An idea regarding the "Size Disparity Problem": if we stipulate that magic "of some sort" is more or less inherent to any reality being described by 5e, (in other words, magic is--in some way--built into the fabric, or metaphysics, of the world). Those "hereditary" things that are part of the class/race descriptions might be an expression of the magic here. Another might be the "bag of holding" theory: each region/room of the House is larger on the inside than on the outside. OR, a better approach, the size of the inhabitants relative to the structures of the House and it's denizens varies depending on where they are and what they are doing. Magic is so much a part of this Reality, that the entire Reality is like unto many interconnected bags of holding, and each individual's size automatically adjusts depending on their location and/or circumstance. The creatures that inhabit the place, especially the Littlings, give no thought to what would--to any normal human--be a mind bending, difficult situation within which to function. Us normal humans exist in a reality where the world appears flat, and the sun and moon look like discs floating across an immovable sky, but everyone knows the Reality we live in, and we go about our lives exactly the same, regardless. The same with the Littlings and the pocket universe they call The House. Finally, there is just as much magic floating around in the Reality of The House as in any other DnD rpg, but it's not available for use in the form of spells, because it's locked up in the "size reticulation" magic that suffuses the setting itself. What do you think? Lastly, when Alice fell into Wonderland, she somehow shrunk down to the size of the Littles, and her adventures went from there. An extremely powerful spellcaster must have owned The House, to Work such a series of spells such as makes The House and it's inhabitants possible.
Probably should be mentioned that the household object based weapons, etc that the Littlings use are not literally the same items that the Master of the House and his family used. They forged these items after being inspired by the actual objects left. I know one of the cities or settlements actually still has the Mistress's sowing needle propped up as a big artifact that's been used as inspiration for the needle blades some Littlings use.
I thought I saw something where scale is different all throughout the house. For example, a chair from a distance appears to be a normal size chair, but the closer you get to it the bigger it gets and once you get to its base, it’s big as a mountain.
@@snuggiethegoblin7101 Yeah, like the Little Folks are still smaller than the chair, but certain areas of the house take on a much larger scale to fit big settlements there because of a contract that acts on the house as a whole.
I hope Two Little Mice team put the D&D5e character creation and basic rules in the book to make it stand alone like Dark Souls or Broken Weave rather than Ruins of Symbaroum or The Lord of The Rings Adventure.
This may not be a creative solution but I picture the house as like a grand manor in an estate. A proverbial brick island amidst a sea of grass. The keys used as weapons n stuff could be miniscule like those for a music box but that's just me.
About size oddities, I think this actually presents an interesting opportunity to pull your players into the setting. Take care to describe particularly dense areas like cities as though they are distant and the people are tiny. As you approach they loom larger. This so far doesn't trip any alarm bells, you're just describing real world perspective. Faerie magic in stories not so much about doing very specific and well defined spells so much as something unusual happening, perhaps something rather subtle. Don't point it out and don't explain it. Let your players ask questions. And answer with descriptions of how their characters perceive the world around them. Some things this might suggest (don't have the setting descriptions yet so ignore any that are contradictory - unless you really like them): - Characters who haven't traveled may not have experienced this before. If they've only traveled a little, maybe they're only just noticing the oddity. - If you wish less subtlety, perhaps the characters can feel it when they cross a boundary. Maybe they even have a feeling about who is in charge of an area. Politics is magic? - If some types of critter are more or less susceptible to this scaling effect, they can be a different sort of challenge when they attack more densely populated areas. I wouldn't get too fancy with it though. I think it'll work best if it's simple. And if any of your players are overlooking the clues you're giving them and just remain uncomfortable with this issue then by all means pull the curtain back and let them see how the magic works. Pull them aside first if you like. Some players will love an unexpected mystery while others will very much dislike them.
I read a lot of fantasy novels. Faerie or Fairyland in fantasy is often a realm with a lot of things that break human understanding of the world. Granted that this is taking place in the human world, but we can just interpret it as space inhabited by fairies' (littlings) getting spatially distorted.
My methodology on the size-scaling is that the House is a mystical location. First, distance and scale within the house are defined by magical imagination, in effect, this creates space and scale beyond 'physical' dimensions (think Tardis). The same applies to certain other physical items; while many 'human' sized items and locations (the house itself and original furniture) are extra-dimensionally large, many other items have become smaller. So you get tiny fruit trees and plants alongside the larger 'originals'. Some creatures have grown (the Giant Centipede), others have remained 'standard' in size, while others still have shrunk (so I have vicious, smaller than normal wild roaming cats as alpha predators). The House is a mystical place; the Littlings are a magical people, and thus, the interactions are ODD. A bathtub becomes a vast ocean, a yule tree, a nearly endless forest, and the space under the bed is a thriving metropolis. It is the Household.
Regarding the size of the characters, the best way to do this is to think of it like the smurfs, who were canonically three apples high but by definition of what an apple was was not the same as the actual size of an apple. In the cartoon when you see him next to a human they appear to be about 6 in tall. But when they're in their own City or opposite a bird or something like that they seem to be shorter probably like 1 to 3 in tall. And that would be the same Smurf in two different situations would be those two different sizes. In the Smurfs case they have been seen to ride a cat so you would imagine a cat would be the same size as a horse is to a human. You can do the same things for little things, as a ride mice or bugs. You get yourself the average size mouse and reconcile how big a mouse would be if it were a horse and scale down. But when they're in their own towns or cities you treat that as full size. Two other ways you can look at this is using Darby O'Gill and the little people or the old cartoon The Littles which was basically what the little things are. There is also a movie from studio Ghibli I believe that has a human next to them and you notice that they do kind of change sizes a little bit there too. The truth is, unless you're going to really put them up against a human or a known entity like a mouse, then you need them to have a certain size comparatively. Such as if you were going to have them go to the forgotten realms or greyhawk and fight, obviously a rat which is a huge beast in adventures in the household is a tiny beast in d&d. So I would suggest unless you are really going to put it up against something that has a very known specific size, just deal with it as if you were that size.
My rationalization for the size scaling discrepancy is that there's an inherent magic about these creatures and things around them and even themselves are always changing size to suit the arbitrary needs of the story. For instance the chandelier as a city, the consensual reality/collective consciousness of everyone in the household accepts that it is a city big enough to explore so it becomes that. Perhaps beings simply shrink to fit that narrative or maybe the magic around the chandelier is a type of gateway to this fabled city and the chandelier it's self is merely a nexus or focal point for magic. And to add to that the magic is so subtle that anyone observing the transition never notices the change, it just becomes or exists in both states simultaneously in their minds. The same could be done for smaller items, the intention of the user lets a button and half a pair of scissors be the size they need it to be to be useful to them as a sword and shield. If those items were ever to be abandoned outside of their dwelling and I mean abandoned, not just left, then those items would return to their normal sizes or if they are encountered by a human etc.
I've seen a lot of people not really being willing to "lean in" to the explanation that the Household Contract that determines the subjective relative size of a place in the house, and I imagine this will be even more of an issue among 5E players. Personally, I just think of it a bit like the way that the mass of an object warps the space around it (gravity), only it's the importance of a place rather than mass, and it's the subjective size being warped.
For the scaling, what if you go all in the fairy tale concept of Household à la Jack and the Beanstalk or something similar. The house was inhabited by Giants (I would say maybe 30 feet tall or so) and the various items used by the Little Folk are things left behind by Human interlopers. That way the stairs can seem like mountains and an entire city can live atop the chandelier.and retain the sizes of the various items (left behind by Humans) and creatures of the setting.
The magic could be a combination of The Master and his family's imagination and belief; generations of children raise in The House told the same stories of Sprites, Bogart's and the magical tiny worlds they inhabit. The story of the chandelier city and the collective imagination of generations of people give it a magical "density" or "weight" that allows it to bend the rules of reality. Newer additions and appliances wouldn't have the same magical heft too them, but I sufficiently good story could allow them to start bending reality to fit the narrative. Since the stories are about the little folk they become part of their history too, something they don't even question, they just live it and their beliefs about the place reinforce the narrative. This way you could use the setting as a template, then get your players to come up with stories for your own House. If you want to add more magic or other rpg game mechanics you could always use your game room as a setting and how the collective imaginations of the players over the years have introduced "aberrations" for your team to discover. Perhaps, like Discworld, some of the spells are too big for your little people and they can only contain one?
Love the original, love the art and production value they created. Hope they do maintain these qualities for this adaptation. Like you, adapting unique systems to 5e has it's benefits ($) but when you convert settings this way something is lost. I just hope they keep it as close to the original as possible. Great video, love the work you put in your videos. Thank you
That almost works. It explains the size of the house itself. But doesn’t quite explain why household items would be so small. It’s almost as if the house and the Master were giant but they used teeny tiny forks and keys, etc.
It's a little... I don't know... "sad" ? That publishers have to "break" their games/setting just because 5E is popular. I think people should use it only as way to getting to know about this setting AND buy the original version! It's certainly the way with The One Ring example of this subject. The One Ring 2nd ed in my opinion is THE BEST ruleset when you consider having mechanics that are perfect fit for the setting. Period. Hope, Despair, being wary and so on. I even like those rules a lot in general ( and am looking for something similar in other settings). But due 5E popularity authors had to make (financial decision ? and I don't blame them at all for this! Good for them. ) and make the setting available for 5E. Probably because most people are just to lazy to learn something new other then 5E. It just make me a little... "angry" that because of that many people will not experience great rule set of TOR like ever :/ And I susspdct that its similar situation with this setting :(
RE: 5e having way too much combat: combat is way easier two adjudicate than social scenes. In combat, opponents are basically destroying the opponents' will to fight. Th motivations in a social scene extend into infinity, and require way more creativity, tracking and memory for a DM. Frankly, most DMs I know don't want to work that hard.
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An idea regarding the "Size Disparity Problem": if we stipulate that magic "of some sort" is more or less inherent to any reality being described by 5e, (in other words, magic is--in some way--built into the fabric, or metaphysics, of the world). Those "hereditary" things that are part of the class/race descriptions might be an expression of the magic here. Another might be the "bag of holding" theory: each region/room of the House is larger on the inside than on the outside. OR, a better approach, the size of the inhabitants relative to the structures of the House and it's denizens varies depending on where they are and what they are doing. Magic is so much a part of this Reality, that the entire Reality is like unto many interconnected bags of holding, and each individual's size automatically adjusts depending on their location and/or circumstance. The creatures that inhabit the place, especially the Littlings, give no thought to what would--to any normal human--be a mind bending, difficult situation within which to function. Us normal humans exist in a reality where the world appears flat, and the sun and moon look like discs floating across an immovable sky, but everyone knows the Reality we live in, and we go about our lives exactly the same, regardless. The same with the Littlings and the pocket universe they call The House. Finally, there is just as much magic floating around in the Reality of The House as in any other DnD rpg, but it's not available for use in the form of spells, because it's locked up in the "size reticulation" magic that suffuses the setting itself. What do you think? Lastly, when Alice fell into Wonderland, she somehow shrunk down to the size of the Littles, and her adventures went from there. An extremely powerful spellcaster must have owned The House, to Work such a series of spells such as makes The House and it's inhabitants possible.
Yep, love it. I had a very similar principle in mind.
Probably should be mentioned that the household object based weapons, etc that the Littlings use are not literally the same items that the Master of the House and his family used. They forged these items after being inspired by the actual objects left. I know one of the cities or settlements actually still has the Mistress's sowing needle propped up as a big artifact that's been used as inspiration for the needle blades some Littlings use.
Oh, that’s a huge detail that I missed. Thanks for clarifying that.
I thought I saw something where scale is different all throughout the house. For example, a chair from a distance appears to be a normal size chair, but the closer you get to it the bigger it gets and once you get to its base, it’s big as a mountain.
@@snuggiethegoblin7101 Yeah, like the Little Folks are still smaller than the chair, but certain areas of the house take on a much larger scale to fit big settlements there because of a contract that acts on the house as a whole.
@@JH-dh2ws I can’t wait to get my hands on this. I think I’m most excited for the players sailing the vases of the bathtub. Lol
I hope Two Little Mice team put the D&D5e character creation and basic rules in the book to make it stand alone like Dark Souls or Broken Weave rather than Ruins of Symbaroum or The Lord of The Rings Adventure.
The size for me is not an issue because of the lore reason behind it, you know, the Household contract
This may not be a creative solution but I picture the house as like a grand manor in an estate. A proverbial brick island amidst a sea of grass. The keys used as weapons n stuff could be miniscule like those for a music box but that's just me.
I just make the house more like the castle in colostle
I’ll use the Kickstarter to pick up the originals, thanks for the heads up!
I'm intrigued by that sluagh with antennae sporting a bullfighter jacket
About size oddities, I think this actually presents an interesting opportunity to pull your players into the setting. Take care to describe particularly dense areas like cities as though they are distant and the people are tiny. As you approach they loom larger. This so far doesn't trip any alarm bells, you're just describing real world perspective. Faerie magic in stories not so much about doing very specific and well defined spells so much as something unusual happening, perhaps something rather subtle. Don't point it out and don't explain it. Let your players ask questions. And answer with descriptions of how their characters perceive the world around them.
Some things this might suggest (don't have the setting descriptions yet so ignore any that are contradictory - unless you really like them):
- Characters who haven't traveled may not have experienced this before. If they've only traveled a little, maybe they're only just noticing the oddity.
- If you wish less subtlety, perhaps the characters can feel it when they cross a boundary. Maybe they even have a feeling about who is in charge of an area. Politics is magic?
- If some types of critter are more or less susceptible to this scaling effect, they can be a different sort of challenge when they attack more densely populated areas.
I wouldn't get too fancy with it though. I think it'll work best if it's simple. And if any of your players are overlooking the clues you're giving them and just remain uncomfortable with this issue then by all means pull the curtain back and let them see how the magic works. Pull them aside first if you like. Some players will love an unexpected mystery while others will very much dislike them.
I read a lot of fantasy novels. Faerie or Fairyland in fantasy is often a realm with a lot of things that break human understanding of the world. Granted that this is taking place in the human world, but we can just interpret it as space inhabited by fairies' (littlings) getting spatially distorted.
My methodology on the size-scaling is that the House is a mystical location. First, distance and scale within the house are defined by magical imagination, in effect, this creates space and scale beyond 'physical' dimensions (think Tardis). The same applies to certain other physical items; while many 'human' sized items and locations (the house itself and original furniture) are extra-dimensionally large, many other items have become smaller. So you get tiny fruit trees and plants alongside the larger 'originals'. Some creatures have grown (the Giant Centipede), others have remained 'standard' in size, while others still have shrunk (so I have vicious, smaller than normal wild roaming cats as alpha predators). The House is a mystical place; the Littlings are a magical people, and thus, the interactions are ODD. A bathtub becomes a vast ocean, a yule tree, a nearly endless forest, and the space under the bed is a thriving metropolis. It is the Household.
Regarding the size of the characters, the best way to do this is to think of it like the smurfs, who were canonically three apples high but by definition of what an apple was was not the same as the actual size of an apple. In the cartoon when you see him next to a human they appear to be about 6 in tall. But when they're in their own City or opposite a bird or something like that they seem to be shorter probably like 1 to 3 in tall. And that would be the same Smurf in two different situations would be those two different sizes. In the Smurfs case they have been seen to ride a cat so you would imagine a cat would be the same size as a horse is to a human. You can do the same things for little things, as a ride mice or bugs. You get yourself the average size mouse and reconcile how big a mouse would be if it were a horse and scale down. But when they're in their own towns or cities you treat that as full size. Two other ways you can look at this is using Darby O'Gill and the little people or the old cartoon The Littles which was basically what the little things are. There is also a movie from studio Ghibli I believe that has a human next to them and you notice that they do kind of change sizes a little bit there too.
The truth is, unless you're going to really put them up against a human or a known entity like a mouse, then you need them to have a certain size comparatively. Such as if you were going to have them go to the forgotten realms or greyhawk and fight, obviously a rat which is a huge beast in adventures in the household is a tiny beast in d&d. So I would suggest unless you are really going to put it up against something that has a very known specific size, just deal with it as if you were that size.
My rationalization for the size scaling discrepancy is that there's an inherent magic about these creatures and things around them and even themselves are always changing size to suit the arbitrary needs of the story. For instance the chandelier as a city, the consensual reality/collective consciousness of everyone in the household accepts that it is a city big enough to explore so it becomes that. Perhaps beings simply shrink to fit that narrative or maybe the magic around the chandelier is a type of gateway to this fabled city and the chandelier it's self is merely a nexus or focal point for magic. And to add to that the magic is so subtle that anyone observing the transition never notices the change, it just becomes or exists in both states simultaneously in their minds. The same could be done for smaller items, the intention of the user lets a button and half a pair of scissors be the size they need it to be to be useful to them as a sword and shield. If those items were ever to be abandoned outside of their dwelling and I mean abandoned, not just left, then those items would return to their normal sizes or if they are encountered by a human etc.
I've seen a lot of people not really being willing to "lean in" to the explanation that the Household Contract that determines the subjective relative size of a place in the house, and I imagine this will be even more of an issue among 5E players. Personally, I just think of it a bit like the way that the mass of an object warps the space around it (gravity), only it's the importance of a place rather than mass, and it's the subjective size being warped.
For the scaling, what if you go all in the fairy tale concept of Household à la Jack and the Beanstalk or something similar. The house was inhabited by Giants (I would say maybe 30 feet tall or so) and the various items used by the Little Folk are things left behind by Human interlopers. That way the stairs can seem like mountains and an entire city can live atop the chandelier.and retain the sizes of the various items (left behind by Humans) and creatures of the setting.
This might be my favorite theory so far.
i was just thinking this week about running a dnd campaign using your actual house and or backyard as the map.
The house is filled with tons of Fey space anomalies.
The magic could be a combination of The Master and his family's imagination and belief; generations of children raise in The House told the same stories of Sprites, Bogart's and the magical tiny worlds they inhabit. The story of the chandelier city and the collective imagination of generations of people give it a magical "density" or "weight" that allows it to bend the rules of reality. Newer additions and appliances wouldn't have the same magical heft too them, but I sufficiently good story could allow them to start bending reality to fit the narrative. Since the stories are about the little folk they become part of their history too, something they don't even question, they just live it and their beliefs about the place reinforce the narrative.
This way you could use the setting as a template, then get your players to come up with stories for your own House.
If you want to add more magic or other rpg game mechanics you could always use your game room as a setting and how the collective imaginations of the players over the years have introduced "aberrations" for your team to discover. Perhaps, like Discworld, some of the spells are too big for your little people and they can only contain one?
That is extremely clever.
5E is way too unnecessarily complex, I'm with you.
Love the original, love the art and production value they created. Hope they do maintain these qualities for this adaptation.
Like you, adapting unique systems to 5e has it's benefits ($) but when you convert settings this way something is lost. I just hope they keep it as close to the original as possible.
Great video, love the work you put in your videos. Thank you
What if the masters were giants and not average human size?
That almost works. It explains the size of the house itself. But doesn’t quite explain why household items would be so small. It’s almost as if the house and the Master were giant but they used teeny tiny forks and keys, etc.
Doubting that it would happen.... I think I could give a couner argument to the size question.
still... I do think it sounds like a great game... :)
“Leave the game”. Looks like they just can’t say “die”
You have to leave the house completely. Or log off if you’re playing online. 😜
@@DaveThaumavorethe rule in original was that you will be out of scene but you will able to return later and explain how you survived
@@chunkaiwang9726 I remember that now. That’s pretty nice. For a certain style of gameplay.
It's a little... I don't know... "sad" ? That publishers have to "break" their games/setting just because 5E is popular. I think people should use it only as way to getting to know about this setting AND buy the original version! It's certainly the way with The One Ring example of this subject. The One Ring 2nd ed in my opinion is THE BEST ruleset when you consider having mechanics that are perfect fit for the setting. Period. Hope, Despair, being wary and so on. I even like those rules a lot in general ( and am looking for something similar in other settings).
But due 5E popularity authors had to make (financial decision ? and I don't blame them at all for this! Good for them. ) and make the setting available for 5E. Probably because most people are just to lazy to learn something new other then 5E.
It just make me a little... "angry" that because of that many people will not experience great rule set of TOR like ever :/
And I susspdct that its similar situation with this setting :(
RE: 5e having way too much combat: combat is way easier two adjudicate than social scenes. In combat, opponents are basically destroying the opponents' will to fight. Th motivations in a social scene extend into infinity, and require way more creativity, tracking and memory for a DM. Frankly, most DMs I know don't want to work that hard.