The very basic young children's story is leaving home, encountering and dealing with mild peril, then returning home safe to parents.
For older children the peril can be quite nasty, and they can return changed.

I just finished reading Dahl's James and the Giant Peach to my daughter. Here's a summary of the plot:

James is a little boy who becomes an orphan and goes to live with his two mean and wicked aunts in an old house on a high hill, who make him work all day and never let him play with any other kids. One day, he's given a bag of magic crocodile tongues by a strange old man, but James trips and spills the bag by an old withered peach tree, which produces a single peach. The peach grows and grows, until it's as big as a house, and the wicked old aunts build a fence around it and charge admission. After all the sight-seers have gone for the day, they send James out to clean up the garbage that's been left. He finds a hole in the peach and crawls in. The hole is the entrance to a tunnel that leads to the stone, which has been made into a parlor where James meets bugs that have been transformed by the magic of the crocodile tongues just like the peach: a vaudevillean Centipede, a querulous Earthworm, a stuffy old Grasshopper, and more. The peach, grown enormous, snaps the tether holding it to the tree and rolls down the hill. It crushes the aunts and rolls all the way across the countryside and into the sea. James and his friends use Miss Spider's silk to lasso a flock of seagulls, which lift the peach into the air. They drift across the Atlantic Ocean, and see clouds occupied by cloud-people who make the weather. The Centipede makes the cloud-people angry, and they attack the peach. The friends manage to escape but are pursued all the way to the skies above New York City. When the last silk thread holding the peach to a seagull is severed, the peach plunges downward--only to be caught upon the spire of the Empire State Building. The people of New York, after a bit of initial trepidation, welcome James and his friends with open arms. There's a parade, and all the kids in New York eat the peach clean. All the bugs get good jobs in the city, and they put the stone in Central Park as a house for James to live, and kids visit him there all the time.

So, in a peach stone: the hero experiences tribulations but withstands them through some combination of luck, pluck, and quick thinking, in order to get to the end of the adventure at which point he or she is rewarded with his or her dearest dream.

You didn't hear me say monomyth.

Well, typically in AD&D, the characters stay the same but get more money or power or some justification, but the fun is what happens along the way. And besides, didn't you say you wanted to avoid self-discovery?

Listen, I'm interested in exploring this idea. If you'd like to help me, I do welcome ideas; if you think I'm completely wrong, this just isn't the thread for you. Statements along the lines of "Children's fiction is X" will, I think, be pretty unhelpful.

Do let me have further thoughts. How can I capture the feeling of those stories where you explore strange worlds? This is quite a puzzle.

Graham

Static characters exploring bizarre worlds. What else are you looking for?

Is there a single protagonist or do each of the players have one of their own? It seems like these literary sources are often from a single point of view and that might matter to execution of the game.

Charlie has this rock-solid integrity as a personal foundation. It's the thing that gets him through each of the challenges he faces and on to winning the big prize at the end. I think it's reasonable to say that this attribute is a result of his poverty, so it's hard to extract the stuff you seem to like about it while leaving behind the moral lesson. Or maybe it is -- I guess you just have to try. Maybe your game is about setting up an arc of linked, bizarre situations and describing how a single fundamental strength sees the character through.

When you say it's a children's game, you mean for children to play, right? Just kids? With an adult facilitator?

One of my posts has disappeared, which is odd, it was about gaming with Simon's kids. Also my first post was before Simon but appeared afterwards.

Which moral stories would you not consider trite? I mean, if you removed the word "Better" from each of your stories, would that be OK? Or replaced it with "Different", "More Experienced" or "Sad".

Getting what you deserve is a moral lesson, although as I pointed out above, in Narnia which you don't like, it's overtly Christian. Susan discovers boys and tights and so is denied heaven (Narnia). Dahl's lessons are probably more secular, don't be greedy etc, but lessons nonetheless.

It's important to realize that "comes back" isn't key.

It's key to making the adults feel good, but it's not an important part of the children's story. As in, in Dahl's work, it doesn't happen at all (because Dahl doesn't give a fuck about making adults feel comfy.)

An important theme is also coming out of an abusive environment into a loving family, and that family is not "normal" (it might be composed of giant insects) but it is more emotionally suitable than the abusive situation. James and the Giant Peach does this, so do several of the Narnia books, for certain definitions of "family." Matilda, as well.

yrs--
--Ben

That's wonderful, Ben, thank you.

I'm finding themes really useful. For example, that theme of the not-normal but loving family is superbly useful. By contrast, identifying central features isn't so useful: saying that children's stories are, for example, about resolving a moral dilemma doesn't help me.

So, if you know of more themes, do tell me them. I'm especially interested in Roald Dahl's stories.

Graham

I don't know if it's useful, but it seems to me that there tends to be an amount of comic exaggeration of the negative in the "real world" parts of these stories (I'm reading the Harry Potter series right now, and the way that Harry is treated compared to his cousin Dudley in book 1 is a good example of this, or how poor Charlie is in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Once the main character passes into the fantastical world the exaggeration is more outward, and the main character is able to see the core of humanity underneath. Often, the child character is the one who points out the positive traits of characters that others aren't aware of (e.g. Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz).

My favorite recent children's-wonderous-land story is Coraline. Coraline is dissatisfied with her boring life, has the opportunity to live an exciting life in a funhouse mirror-world, discovers that not all is as it seems there, escapes and then defeats evil, learns to appreciate what she had all along.

Actually I've always really liked the "kid's imaginary world is comprised of reimagined elements from her real life" construct.

The Fall, which features a children's story within the larger movie, uses this to GREAT effect. One of my favorite recent movies in fact.

Hey Graham,

I'm writing a fairy tale/fantasy adventure game about kids right now! Perhaps I can contribute some stuff.

Posted By: Paul BMy favorite recent children's-wonderous-land story is Coraline. Coraline is dissatisfied with her boring life, has the opportunity to live an exciting life in a funhouse mirror-world, discovers that not all is as it seems there, escapes and then defeats evil, learns to appreciate what she had all along.

Coraline has one of the scariest scenes in cinematic history. For reals.

It goes like this: Coraline finds a tiny door in her house, wanders through it and pops out in... her house. Except, the boy in the painting looks happier, the wallpaper is shinier, and everything is unpacked. Her house, but better.

She smells something, and wanders into the kitchen. There, she finds her mother cooking a roast chicken (but her mother never cooks! and it's night time!). Her mother wheels around, and reveals that it isn't in fact her mother... it's someone who looks like her mother, but has BUTTONS FOR EYES! (cue eerie music). She greats Coraline, and says dinner is almost ready.

When Coraline points out that her mother doesn't cook (or something like that), she giggles. "Oh, silly... I'm your other mother." That moment is haunting! The scene is a bit too good, combined with being a bit off... You're left wondering why you're so terrified.

It's the same as the ice queen offering Turkish Delight to the little boy in Narnia.
That group of kids in the corner is only a little too pretty, and only a moderate amount of weird and insular.

This is how you build horror, fear, tension, unease or conflict in a children's story: you present a situation that is a little bit wrong, and you conceal the ramifications. The situation is only a little bit wrong, which then invites the children in... to see the shiny rewards being offered (take your pick: chocolate and wealth, turkish delight, a new life, a magical voyage, never-ending fun and whimsy). The shiny reward is always prefaced by a tiny little promise that the child has to make... And inevitably it's here that the child considers the ramifications of that thing which is a little bit wrong, or probes into its wrongness and sees that the "rabbit hole" goes pretty deep... and if the child refuses to promise or explores the wrongness too deeply, then we see the true colours of the situation.

Coraline loves her other family!
The button-eyes are a touch disconcerting, and everything's a little too good to believe... but she gets delicious meals and everything! Other Mother even made it so that Other Wyborn can't speak and is always smiling, and he's such better company that way!

Other Mr. B is a much better circus ringmaster than the real Mr. B, and the Other Actresses are much better actresses.

And then Other Mother offers to adopt Coraline forever. All she has to do is... sew buttons over her eyes. No biggie.
And when Coraline freaks out, she starts noticing things... Other Dad is under the complete control of Other Mother. Other Wyborn doesn't have the choice of speaking... the Other Mice are actually rats!

Suddenly, she can't go home. Other Mother reveals her true form - a cackling, spindly witch. A great adventure is triggered! (and here the movie devolves a fair bit, into a mediocre "collect all of the power tokens" plot. W/e, it's still a rad movie.)

I'm not convinced that Coraline is a good children's story.

Lots of adults seem to like it. I've never met a child who liked it, though.

But that's probably not a discussion for a public forum.

edit: I have been corrected via whispers.

Actually, a "what not to do for a good children's story" thread or conversation might be interesting.

I've never actually talked to any children about Coraline. I wonder what they'd say about it? If it really isn't a good children's story (but it *is* appealing to the adult audience), why not?

Oh oh oh! Another recent child's-wonderous-land story popped into my head: Miyazaki's Ponyo, which showed up over here with English dubbing this year. Weird show, very little-kiddie in some ways and WTF did I just see? in others. In short, though, it's not the kid going to the wonderous land, it's the wonderous landing coming to the kid. Net result is that everything about the kid's normal life is upended 'til things are set right in the world. Escalating chaos due to supernatural shenanigans (the kid is kind of a victim of circumstance in a Grimm's Fairy Tales kind of way), which can only be set right by the hero proving himself to an all-powerful authority that he's a good person.

Hm. Arguably that's the takeaway for The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe as well, isn't it?

Questions:

"But something is slightly wrong. What is it?"

"What is this person asking, in return for their help?" or "What can this person offer you?"

"Who's afraid of this person, and why?"

"Where does this person get their power?"

Posted By: Nathan P.Graham, here's a thought thats more a technique that may or may not prove fruitful for you to explore. What if the result of play is to find out which of the children being played is the Main Character (in the sense that Charlie is the Main Character of CatCF, or Alice is the main Main Character of her stories or Milo is the Main Character of The Phantom Tollbooth).

Speaking of, The Phantom Tollbooth has strong themes of "learning is Important" and "friendship is necessary to be happy", among other subthemes.

A question, inspired by this:

"Which of you is the leader in this situation?" could be one of those GM questions.

No one seems to have brought up fairy tales yet (real ones like the Grimm Brothers', not Andersen's fake ones). Of course most of these weren't originally created for children; but they've always appealed to them and have been fine-tuned for that audience over the past 100 years or so. Bruno Bettelheim's classic book "The Uses Of Enchantment" is an exploration of the psychology of fairy tales and how children react to them. It's an excellent book, if you can overlook the outdated Freudian perspective.

You might want to look at the RPG "Grimm", which is all about dark/twisted fairy tales. It's definitely not for child players though; but some of the ideas might be inspiring. (The player creation stuff is great, with lots of classic present-day-kid archetypes.)

This isn't a theme, but it's a very common technique: personifying stuff. Inanimate objects, processes and concepts all become sentient -- sometimes as humans, humanoids, thematically apt animals, or just inanimate objects with faces (or just mouths).

Another technique: what things feel like is now what they are. A kid who's afraid of cars will encounter fairyland cars with big, sharp teeth. Bad words have curse powers, scary tasks involve precipices, etc.

I think I want to steer clear of identity issues. There'll obviously be identity issues in there, like there'll be moral issues, but I don't want that to be my starting point. Both of them are so cliched: you find out Who You Are or you learn An Important Lesson.

I'm almost definitely going to make this a game about People Getting What They Deserve. I love that. It's so dark. I'm leaning towards Rabbit Magic (because, obviously, the rabbits can do magic) being something that Gives People What They Deserve.

David, that's neat. I love inanimate objects and all that stuff.

Everyone else, thanks, too. This is making me think.

Graham

Grownups Are Useless. That seems to be a common theme in a lot of children's stories, that the adults are oblivious to what's Really Going On, either because it involves magical things that only children can see, or because the Magical World is someplace that grownups can't go to, or because adults are so wrapped up in their mundane world that they are incapable of seeing the mysterious happenings right under their noses. The protagonists who try to tell grown-ups about what's going on are invariably disbelieved and trivialized, or even accused of lying. How unfair! The adults remain oblivious right up until they get captured by the monsters they don't believe in. Then the child hero has to go rescue them.

Part of this is just plot necessity, to get the grownups out of the picture so they don't solve everything, much like how they have to cut the phone lines in a horror movie to explain why people don't call the police. Also it's surely gratification for the audience to imagine knowing something their parents don't know; it's like comeuppance for all the times that parents fail to treat their children's make-believe with the seriousness that it deserves.

Sometimes there's one, just one, really cool grownup, usually an eccentric uncle kind of figure, who gets it and is able to offer some help and advice.

The other theme I can think of is animals (I think you've already got it covered with your Rabbit Magic concept). Most children's stories are veritable zoos. The kids I know are constantly pretending to be different kinds of animals; it's one of the most common and universal kid activities. Stories where every character is an animal, with personality traits based on species, are the default for younger children; stories for grown-ups, which have nobody but humans in them, must seem very monotonous and boring. In stories for somewhat older children, there's either a society of one type of animal with other animals as their enemies (think Redwall... or Mouse Guard), or there's animals that can talk to humans, or humans get turned into animals by magic, or whatever. Ever read, what was it, The Witches by Roald Dahl? The main character gets turned into a mouse? And stays that way at the end of the book? When I was 9, that was like the coolest ending ever.

I would say a lot of children's stories are about becoming aware of the world. The moment or series of events that kicks off a child's transformation into a young adult / grown up.
But its just the kick off though. I dont think its the actual transformation itself. Its only after the stories that the real yourney of growing up begins.

I wouldnt for example say that grown-up are useless, i would say they are un-understandable. after the journey/story they are still mysterious but make sense in contrast to whats been experienced at the magical journey.

Id sorta like a story about getting what you deserve, it makes me think of ultimately letting the kids choose whom deserves what. which makes me think of dogs. which is probably too adult.

Hi Nathan,

Something you might like to bear in mind when designing fiction (or tools for fiction) for children, is that (according to a lecture on TV animation) children prefer characters who make mistakes and then fix the mistakes, over characters who are put into a mess and then fix the mess. It is something to do with power over destiny. And grown ups don't mind if the mistakes are all made in the back story, but children do. Apparently.

So I would ask opening questions that would lead children to make some mistakes, in game. Perhaps characters might have a "Likes .... too much" trait. "Tammy likes Cats too much." "George likes Sports too much." "Emily likes Singing too much." Follow this up with, "does she get into trouble because of that? How?" That kind of thing. This idea of inviting trouble is a pretty significant feature of some of the Disney stories (like Sleeping Beauty). It's a case of "I know I shouldn't be doing this, but I want to..." and then "Oops".

Getting back to themes in children's literature, many of the children's stories have themes of vengeance and spite (Snow White, Lion King, Matilda, Twits), and are about children, or childish characters, overcoming great perils with modesty. Villainy is common. In lots of Disney stories, the children are given an opportunity to face a terrible, unstoppable foe (who is after Grown-Up things), using their courage and imagination/special powers towards victory where all other Grown-Up solutions have failed. The Grown-Ups feature, but often only as instruments of oppression (for one's own good), to underscore the children's true potency later on.

So, getting into trouble might be a pretty big deal, but nothing so great as the peril faced by the loveable characters of a magical world. Coupling accountability with villainy, a very engaging story for children to play might be a story about mistakes that have affected a secret, magical world, and the ensuing adventure (to not only fix the problems they created, but to make things even better than they were in the first place).

Lastly, lots of children love gore. It's arguably one of the great assets of the Roald Dahl collection. Think of the Twits, the Revolting Rhymes, the BFG. As long as it's not scary, and it's under their control, kids enjoy the gruesome stuff. So, eh... Well, I don't know where I was going with that one.

There's also a thing about gruesome elements that are rendered less horrible by a child's curiosity and/or determination. I'm having trouble thinking of specific examples, but does that make sense?

Roald Dahl is, again, a good touchstone for this. I'm thinking of The Witches in particular. There's also Danny, the Champion of the World, which is all about broken bones and choking pheasants to death.

Additionally, a great way to pique the children's interests might be to add a subtitle to the game like "A Gorey Game of Magic". Then you say to the kids, "Hey, I hope you don't mind, but this game can be a bit gruesome sometimes. Is that okay with you guys?"

Of course, the game might end up pretty silly pretty quickly.

That sounds like great fun. Good luck with the rest of the design process.

Regards,

Sebastian.