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Lashings of Ginger Beer is a game where you play children in the "real" world. In this game, there is no magic, there are no mystical creatures, nor, are there other places hidden behind household objects. You are children living in a place called Idyllic England.
Idyllic England is a place where the weather is always pleasant, the children are rarely rude to adults and the only real worries come from the local bully and saving enough pocket money to buy ginger beer. (This is ginger ale to us yanks.) This sounds peaceful and mundane right? Not to worry: there is always people up to no good in Idyllic England. There is also many caves to explore, as well as haunted houses. If that does not tickle you fancy, there is rafting, camping, and other outdoor activities. Sounds interesting, right?
This game has many good points.
Character creation is quick. It would take a novice less time to create a character than it would take me to tell you the steps of character creation. A person familar with game would take even less time. The only physical labor involved is moving a pencil and rolling a six-sided die up to 37 times. But you rarely have to roll that many times: you rarely need to roll more than ten times. All in all, character creation should take less than 3 minutes of work.
Resolution is extremely quick. you can tell in an instant whether or not you suceed or fail. To determine any skill, take a number of dice equal to your skill and attribute (trait) and roll them. Every six that you roll is a success. Combat resolution is also as simple.
The rulebook has something that is good as well: adventures. The last half of the download is devoted to adventures, or rather two complete adventures and four adventure seeds. These adventures will help the players get into the game. It also gives the world some identity.
There are some bad points to this system as well.
There is little in the way of character development. The characters are stuck playing the same parts through the entire story. While it does help with making sure everyone has a part of fufill, it also tends towards sterotyping.
Also, while the resolution of stuff is simple, it is also extremely frustrating. Most of the time, the kids will fail at what ever they try to do. While it does make sense, it does lead to a lot of frustrating sessions.
Lastly, and this ties into the last two points, there is no experience system. The characters are stuck at the same place through out the entire story. They do not grow up (sort of speak) as the system is written. It maybe that the characters gain skill based on the whims of the game master, but I did not see it written.
Lashings of Ginger Beer is a fun system for quick adventures in a world where right and wrong are absolute and not subjective. It is a nice place to visit sometimes.
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