The End of Innocence

Description

The Setting

The game offers two distinct settings that personify different aspects of childhood adventure:

San Cristobal Bay, a Gulf Coast town where summer seems eternal, provides a backdrop for lighter mysteries and sun-soaked adventures. Here, kids can investigate haunted lighthouses, uncover smugglers’ secrets, or befriend mysterious summer visitors. The town’s mixture of fishing community and tourist destination creates natural tensions and opportunities for storytelling, while its Spanish colonial history adds a layer of historical mystery.

Oakbrook, inspired by Bradbury’s fictional Green Town, represents autumn’s approach, seasonally and metaphorically. This Midwest railroad town holds deeper mysteries and more melancholic adventures. In Oakbrook, the Fall carnival brings much more than rides and games, the ravine contains paths to other times, and the town library has books that choose their readers. The supernatural weaves through daily life, mostly visible only to those who know where to look.

Both settings are intentionally placed in a somewhat undefined recent past, roughly spanning the 1970s through early 1990s. It was the world GenXers and early Millennials grew up in, before cellphones and the internet, when kids navigated by landmarks rather than GPS, and where adventures can’t be interrupted by text messages. While video games and computers might already exist, especially in later periods, they remain fixed objects rather than portable distractions.

The Characters

Players take the roles of children, typically between ages 10 and 13, though younger or slightly older characters are possible. Character creation emphasizes both ordinary abilities and extraordinary possibilities.

The game uses a straightforward attribute and skill system, but adds unique elements like the Weird Meter (tracking a character’s exposure to supernatural elements) and Childhood Dream Abilities (representing those inexplicable talents that seem to work only when no adults are watching).

Characters also have Best Friend Bonds, mechanical representations of the special connections between childhood friends.

The Rules

The End of Innocence uses a d20-based system for most actions, modified by relevant skills and attributes. However, the game emphasizes storytelling and exploration over combat. While characters can get into dangerous situations, violent confrontation is rarely the best solution. Instead, the rules focus on investigation, problem-solving, and the creative use of childhood resources.

The Stories

Adventures in The End of Innocence can range from solving neighbourhood mysteries to confronting genuine supernatural threats. A typical scenario would begin with something seemingly mundane, like a new family moving into their new home, a renovated Victorian house, or strange lights in the lighthouse after hours, and gradually reveal deeper mysteries.

The game encourages Gamemasters to mix ordinary childhood experiences with extraordinary elements. A baseball game can lead to discovering a ghost in the dugout, building a tree house may reveal a gateway to another plane of existence and summer camp adventures include both typical activities and encounters with mysterious creatures in the woods.

Playing the Game

While The End of Innocence can be played by younger players, it’s primarily designed for adults who want to revisit and explore the feeling of childhood adventure. The game’s mechanics and themes support stories that work on multiple levels, simple enough for straightforward adventure but with depth for those who want to explore more complex themes.

The End

Every game of The End of Innocence should eventually face its titular moment, that point where childhood’s magic begins to fade and the world becomes more ordinary. This isn’t necessarily a sad ending; it’s part of growing up. But the game suggests that even as characters move beyond childhood, they might retain some of the magic they’ve discovered, carrying it forward into their next adventures. This is a game about childhood’s last great summer, or its final autumn. About racing bikes down hills so steep it feels like they are flying. About secrets shared in tree houses and mysteries solved by flashlight. About understanding that growing up doesn’t have to mean leaving all the magic behind.