chapter on Spirit in here instead, given that so much revolves around spirit that it would've been handy to know what it was all about before seeing it in action. There are five types (races) of toys - the action figure (toy warrior with lots of equipment), the constructive (Lego fans with have great fun with this one), the doll (leadership type with lots of charisma and accessories), the security blanket (a protective toy strong in Spirit), and stuffed animal (animal stealth warriors). The constructive in particular is great - able to command bricks and build accessories from them, and detailed rules are given to build anything from a one legged, one armed critter to that fast car you need for a quick getaway. The toy types get lots of bonus feats and accessory feats, allowing for example a toy racing driver to have a car (Vehicle (Basic) accessory feat), or a toy to have its own stuffed animal (Accessory Toy accessory feat). Toys are required to use Spirit to activate some of their abilities, or to move in front of adults without being seen, or even to open a portal to the Nightmare Lands to kick some Boogeyman bootie!

The same base classes are used as in d20 Modern, but they have been renamed to be more appropriate to Tiny Terrors. Strong Hero becomes a Defender Toy, while Dedicated Hero becomes a Yard Toy. New talent trees are available to each of the base classes, for example, Yard toys have Befriend Animal or Determination, while Defender Toys have Empower Melee Weapon. The remainder of this section is devoted to the accessory feats, of which there are many, allowing toys to accessorize as much as they like - from having a vehicle, to flying, to a backpack or even their own entire playset. It's a great little addition to the game, and there's a lot here to make an interesting toy. Tiny Terrors does a great job of applying the d20 mechanics to toys in a flavourful and balanced way. Now where did I put that Lego set of mine?

Advanced Classes: There are a number of advanced classes detailed to customize your toy a little further. The collectible is more advanced in its human knowledge, and can rely on its owner to look after it, the dog warrior befriends household pets and understands them, the haunted toy is a creepy little toy that's more scary than cuddly, the spirit traveller is a master of the Nightmare Lands, the spirit wielder is a master of mystic arts, capable of using Spirit to cast spells and the Toy Champion is a powerful warrior. There's something there to get you started or put you on the path to let your imagination run wild.

Equipment: A brief section is presented on equipment - the typical things that a toy may have with them, or gain through the use of an accessory feat. Weapons range from a bazooka to a light pistol, and various armor types and vehicles are given. There are also some general guidelines and tables to help you along if the weapon your toy have is not there.

Spirit: This is the life force of toys. It gives them the life they have, and they are required to spend Spirit to keep active in any 24 hour period. Spirit allows them to use some of their abilities, such as a constructive building structures, or avoid being spotted by pets and adults. Toys' abilities are often dependent on how much Spirit they have, so a toy depleted of Spirit is very weak indeed, and once reaching 0 Spirit is inactive until a child plays with it again. The chapter details Spirit, how it relates to toys, children and adults. There's some detail on the Nightmare lands, but with some imagination or a trip down memory lane, you can create Nightmare Lands of your own.

Monsters Under the Bed: The final section of this pdf details the Boogeyman and his minions, as well as his lieutenants, the Servants of Evil such as the Hobgoblin. Typical Boogeyman minions are described, such as the scrambler (now you know where those strange noises you hear at night from the closet come from) and the charred (toys turned to the Boogeyman). Anything is really useful as a minion, and typical d20 monsters will do just fine in most cases. Stats for the Hobgoblin and Boogeyman are given, so those epic toys can give the Beast a run for his money.

This is an excellent product. It brings out the imagination in you, and recreates the excitement of childhood toys in a structured RPG. It's inventive, well written, mechanically solid (although I have to admit that I did not playtest this), and offers lots of room to let your imagination go. The only negative thing is related to the layout and art, for example, the lack of table of contents, and layout that's often difficult to read between headings and text. Still, break out that toy chest in your attic, grab some of your favourite toys (or your kids'!), get this pdf and you're bound to have a great time!

Conclusions:

E.N. Mini-Games: Tiny Terrors is a d20 mini-game where players take the roles of toys and confront the forces of the Boogeyman as they try to destroy the innocence of children. It's an imaginative and fun game, full of possibilities, well constructed and easy to learn. Ever wanted to play an action figure - now's your chance. Or how about that stuffed toy that's still sitting on your bed, or lying on the sofa. Do you know what it does when your kids are asleep and you're not looking? Tiny Terrors is something everybody looking for something different should look at. Based on content, creativity and imagination, mechanics, flavour and possibilities, but also some layout issues, I'd grade this as four and a half stars, rounding up to five stars.

 

[barsoomcore]

Thanks!

Hey, thanks for the solid (and very positive) review! We at EN Mini-Games are trying our hardest to bring high-quality fun to our customers, and it's great to get feedback. We'll take to heart your recommendations, rest assured.

And keep your eyes peeled for The Basement of Doom, our upcoming supplemental adventure for your toy heroes!

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Note: I was sent this PDF for free as part of the ENWorld summer review program.

Tiny Terrors is a unique mini-game which takes the playful energy of movies such as "Toy Story" and "Monsters, Inc" and transfers it into a world in which good toys struggle against the evil minions of the Boogeyman. The PDF itself is 47 pages long, but contains several large chunks of white space, which probably bring the count closer to 42 pages. That's still a good amount of material for the price, though.

In the Tiny Terrors setting, an evil creatures in the distant past were cast outside of our world and imprisoned in what is called the Nightmare Realm. In order to survive, and eventually escape, they must steal Spirit essence from humans. The central villain of Tiny Terrors is the Boogeyman, who steals Spirit from children by frightening them with his nightmare minions.

Enter the toys. As children love and play with their toys, the toys become infused with a portion of their Spirit- enough to become alive and fight the minions of the Boogeyman. The toys can use both their innate abilities and infused Spirit to fight the monsters which invade the bedroom, eventually taking the fight to the Nightmare Realm itself. One thing they can't do, though, is move or act around adults- at least, not without great difficulty.

Tiny Terrors doesn't have numbered chapters, instead it is broken into sections:


A Child's World: This is the introduction to the game and the setting. It outlines the Boogeyman, the threat he poses to children, and the toys that stand against him. This section also touches upon the changes in scale that the game requires: movement is measured in inches instead of feet, so one map square would equal five inches. One interesting idea is to use the actual room floor in lieu of a battlemat, with real toys taking their real positions. Since the scale of action is so much smaller, one furnished living room could easily be enough for an entire scenario.

Rules: Tiny Terrors is built upon the D20 Modern system. The rules section assumes that the reader has access to either the book, or the SRD, and only touches upon those D20 Modern rules that need adjusting.

Character Creation: The longest section in the book, this chapter covers toy types (the races of the setting), character classes, and new talents and feats. The feats mostly revolve around accessories or features that are advertised on toys, such as Changing Colors or Kung Fu Grip. In fact, just about all equipment that a toy can have is acquired through feats, and some, such as vehicles or playsets (think Castle Greyskull) can be quite elaborate.


Action Figure: These are the strong, warrior toys that take the front lines in the battle against the Boogeyman and his minions. They gain extra accessories, almost always combat gear or the like.

Constructive: Not single toys, but instead a collective intelligence of building block toys that can reform themselves into different shapes and structures. The player may choose from a list of different block types in his pool, which may then be combined in whatever suits the needs of the moment.

Doll: This category encompasses non-action toys such as Barbie dolls. Dolls are the charismatic leaders of the toys, and gain an even balance between Spirit abilities and accessories.

Security Blanket: As the name implies, security blankets are those pieces of cloth that make children feel safer. As such, they are the most spiritually powerful of the toys. The blankets themselves are amorphous creatures like aberrations, and can use their unusual shapes to protect or shield both children and toys.

Stuffed Animal: Stuffed animals are also treasured possessions of their children, and are second in spirit power only to security blankets. The fact that they are animals also makes them effective in combat, where they rely on their natural abilities rather than the
accessories of the action figure.


The classes for Tiny Terrors are the same as in D20 Modern, only renamed. There are also some new talent trees for the classes, such as Missing Toy, Yard Toy, and Unobtrusive.

Finally, there are some toy-specific advanced classes. While intended for use in this setting only, some of the classes could be transferred to any setting which involves characters using spirit powers to battle evil, with only slight modification to the classes.


Collectible: A rather confusing name, this advanced class could apply either heirlooms or those toys that are kept by adults for their collector's value. Because of their proximity to adults, these toys are more thoughtful and mature than most, and may act more easily around adults.

Dog Warrior: While most pets are a danger to toys, the dog warrior has managed to tame a pet and use it as an ally and steed.

Haunted Toy: Unlike the collectible toys, which have adapted themselves to the adult world, these toys are able to affect adults through their own will and spirit powers. As such, they gain the title "haunted toys" because adults never actually see them move or act, but still get a feeling that something is amiss.

Spirit Traveler: These toys are sort of the clerics of the setting, gaining abilities to ward against and banish the creatures of nightmare. They also have an easier time entering the nightmare realm, and would be indispensable on a quest to fight the monsters on their
own turf.

Spirit Wielder: The spellcaster of the setting, this toy sacrifices combat and accessory gains for a small list of mage spells (of levels 1-3). They are also able to craft spiritually empowered items for their allies.

Toy Champion: These elite warriors of the toy world gain combat abilities normally seen in D20 fantasy classes, such as favored enemies and weapon specialization. One key feature of the Toy Champion is that they become immune to all forms of fear, an ability common among the servants of the Boogeyman.


Equipment: This section gives some statistics for the sorts of equipment that a toy might come with. Most of the figures look to be the same as in D20 Modern.

Spirit: Spirit points take the place of action points in the Tiny Terrors game. While toys gain more points than heroes in the D20 Modern system, they also need to expend more points, both to take actions around adults and to fuel whatever feats might require a
spirit cost. The spirit chapter also covers methods of recovering spirit (generally through playing with one's child), and touches upon the landscape of the Nightmare Realm.

Monsters Under the Bed: This section describes some of the monsters and nightmares that toys might encounter in their fight against the Boogeyman. There's also stats for one Servant of Fear (the chief minions of the Boogeyman, each of whom has his own domain) and for the Boogeyman himself. There's only a few monsters, but the nice thing is that the DM can import pretty much any creature from the SRD, provided that he accounts for size differences.

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Likes: The game and setting are both well-thought out and imaginative. With a few exceptions (Grimm springs to mind), it's unusal to find a D20 supplement that explores a fairy tale or childish fantasy milieu. There's a wide array of character options, and playing a toy gives one just as many choices as playing a fighter or rogue would in a standard D20 game. Many of the character choices, such as the Constructives and the accesory equipment, are wonderful examples of adapting standard D20 features in a new way, while still being familiar enough to be immediately accessible.

Dislikes: I'm not generally too concerned with art or layout in a book, but I didn't think much of either one in this PDF. There's hardly any borders or graphics at all, and what art there is is either touched up photos or simplistic line drawings of toys. Fonts are kept in the same type and size pretty much throughout the document, except for the use of boldface. While this doesn't sound like a problem, combine this with some odd spacing and sections such as the talent trees become difficult to read, as it's hard to tell the difference between tree title and talent title, or where one tree ends and another begins. The fact that they weren't in alphabetical order didn't help, either.

While the lack of art and creative layout doesn't really detract from the game as a whole, it doesn't add anything either. A game with such a unique premise really could have used a layout which conveys the feel of the game, and this document didn't do that in the least. Other ENWorld products, such as Four Color to Fantasy and Tournaments, Fairs and Taverns, have had colorful and well-done layouts and plenty of artwork. It could be that Tiny Terrors was intended to be a printer friendly product, but then why are there pages that only have a few paragraphs and then white space? Besides, it's pretty much common practice in the PDF market now to include a printer-friendly, grayscale version with products that might prove too costly or large for the typical printer.

The other main sticking point I had was setting detail. I know that this is intended to be a mini-game rather than a setting (though there seems to be a pretty big gray area as to which is which). But something like a short list of adventure hooks would've been nice. Aside from the basic plots of "monster attacks house" or "toys go to Nightmare Realm to attack monsters", there aren't any suggestions as to what to do with the game. A smaller, but related, matter is the inclusion of only one Servant of Fear, and a rather flat one at that. The Servants of fear are supposed to be the prime henchmen of the setting, sort of like the level bosses blocking access to the Boogeyman's final boss. They're also supposed to have their own themes, styles, and motivations, but the provided servant (The Hobgoblin) is basically just a warped human. Again, a listing of different Servants and ways to use them would have been nice- not even full statblocks, just a sidebar table.

Final Verdict: While there may have been a lot of complaining in the "dislike" section, it was all pretty much nitpicks on my part. I didn't think that any of it was bad enough to drop the game down to a 3, and everything before the Dislikes section can be considered to be something in the game's favor. It's an imaginitive work with potential for a great deal of fun, and would also seem to work well as an intro game for children (though the aspects of the Boogeyman's assault on children would probably need to be downplayed). In short, this would be a great game for anyone looking for something different to run for a few nights, and whose group doesn't have to take themselves too seriously.