(4) RPG collection: Fuzzy Heroes
Returning again for something quite different.
A miniature wargame that has optional rules for turning it into an rpg.
Perhaps more of a semi-rpg, but it works for me.
Let's take a look at Fuzzy Heroes!
Fuzzy Heroes by Inner City Games (1st edition 1992, 2nd 2009)
An Introduction
Fuzzy Heroes is a family/kids oriented miniature combat game, specifically designed to use your plush animals and toys as quick miniatures to use for some quick and easy fun with the premade adventurs contained within.
The simple rules make it a great way to learn the basics of a wargame or possibly an rpg, with easy rules and various supplements/scenarios to keep you going for a while.
Perhaps the rules can be a bit too easy at times, keepign character generation almost completely based on the toy/plush measurements and details to what stats they are given, but it does have most of the ideas and details of a more mature wargame in it, as well as enough info to expand to a more ongoing story based campaign/rpg style.
While it offers some very nice and simple ideas to expand the game, and most certainly will be a lot of fun to play for a bit, it does lack any serious depth a true wargamer might want or roleplayer would like..
Some ideas might stil be salvageable, but unless you have children you want to play it with, it's probably not going to be of too much use to you.
I got the original 1st edition books along with all the expansions (and mini games) in one big bundle off of Ebay for a cheap price, and most certainly some of the things in there will certainly be enjoyable to try out sometime. But most of ti will be mroe of a silly oen shot material, or have it's use as a mine of interesting ideas for other rpg's such as Toon.
The Genre
Fuzzy Heroes is essentially a miniature wargame, using any toy or plush animal you can find.
The world being one where toys came to life and have their own kingdom where they live in, trying to go on with their lives peacefully untill an evil menace (the evil eye king) tries to disrupt order and take over the land.
Using your favourite toy or plush animal, you can dive into the game to battle the renegade forces and try to save the kingdom.
While there is some kind of silly story that goes throughout the book and gives a reason for each battle that takes place, the game is really just intended for a lighthearted battle with your favourite toys to introduce people to wargaming without any of the complexities or rules.
The Rules
As Fuzzy Heroes is at it's heart miniature wargame, specifically made for children or family to enjoy.
It has a simple system in place where you can use ANY toy or plush you want and give it stats based on their measurements (height/length), collour, No. of heads/arms/legs and so on.
There are no reall rules for making something of your own, but on a glance the measurements v.s. stats they give seem at least somewhat balanced.
I personally would have liked a more freeform way of making characters for it, rather then have all the stats derived from measurements etc. But understandbly the game is meant as an introduction for younger children, and probably will not have much use beyond a few lighthearted and quick games.
It does mean that plushies that are largely the same will result in similar stats with perhaps small variations if a collour is different or such little detail, but that's just how it is.
While "creating" a Fuzzy Hero isn't that hard (since it's just measuring your toy/plush and determing the dominant color/arms/legs), it can take a while to get it over with.
Still children probably get all excited over the task, so I can;t realy comment on that.
In the end it is all destilled into only 6 statistics that define everythign for the plush you created;
Energy Points: Your Health, how many damage it takes to fall down (as a toy, you simply fall asleep if it reaches zero)
Avoidance Roll: Any attack that affects an area or special attacks such as magic, let's you roll 3 six sided dice, v.s. your own avoidance roll. If higher you succeed.
Damage Die: Nr. of dice you roll for damage. (each even results inflicts 1 damage, uneven des nothing)
Defensive Classification: The opponent must roll higher then this value to hit you with a direct attack. It's something like Armor Class.
#/ Attacks: How many times you can attack in a turn. You simply roll 3d6 v.s. the target's Defense for everyy attack you have.
Movement: Pretty self explanatory, the speed in Inches you can move each turn.
And in it's most basic form, I already explained all there is to the game!
Advanced rules explain more things such as the possibility of armor, cover, and terrain penalties/bonuses etc.
They are very basic things, and geenrally add extra or less movement, a + bonus on attack or defense, and other minor modifications to keep the whole game extremely simple.
It gets more interesting when rules for Weapons and items come into view, which allow equipping of weapons for ranged attacks, special bonuses for each toy based on something of a "species" classification (aliens, Bears, Birds, farm animals, fish, forest creatures, giants, magicians, reptiles, robots, etc..), and so on.
At the end it also adds special abbilities and the comment on game balance, as all these advanced rules have no direct rules for balancing it out.
The advice given is also not really that helpfull, it's all about eyeballing what you percieve as being balanced enough or change it after a game or so.
But after all this, we finally come to what we really are interested in;
In the roleplaying section of the book, things get a bit more interesting, then a combat between two sides. (this is new for the 2nd edition book only)
After making a fuzzy Hero using the same rules as already explained (there really is no other alternative mentioned), the character can further costumsie the character by selecting 2 attributes that define their character.
These work as adjectives to the characters name, such as "Clever and Talented Mr. Bear", or the "Mighy Noble Shriek".
Each attribute (Mighty, speedy, Cute, Noble, Clever etc) has a list of benefits you can gain from it, of which you chose your first level 1 benefit for each of the two attrbutes you have chosen.
These benefits can be a standard bonus to a score or attack, but may aslo give access to a special skill which requires a roll to activate.
Using experience you can purchase more, and also gain level 2, and later level 3 benefits. (level 3 is highest)
At the end some notes are added for the expansions that did not yet use theese added roleplay rules, but am not very impressed with how it's dealt with.
(They generally add restrictions to which Attribute must be chosen)
Still they comes as additions to how each expansion works, and overall admittedly I found the expansions to be where Fuzzy Heroes started to get the most interesting.
There have been several expansions for Fuzzy Heroes, each with a specific theme in mind, presented in the same humorous manner as the core book.
Sooper Heroes is all about exploring the super hero theme.
Under the Covers, has a Secret agent theme.
Heroes in Space, is for a sci-fi setting which mixes Star Trek with Star Wars (rules for Jedi training is provided, along with various parodies of star trek)
The Lost Toys has a pretty interesting take of "undead" toys, which are now toys that never sleep like other toys do. They also have negative Energy points, and must be "healed" by making them sleep or using water to have the energy points go positive at which point they are defeated.
Each of the expansions adds a lot of fluff in the form of a story being told, and uses extra abbilities/powers to add to characters to represent the "UNDED" toys, or other special themed characters, as well as new weapons and possibly changes in rules based on the setting.
Each of the supplements also feels a lot more like a roleplayign game in the scenario's presented and options for the fuzzy hero characters, even though no reall effort is given for balancing encounters at all.
OVerall they work great to make the voerall Fuzzy Heroes game feel a lot more like a roleplayign game, even if the basic rules themselves remain simple and basic, simply because of the extra abbilities and powers that are added and story/flavour as background for the adventures.
Sadly, having no reall guide for balance means it requires a lot of tinkering to make it work, but the basic ideas and fun stories are given as great inspiration to recieve a proper and flavourfull rpg style adventure campaign.
I just wish advancement and balancing was given a bit more focus and attention to properly make this rules feel a bit more complete and usefull.
As it is now, they still make for quick and easy one shot games with a lot of puns and humor thrown in. Just balance is not one of the strong points, making it more like a feelgood adventure game in the lines of a good TOON rpg plot. (Just that in this case your toys, playing on a battlemap)
In addition to the direct supplements of Fuzzy Heroes, there also been 3 other books I got with the whole bunch, which are a bit aside from the main game, but worth mentioning.
Sports Fuzz uses plush toys on a large map, to play a game of football with. (A folded paper hat represents the ball), I never played it, but as the rules go it seems like a lot of fun, even though it may require a few to keep track of all the players on the field.
VLC (very large creature) is an army v.s. a giant plush animal. It makes me thingk of Giant Monster movies, or possibly OGRE from Steve Jackson games. 1 Super strong costum build creature with superior power, against a large army of puny units trying to defeat it.
Plastic Ships and Fuzzy man, is the most directly applicable to the Fuzzy Heroes miniature game. It's standalone (just as VLC and Sports Fuzz), but the game focuses entirely on piratey ship v.s. ship combat.
LAter inwards, it does offer options for actually treasure seeking on islands, traps and other tidbits to add even more, and just feels like a perfect fit to create a more pirate roleplaying game using it together with the Fuzzy Heroes core book.
Or if nothing else; It could function as good and lot less complex alternative then the rules presented in Furry Pirates, even if ofcourse, a lot less realistic as well.
However, admittedly, the rules in "plastic Ships,Fuzzy men", do get a bit more complex then the ruels of the standard Fuzzy heroes.
For instance, ships now have a ship map to show hits (checkboxes) and tables for speed depending on wind and damage penalties.
Still no terrible increase in complexity, and creating a ship allows a lot more freedom then making a "fuzzy hero" in the other books, which is a definitive plus.
I never used any fo the rules seriously, but I at least concidered it as silly one shot akin to TOON.
Conclusion
Fuzzy Heroes is all about Toys which have come to life in their own kingdom of Frolichaven, which is threathened by the evil Eye King.
It's a very basic premise as backstory for the battles that take place, but overall it's well presented in a humorous way, and the story continues in a loose manner over each supplement book.
While the core is very generic, the more focused supplements where a bit more fun to read, probably also because of parodies they include based on the setting.
The jokes can be a bit corny at times, but if you appreciate the humor of TOON, your not going to be put off from this too much.
Personally find the humor of TOON a bit better quality, but it still hits the right marks occasionally.
Especially in the supplement settings specific for SCIFI and secret agents.
Rules are very easy, and while it can alck balance and a more freeform way to make characters for it, you can keep thigns relatively balanced if you keep to the rpemade scenarios in each book, as well as making a fuzzy hero without any special abbilities beyond the basics and Attributes.
It can be fun to play, but mostly as either to introduce peopel to wargaming, or just as humorous one shot session rather then for long term play.
A miniature wargame that has optional rules for turning it into an rpg.
Perhaps more of a semi-rpg, but it works for me.
Let's take a look at Fuzzy Heroes!
Fuzzy Heroes by Inner City Games (1st edition 1992, 2nd 2009)
An Introduction
Fuzzy Heroes is a family/kids oriented miniature combat game, specifically designed to use your plush animals and toys as quick miniatures to use for some quick and easy fun with the premade adventurs contained within.
The simple rules make it a great way to learn the basics of a wargame or possibly an rpg, with easy rules and various supplements/scenarios to keep you going for a while.
Perhaps the rules can be a bit too easy at times, keepign character generation almost completely based on the toy/plush measurements and details to what stats they are given, but it does have most of the ideas and details of a more mature wargame in it, as well as enough info to expand to a more ongoing story based campaign/rpg style.
While it offers some very nice and simple ideas to expand the game, and most certainly will be a lot of fun to play for a bit, it does lack any serious depth a true wargamer might want or roleplayer would like..
Some ideas might stil be salvageable, but unless you have children you want to play it with, it's probably not going to be of too much use to you.
I got the original 1st edition books along with all the expansions (and mini games) in one big bundle off of Ebay for a cheap price, and most certainly some of the things in there will certainly be enjoyable to try out sometime. But most of ti will be mroe of a silly oen shot material, or have it's use as a mine of interesting ideas for other rpg's such as Toon.
The Genre
Fuzzy Heroes is essentially a miniature wargame, using any toy or plush animal you can find.
The world being one where toys came to life and have their own kingdom where they live in, trying to go on with their lives peacefully untill an evil menace (the evil eye king) tries to disrupt order and take over the land.
Using your favourite toy or plush animal, you can dive into the game to battle the renegade forces and try to save the kingdom.
While there is some kind of silly story that goes throughout the book and gives a reason for each battle that takes place, the game is really just intended for a lighthearted battle with your favourite toys to introduce people to wargaming without any of the complexities or rules.
The Rules
As Fuzzy Heroes is at it's heart miniature wargame, specifically made for children or family to enjoy.
It has a simple system in place where you can use ANY toy or plush you want and give it stats based on their measurements (height/length), collour, No. of heads/arms/legs and so on.
There are no reall rules for making something of your own, but on a glance the measurements v.s. stats they give seem at least somewhat balanced.
I personally would have liked a more freeform way of making characters for it, rather then have all the stats derived from measurements etc. But understandbly the game is meant as an introduction for younger children, and probably will not have much use beyond a few lighthearted and quick games.
It does mean that plushies that are largely the same will result in similar stats with perhaps small variations if a collour is different or such little detail, but that's just how it is.
While "creating" a Fuzzy Hero isn't that hard (since it's just measuring your toy/plush and determing the dominant color/arms/legs), it can take a while to get it over with.
Still children probably get all excited over the task, so I can;t realy comment on that.
In the end it is all destilled into only 6 statistics that define everythign for the plush you created;
Energy Points: Your Health, how many damage it takes to fall down (as a toy, you simply fall asleep if it reaches zero)
Avoidance Roll: Any attack that affects an area or special attacks such as magic, let's you roll 3 six sided dice, v.s. your own avoidance roll. If higher you succeed.
Damage Die: Nr. of dice you roll for damage. (each even results inflicts 1 damage, uneven des nothing)
Defensive Classification: The opponent must roll higher then this value to hit you with a direct attack. It's something like Armor Class.
#/ Attacks: How many times you can attack in a turn. You simply roll 3d6 v.s. the target's Defense for everyy attack you have.
Movement: Pretty self explanatory, the speed in Inches you can move each turn.
And in it's most basic form, I already explained all there is to the game!
Advanced rules explain more things such as the possibility of armor, cover, and terrain penalties/bonuses etc.
They are very basic things, and geenrally add extra or less movement, a + bonus on attack or defense, and other minor modifications to keep the whole game extremely simple.
It gets more interesting when rules for Weapons and items come into view, which allow equipping of weapons for ranged attacks, special bonuses for each toy based on something of a "species" classification (aliens, Bears, Birds, farm animals, fish, forest creatures, giants, magicians, reptiles, robots, etc..), and so on.
At the end it also adds special abbilities and the comment on game balance, as all these advanced rules have no direct rules for balancing it out.
The advice given is also not really that helpfull, it's all about eyeballing what you percieve as being balanced enough or change it after a game or so.
But after all this, we finally come to what we really are interested in;
In the roleplaying section of the book, things get a bit more interesting, then a combat between two sides. (this is new for the 2nd edition book only)
After making a fuzzy Hero using the same rules as already explained (there really is no other alternative mentioned), the character can further costumsie the character by selecting 2 attributes that define their character.
These work as adjectives to the characters name, such as "Clever and Talented Mr. Bear", or the "Mighy Noble Shriek".
Each attribute (Mighty, speedy, Cute, Noble, Clever etc) has a list of benefits you can gain from it, of which you chose your first level 1 benefit for each of the two attrbutes you have chosen.
These benefits can be a standard bonus to a score or attack, but may aslo give access to a special skill which requires a roll to activate.
Using experience you can purchase more, and also gain level 2, and later level 3 benefits. (level 3 is highest)
At the end some notes are added for the expansions that did not yet use theese added roleplay rules, but am not very impressed with how it's dealt with.
(They generally add restrictions to which Attribute must be chosen)
Still they comes as additions to how each expansion works, and overall admittedly I found the expansions to be where Fuzzy Heroes started to get the most interesting.
There have been several expansions for Fuzzy Heroes, each with a specific theme in mind, presented in the same humorous manner as the core book.
Sooper Heroes is all about exploring the super hero theme.
Under the Covers, has a Secret agent theme.
Heroes in Space, is for a sci-fi setting which mixes Star Trek with Star Wars (rules for Jedi training is provided, along with various parodies of star trek)
The Lost Toys has a pretty interesting take of "undead" toys, which are now toys that never sleep like other toys do. They also have negative Energy points, and must be "healed" by making them sleep or using water to have the energy points go positive at which point they are defeated.
Each of the expansions adds a lot of fluff in the form of a story being told, and uses extra abbilities/powers to add to characters to represent the "UNDED" toys, or other special themed characters, as well as new weapons and possibly changes in rules based on the setting.
Each of the supplements also feels a lot more like a roleplayign game in the scenario's presented and options for the fuzzy hero characters, even though no reall effort is given for balancing encounters at all.
OVerall they work great to make the voerall Fuzzy Heroes game feel a lot more like a roleplayign game, even if the basic rules themselves remain simple and basic, simply because of the extra abbilities and powers that are added and story/flavour as background for the adventures.
Sadly, having no reall guide for balance means it requires a lot of tinkering to make it work, but the basic ideas and fun stories are given as great inspiration to recieve a proper and flavourfull rpg style adventure campaign.
I just wish advancement and balancing was given a bit more focus and attention to properly make this rules feel a bit more complete and usefull.
As it is now, they still make for quick and easy one shot games with a lot of puns and humor thrown in. Just balance is not one of the strong points, making it more like a feelgood adventure game in the lines of a good TOON rpg plot. (Just that in this case your toys, playing on a battlemap)
In addition to the direct supplements of Fuzzy Heroes, there also been 3 other books I got with the whole bunch, which are a bit aside from the main game, but worth mentioning.
Sports Fuzz uses plush toys on a large map, to play a game of football with. (A folded paper hat represents the ball), I never played it, but as the rules go it seems like a lot of fun, even though it may require a few to keep track of all the players on the field.
VLC (very large creature) is an army v.s. a giant plush animal. It makes me thingk of Giant Monster movies, or possibly OGRE from Steve Jackson games. 1 Super strong costum build creature with superior power, against a large army of puny units trying to defeat it.
Plastic Ships and Fuzzy man, is the most directly applicable to the Fuzzy Heroes miniature game. It's standalone (just as VLC and Sports Fuzz), but the game focuses entirely on piratey ship v.s. ship combat.
LAter inwards, it does offer options for actually treasure seeking on islands, traps and other tidbits to add even more, and just feels like a perfect fit to create a more pirate roleplaying game using it together with the Fuzzy Heroes core book.
Or if nothing else; It could function as good and lot less complex alternative then the rules presented in Furry Pirates, even if ofcourse, a lot less realistic as well.
However, admittedly, the rules in "plastic Ships,Fuzzy men", do get a bit more complex then the ruels of the standard Fuzzy heroes.
For instance, ships now have a ship map to show hits (checkboxes) and tables for speed depending on wind and damage penalties.
Still no terrible increase in complexity, and creating a ship allows a lot more freedom then making a "fuzzy hero" in the other books, which is a definitive plus.
I never used any fo the rules seriously, but I at least concidered it as silly one shot akin to TOON.
Conclusion
Fuzzy Heroes is all about Toys which have come to life in their own kingdom of Frolichaven, which is threathened by the evil Eye King.
It's a very basic premise as backstory for the battles that take place, but overall it's well presented in a humorous way, and the story continues in a loose manner over each supplement book.
While the core is very generic, the more focused supplements where a bit more fun to read, probably also because of parodies they include based on the setting.
The jokes can be a bit corny at times, but if you appreciate the humor of TOON, your not going to be put off from this too much.
Personally find the humor of TOON a bit better quality, but it still hits the right marks occasionally.
Especially in the supplement settings specific for SCIFI and secret agents.
Rules are very easy, and while it can alck balance and a more freeform way to make characters for it, you can keep thigns relatively balanced if you keep to the rpemade scenarios in each book, as well as making a fuzzy hero without any special abbilities beyond the basics and Attributes.
It can be fun to play, but mostly as either to introduce peopel to wargaming, or just as humorous one shot session rather then for long term play.