Recently in another thread, I had mentioned an idea for an OSR-style game where you play as sapient toys, particularly toy soldiers (in particular little plastic army men and similar fare), as well as anime figurines and tabletop miniatures and you get into all sorts of adventures. The game would be somewhat tongue-in-cheek and lighthearted in nature and would support multiple eras and genres of toy soldiers. A game where you are the miniature, so to speak.

This game will go under the working title of War Toys.

Inspirational material would include Toy Story, Small Soldiers, The Indian in the Cupboard, Robot Chicken, the Army Men games for the original Playstation, and good old-fashioned childhood imagination and nostalgia.

This website is a good source for inspiration and information as well.

Army Men Homepage

I'm thinking of basing the core system on a variant of OD&D, though I am open to the idea of basing the system on Basic D&D variants such as B/X. AD&D is a vague possibility, but unlikely given its more defined nature and genre in the base system. Yes, I intend to include rules for magic, spells, and powers because children may often include magic and powers in their games of imagination when they play with toys such as Army Men, action figures, and similar fare (I know I did).

There would be two main types of adventuring: Household Adventuring (trekking through the family home when nobody's around, similar to dungeon crawling) and Imagination Adventuring (taking part in far away places and scenarios, similar to wilderness campaigns).

There would definitely be a class and level system, but as to what classes to include, I am unsure. I may need help coming up with classes and mechanics before I post a development thread. Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Yes, I'm well aware I made a similar thread a long time ago. But looking at the previous thread in the archive, and it seems that the old Army Men thread was about finding a general system to run campaigns on rather than making my own system, and the OSR wasn't really brought up much.

I would suggest something akin to Warriors of Mars - an OD&D base, but using fucking common sense when it comes to things like hit dice, armor class, to hit, and so forth, unlike most OD&D based games.

That is none of this 1+1, 1+2 (all d6) hit points per level, but use 1d10/1d8/1d6/1d4 per level. Having attack bonus that goes up +1 per level for combat orientated classes, or 2/3 for moderately ones) and 1/2 for non-combat ones. None of this 6th level fighters can't hit anything because actually hitting people in combat is deemed not old school enough.

And FFS, none of that single saving throw BS.  Every class should not have the same saving throw against every danger, some should be better or worse at certain dangers than others.

Look up a game called Puppetland.

Also there is the whole Fuzzy Heroes line. Its a skirmish wargame. But it melds the elements really well. Also look up VLC. This is another wargame from the same company. But about giant plushes vs army men.

Also of all things d20m Gamma World had a mini setting called "The City of forgotten Toys." This was a city where only the toys and a few robots survived and they do their thing still and struggle against an insane AI that threatens the city.

And a couple of others.

You could take BESM's supplement book Big Ears Small Mouse and adapt that as its got a fun little system for tinkering equipment from household items. Probably my go-to if I were running a toy themed game.

I will look into Big Ears Small Mouse most certainly. And maybe check out Warriors of Mars.

While it's not an RPG, Kenzer Co's Faerie Meat would be worth a glance too. Inspired by the KotDT comic that featured the game, you control a troupe of faeries who hunt down, murder and cannibalize other faeries for sustenance and twinkle power. It also suggests using actual faerie minis and just hosting it in your actual living room. It was tons of fun!

I apologize for the thread necromancy, but I am still interested in this idea and I thought I'd share some ideas and updates.

I figured I'd use either Dark Dungeons (with some homebrew materials covering modern weaponry) or maybe a variant of Microlite for the core system.

I also wouldn't mind doing a play-by-post based on living toy soldiers in the near future.

Doc you will never get a game done unless you focus on one of them until you are finished it. If you want to just fantasy spitball games that is cool too but stop pretending you're going to actually design them.

BTW Small Soliders is a real gem of a movie. There is a Stephen King short story about deadly toy soliders called Battleground that was also adapted for TV.

Quote from: Voros;998031Doc you will never get a game done unless you focus on one of them until you are finished it. If you want to just fantasy spitball games that is cool too but stop pretending you're going to actually design them.

BTW Small Soliders is a real gem of a movie. There is a Stephen King short story about deadly toy soliders called Battleground that was also adapted for TV.

That reason is precisely why I made this post, I am focusing on this Army Men project and ONLY this Army Men project until it is complete.

Small Soldiers is an awesome movie, though.