Children With Wands vs Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Compare Children With Wands and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Children With Wands | Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Rules-Light, Family, Beginner-Friendly, Cozy, Collaborative, Comedy, One-Shot Friendly, Open Source | Career-Based, Grimdark, Gritty, Deadly, Investigation, Corruption, Licensed Setting |
| 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. | Roll d100 under skill or characteristic. Success Levels measure degree of success by comparing the tens digits of the target and the roll. Advantage accumulates during combat, adding +10 per point to attack tests. |
| Dice | d20 | d100 |
| Complexity | Very Low | Medium |
| Accessibility | High | Low |
| Runnability | Medium | High |
| License | CC BY-SA 4.0 (core rules text) | No open license |
| Cost | $$ | $$$ |
| Publisher | Dinosaur Pirate Games | Cubicle 7 |
| Year | 2026 | 2018 |
| 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. | Groups who want dark, gritty fantasy where ordinary people face extraordinary dangers in a richly detailed setting. The career system creates unique character arcs from rat catcher to witch hunter. |
| 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. | Detailed grimdark setting, career system creates varied character arcs, combat carries real consequences |
| 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. | Tightly bound to the Old World setting, Success Level math can slow play, expensive supplement line |