Micro RPG IV: To Elfland and Back

The forest stands on the edge of the village fields or not far from the town walls, but it is somewhere to be feared. For under that canopy there is dappled light at best, darkness at worst, and something lurks there, ready to prey on the peasantry and add one more misery to their lives. And now, as if to justify those fears, something has been stolen. A child, or a coin purse, or a lover. In response the peasants have banded together and the bravest of them all will journey deep into the forest in order to retrieve the stolen item from the thieves that hide amongst the trees—the fae! This is the set-up for To Elfland and Back, a minimalist storytelling roleplaying game published by Planar Compass, best known for the fanzine of the same name, which takes Old School Essentials, the retroclone from Necrotic Gnome out onto the Astral Plane and beyond. To Elfland and Back is about as simple as it gets—a motivation for the players and their characters, character creation in four steps, fast mechanics, and a set of encounters that will develop through play. It can be played through in a single session, requires no more than a pair of six-sided dice, and offers a reasonable degree of replay value.

Player Character creation in To Elfland and Back is very light. All a player does is roll for a Job, chooses three or possessions, rolls for a Personality, and names the character. It should be noted that there just six Personalities, and it is a good thing that the game does not use a seven-sided dice or the Personality of ‘Doc’ would be added, because the six listed are all named after the Dwarves from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves!

Matilde
Job: Tailor
Personality: Grumpy
Possessions: Needle, thread, thimble

Mechanically, To Elfland and Back is quick and easy. To have his character undertake an action, a player does a Challenge roll and rolls a six-sided die, consulting the Challenge Roll table for the outcome. One is a ‘Failure’, two to three is a ‘Success with negative consequences’, four and five indicate a ‘Success’, and six is a ‘Success with fantastic results’. Essentially, what you have here is the equivalent of ‘No’, ‘Yes, but…’, ‘Yes’, and ‘Yes and…’ results, and whatever the result the referee will describe the outcome. In addition, a Challenge roll can be made with Advantage or Disadvantage, the player rolling two six-sided dice and using the best result if at an Advantage or the worst if at a Disadvantage. The most obvious means of gaining Advantage will be from the Player Character’s Job, whilst the most obvious means of gaining Disadvantage is due to the Player Character’s Personality, though of course, other situations and causes will come up in play. Beyond that, the complexity of play—if any—comes from narrating the outcomes.

For the Referee there little in the way of advice, but rather a set of tables for generating various aspects of the story to be told, starting with what was stolen and where it was taken. After that, there are tables for encounters along the way, what fae can be encountered and what they might be riding, locations along the way, fae food and drink, and magic items that might be found in the fae lands. There is a table for what the fae might want in return for giving the purloined item back and lastly, because this is a fairy tale, the final table is a coda—how long have the Player Characters been gone?

Physically, To Elfland and Back is beautifully illustrated with a range of artwork, most notably medieval and Victorian pieces, as if it were an illuminated manuscript that was actually a Victorian collection of fairy tales. The writing is succinct.

Written for Fae Jam 2020, To Elfland and Back is at its most mechanical, a sparse set of tables with nothing in the way of advice or background. However, those tables are prompts that set the game up, enabling the Game Master to prepare a session quickly and easily beforehand or run a session straight from the rolls at the table. The latter makes To Elfland and Back a highly portable, low preparation game, making it great for a convention game or a pick-up game. In terms of background, this is a fairy tale roleplaying game and fairy tales are some of the earliest stories we are told as children, so most players are going to be familiar with the genre. In terms of play, To Elfland and Back is demanding in that it is relying on elements of storytelling more than mechanics, asking Game Master and player to create much of the world they go along, based upon the prompts taken form the game’s tables. Of which, there are enough to run To Elfland and Back more than a few times for the same group.

Overall, To Elfland and Back is a pleasing combination of simplicity and familiarity that is both easy to run and easy to play, and all with a genre and setting that needs no explanation.