Kids on Brooms

by Jonathan Gilmour (Writer), Doug Levandowski (Writer), Spenser Starke (Writer)

You pull your wand from the folds of your cloak, and its glowing blue end illuminates the door in front of you—the entrance to the banned books section. You watch as the copper snakes twist and turn around the lock that keeps students like you out. But you’ve been left with no choice. Your barn owl hoots softly upon your shoulder as you raise your wand to the knob and whisper the unspoken words.

Kids on Brooms is a collaborative role-playing game about taking on the life of a witch or wizard at a magical school you all attend- a place full of mystery, danger, and thrilling adventure. From dealing with strict professors to facing down mythical beasts, players will get the opportunity to ride brooms, brew potions, and cast powerful magic as they uncover the incredible secrets their school and its inhabitants hold. Built using the ENnie Award-Winning Kids on Bikes framework, it is a rules-light, narrative-first storytelling game perfect for new players and gaming veterans alike!

- Create your own unique magical school for witches and wizards!
- Face down fantastical beasts, search for school secrets, and make sure you hand your homework in on time!
- Wield wands, ride brooms, brew potions, and cast powerful spells!
- Tell your own stories filled with magical adventure using the Kids on Bikes framework for rules-light, narrative-first storytelling!

Genres: Role Playing Games, Fantasy, Gaming, Science Fiction Fantasy

100 pages, Paperback

Published July 22, 2020

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those games that really gets the spirit of the role playing. The real darling of this is the character creation and world building. Everything is collaborative from making of the school, characters and story. Normally, it's make your character and the GM sorts it all out. With this, I love that their is a list of random questions to help establish why these characters are interconnected and how it will affect the story. The setting is something you all chose together. For this to work as ended you need to make sure you have a strong group that can communicate. Everyone RPGer has been at the table with someone who wants it all their way.

Another favourite thing is the sensitivity sections. I love player safety guidelines these are become standard in modern role playing games. Where this one nails it is in this 94 pages book there are 4 pages dedicated to things you would want to consider if you want to play a character that is different than you (i.e. neurodiverse, differently abled, sexuality, race, gender). There is are even parts about fantasy races and considerations about not making them a stereotype.

I love this system but I would say it's more for a seasoned player because of the level of improv the GM and players would need. If you're looking to have a adventures in a castle based school that I will not name 😉. This is it.

[Lady Entropy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book, but it's a Kids on Bikes skin and it shows.

It puts WAY too much emphasis in combat, and by connecting magic to "attributes", it creates a weird disconnect. Physical combat is an afterthought in Harry Potter. Frail characters are skill competent in combat magic, so it doesn't make much sense.

Also the fact you can have a party of mixed "teachers, younger and older students" makes no sense either - I hope you enjoy splitting the party.

The system is decent but not amazing (you roll the attribute dice correspondent to the situation, and try to hit a difficulty set by the GM), and the character creation can be summed up to "distribute different dice to 6 attributes, then choose age, Wand and Broom to give yourself bonuses in certain types of magic\attributes". It has some interesting ideas in the less "mechanic" aspect of character creation, but they don't affect the system.

it seems to want to be inspired by PBTA but without the playbook system - and so, "who you are" doesn't matter when compared to "what you can roll".

[b · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the most organized game book I’ve ever read. Not quite as rules-light as advertised, but those surplus rules are obfuscated by poor organization. An almost condescending or paranoid emphasis on morals throughout the text that is, well, frankly redundant for the kind of communities that want to play a game like this. Very few useful GM tools, and of course, absolutely no real prompts, no clear picture on how one might design a stat block for a recurring or important NPC, etcetera. Character creation info horribly laid out, and instead the book wastes multiple pages reiterating the same basic principle over and over again at this step: basically brainstorm how you might know other characters in the world, brainstorm what you’d like to see, blah blah blah. Great premise, and certainly ~usable~, but this could’ve been a zine, it could’ve been cheaper, and it should’ve been vastly better executed overall.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool system, some minie details missing for the untrained GM.

[Malone Hanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is GOOD news…. We can finally be Kids on Brooms

[Lana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the ideas in this RPG system and I think the book is really well written. The drawbacks are only minor: first, and really the one that bothered me the most, the type size used is *really small* for a reference book that you're going to want to flip through while playing, it is really hard to imagine how I would find anything without making my own player guides re-printing a bunch of the information. Second, there's one key concept - adversity tokens - that I still don't understand what they do. There's no section dedicated to them - you learn about them by reading other sections, so I'm going to have to go to a web forum to figure that out, and it just seems like that would be an easy thing to fix with a section with that as a title. But great scene setting ideas - and warnings of things that might not work so well - were strong and well developed. I like the idea of this system, and totally want to play!

[Ytr0001 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dobry podręcznik, bardzo świadomy, kładący nacisk na współpracę między osobą mistrzującą grę a osobami grającymi. Porusza kwestię takie jak zaimki postaci czy dyskryminacja ze względu na np. orientację seksualną postaci (czyli: czy wprowadzany, że to funkcjonuje w świecie, czy może zupełnie nie), a także mówi o narzędziach bezpieczeństwa na sesji. Dużo przestrzeni dla osób grających, duże możliwości światotworzenia - również dla nich. Daje zbiór zasad, które można bardzo szeroko zastosować, zamiast wprowadzać piętnaście tysięcy regułek, takich jak zasady rzutu granatem odłamkowym różniące się od zasad rzutu granatem jakimś tam innym (nie pozdrawiam Neuroshimy). Nic tylko grać 🥳

[Shannon McLean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have played Kids on Bikes before and I love that system, so I am excited they are expanding into other settings. Can't wait to DM this for the teens in the library. Some typos in the book that caused some confusion, but otherwise well-written.

[Brashen Fletcher Buttress · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun and informative read. I look forward to GMing for my friends

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read what I consider to be a large number of RPG rulebooks. Some are written with an emphasis on clarity and conciseness. Some are written to be fun, so you enjoy even reading the rules (to varying degrees of success). This is the first book I’ve read that seems to have safety mechanics as its #1 concern. They’re not just offered in the back or the front in a situation you can skip over. Inclusion, accessibility, and emotional/psychological safety are woven through virtually every page (except the reference tables and appendices). They receive stronger emphasis than the mechanics or the setting details.
My only criticism isn’t exactly a fair one: I wish that the system weren’t so exactly Harry Potter. I get that that’s what the designers were going for, but I would rather have a Magic School RPG where it could just as easily be Brakebills (or any distinct magical school) as Hogwarts.

[Anibal · Rating 2 out of 5]

After the extraordinary successes of "Kids on Bikes" and the highly acclaimed "Teens in Space," the authors have now attempted to captivate fans of Harry Potter and other young wizard franchises. The basic rules are similar, with stats distributed from D20 to D4, variable difficulties, and levels of success determined by the difference between the target number and the roll. The only new features are the additional D4 when performing magic, the possibility of having a small pet familiar, the wand with wood and core giving 2 bonuses, the broomstick and its bonuses, and character advancement related to attended classes and created effects that provide bonuses once a certain level of proficiency is reached. The narrative is shared, and there is significant care in developing relationships between the characters, who can be underclass, upperclass, or faculty (each with bonuses in different stats, but all equalized).

However, the book fails in many aspects: the rules that determine the target numbers are too vague (one or two pages of examples would have been very helpful). Magic, which should be the primary focus, is reduced to 1d4 with no limits on its effects (villains could do whatever they wanted without fear of becoming an NPC or facing consequences from the Ministry of Magic, which are the mechanisms used to keep players in line). There is not even a simple creature in a bestiary! In contrast to "Teens in Space," where the spaceship is created and has stats, they could have done the same for the school (but it's only done narratively).

Despite the immense lack of information that could enrich a campaign (such as rules for rituals, magical objects/artifacts, the nature and limits of magic, maps and stats of schools and other locations, runes, practical applications of various types of magic, stats of magical creatures, alternative character creation processes, etc.), they managed to include about 6-7 pages of sensitivity warnings, including boundaries, bigotry, species and ethnicities, disabled or neurodiverse individuals, race, sexuality, and player safety in the GM section. In a small 90-page booklet, this is clearly excessive (the much larger book "Teens in Space" had a couple of pages, which is enough to say "don't be assholes to anyone, respect your fellow players, and know your boundaries").

Despite their many efforts not to offend anyone, it fails in that purpose. It is still an offense not only to the genre but also to the excellent previous titles of the series. It is painful for me to say this is a money grab and genre exploitation. There is a clear decline compared to the previous titles, which is unfortunate, especially considering how much I wanted this book as a fan of the company, the genre, and the system, and it was gifted to me with much love and consideration by family members.

[David Gagne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the prompts and storytelling exercises in this book. I created a wonderful magic school setting using its tools that I have been experimenting with for over a year now. I return to this often for RPG player characters' relationships.

However, I found the mechanics system lacking, and I find this book best suited in tandem with other game systems.

[Elara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want to play a magic academy roleplay without JK Rowling's transph0bic shadow??

This is your game.

Yer a wizar' Y/N

[Aaron P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is quite clearly a re-skin of the original Kids on Bikes that REALLY leans into Harry Potter as inspiration. That said , I do believe that my nephew will love it.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and cute concept for ttrpg.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

DIMENSION 20 ONCE AGAIN LEADING ME TO COOL ASS SHIT. HELL YEAH LET'S GO!!!!

[Fran Younger]

If RPG books count I’ll take it lol