I really love the playsets from Girl by Moonlight, easily my fave development in FitD tech in the last couple of years. For those unware, Girl by Moonlight eschews the traditional Gang/Squad/Group Playbook structure for Playsets. These fulfill a similar role to the group playbooks of other FitD games, but are explicitly designed to invoke particular subgenres through the nature of both their opposition and progression. I think it's a perfect tool to adapt to Little Wizards, which aims to be a game about catching and caring for magical little creatures. Creature-catching stories exist in a lot of forms, with notable examples like Pokemon, Digimon, Monster Rancher, Golden Sun (arguably), Yokai Watch, Temtem, etc. I want to give players the tools to tell stories in the same space as some of their genre favorites.

The big difference I think with Little Wizards and GBM in this regard is that I envision LW to be presented with a core/universal location in which to tell stories. Traveling and looking at the map are such core aspects of these stories to me that I want to absolutely incorporate that into the gameplay, so it's necessary to provide a basic sandbox for players to explore. (I'd also like to think about how to "import" other settings into the rules of LW for those that want to adapt to more established creature-catching settings.)

At the moment, there are three or four main inspirations I'm drawing from for Little Wizard playsets. They are the following:

1. [isekai] - Lost in a new world, work together to make your way home. (Touchstones include Digimon, the Pagemaster, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.)
2. [miasma] - A great darkness threatens your home, held at bay by the [macguffin]. You and your friends must venture forth to ensure the [macguffin] keeps [verbing] to protect your home. (this is crystal chronicles babey)
3. [the very best] - Travel the land, make new friends, and prove yourself the very best. (this is pokemon through-and-through, whether it be battles or contests or something else)
4. [hidden threat] - A sinister force threatens to exploit the peace and prosperity of your home for nefarious ends. Uncover the truth and throw fascists off of cliffs. (this is also sorta pokemon, but it's mostly Temtem, a game which is much more explicitly anti-colonial and anti-fascist in its storytelling)

I think there's a lot of different ways to go both mechanically and narratively with these sorts of playsets, and I think they really have the potential to help Little Wizards capture the feeling of these beloved stories.

I want to run a Blades in the Dark game, or some other FITD game, where the players are toys in a toy store.

○ I'm just a Little Guy Take +1d to Prowess resistance rolls.
○ I'm wearing glasses Take +1d to Insight resistance rolls.
○ It's my birthday Take +1d to Resolve resistance rolls.

We had plans to play a game this Sunday, but a friend was quite a bit late. Sooo just for the fun of it, we hopped to doing a playtest of a duo/small group mapmaking adventure game. I've got more than a few games in playable states buuut I've been struggling to jump to push playtesting. Just because I decided to try and push to do so.

In short, it's a mapmaking Forged in the Dark game inspired by the Souls series and about embracing death to make progress. I've given it the name Wither Knights as of now. The core isn't crazy unique, but I like the idea of creation at play while moving through the zones. Very inspired by Ironsworn co-op style of play, emergent and collaborative.

(More details about the game and playtest below.)