Children With Wands vs Questgiver

Compare Children With Wands and Questgiver side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	Children With Wands	Questgiver
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Tags	Rules-Light, Family-Friendly, Beginner-Friendly, Cozy, Collaborative, Comedy, One-Shot Friendly, CC-Licensed Rules	Comedy, Rules-Light, Beginner-Friendly, One-Shot Friendly, Improvisation, Strong GM Support
Core Mechanic	To cast a spell, the player says what they want it to do, and the Narrator sets a Spell Range from two values. Effectiveness rates how well the spell suits the task from 0 to 3, and Strength rates how much magic the goal needs from 1 to 20. The range runs from Strength minus Effectiveness up to Strength plus Effectiveness. The player then rolls a d20, and a result inside the range casts the spell cleanly. A roll outside the range still fires the spell, but mis-scaled into a complication. High rolls overshoot with too much power and low rolls fall short.	Describe an action and roll a pool of d6s equal to your level in a relevant skill, then compare the total against an opposing roll. Opposition is either another character's roll or a difficulty pool the GM rolls, from 1d6 for easy up to 4d6 for nearly impossible. Rolling all sixes earns a new, more specific skill one level higher than the one just used. Every failed roll grants 1 XP. Spent XP turns a die into a six to raise a skill, but never rewrites the roll that earned it.
Dice	d20	d6 dice pool
Complexity	Very Low	Very Low
Availability	Free quickstart	Free core rules
Runnability	4 of 5 book tools	3 of 5 book tools
License	CC BY-SA 4.0 (core rules text)	ORC License
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	Not yet researched
Publisher	Dinosaur Pirate Games	Kent Malosh
Year	2026	2025
Languages	English	English
Best For	Families introducing younger players to tabletop roleplaying, and convention one-shots where everyone needs to be making characters and playing within minutes. The cooperative, low-stakes structure suits mixed-age tables more than groups after tactical depth or character builds.	Comedy-focused groups who want a low-prep competitive party game built around performing absurd challenges for points, rather than a traditional fantasy campaign with combat and character progression. It works well for one-shots or short runs, and even for dropping a familiar character from another game into a single guest episode.
Highlights	Players roll to determine a spell's power rather than its success, so a high roll overshoots the intended band just as badly as a low one. The Narrator announces each spell's range before the roll, letting the table weigh a clever but risky idea against a safe one as an open choice instead of a blind gamble. Spells that miss their range still go off and spawn fresh problems, turning failure into the engine that drives the session rather than a dead end.	Rolling all sixes on an attempt grants a brand-new skill one level higher than the one used, so characters grow directly out of the actions players choose to try. Every failed roll banks a point of experience toward upgrading a skill, so failing at the table always feeds progress instead of stalling it. During the solo Endeavors, each contestant's attempt is submitted in secret and then played out in an order the host chooses, building game-show reveal tension into every round.
Considerations	Setting each Spell Range is a real-time Narrator judgment of a spell's fit and power, so the game leans heavily on a confident improviser to run well. Casting a spell is the only way to resolve a real challenge, leaving groups who want to settle problems through mundane skill or social play without a subsystem for it. Every child shares the same resolve pool, single die, and short perk list, so characters distinguish themselves mainly by which spells they know.	Character creation carries no mechanical weight, since the creature type, quirk, and personality options are roleplay flavor that never affects a roll. Most quests are scored however the host decides unless the quest states its own criteria, which can frustrate players who want transparent win conditions. There are no rules for combat, injury, or death, so groups wanting a mechanically consequential fantasy adventure will not find one here.