Pyramid Review
Little Fears RPG
Published by Key 20 Publishing
Written by Jason L. Blair
Illustrated by Andrew Baker, Dimitrios "Jim" Denaxas, Hive, Julie Hoverson, Veronica V. Jones, Bradley K. McDevitt, Nick Wilson & Kieran J. Yanner
144-page 7.5" x 9.5" Soft cover; $20
Key 20 Publishing's first game is not one for the timid or for those that are easily offended. In setting out to provide a rationale for the disappearance of thousands of children each day in the USA, it deals with the taboo subjects of child abuse, pedophilia, and cannibalism. If these issues are too strong for your sensibilities, then Little Fears is not the game for you, and understandably so. You need read no further.
Their unsavory nature notwithstanding, Little Fears approaches these topics with a great deal of care. It is clear from both the writing within the game, and from his own Designer's Notes at the end of Little Fears, that the author is as equally disturbed as we should be by such inhuman acts.
Little Fears is a game about childhood. Not the childhood seen through the rose-tinted memories held in adulthood, but a game in which all of those unknowns -- the ones you were afraid of and can now rationalize and laugh off -- are real. There are things out there that go bump in the night, and they are out to get you. These are the monsters from Closetland that have been forgotten by almost every rational adult. This is the basic premise of Little Fears, the Roleplaying Game of Childhood Terror.
Physically Little . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: September 7, 2001
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