Once upon a time… something pretty nasty happened!
February 17, 2011 by dracs
Nearly all my life, I have been fascinated by folklore and stories, especially the darker varieties. Imagine my excitement when Andy showed me this RPG from Fantasy Flight Games.
FFG are well known for their fantastic selection of RPG and board games and this one definitely appears to live up to their reputation... ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... Grimm!
Everyone knows about the Brothers Grimm, how they travelled Germany, gathering up folk tales and stories. Everyone knows the most famous of those stories... Snow White an the Seven Dwarves... Hansel and Gretel pushing the wicked witch into her oven... and Little Red Riding Hood, being saved just in time by the woodcutter.
What people don't know is why. What compelled these two brothers to search for these stories?
As a kid who has found themselves in a land filled with the inhabitants of these stories, your about to find out. Welcome to the Grimm Lands, the place where the brothers Grimm captured all those story book creatures, a place shaped by the imagination of children. Do you remember some of the things you imagined as a child?
This fantastically...well, grim... RPG draws heavily upon the nursery rhymes and stories everyone is familiar with, twisting them beyond our recognition.
The players take the roles of kids, who have somehow been transported into this strange and twisted, fairytale world and now must work together to avoid its strange inhabitants, navigate its constantly changing landscape and get back to the real world.
Well you don't have to work together, you could always just throw the nerd to the troll under the bridge. As they say, it doesn't matter how fast I can run just as long as I run faster than you.
As with most RPG games this one has its own classes for you to base your character around. Unlike other RPG's they aren't exactly the usual wizard or rogue. In Grimm your character is a kid, so your classes reflect what kind of kid you are. You could be a nerd, a bully, a dreamer, an outcast(think the emo kid, who won't shut up about how bad they've got life), a jock and many others.
Hands up, who wants to be the normal kid?
The unique characterisation is not the only exciting thing about the setting (especially for anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with folklore and fairy tales). You'll find yourself coming face to face with goblins in the woods, trolls under every bridge, talking animals, insane humans, malignant trees, giants and that ultimate in evil... that eggy master of malignancy... Humpty Dumpty!
All the monsters and characters are thoroughly twisted and far more sinister than you might otherwise have thought. To borrow a Pratchettian idea, it is the difference between the cute, cuddly images of unicorns we are used to and facing an angry horse with a sharp 12 inch spike on its head.
This game is fun if you like immersive and fun roleplaying, your characters aren't super-powered warriors with the latest "+5 widget of arse-kicking", the game owes a lot more to Call Of Cthulhu and other narrative horror games than to the "kick the door down and steal the treasure" dungeon romps and some knowledge of the true Grimm Fairy Tales (where not everyone lives happily ever after) is definitely an advantage.
Other than that, I would definitely recommend this to someone who might be looking for an alternative role playing experience, or just to have a look at the background fluff... as it's fantastic.
BoW Sam
This article kinda snuck under the radar…
But looks great. Love the folklore stuff and a massive fan of hellboy. Mike Mignola eats fairytales for breakfast…
Have you played it much Sam?
I think playing as a kid could be more fun than some of FFs other games, due to the challenge of defeating (or more accurately, surviving) eldritch horrors and abominations with cunning and a slingshot rather than brute force and a bolter- as an example in Deathwatch my player character rolled double ten for his strength at the start and I lucked out and got the armour that gave him more strength, end result being I was able to one-punch a Carnifex and after that we all got bored.
first thing that came to mind of the title was: GW’S PRICES! and GW’S STORMRAVEN!
Very nice to see a Grimm review here. I have the book and plan on running a game in the somewhat near future. Love what they did to twist the fairy tales closer to the original bent of classics.
Same here !
ive never played a game like this. how do they work?
Cool! Looks like a great RPG idea 🙂 Grimm bros at their best every bit as creepy as Lovecraft et al..
It sounds like a cool new take on role playing. I like deeper content than the “I see a monster, I attack it” role playing. And this fits the bill of being deeper.
I loved getting my hands on the pdf for this, though I’m afraid I haven’t yet had the chance to get a game going. When I was writing this I made sure to do a lot of checking back and forth with the original Grimm fairy tales which I already had on my ipod touch. As I said I have been fascinated with folklore etc all my life so this game seems to have been custom made for me.
BoW Sam
what do you need to play a game like this? i assume there is no board to speak of.
Good question ! Strictly speaking, a pen and paper Role Playing Game requires only a few players and a GM (Game master), some paper, and some pens. The players all create a character following the rules of the game they’re playing (which can be simple or more complex), and the GM prepares a story for them. The GM describes the environment, the events, and acts out the non-player chacarters… The players simply play their characters. It’s like the “pretending” game, when you’re a kid and pretend you’re cow-boys and indians, or superheroes and villains, or whatever… Except there are rules… Read more »
How many of the Bow team are interested in RPGs? I could see ustream coverage of an RPG session being entertaining and informative 🙂
Nearly all of us here are interested in RPGs, in fact me and Justin are currently in a game of d+d. I’m a halfling rogue (When your this height you may as well live up to it). But there have been talks about getting a game of it going in the office and streaming or recording it, but thats just spit balling round the office at them moment.
BoW Sam
Capital idea !
I wish I could play regularly as well : My group has fallen apart due to… well, people moving, life happening, that sort of thing.
having learned to play warhammer, warhammer 40k, infinity and magic the gathering all in a 6month time span, this appeals to me a lot. not sure i know anyone else who would play tho 🙁
Ask around… friends, hobby stores… Look up clubs near you on the Internet… You never know ! Gamers are everywhere…
certainly will do!
I only got into roleplaying recently, and I’m loving it, maybe a good place to start if you’ve already played 40k is its role play games such as Rogue Trader, Deathwatch and Dark Heresy
cheers ill look into them, i think id be more into fantasy than sci-fi where role play is involved. gonna do some research now.
Fantassy Flight games also made a Warhammer Fantasy rpg. Darrel and John did a review of it a fair bit back so if you search the site you should find the video.
BoW Sam
Just won me a copy of the book on ebay!!