The Pick Up Pile. Pondering Tales From The Loop.

This instalment of the Pick Up Pile is on a book that’s been out for a while, but is new to me (as I got it for Christmas). Free League’s Tales from the Loop, the game of kids and mysteries in the 80s based on the art of Simon Stålenhag. Available in physical form from most FLGSs and in digital from Drivethru RPG here.

Physically this is a nice solid hardcover book with obvious high production values, as one can expect from Free League if you’re familiar with any of their products. It’s 192 pages, and thick pages they are too. To give an idea, this volume is about the same thickness as my Alien Colonial Marines book which is 350+ pages. Each page is off white with easy to read, well spaced, good sized text. Artwork is of a high standard, as you’d expect from the inspiration, and scattered throughout.

There are 12 chapters in the book, the first 5 being for everyone playing, covering background, setting, character creation, and rules. The last 7 are for the Game Master only covering mystery structures and sandboxes, and four adventure that can be strung together into a campaign with one adventure per season of a year.

First up is the usual “What is a roleplaying game?” and “What’s this game about?” sections. The usual fare that anyone reading this has probably seen a million times. Also covered here are the Principles of the Loop:

1. Your home town is full of strange and fantastic things.
2. Everyday life is dull and unforgiving.
3. Adults are out of reach and out of touch
4. The land of the Loop is dangerous but Kids will not die.
5. The game is played scene by scene.
6. The world is described collaboratively.

Each of these is further explained in this section, but alone this short list gets everyone on the same page about the tone of the game and how it is expected to run. I really like this as a way of communicating the intent of a game.

Up next is The Age of the Loop detailing the time period the game is set in, an alternate history 1980s, and the area of the Swedish Loop, the Mälaren islands. the history is split into trends and things popular at the time in the real 80s and the alternate history for this game’s setting.

One setting detail threw me a little though. The Magnetrine effect that enables large hovering cargo ships to fly is said to only work in the northern hemisphere, due to polarity. Now I know less about magnets than the Insane Clown Posse, but surely you could just reverse the magnetic things on the ship and get them to work in the south? Maybe this is just me looking at things too hard, this isn’t a hard sci-fi game. The weird science stuff is a backdrop that enables the mysteries to happen.

Following that is the chapter covering the alternate setting of Boulder City, Nevada. Giving local details and a relevant alternate history for this area.

Both of these chapters are detailed enough for non-locals to run a game in each area comfortably, with a lot of locations suitable for setting an adventure. At least for a table of other non-locals. A nice detail I noticed was the Swedish chapter has measurements given in kilometres, but uses miles in the American setting.

Throughout the book, where character, organisation, or place names occur, they are first given in Swedish, then afterwards in English in brackets, enablgin you to use them in either setting. Another neat touch that seems to be a Free League staple, also seen in Twilight:2000’s dual Polish and Swedish naming.

Even though I’m from the UK and not either of the locations in the book, a lot of the history stuff felt incredibly familiar. It’s clear that this game was written by someone that understands the 80s were less bright colours, leg warmers and wall to wall awesome movies and music, and were more brown and orange furniture left over from the 70s, tedious homework that wasn’t easy to check and an ever present subconscious rumbling of being at the tail end of the cold war. Ok, some of the movies and music were awesome.

Up next are The Kids, this is the character creation chapter. Like many Free League games this is based on Archetypes. You pick your character type first for the basic structure, from the Rocker, to the Bookworm, to the Troublemaker, to the Weirdo, etc. each having distinct specialities and places in society.

Then you choose your age, anywhere from 10-15. This is much more important in this game than in many other RPGs. Anyone 16 or above is classed as an adult for the purposes of a game and becomes an NPC, so pick your birthday carefully if planning a campaign.

You distribute a number of points equal to your age across your attributes, making older kids more skilled. You then subtract your age from 15 to get yout luck points, which enable re-rolls, making younger kids luckier to compensate for lower attributes.

Skills are populated next with emphasis put on the key skills for your archetype. Such as Sneak, Investigate, and Empathise for the Weirdo. Characters’ personalities are rounded out with an Iconic Item, a personal Problem, a Drive, and a Pride.

The nest few steps define your kid’s place in the world. You decide their relationship to the other kids and any NPCs in the area they already know. Then you pick an Anchor, a person from outside the friend group that grounds them, such as a parent, friend, or favourite teacher.

You then finish up with a name, a short personal description and a favourite song from the era. Mine would be THIS, it’s a banger, especially live.

Then there are questions for the GM to ask the group. Such as “What are you fighting about?” and “What secrets do you have?” to draw them together. The players also choose a hideout for their gang, where they can’t get into trouble, unless they invite it. This feels like it would really draw the players together and make their kids feel like a group from an 80s film.

Here we also get details on conditions, the system’s alternative to damage. When failing a test or falling victim to something, a kid can suffer a condition. These are Upset, Scared, Exhausted, and Injured; applied as best fits the nature of the situation. Each of which impart a -1 to checks.

There is also the Broken condition, gained if the kid has all four previous conditions and then suffers another one. This causes an automatic failure to all checks until they can be healed. Personally, I would have put this in the next chapter, alongside the description of the check mechanic, as it feels odd to have the consequences listed several pages before the action.

Up next is the Trouble chapter. This is where the rest of the rules and mechanice live. The system is immediately familiar to anyone who has seen or used the dice pool version. of Free League’s Year Zero Engine. And Attribute and relevant skill are added together and that many D6s rolled. Any results of a 6 indicate a success. Most normal challenges only require one success, but harder ones, and group checks can require more. Excess successes over the total required can be used to gain extra effects such as speed, quietness, or extra success on a subsequent check.

This is a much lighter, more narrative focused version of the system than many other iterations. Where others may require a roll for every action, here you describe what you want to do to to resolve the scene and roll once. Also initiative is decided as per the description of the scene, without a rigid turn structure. This more freeform nature may take some getting used to for players, like me, who are used to more rigidly structured mechanics.

Following the Trouble Chapter are two chapters about Mysteries. The first being about structuring a mystery as you would for a single adventure. The second describing what it calls the “Mystery Landscape” which is a sandbox style setting with several weird things going on at once to be encountered as freeform in no specific order.

The Mystery chapter does quite a good job of breaking down how to write the king of adventure this game is suited for. It starts with deciding the truth of the mystery, so you have something to work towards, and includes a few examples for use either as is, or for inspiration. Then there is a section on including everyday life in the adventure, this being a staple of the kind of 80s media that influenced the game.

Then the structure is broken down into phases. Phase 1 introduces the kids, a short scene somewhere with each kid to get an idea of who they are. To me this immediately beings to mind the early scenes of The Goonies.

Phase 2 is about introducing the mystery to the kids, have them find something amiss somehow that leads them to adventure. Also this advises using the kids’ drives to make them want to follow the lead they get.

Phase 3 covers solving the mystery, this is the bulk of the adventure. This covers maps, locations, and clues. It suggests several different structures, some more linear than others. Also there are some tools given to consider. Countdowns, to escalate the stakes as the kids are progressing. Lucky Breaks, for if your players are a stuck and need a nudge, though this is a bit deus ex machina it may sometimes be necessary.

Phase 4 is the Showdown. the final confrontation with the cause of the mystery. Shutting off the time portal, escaping the dinosaurs, tricking the kidnappers into running into the police, etc.

Then we have two “wind down” phases. Phase 5 is the aftermath, an everyday scene set after the adventure, things go back to normal, the grown ups don’t believe you about the robot in the shed, that kind of thing. Phase 6 is for any changes made. Did the adventure have an efect on the kid where an apect of them changed? This is where that is addressed, ready for the next mystery.

I like this section, it does a good job of describing the type of adventure the game is designed for and helps you build one. There is some advice, such as countdowns, that could be taken and used in other games.

The mystery Landscape chapter describes how to create a sandbox with many mysteries in it waiting to be uncovered. An example is given with several locations, characters, and plot seeds, all with relevant details for use in bother the Swedish or American settings. There is also advice for how to run this kind of longer campaign style game, keeping track of countdowns from each mystery, having some locations recur in later mysteries, how to bring up certain things witht he players if they’re not working. A good guide for putting together a more intricate game, which can be quite a daunting prospect.

The final five chapters cover the Four Seasons of Mad Science. This is four adventures that can be strung together into a campaign that takes an in game year. (so if you play a 15 year old, be careful where you put your birthday unless you want a new character in later adventures). The first chapter just gives an overview laying this out and giving a few GM tips to tie the kids into the story. The following chapters are the adventures, the first three could alternatively be played as one shots, but the last is intended to cap of the campaign and would lose a lot if played without them.

Summer Break and Killer Birds is our first adventure. As the title suggests it is set in summer, with details given for how this feels in both the Mälaren Islands and Boulder City. Nice details for those of us not familiar with the climate in either place. And it features killer birds altered by science. Solving the mystery of how that happened and dealing with these creatures is the thrust of the adventure.

The only birds not made hostile, but still able to talk, are pigeons. As someone who gets a lot of pigeons in his garden I can only wonder how inane those conversations would be. Truly those birds are pure stupidity given wings.

Grown-up Atrraction is the next adventure, set in autumn, again with climate descriptions for both locations. Something is drawing all the local adults to a remote location and they are acting weird. An idea I had whilst reading this was, if you want to really hook your players, have one of them play a 15 year old in the first adventure, then have hem turn 16 and become an NPC, and be affected by this adventure. Make it personal.

Winter give us Creatures from the Cretaceous. Yep it’s dinosaur time! All the details you would expect from the previous adventures. I will say that this adventure more than any other has the highest likelihood of a dogs being killed, which I know is a no-go for some players, so I’d advise bringing that up in a session zero.

Finally capping it all we have I, Wagner set in the spring. As you can probably guess from the title there’s something about robots developing awareness in there. This caps of the previous adventures and has some quite impressive set pieces. However this adventure does have one thing I dislike that I’ve seen in a few published adventures for different systems “test [SKILL] to progress to the next area” with no contingencies or guidance for if that roll is failed. Something a GM can work around for sure, but either make sure your improv skills are up to it, or you’ve read and planned ahead.

Also the last couple of adventures have sections that I would find hard to make non-lethal, as the game intends to be. In one you have a T-Rex involved, and in another it says in the adventure text that robots try to kill the kids by crushing if they catch them. Another thing that can be worked around, but may need planning for.

Each of these is presented in what seems to be the typical Free League style (at least going from my knowledge of the Alien box sets). Rather than a “this happens, then this happens, then this…” you get an area, several locations within it, a bunch of NPCs and details of that they know, the truth of the mystery, and a countdown, as suggested in the Mystery chapter. This gives you the freedom to improvise around these details if the players do something in an unexpected order. Overall these are pretty good, with a couple of minor quibbles.

All things considered this is a great book. There’s a couple of events that need planning for in the adventures, and some things I would have re-ordered, but other than that no real complaints. You have rules, setting information, and a complete campaign in one volume. Not many books do all that especially in such an easy to read book. I would enthusiastically run or play this.