Review of Sugar & Spice, a magical girl TTRPG for first time players
Sugar & Spice is a TTRPG system designed for epic powers and teamwork as you face the powers of corruption… and try to avoid the corruption yourself. Designed to be a first-time TTRPG, it’s mechanics are easy to learn and can be a great game for new and young players.
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Audience for Sugar & Spice
Sugar & Spice is specifically made to be a TTRPG for first time players (it directly states this in the book), and I would say this fits the bill. It’s a system, so content if flexible to the story you want to tell and what’s appropriate for your particular gaming table. The mechanics primarily use a combination of d6 dicepools and tracking clocks on a weld laid-out character sheet, so there’s minimal barrier to the mechanics as well.
Setting for Sugar & Spice
Sugar & Spice is set in the world of magical girl story tropes (in a good way). There’s transformation sequences, an alien companion dangling the promise of a wish in front of the players, secret identities, and epic magic all built into both the mechanics and story (so it is a SOLID connection).
From here, it suggests using a modern world setting, but you can also drop your characters into pretty much any time and place and see where the story leads. There is an example adventure at the end of the game that’s set in a present day city where mischief is afoot thanks to a corrupted witch lurking behind the scenes, and is is a great showcase for how to set up and run an adventure.
Characters in Sugar & Spice
You characters in Sugar & Spice are all magical girls who have been chosen by Cupo-Cupo, a wish granting alien, to be granted special powers for fighting corrupted witches.
Your characters are defined by their traits (statements about themselves), stats (brain, brawn, heart, and speed), their ultimate wish, and how spicy or sweet they are (different flavors of magic).
These are all tracked on a clear character sheet that takes maybe 5 minutes to fill out, and, thanks to its layout, is very easy to follow throughout the game.
As you play, your character can take damage, incur corruption, or loose their secret identity, adding drama and pushing you to character development points that can change some of your stats. So, your character is going to be dynamic and constantly pushed to face challenges from outside and within as part of their mechanical play.
Mechanics for Sugar & Spice
And that’s a nice segway into the mechanics discussion!
In Sugar & Spice, you’ll be using a d6 dicepool for your randomization, and you’ll be using various tracker pies to power up your moves, record any corruption recieved, and keep an eye on any drama.
The d6 dicepool is built from using the values assigned to your character’s stats combined with however much extra magic you pour into your move using wedges from your Spicy or Sweet pies. You’ll roll all the dice in your dicepool and then use the highest one(s) to see if you fail, succeed, or super succeed AND if you recieve any additional consequences.
For the trackers, they provide a GREAT visual for watching your character slow grow and slip over time. Your Spicy and Sweet pies represent your magic building as you stay true to your statements and help others with your powers; these slices can be traded for extra dice.
Then, your Souring pie keeps track of your corruption. If it fills up, your character turns into witch that is now on the other side.
And I really like one of the methods that the Souring pie gets filled.
When you deliver a potent blast of magic, you take physical damage proportional to the number of dice you rolled. If you take too much physical damage, you gain a Souring slice. So, it is very possible to push yourself to the point of corruption in an effort to save others and has a bit of a consequence to using magic in general, so it shouldn’t be used for mundane things. It creates this trade off and balance without really adding much complication, but, by doing this, it builds in opportunities for story and strategy.
Overall thoughts on Sugar & Spice
Sugar & Spice is easy to learn and follow, strongly connects the story and mechanics with it’s core themes, and just looks fun. The art throughout the game (by the talented artist, Soren) is colorful and fun, adding to the vibe of the magical girl genre. Character building and the character sheet were easy to set up and smoothly facilitated play. And… just the theme in general was well integrated.
I really enjoyed getting to check this game out, and I think it would be a great TTRPG to try for folks who love epic battles full of heart, whether they’re new to TTRPGs or not.
Find a copy of Sugar & Spice
You can find a copy of Sugar & Spice on itchio!
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