(Header image is The Wild Swans by Arthur Joseph Gaskin from Birmingham Museums Trust)

Get in loser, we doing fairy-tales.

Perils & Princesses is a strong contender for the best of my hot OSR summer (HOSRS), which surprised me. I had the (incorrect) assumption that this was somewhat of a family game: Built from the ground up to run with your 8 – 12 year olds to reinforce that girls are badass (they are). I would have been delighted by that! Gygax had a nasty habit of using women mainly as set dressing, and that alone is a wrong worth righting.

But just like Mausritter, I was charmed by the cutesy exterior, then blown away by the clever game design. But above all else: Perils & Princesses nails the theme.

Fairy-tales are back, baby

I think that fairy-tales are somewhat evergreen as source material. The long span of these stories reach back through hundreds of years, each being passed down through a sort of inter-generational game of telephone, resulting in multitudes of variations on the same themes.

Disney killed the joy in comic book remakes in just under 12 years, but they have been doing their best to ruin the fun in fairy tales for 50 years and we keep coming back for more. Did you see the smash hit Dolmenwood? The people crave forest folklore. But every new retelling of these stories has to add its own twist, manifest its own spark. The magic ingredient for Perils & Princesses? 2000 hit feature film Miss Congeniality.¹

That was the vibe that it evoked for me at least. All six players immediately fell into a very happy, supportive, sometimes catty stereotypical girl friends relationship. Plenty of supportive claps when another player succeeded on a check, lots of Z snaps to outline successful grace checks, and healthy serving of “Yaaaassss bitch.”

I have never felt stronger relationships between characters in a one shot. The game (to borrow from improv comedy) was clear to everyone. This is your tribe, be a fan of every other player character, pump up their wins and brush off their losses. You are all in this together, and that is a secret sauce to good roleplaying!

I loved it. The starter adventure was fine, but I mostly I just reveled in the roleplay of 6 best friends, gallant princesses from across the land, letting their hair down, busting down doors and banishing liches. Hell yeah.

It is a little concerning that some of the best roleplay I have enjoyed this year focused on just having supportive friends, but that is for therapy, we have mechanics to talk about!

Gifts and Hearts

I think a lot of the magic of this game does come from the base assumption of playing a party of princesses, but it also has a couple very clever design moves that elevate that experience.

The game feels very similar to Into the Odd, with a few additions similar to D&D 5e. It has 3 main stats, RESOLVE, GRACE, and WITS, and resolution is d20 roll under with the possibility for advantage/disadvantage. A minor quibble is that the game uses attack rolls for PCs which feel unnecessary, but it redeems itself by using dodge rolls for PCs to avoid damage, no NPC attack rolls. I love that. Player facing rolls are big ups from me.

As you level up, you gain regal abilities, “gifts,” related to your sphere of influence, like the woodland princess being able to summon large, dangerous creatures, or the mermaid princess gaining control over flows of water. These abilities are powered by gift dice. Any time you use one of your gifts you roll the requisite number of gift dice. Low rolls mean the gift works in a limited capacity, but you retain the dice. High rolls mean strong impact from the gift, but the dice are expended until you rest.

If you summon animals and low roll you may end up with a badger and a couple of deer: useful but not overpowering. High roll? Bear. You got a bear friend here to help mess up some goblins. Hell yeah. I summoned a bear into a dungeon and it did not like it.

The crowning mechanic though is by far the heart dice. They work exactly like hit dice, you can expend them during a quick rest for some health, but you will never use them for that. Their real purpose is to help your friends. Any time a teammate fails a check, you can expend heart dice to reduce their roll, turning embarrassing failures into great success!

That is where the magic happens. Your sisterhood of the traveling axe is elevated by being able to literally give up health boost others. It’s remarkable.

There’s not much more to say about this game. I think you should buy it and run it. The art is beautiful, the mechanics are sleek, and the vibes are immaculate. I bet it will surprise you. Enjoy your pretty gritty fairy-tale adventure.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Ryan Lynch for writing a truly fantastic game. Perils & Princesses can be purchased here. While I don’t think this game is just for kids, I think it is very appropriate for them and look forward to getting to run it for my niblings and kids soon, hopefully over a much needed winter break. Ryan wrote a beautiful dedication to his own children here.

Thank you to TundraFundra for running the game and dragging me out to DragonCon that last Monday morning. I think both our brains were melted and I distinctly remember shotgunning a monster to prep for this game, and it was all worth it. I look forward to future cons together.

P.S. I think this is my shortest review, but I think that is okay. It shouldn’t take longer to read a review than to read the actual rules.

P.S.S. K-Pop Demon Hunter has no right being as good as it is. I find myself putting the soundtrack on repeat for my long runs lately and it is so good. I think it would be very straightforward to hack HUNTR/X into Perils & Princesses.

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1. Based on the year of release alone, there is like a 90% chance this movie is very problematic. If it is, I am sorry. Mostly I am picturing Sandra Bullock being a no nonsense competent detective and a graceful, award winning beaut. ↩︎