Review of Tea & Crumpets by C.A. McKinney

I’ve wanted to write something regarding some of the indie RPG offerings that I’ve found on Itch.

I grew up a child of the 90s and Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura were some of the first anime I saw. I was also a huge Power Rangers fan as a young kid. So normal people transforming into their super persona to save the day has been a longtime favorite story trope of mine.

Where this leads me is to Tea & Crumpets: A Game of Magical Girls and Tea, a game by C.A. McKinney. This is a game wherein the player characters are magical girls in a place called Central City locked in a war with Earl Grey, a charming villain known as the Thief of Hearts who possesses mind control powers that let him recruit others to do his bidding. Sort of like how Jadeite corrupted regular businesses for the furtherance of evil in Sailor Moon.

In what is either great timing or the worst for my desire to discuss this game, the author spoke recently on her Mastodon Page about how she is working on an update to Tea & Crumpets.

The Package

Currently, Tea & Crumpets is only available in a PDF form. The entire game is 8 pages long, including the character sheet included at the end. The current version has no art beyond a small vignette used to embellish the title on the first page. The layout is well done and leads from section to section in an easy to follow way.

Mechanics

Tea & Crumpets uses a roll of 2d6 rolled against a specific stat based on the action the Magical Girl is trying to take. The result of this roll must be less than or equal to the stat. If the player rolls under the stat, that is a success. If they match the stat, that is a critical success. If they roll above the stat, that is a failure, and if they roll a 12, they incur a setback.

Neither setbacks nor criticals are explicitly defined in this version of Tea & Crumpets.

Each character has a pool called Heart which doubles as hit points and a depletable resource with which to fuel a character’s powers. They also serve as a form of Experience Point, where players can permanently trade from their Maximum Heart value in order to raise the value of a trait or to imbue a weapon with additional magical power. A character’s Heart is restored to its maximum value during a beginning of session “Previously On…” recap. Which is a trope from the shows the game is based on that I love the inclusion of.

Character Creation

As I get into the weeds of mechanics of the game, I suppose I should back up and describe the process of creating a character.

The first step of character creation is to assign a value to each of four traits: Strength, Speed, Spirit, and Smarts. Strength being a combination of the Strength and Constitution scores of other games, Speed standing in for Dexterity, Spirit being Wisdom and determination, and Smarts representing a character’s intellect. Players are alloted 20 points, and each trait may be no lower than 3 nor higher than 11.

The second step is to choose which batch of trope-tastic stereotyped personality traits to assign to your character. These have been Color-Coded for Your Convenience. If this description sounds like a negative, please understand that is not the way I mean it. This color coded batch of personality traits is straight out of the media which inspired this game and I love its inclusion and love that the care was taken to color code the text of this section as well. Helping players to make characters who could be inserted right into a Sailor Moon story was absolutely the right design decision here.

In addition to giving stats for your character as they go about their day, you also get to pick a package of powers for when your character undergoes their Transformation Sequence and turn into their Magical Girl selves. Each package comes with a bit of flavor text describing its purpose, together with stat adjustments to make to your underlying stats while transformed, a weapon that is unique to your character, and a unique power.

Lastly, you have to pick names for both your ordinary character, and their magical selves.

Setting and Themes

So, I have mentioned that this genre was a favorite of mine growing up right?

I really like what is done with the mixing of specific information and other setting details being left intentionally vague. Central City is described as having a central downtown section and surrounding suburbs, allowing tables to set their game in the major city of their choice.

What is described in specifics is Earl Grey, constant foil to your team of magical girls, and his gang of “Terrible Roses” victims corrupted into super-powered minions through the gift of a flower.

Characters transform into their alter egos through narrated tranformation sequences wherein they must drink a cup of magical tea. The Guardian (GM) is encouraged to award extra Heart for well-narrated, or particularly entertaining, transformations.

Sessions begin with a “Previously On…” montage and end with a “Next Time On…” epilogue which sets up new threats for the team. This matches with the source material so well and I got the biggest grin reading it. And then there’s the random cliffhanger table! It’s a list of plot hooks pulled straight from magical girl anime to drop on your team at the end of a session to get them excited for Next Time On…

Overall

I’ve actually been looking for a Magical Girl-themed game for a bit. And this one scratches exactly that itch. It’s mechanics are well tied to its theme and its sources. I absolutely want to run a season of this game with my friends. I’m also really looking forward to what gets added with the planned updates. If you’re a fan of stuff like Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura and want to play through that sort of story with your friends, this game is definitely worth a look. It knows its theme and executes it well.

Where to Find

Tea & Crumpets: A Game of Magical Girls and Tea is available on itch.io for $4.00.

You can follow the designer, C.A. McKinney on Mastodon or Twitter for information on updates and additional games.