Channeling My Inner 10-Year-Old

My last two articles (pt. 1, pt. 2) covered the creating of a cozy campaign I had intended for my family for slow and rainy days. It was a response to the spell that the game Stardew Valley seemed to have over my wife and kids.

Personally I am quite proud of the creation, and thought it could be a lot of fun. But, sadly, its reception was, at best, lukewarm. Serves me right for jumping into a project before getting the buy in, I suppose.

So I asked my kids what they wanted in a role-playing game, and the best answer I got was "I want to do awesome stuff!"

"What kind of awesome stuff?" I asked.

"You know! Awesome!" was sadly as far as the answers got. 

So, I sat down and thought about what my kids seem to think is "awesome."

• The Song "Black Wind Fire & Steel" by Manowar
• Gloryhammer music videos 
• Instrumental metal
• The video game Subnautica 
• Sperm Whales and Giant Squid
• Wizards who throw lightning bolts.
• The Netflix He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
• Jedi Knights
• Heroes smashing robots
• Lots of explosions
• Teleportation 
• The Sentinels from No Man's Sky 
• Pet monsters
• Their favourite Pokemon (Raichu and Grenninja)
• 1980s-era Super Mario Bros. video games 

 And I let myself imagine a setting that took a bunch of stuff from that list and tossed it into a blender. Channeling as much of my own inner 10-year-old as I could while doing so.

As they wanted "to do Awesome Stuff" I made the character classes the focus of my thinking, coming up with a mix of ninjas, guys with cosmic swords that make robots explode, lightning wizards, guys who can summon pet monsters, and a fiery energy being. 

And I designed them to be stupidly overpowered at 1st level, but structurally stunted their development so that by level 5 or so they would be pretty much on par with a standard D&D character. That way they could incinerate goblin hoards and demolish starships with ease, but still have a real sense of peril as the game moved on.

Once you have your PC classes and the basics of a setting and characters to go in it, all you really need in some villains, and so I put together a bunch of bad guys made from a mix of Heavy Metal music videos, pokemon, favourite sea creatures, tons of smashable robots, a few video game sprites to make a bestiary of 36 monsters with the unique flavour I was putting into the game.

All of which I plugged into Drakken Quick and Dirty PRG to make something that is good stupid fun of awesome cosmic heroes making robots go boom. It took me less than three days to get it done (although it could use an overhaul on gear.)

If you are interested in having a laugh over a game that I made to try to appeal to the aesthetics of little boys who want big kabooms, deliberately silly and immature, you can get it here: 

Templars of the Bright Aeon

And, as always, I welcome your feedback.