Line #17 TabletopGame/TheSmallFolk


1	[[quoteright:218:[[http://www.warehouse23.com/products/PJM001 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d57da8d857e40299cc35c80e4448a787.jpg]]]]
2	''The Small Folk'' is a {{tabletop\|Games}} roleplaying game by Creator/PhilMasters, self-published in 2015, which uses a version of the UsefulNotes/{{Fate}} GameSystem (under the terms of the Open Gaming License). The setting material is an expanded and adapted version of a chapter which appeared in ''Dreaming Cities'', a supplement for Guardians of Order's "Tri-Stat" GameSystem, which appeared in 2005 before Guardians of Order went out of business. Cover and interior art (new for this version of the material) is by Steve Stiv.
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4	The game is described as "{{Wainscot\|Society}} UrbanFantasy"; it is set in the modern world, but the [[PlayerCharacter PCs]] are "Small Folk", [[{{Lilliputians}} (very) tiny humanoids]] who live behind the walls and in the undergrowth. They are descended from TheFairFolk of legend, who were in fact [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve psychic projections of the human racial unconscious]], but they were always small, and now they have gone into hiding as the world has moved on. They live largely by scavenging the by-products of human society.
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6	Small Folk society is divided into seven "cliques" -- boggarts, brownies, goblins, gremlins, knockers, pixies, and sprites -- who like to think of themselves as distinct species, but who are really just socio-cultural groups. This doesn't prevent them from engaging in a little FantasticRacism. There are also a few "cliqueless", because some people just never will fit in. Each clique has a couple of magical "charms" -- special abilities that they call their own. Campaigns can involve preserving secrecy, engaging in small-scale politics, investigating mysteries, or conditioning young predatory animals not to attack Small Folk.
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8	The game is sold in digital form from [[http://www.warehouse23.com/products/PJM001 the Warehouse 23 online store,]] and in digital and print-on-demand forms from [[https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/193072/The-Small-Folk DriveThru RPG.]]
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10	----
11	!!''The Small Folk'' provides examples of:
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13	* BeneathTheEarth: Living underground is one option for the Small Folk, and knockers have magical abilities that assist them in digging tunnels.
14	* BusmansVocabulary: Brownies tend to talk in a parody of human business jargon ''all the time'', if the GameMaster or players can sustain this.
15	* CharacterCustomization: Handled by Aspects, choice of Skills, and Stunts.
16	* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: Probably the origin of the Small Folk -- they are said to have originally been created by human belief -- although nowadays they reproduce in the more conventional biological way. However, they do still disappear in a puff of smoke when they die.
17	* FairyCompanion: Small Folk are supposed to shun human attention, especially these days, but there are hints that some human "magicians" actually used to have the aid of one or more of these beings.
18	* FairyTale: Invoked with some irony. The cliques and many of their abilities and magical powers are derived from fairy stories and [[OralTradition folklore]], but with a humorous or modern twist.
19	* {{Goth}}: Boggarts are a parody of this trope, in all its potential variations (though few of them are very {{perky\|Goth}}).
20	* GripingAboutGremlins: Played with, in that there is a clique of gremlins -- but they are generally more interested in doing cool stuff with technology than in sabotaging it.
21	* HandWave: Fate points, which are normally used to as a game-level device for influencing the story, also power more dramatic uses of magic. This is handwaved with the idea that magic runs partly on how significant the user is to the universe, somehow.
22	* HipHop: The goblin subculture is a parody of this trope, complete with a lot of breakdancing. As goblins aren't a distinct ''ethnic'' group, the overall effect is kind of PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy, at best.
23	* HouseFey: The brownies ''used'' to fulfil this role, and their magical tricks still reflect that tradition, but nowadays they're a bunch of yuppie wannabes.
24	* {{Lilliputians}}: Small folk are 5-10cm (2-4 inches) tall.
25	* LittlePeople: Very little people -- actually {{Lilliputians}} -- are the point of the set-up.
26	* TheMasquerade: The Small Folk preserve the secret of their existence from humanity by dint of being very small and having some appropriate magical powers.
27	* MouseWorld: This is one of the handful of [=RPGs=] which tackles this sort of story.
28	* NewAgeRetroHippie: Sprites -- nature-loving flower fairies with a taste for hallucinogens -- embody this trope. Pixies also tend this way, but they are more caricatures of more modern scruffy impoverished alternative-lifestyle radical-environmentalist "crusty" types. Members of either clique may be played as GranolaGirl types.
29	* OurFairiesAreDifferent: They used to be very traditional, but they've had to adapt to the modern world.
30	* OurGoblinsAreDifferent: Goblins are one clique among the Small Folk. They aren't especially evil, but they are aggressive and angry, with an ''attitude'', and often wear baseball caps (back to front).
31	* {{Parody}}: An UrbanFantasy game about supernatural creatures, living among humans but hidden from common knowledge, whose society is divided into a number of rival groups. [[TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness Remind you of anything?]]
32	* ScavengedPunk: The Small Folk scavenge a lot of discarded human stuff, which shows up in the game's visual imagery from time to time.
33	* UrbanFantasy: Not all Small Folk live in human towns or cities, but most find it convenient.
34	* WainscotSociety: Very much the nature of the Small Folk's world.
35	* WorkingClassHero: Knockers see themselves as fitting this trope, and are very assertive about it.
36	* XCalledTheyWantTheirYBack: The intro fiction features the line "The sixties and the nineties called and they want their dialogue back" -- {{lampshad\|edTrope}}ing the fact that some of the cliques are rather heavy-handed parodies of rather dated subcultures.

Context TabletopGame / TheSmallFolk