vaj005 - KidWorld the Role Playing Game.pdf - KidWorld - sororita

KidWorld the Role Playing Game

is published by Vajra Enterprises, Portland, Oregon

ISBN 0-9713095-4-X

Written and Designed by

Eloy LaSanta and Brian St.Claire-King

Cover by Jason Juta

Art by

Michaël Brack (Trap, p.97. Bloody Mary, p.222)

Nicole Cardiff (Masked Kids, p.160. Addict Kids, p.132)

Anthony Carpenter (Slave Trader, p.127)

Liz Clarke (Branded, p.85)

Ed Cox (Brawn Guard, p.33)

Pablo Palomeque (Playing With Dolly, p.237)

Adam Hunter Peck (Siamese Corps, p.179. Scouts vs. Horse Riders, p.18)

Tyler Windham (Little Doctors, p.175)

Claire Buhler (North Amereca Map, p.272).

Playtested by James Amarcardi, Marnie Atkins, Claire Danae Buhler,

Jillian Burdsall, Diamond Charlotte, Charles Crow, Zach Doyle,

Martin Jacobs, Allon Mureinik, Chris Musgrave, Stephen Nazian,

Nick "Eeyore!" Page, Joseph Ryan Peters, Alistair Rose, Laura Selman,

Dr. Milo Sentara, George Sharp, Tiffany St.Claire-King, Heather Weeks,

Dr. Garry M. Weinberger, Eyal Zait and Amir Zeltzer

Editorial Assistance by Allon Mureinik

Scientiic Consultation by Dr. Amber Buhler Ph.D

Special thanks to Tenzin, Julian and Gabrielle for showing us how kickass kids can be.

No part of this book may be reproduced for commercial purposes.

Small portions may be reproduced for use in play.

Visit www.VajraEnterprises.com

KidWorld In Brief

Style - KidWorld is a dark and desperate place where people have

nobody they can turn to for help and may have to do terrible

things to survive. It is a shattered society where PC’s do not

know what they will run into when they wander into the next

town. It is a world of great variety, where peaceful democracies

exist just miles away from cruel dictatorships. Above all it is a

world where human nature: the kindness, curiosity and hope for

the future along with the cruelty, prejudice and tendency to give

in to peer pressure, have come to the forefront and pulse in raw

form across KidWorld.

Background - KidWorld takes place 4 years after the emergence

of the Plague. This mysterious disease quickly spread

throughout the world. A majority of the world’s adults died and

all those that survived were struck blind. As adults were going

blind and realized that kids were not, there was widespread fear

that America’s enemies would create child armies and use them

to invade the country. So as to not be caught defenseless, the

army scrambled to capture kids and induct them into the army.

Yet the army grabbed more kids than they could control or care

for. The kids rebelled and escaped. This led to a society in which

both kids and adults thought their only option was to enslave

or be enslaved. There are four basic types of communities in

KidWorld:

-Those where there are only kids. Adults have either not

shown up or have been driven away. This is by far the most

common kind. Kid communities range from those who are

peaceful and prosperous to those ruled by violence, prejudice

and madness.

-Communities ruled by kids where kids enslave adults, using

them for manual labor or taking advantage of their knowledge

but never really trusting them.

-Communities where there are only adults. They most likely

want kids to live with them and help them but are unable to ind

any willing to. Most survive by subsistence farming.

-Communities where adults enslave kids, using them as their

eyes and keeping them in bondage to prevent escapes.

The Plague is still in the people of KidWorld: sighted kids know

they will slowly go blind as they approach physical maturity.

that allow them to feel any intruders, bicycles attached to

rope and pulley systems so that blind adults can bike around

communities at high speed, clay bas-relief maps with "you are

here" stars at every street-corner, and many more.

Organizations - Most communities are completely autonomous.

Some have very little contact with other communities, others

have contact mostly via traveling traders. Because travel is

arduous and long distance communication rare, there are very

few organizations that can extend their reach beyond a town

or city. Among those rare organizations are remnants of the

military, cults (including the doomsday cult that has claimed

responsibility for the Plague) and new religions (including

God’s War, an anti-adult religion originating from Miami).

Dangers - Threats to the residents of KidWorld include wild

animals, diseases, traps (both recent and those created during

the initial chaos to protect from looters), apocalyptic cults,

slavers, bandits and eye eaters (adults who eat the eyes of

children to temporarily regain vision). Yet the most common

danger in KidWorld is kids. Some kids are dangerous for the

same reasons typical of adults (fanaticism, prejudice, cruelty,

greed, desperation). Yet kids are most dangerous because of

their propensity to give in to peer pressure. Kids often do or

believe things just because other kids do and this can lead kid

communities into insane or grossly immoral behavior.

Player Characters - PCs can either play sighted children,

partially blind adolescents or fully blind adults. The primary

goal of all PCs is to survive. Secondary goals may include

inding lost family, trying to rebuild civilization or trying to

ind a cure for the Plague. Kid character classes correspond to

“professions” or primary means of survival, e.g. Builders build,

Horse Riders have horses, Scouts have wilderness survival

skills, etc. Adult classes correspond to the strengths that have

most helped the PC survive to this point: Brains have survived

through knowledge or quick wits, Brawns have survived via

physical strength or ability to defend themselves and Mouths

by being able to organize or manipulate people.

Character Creation - Players choose an age. This sets the

amount of attribute points, caps on certain attributes and

possible blindness penalties. Then players choose a character

class, which sets skill costs and resources. The class system is

very lexible, making certain options cheaper but not rigidly

deining who the character is or what the character can do.

Players then buy skills and equipment and round out the PC

with advantages and disadvantages. Experience points can be

used to increase attributes and skills. They also cause kids to

age (200 XP = one birthday), giving more attributes but also

moving kid PCs closer to being blind adults.

Game Mechanics - All mechanics are based on a simple

system. The sum of attribute + skill or other factor + 1d20 must

be equal to or higher than the dificulty of the proposed action.

Opposed rolls are made when two actions are in conlict with

each other: each party tries to get more above their dificulty

than the other party. Fighting is made up of opposed actions

and reactions with different dificulties and effects. In combat,

for each round each character gets one action to make against

an enemy and one reaction if someone else does something to

them.

Setting Options - KidNight is an optional appendix in which

the beliefs of kids concerning luck, wishes, ghosts, monsters,

etc. are true. Kids have access to supernatural skills and

other supernatural character creation options. KidSurreal is

an optional setting in which, instead of a Plague, the perfect

summer afternoon has dilated kids’ sense of time to such a

degree that kid empires can rise and fall before adults even get

around to noticing what kids are doing.

Tech Level - Electricity grids have failed, national and

international trade (including agricultural trade) has stopped,

and consumables that are not being replenished (e.g. gasoline,

ammunition, pharmaceuticals) are becoming increasingly rare.

A few communities have created a source of electricity (e.g.

solar panels, a windmill or even hand-cranked generators) to

run appliances and even communicate with other communities

via short-wave radio. It is primarily communities where adults

enslave kids which have this high level of tech (since they have

the knowledge to design the tech and sight to implement it).

Most communities, however, rely on candles and bonires for

light, scrounge in abandoned buildings for tools, weapons and

clothing and have only books, acoustic instruments and each

other for entertainment.

Some communities have igured out how to grow food or gather it

from the wild, and this food is often traded to other communities.

Some adult communities, who plant and gather by feel, are only

barely able to create enough food to keep themselves alive. Not

enough people are producing food and many (mostly kids) are

forced to use up rapidly diminishing stores of preserved Pre-

Plague food to avoid starvation.

Many adult communities use slavery to deal with their lack of

sight. They force kids to navigate for them, read for them, repair

technology for them, even perform surgery for them. Those

adult communities without kid slaves are forced to come up

with creative means of doing things without sight. Some of

these innovations include: sentries attached to a web of strings

003

IntroduCtion

Dear Sahara,

If you’re reading this then you’ve most likely escaped from,

or were let go from, wherever the military took you and you

made your way back here, hoping to ind us. Unfortunately,

the fact that you’re reading this means we are dead. I’m

sorry. I’m sorry that your mother and I can’t be here for

you, to comfort and protect and teach you.

A Brief History of

Childhood

Sometime around the middle of the 1800s,

an incredible change happened in the view of

Americans towards children. Previously, the

view had been informed by Puritanism, and

especially Calvinism. Americans believed

that human nature is essentially sinful and that

humans have to be taught to control their evil

impulses. In this view of things, children are just

small, ignorant adults who have not yet learned

self-control. Child labor in this era was perfectly

acceptable because children had no less duty to

contribute to their families than adults did.

I was not the best father. I should have spent more time with

you. I should not have allowed myself to get frustrated so

easily. But you have to know this: since the day you were

born it has been my greatest wish that you would thrive and

ind happiness in your life. If there ever comes a time when

you have to do something really hard in order to survive,

and you’re not sure if you can do it, I want you to think

"Mom and dad’s last wish was that I survive, so I’m going

to do what I have to."

We believe in you, Sahara. We believe that you are a smart

and good and brave person. We believe that no matter

how bad things get you will igure out a way to get by. If

anyone tries to convince you that you aren’t good enough,

ignore them.

You’ve probably already igured out that this world isn’t

fair. The good guys don’t always win just because they’re

good. It’s not fair that a kid should die, but that doesn’t

mean it won’t happen. You can’t just expect that nothing

terrible will happen to you, you have to ight every day to

keep it from happening.

Don’t trust anyone, even if they act nice, even if they give

you things or tell you they love you. Since you can see,

a lot of adults will think you’re a valuable commodity,

something to be captured and locked away. You are not a

slave. You are not on this Earth to sacriice your freedom

to keep other people alive.

And don’t forget that you are more than just a kid, you

are the future of the human race. Just by living, just by

surviving until you’re a grownup and can have kids of

your own, you’re not just helping yourself, you’re helping

to keep alive the culture and society and knowledge that

countless generations have fought for.

After the change, however, people started to

view children as beautiful "innocents" who, if

left to their own devices, would live in their own

personal gardens of eden. Childhood became

seen as it’s own unique stage of development.

Play was seen as healthy and "children’s books"

emerged as a genre.

This incredible shift relected a change in the

view of human nature. At the beginning of

the century, people thought that children were

born corrupt and had to be taught to be good by

the society. At the end of the century, people

believed that children were born innocent and

good and were later corrupted by society.

The next major development was evolutionary

psychology, in which scientists tried to view

the behavior of children in terms of how those

behaviors would have helped our ancestors

survive. Play, it turned out, is not just a form

of entertainment, it is how kids learn to deal

with the dangers and challenges of the world.

Tickle ights teach kids to protect vital areas

from attack. Running, jumping and climbing

build strength and coordination. Hide-and-seek

and chase games teach kids to hunt and to avoid

predators. Playing at forts teaches kids to ind

or build shelter. Social games, such as playing

house, ready kids for adult roles in society.

Telling scary stories prepare kids to deal with

fear and surprise.

There’s so much more I wish I could teach you: about right

and wrong, science, health, logic, self-defense, standing

up to peer pressure, the birds and the bees, dealing with

tragedy. There are so many things to be learned about

getting by in this world. You’ll igure them out on your

own, though. I believe you can. I believe you will. You

have to.

Love always,

Dad

004

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