Amazing Tales vs Regular Volk
Compare Amazing Tales and Regular Volk side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Amazing Tales | Regular Volk | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Universal | Fantasy |
| Tags | Beginner-Friendly, Rules-Light, One-Shot Friendly, Narrative, Family-Friendly, Fiction-First, Low-Prep, Theater of the Mind | Rules-Light, Beginner-Friendly, Narrative, Character-Driven, Theater of the Mind, One-Shot Friendly, Low-Prep, CC-Licensed Rules |
| Core Mechanic | Each character has 4 skills the child invents. Each skill is assigned a die (d12, d10, d8, d6): bigger die = better skill. Roll 3+ to succeed. That's the entire system. | Roll 2d6, add the relevant stat plus small bonuses for a fitting item or trait, and meet or beat the Difficulty Score the GM sets. The same check resolves every action, attack, and beast action. Edge and Trouble add a third d6 and drop the lowest or highest die. Rolling double sixes on an attack lands a critical hit. |
| Dice | d6–d12 | 2d6 |
| Complexity | Very Low | Low |
| Availability | Free quickstart | Free core rules |
| Runnability | 3 of 5 book tools | 3 of 5 book tools |
| License | Proprietary | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Not yet researched |
| Publisher | Martin Lloyd | Timo Acker |
| Year | 2019 | 2026 |
| Languages | English | English |
| Best For | Parents playing with kids aged 4+ who want collaborative storytelling with the simplest possible rules: one die roll, no math, any setting. | Groups who want a short, low-prep fairy-tale one-shot or brief campaign centered on a controlled shapeshifting risk, where a character's powerful beast form can consume them if they lean on it too often. It suits tables new to tabletop RPGs who still want some build texture from ancestry and curse choices. |
| Highlights | Genuinely playable by 4-year-olds, genre-agnostic (pirates, space, fairy tales, anything), child creates their own character skills, four ready-to-play settings included, encourages collaborative storytelling | Failing a roll while in Beast Form builds Beast Points, which escalate through animalistic compulsions and stacking debuffs to permanently trapping the character in beast form. Folding the character sheet along a marked line physically hides the volk abilities and reveals the beast ones, so the sheet itself shows which form a character is in. The GM builds any fairytale creature by picking one of five power tiers and an archetype such as Glass Cannon or Heavy Hitter, each carrying preset Difficulty Score, HP, and modifiers. |
| Considerations | Far too simple for older kids or adults, no combat system or advancement, GM (parent) does all the heavy lifting narratively, extremely limited mechanical depth | Combat uses no maps, grid, or positioning rules, so groups who want tactical movement or terrain play get no mechanical support for it. Entering Beast Form fully replaces a character's volk abilities, items, and weapons, so beast powers can never be combined with human-form gear in the same moment. A character who reaches 0 Health Points rolls on the Fate table, where a result of 6 or lower on the unmodified 2d6 means an immediate death that no bonus can prevent. |