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  What is role-playing? 
  What is this game about? 
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  Attributes 
  Kid Type 
  What is my kid good at? 
  Example of creating a kid 
  The things my kid is good at, explained 
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  Rolling dice 
  Narrative play 
  Getting better at doing things 
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  Idyllic England 
  The Gang 
  Language 
  Useful items 
  Birthdays & Christmas 
  Brothers & Sisters 
  Pocket  money 
  Playing the game 
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  The Big Top Adventure 
  The Mystery of the Haunted castle 
  The Mysterious Manor 
  The Kid Nap Caper 
  Camp Raids 
  The Secret of Demon Rocks 
   
  (Note. Many of the above sections are only available in the full version) 
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  2 
  What is this game about? 
   
  You are a 13-year old kid living in Idyl-
  lic England. Idyllic England is an unreal 
  place, a sort of fantasyland along the 
  lines of those versions of England, 
  which appear in such works as The Fa-
  mous Five, Swallows and Amazons and 
  The Secret Seven. In Idyllic England 
  the time period doesn't really matter - 
  suffice to say that kids ride bicycles not 
  BMX's, they read books such as 'Boys' 
  Own Adventures' since there is no such 
  thing as Sega or Nintendo and most im-
  portantly they never swear and are 
  rarely rude to grown ups. 
   
  All right, you may ask, but this is a role-
  playing game so what is there to do? 
  Well, there are camping hols a plenty, 
  mysterious smugglers caves to explore, 
  ghostly haunted houses to poke around 
  in, secret passages in ruined castles to 
  discover, all manner of suspicious vil-
  lains to report to the police for real (and 
  imagined) crimes. Nasty people can of 
  course be spotted a mile off, and every 
  circus that comes to town holds its own 
  mystery to solve. And, once solved PC 
  Plod is always on hand with his trusty 
  bicycle to arrest the villains of the 
  piece, or to clip the kids around the ears 
  for wasting his time (without the possi-
  bility of being hauled before the court!). 
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  3 
  Attributes 
   
  To play in an rpg you need to create a 
  character, that is the persona that you 
  pretend to be in the game. In LoGB the 
  character you need to create is a nosey 
  kid. Kids are initially defined by 4 at-
  tributes. These attributes are rated on a 
  numeric scale, where the higher the 
  number the better. They help to deter-
  mine how well each kid performs in his 
  or her day-to-day activities, whether 
  they be at home, at school or more par-
  ticularly when they are on an adventure.  
   
  The attributes are: - 
   
  Tough 
   
  This is a measure of the kid's strength, 
  resilience, build and all round physical 
  ability. It is useful in sports, outdoor ac-
  tivities and particularly useful in fights. 
  It tends to be higher as kids grow older. 
   
  Deft  
   
  Speed, agility, athleticism and co-
  ordination are all measured by this at-
  tribute. Useful for many outdoor and 
  sporting pursuits. Deft reduces as kids 
  grow older. 
   
  Clever  
   
  A bright kid is an intelligent and quick 
  witted kid who does well at school work 
  and is good at remembering things and 
  working things out. As kids get older, 
  they learn more and therefore become 
  more clever. 
   
  Charm  
   
  Being able to smile sweetly and get 
  away with anything. That is charm. 
  Younger kids tend to be more charming. 
   
  Age 
   
  For the most part, it is the age of the kid 
  that you create that decides what the ini-
  tial attribute levels are. The higher the 
  number, the better able your kid is. 
    
  To determine your kid’s age, you need 
  to either choose an age between 10 to 
  15, or roll a dice (d6) and add 9 to the 
  result. Write this age on your character 
  sheet. 
   
  Initial attribute levels are determined by 
  starting age. Look up your kid’s age on 
  the following table and write the num-
  bers for each attribute on your character 
  sheet. Then add 1 point to any attribute 
  you like. Write down the final attribute 
  levels on your character sheet. 
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  Age 
  Tough Deft 
  Clever Charm 
  10 
  1 
  3 
  1 
  3 
  11-12 
  2 
  2 
  1 
  3 
  13-14 
  2 
  2 
  2 
  2 
  15 
  3 
  1 
  3 
  1 
  Grown
  -up 
  4 
  1 
  4 
  1 
  
  4 
  Kid type 
   
  After attributes have been decided, you 
  then need to determine the things that 
  your kid knows or is good at. This de-
  pends on the type of kid, which can be a 
  Swot, a Truant (Tomboy) or a Good 
  (‘normal’) kid. You get to choose.  
   
  Good (‘Normal’) 
   
  Good kids - these make up the vast ma-
  jority of kids in Idyllic England. They 
  have a father who works in the bank or 
  in insurance a mother who is a house-
  wife (as all mothers in Idyllic England 
  should be - no such thing as the 
  women’s movement here) probably an 
  older brother or sister and a family pet. 
  They will live in a suburban semi de-
  tached house with ample room at the 
  end of the garden for a tree house or 
  den. Father will have a Rover car or 
  maybe a Wolsey or Morris which he 
  uses for work and at weekends to take 
  the family on outings or drop the kids 
  off at the train station, when they go off 
  to see auntie Mable. 
    
  Good kids will go on to become bank 
  managers, solicitors, doctors, account-
  ants or politicians. Girls will of course 
  get married and become housewives. 
   
  Swots (Bookworms) 
   
  Swots are from backgrounds similar to 
  those of good kids but could be, for ex-
  ample, an only child and therefore 
  molly-coddled by mummy & daddy. 
  They are not good at sporty things (too 
  rough) but at their lessons they excel. 
   
  Swots prefer to spend leisure time in the 
  library or in their rooms with their noses 
  stuck in their books.  
   
  There will rarely be more than one Swot 
  in any gang. 
   
  Swots will go on to become Professors, 
  scientists, inventors and train spotters. 
   
  Truants (Tomboys) 
   
  These kids are the naughtier kids of 
  Idyllic England. They tend to be the op-
  posite of Swots, that is good at sports 
  but poor at their studies. They may even 
  use strong words or phrases like 'damn 
  it' and 'blast' or even on occasion 
  'bloody hell!' (as long as no grown-ups 
  are nearby). 
   Truants are fond of games and pranks 
  A Good Kid 
  
  5 
  that lead other kids astray, such as 
  cherry knocking and apple scrumping 
  but because they are better at these 
  things, they do not usually get caught. 
    
  By present day standards Truants are 
  not bad kids by any means and they do 
  not get into trouble with the police - 
  they are simply naughty by Idyllic Eng-
  land standards. 
   
  There will rarely be more than one Tru-
  ant in a gang.  
   
  Truants will go onto become football-
  ers, racing drivers, journalists and 
  game designers. Girl truants may be 
  called Tomboys. 
   
  A Swot 
  What is my kid good at? 
   
  These are called skills, abilities, feats  or 
  traits in other rpg’s. They are learned or 
  taught skills and knowledge. All player 
  character kids in Idyllic England are ad-
  venturous and resourceful. They see 
  things that grown-ups and most other 
  kids do not see. Accordingly all your kid 
  is automatically good at two things -  
  Hide and Snoop. These are already writ-
  ten onto the character sheet and you 
  have a level of 2 dice in each. You can 
  spend points to improve them from your 
  points allocation detailed below. 
   
  The other things a kid is good at depend 
  upon the type of kid she is. You have 8 
  points to split amongst them. Simply as-
  sign some of your 8 points to each thing. 
   
  If you want to choose things that are not 
  a part of your kid type, you need to as-
  A Truant 
  
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  sign a greater number of your points.  
   
  Swots get Truant skills at treble cost. 
  Truants get Swot skills at treble the 
  cost. They both buy Good kid skills at 
  double the cost. Good kids buy any 
  non-good kid skills at double the cost. 
  So a Swot could, for example put one 
  point into each of his 6 listed skills, and 
  then put two points into Act Innocently 
  (effectively making that skill a 'level' 1 
  too). 
   
  Any player can choose to increase Hide 
  or Snoop for one point per point of in-
  crease. 
   
  Good 
   
  Act Innocently 
  Camping 
  Hobbies 
  Sports 
  Ride Bicycle 
  Spot Nasty People 
   
  Swot  
   
  Sciences  
  History  
  Geography  
  Languages  
  Music  
  Useless Facts 
   
  Truant 
   
  Fighting 
  Wriggle (from Grasp) 
  Climb Trees & Walls 
  Catapult 
  Throwing Things 
  Lie Convincingly 
   
  Example of creating a kid 
   
  I grab a character sheet and roll a dice, 
  which comes up 5. My kid is therefore 
  14 (I could have chosen his age had I 
  wanted to). I write this on my character 
  sheet. I also come up with a name for 
  him at this stage - Daniel (Danny).  
   
  Looking up the attributes on the table 
  for a kid of 14, I see that all four attrib-
  utes will be rated at 2. I have an extra 
  point to add, so I increase  Deft to 3. 
   
  Next, I decide that my kid will be a 
  Good Kid. With the 8 points, I put one 
  point in each of the things listed, except 
  for Act Innocently. I decide my kid is 
  not going to be good at pretending. I 
  write the selected things down on my 
  character sheet, with a ‘1’ alongside 
  each. This leaves 3 points. I want my 
  kid to be especially good at snooping, 
  so I add a point to Snoop skill, bringing 
  it up to 3. I also want my kid to be good 
  at climbing, so I can assign a level of 1 
  to Climb Trees & Walls (this costs both 
  points that were left over). I add this to 
  my character sheet too. 
   
  Danny is now nearly ready to go and 
  solve a few mysteries. But I still need to 
  know what he is able to do with the 
  things he is good at. There are also a 
  couple more things I need to know 
  about Danny before he is ready for ad-
  venture. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
  7 
  Rolling dice 
   
  In Lashings of Ginger Beer, the dice 
  used are the ordinary six-sided dice that 
  you find in board games like Monopoly. 
  In most cases when you roll dice to de-
  termine whether your kid succeeded 
  when trying to do something he or she 
  is good at, you need at least one ‘6’ to 
  come up. Often you will roll more than 
  one dice. Where these rules are different 
  (for example rolling on the Useful Items 
  Table, the rules will explain how the 
  dice work). 
   
  Sometimes rolling dice can break up the 
  flow of the game. It breaks up the thrill 
  of the chase, or simply gets in the way 
  of good role-playing. So, there is a rule 
  of play for LoGB and that is to roll dice 
  only when there is a real need to do so – 
  i.e. where the game situation means that 
  it would be more exciting to do so. If it 
  would get in the way of a good story, 
  don’t do it. 
   
  Where a kid is trying to do something 
  that he or she has a skill in, the player 
  rolls dice equal to the skill level plus the 
  most appropriate attribute for what he is 
  trying to do. 
    
  For example Tommy, a Truant, is firing 
  his catapult at an open window to try to 
  get a message into the room where his 
  friends are held captive by the villains 
  (he has wrapped a note around the 
  stone). If he has a 2 in catapult and 2 in 
  Deft, then the player gets 4 dice to roll. 
  If a kid has no appropriate skill, the 
  player simply rolls a number of dice 
  equal to his character’s most appropri-
  ate attribute. 
   
  At least one '6' is required in order to 
  succeed. Where more than one ‘6’ is 
  rolled, the more impressive the result of 
  the action. 
   
  Modifiers 
   
  If you want to introduce modifiers, the 
  player can roll one extra dice if the GM 
  reckons what he is trying to do is quite 
  easy or subtract a dice if the GM deter-
  mines the task is difficult. 
   
  Contested rolls 
   
  Sometimes a player will want his kid to 
  do something that is being opposed by 
  another  kid or a grown-up - say a race 
  or a 'scrap' or similar. In these cases, 
  both players or the player and the GM 
  roll the appropriate number of dice. 
   
  The one who gets the most 6's is the 
  'winner'. In a fight, the loser suffers a 
  one-point reduction in their Tough at-
  tribute. This represents tiredness, being 
  'roughed up' and general wear and tear. 
  It does not represent wounding as such - 
  although it could represent a bloody 
  nose or black eye etc. 
   
  When Tough is reduced to 0, the kid is 
  out of the fray - either he is exhausted 
  or demoralised or on his rump crying. 
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  8 
  Either way, he has been beaten. 
   
  Where the result of a contested roll is a 
  ’draw’ - i.e. both ’contestants’ rolled the 
  same number of sixes, this means they 
  were equal for that part of the action. 
   
  If for example, it is a fight, neither side 
  got in a telling blow—it is a kind of 
  stand-off and a chance to reassess the 
  situation. If it is a race then they are 
  running side by side, or in a chase the 
  chaser has gained no ground on the 
  other. 
   
  You will see that there is no strict 
  ‘round-by-round’ combat system in 
  LoGB like there is in other rpg’s. This is 
  because combat is not really a feature of 
  the game. It is really more a case of 
  dealing with the whole ‘scene’ based 
  upon the result of the dice roll. You can 
  break the action up a little if you need to 
  or if you feel it important for a particu-
  lar set piece. 
    
  Something else to bear in mind is that 
  kids do not fight with grown ups. They 
  can use the skill 'wriggle from grasp' to 
  get away, or can fight them, simply to 
  shove them away or something, but can-
  not stay in a prolonged fight with them. 
   
  Narrative play 
   
  In LoGB, you are creating a story in 
  Idyllic England. To help do this, narra-
  tive control is passes to the players 
  when their kid’s succeed at doing 
  things. 
   
  Using Tommy as our example, 
  Tommy’s player rolls 4 dice. One of 
  them comes up a ‘6’, so he say’s “right, 
  I pull back the rubber band, line up the 
  open window and let loose the stone. It 
  flies straight and true through the open-
  ing”. 
   
  The more 6's rolled the more impressive 
  the result and the more narrative control 
  the GM can give to the player, within 
  reason and within keeping with the 
  Idyllic England style. 
   
  Going back to Tommy, if he had rolled 
  two 6’s the player could add, for exam-
  ple, “the stone lands perfectly on the lap 
  of  Sammy, who was tied to the chair 
  against the far wall of the room”. 
   
  Where the players fail their character’s 
  rolls (i.e. they don’t get a 6) the GM can 
  narrate their failure if he wants to. Al-
  ternatively, the GM may want to pass 
  responsibility to the players to narrate 
  both successes and failures. 
   
  The GM can overrule anything that 
  seems ‘out of place’, or if a player tries 
  to narrate a failure into some sort of a  
  success. 
   
   
  
  9 
  The Mystery of the Haunted 
  Castle 
  GM’s information 
   
  Four crooks have robbed the local 
  branch of the Mid Counties Bank and 
  after a car chase have thrown off their 
  police pursuers. They have found their 
  way to the ruins of Barchester Castle (in 
  the dead of night) and have stashed the 
  loot to be picked up in a few days, when 
  the heat is off. 
   
  Involving the kids 
    
  Of course, the kids are camping in the 
  woods at the foot of the hill upon which 
  the castle is situated. At the dead of 
  night, one of the pc’s will awaken to the 
  strange sounds and eerie lights coming 
  from up at the castle. It is very spooky. 
    
  The GM should play this bit up as much 
  as possible. If the kids try to investigate 
  at night, have owls hoot in the woods, 
  have the kids getting scratched on 
  thorns and thistles, have branches of 
  trees snag in their hair like bony fingers 
  grasping at them.  
   
  It would be best if the crooks have al-
  ready gone by the time the kids get 
  there and there will not be much to see 
  until daylight in any event. 
   
  However, when the kids start to search 
  the castle, they will find tyre marks 
  from the crooks’ vehicle and one of the 
  more Clever kids may also find a piece 
  of herringbone cloth torn from the 
  jacket of one of the crooks. 
    
  In the morning, or when the kids are 
  next in town, they will see the report of 
  the bank robbery in the local newspaper 
  (the Barchester Chronicle). They will 
  also learn that there is a £100 reward for 
  information leading to the recovery of 
  the money. 
   
  Later on in the day one of the kids could 
  spot a ‘nasty person’ town with a torn 
  herringbone jacket... 
    
  The kids should not attempt to tackle 
  these dangerous criminals themselves 
  but should carry out sufficient investi-
  gations and obtain enough clues and 
  evidence to be able to convince the po-
  lice of what they are saying. 
    
  Maybe the kids could even find the loot 
  at the same time that the crooks return 
  to pick it up, possibly resulting in foot 
  and bicycle/car chases down the hill 
  into town. There are many other ways 
  this basic plotline can be developed.  
   
  Go for it! Have fun!    
  
  10 
  Credits 
   
   
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  ������������������������was created by Simon Washbourne. 
   
  Layout & Design: Simon Washbourne 
   
  Artwork: Allan Dotson, Burgess Sharrocks, Jay Forster 
   
  Play testers: Annette Flower, Robert Irwin, Nigel Uzzell, Janine Uzzell, Mark 
  George, Alyson George, Robert Watkins, Gary Collett, Leigh Wakefield, Phil Chiv-
  ers, Phil Ratcliffe, IWARPUK and many others. 
   
  Inspirations for the game: All the Famous Five books and Secret Seven books by 
  Enid Blyton, Swallows & Amazons by Arthur Ransome and many other similar chil-
  dren’s books. Even The Weirdstone of Brisingammen by Alan Garner and the Narnia 
  Books by C S Lewis are full of ideas, especially if you want your adventures to go 
  beyond Idyllic England. I may write a sourcebook for this type of play at some future 
  date. 
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  ������������������������is  Simon Washbourne 1995 & 2003.  
   
  Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
   
   
  If you liked this game, why not check out the other role-playing games at the Beyond 
  Belief Games website here: 
   
  beyondbeliefgames.co.uk 
   
  Coming soon: Tales from The Wood role playing creatures of the British countryside 
  in their fight against the evil creatures of ‘The Bane’ and The Barbarians of Lemuria, 
  sword & sorcery role playing in the prehistoric world of Lin Carter’s Thongor of Le-
  muria (licence pending). 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Lashings of Ginger Beer/Lashings of Ginger Beer Corebook Lite.pdf