Babyliography CLXXXV

J. D. Green and Amy Zhing, _____ and the Magical Unicorn

2022 / Hardback / 30 pages

*

A simpler alternative to commissioning a custom printing of your child's personalised storybook: just write their name on yourself in seamless biro! Though she preferred to make it about "Katie" instead. She's not used to first-hand books.

Caroline Green and Begona Corbalan, Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds: Sit Sip Nap

2020 / School book / 16 pages

**

The sad tale of a hypersomniac mother scalding herself with hot drinks as her unfeeling kids point and laugh.

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, Stick Man

2008 / School book / 32 pages

***

It's only autumn, couldn't they wait a few weeks?

Termisa Seraphini and Sophie Robin, The Secret Lives of Unicorns

2019 / Library book / 64 pages

***

Illustrations rather than photos clued her in to it possibly not being authentic zoology, but there were still good tips for wildlife spotting generally. Who knows?

Sam Hogan and Leo Antolini, Oxford Reading Tree Word Sparks: Level 1 – The Secret Life of Cats

2020 / Library book / 12 pages

**

She didn't mind doing an extracurricular school book. There were only about 10 words anyway, and most of those were "pat."

Babyliography CLXXXIV

Nick Sharratt, Ketchup On Your Cornflakes?

1996 / School book / 24 pages

****

The surprise 90s date gives this the innovative edge over all the modern equivalents, most of which are admittedly by the same author-illustrator. It made such an impression in her school book group that she talked about it all the way home.

Dana Simpson, Unicorn Crossing: Another Phoebe and Her Unicorn Adventure

2014-15 (collected 2017) / Paperback / 176 pages

****

We've synchronised on seasons again, and I appreciate the attention to details like seasonal foliage and clothing in the daily comic strip, even if the child protagonist conventionally refuses to age.

Various, My Little Pony: Adventures in Friendship, Volume 1

2013-14 (collected 2014) / Hardback / 76 pages

***

Nice character-based compilations of some of the more obscure 'Pony comic ranges, even if the mean cloud in the Rainbow Dash story might have contributed to the young reader's night terror. Bad weather.

Charlotte Raby and Beccy Blake, Big Cat Phonics for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised: Pat it

2021 / School book / 16 pages

**

Jumping from wordless books to two words a page that she could read by spelling them out, this is more like it. Though I was disappointed by the poor continuity of the sandpit shape between pages.

Alison Murray, The Little Green Hen

2018 / School book / 32 pages

**

Palette-swapped fable of friendship, forgiveness and flooding that bizarrely forgets to end on a rainbow.

The Abyss: Halloween Nightmare Creepypasta

I've never seen The Abyss, and probably never will. It sometimes rears its head on lists of classic sci-fi films, but not at enthusiastic enough placings to seem worth my time. It's probably about underwater, not space. Boring.

But its vague presence still wormed its way into my mind somehow, forming the basis of a rare adult nightmare about struggling to escape The Scariest Scene of All Time.

Alrightreads: Gamesmaster II

Ben Egloff and artists, The Game Master's Book of Astonishing Random Tables: 300+ Unique Roll Tables to Enhance Your Worldbuilding, Storytelling, Locations, Magic and More for 5th Edition RPG Adventures

2023 / Ebook / 288 pages

*****

Even when not being unofficially D&D-specific, it's still generally based in the dark, violent fantasy realm, but there's still plenty that I can twist and sanitise to inject random encounters and inspiration into our friendly junior RPG. I don't know if I'll ever need to roll a whole pantheon of deities and system of government in quite this much detail, but I can't fault it for being excessively comprehensive.

Matt Davids and artists, The Great Book of Random Tables: 120 D100 Random Tables for Fantasy Tabletop Role-Playing Games

2022 / Ebook / 174 pages

***

Collects various slim rip-offs into a more substantial prompts compendium that's almost worth paying for, if it was more relevant for our needs at present.

Roberto Bisceglie, Loner: Core Rules (2nd Edition)

2023 / Ebook / 32 pages

***

More a creative writing rule system than a game, I might give its dice tables a go if I need more help cobbling together scenarios for real games.

Various, Red Dwarf: The Roleplaying Game – Series Sourcebook

2002 / Ebook / 160 pages

****

One of the quirkiest episode guides out there, this is really an ambitious (sometimes overly so) mission in opening up every episode of the series thus made into a practically playable module. It has some useful pointers for the rapidly-approaching day when I run out of ideas and start awkwardly forcing Red Dwarf into my five-year-old's junior RPG. She may recognise some of them from bedtime stories.

Dena McMurdie, 101 Story Starters for Kids: One-Page Prompts to Kick Your Imagination into High Gear

2019 / Ebook / 120 pages

***

A nice idea for future activities, if a bit homeworky. Help them out with some RPG random dice tables if they get stuck.

Alrightgames: Cartograph

Cartograph

2022 / Roleplaying map-making game / 1 player

****

Need a map for your story, but have cartographer's block? Just chuck some dice on the page and see where they land, then draw some playing cards if you want to make a game out of it.

Our ponies will be getting a boat and setting sail in their next adventure, so I thought this would be a fun way to create some new locations for further voyages, but the dangerous combination of prompts and my imagination ultimately made it too scary to reuse. At least I'm getting more use out of the excess dice of One Deck Dungeon.

Alrightgames: My Little Pony – Tails of Equestria – The Festival of Lights

My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria – The Festival of Lights

2018 / Roleplaying game adventure / 2+ players

***

This wasn't included in our Amazon bundle, so we couldn't play it in the proper sequence and at the level intended. But then we ran out of those books (until her birthday) and I found a download, so we didn't have to miss out on the dingy underground one.

Whether it was the slow start or the player just wasn't feeling it, we ended up abandoning it when the more enticing birthday ones came along (we've got a boat!!!), but it'll be there, waiting in the dark, for future characters to explore. I didn't get what are no doubt delightful D&D references, but the Spellbound Dizzy vibes were strong.

Alrightgames: My Little Pony – Tails of Equestria – Dungeon of the Diabolical Draconequus

My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria – Dungeon of the Diabolical Draconequus – Reign of the Squizard

2019 / Roleplaying game adventure / 2+ players

***

I figured we were both experienced enough in the regular game to take this metafictional detour into a Dungeons & Dragons rip-off within a Dungeons & Dragons rip-off, and it made for a refreshingly straightforward session of beast busting without having to worry about motivations and trying to reform every errant villain. We generally forgot to use our new, story-specific abilities, so no change there.

Alrightgames: The Wretched

The Wretched

2020 / Solo roleplaying game / 1 player

***

I hadn't checked in on the world of analogue solo RPGs since the era of adventure gamebooks, so I was more impressed by this one's (mostly) practical solutions of creating a modular story out of a pack of standard, dice-rolled playing cards than by the actual experience, which was a bit oppressively bleak for my tastes at this point. Then it turned out the cards thing wasn't original anyway.

Admittedly, by not wanting to wake up a child by recording daily logs or collapsing a spaceship-representing Jenga tower (as well as us not having one), I didn't commit to the full, immersive experience. Maybe if she's at school and I'm free from work, I might try the lonely, borderline-impossible, imminent sci-fi death simulator again, but there are likely jollier diversions out there.

Alrightgames: The Game Master's Book of Random Encounters – Variant Castles

The Game Master's Book of Random Encounters: Variant Castles

2020 / Roleplaying game mini adventure / 2+ players

Most of the suggested traps and denizens were too grim or mundane for our magical friendship pony game, but this helped me to come up with some rooms to expand our prefabricated module, and I loved the idea of letting the dice decide what was on the other side of each door, that's a keeper.

Alrightgames: My Little Pony – Tails of Equestria – The Haunting of Equestria

My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria – The Haunting of Equestria

2019 / Roleplaying game adventure / 2+ players

*****

This adjustably spooky instalment is the best one we've played so far. Its higher level requirement for the characters also gives GMs a chance to gain enough experience to not be terrified by its more flexible approach, rather than jumping straight into the one with the exciting cover.

The writer has professionally penned RPG modules for decades, so I tried not to feel too intimidated that some people can turn the blank document into all this. But we're nearly out of adventures, and the next saga may be all random tables and Story Cubes.