Spells, Starbucks & Candles

In Spells, Starbucks & Candles, you play the role of teenage Witches and Regular Kids in a small town in the middle of nowhere. A Witch’s craft allows them to Know and Change things. Regular Kids think the Witches are weird but are busy using their Knacks and Gadgets to deal with the unexpected Troubles plaguing the town.

Every Friday night, the Witches get together for a sleepover - they’re playing music, doing homework, laughing about things at school, and then someone decides, “Hey, let’s summon a demon!” Chaos and terror ensue. Only the Witches know what they've done. To the Regular Kids, it's the same thing every weekend - find and get rid of whatever weirdness is plaguing the town. Where the heck do all these damned demons keep coming from, anyway?

Spells, Starbucks & Candles is a casual, collaborative, narrative micro-RPG in the vein of movies and TV like Buffy, Stranger Things, The Goonies. The Craft and The Lost Boys. You can play it solo (with two characters) or as a group, as long as you have at least one Witch and one Regular Kid in the party.

I wrote SS&C as a challenge to myself after being inspired by a silly post on Reddit’s r/WitchesVsPatriarchy. It's a 4-page PDF, it's not tested and it'll probably need tweaking, but I had a lot of fun writing it, especially as it's a little out of my comfort zone. If you have any feedback, please let me know below!

CHANGE LOG

2024-10-39 (version 1.2)

• Clarified some of the language in the document.
• Removed AI art and replaced it with CC art.

2022-08-23 (version 1.1)

• Clarified and cleaned up the rules text. Added an explanation of Scenes and cleared up what happens on a player's turn.
• Clarified that Familiars have at most 1 point of Stress and it clears at the end of each Scene.
• Changed how the Trouble's Power is calculated.
• Removed "Refresh" section and added a new action "Recover Power".

 2022-08-22 (initial fixes after publishing)

• Added a reason for Witches to use Clumsy magic (one automatic success) to offset the risk of building Consequences when they do so. Lightning bolts are fun, kids!
• Limited Knacks and Gadgets to a maximum of 2 levels.