The Wretched (21-03-21)

 

Another solo journaling game, this one was recommended to me by an old work colleague when i told him during a twitter convo that I had bought (but at that time not yet played) English Eerie. It is by Chris Bisette who’s blog I’ve enjoyed since I discovered it (Loot the Room - he was doing a weekly post where he rolled up a character in a system he hadn’t played).
 

The Wretched is the name of a spaceship you are stranded on, this is basically Alien and its really good. You are advised to do the journaling as audio logs using a microphone. I did and actually decided to save after playing as they sounded pretty cool, but only really because I was playing the soundtrack that comes with the game and the jump cuts between each log create sudden mood changes and give the whole thing a great atmosphere.

I have to say I did not enjoy the actual journaling process as much as I did with English Eerie due to the performative nature of it - the fear of getting something wrong while recording and trying to make up details on the fly ‘in the sub station below engineering’ etc. I found that a bit stressful and not in a way that was germane to the game.

The game system however worked really well. It’s played with a Jenga set, a deck of cards, a d6, and 10 tokens. You roll a d6 at the start and remove that many blocks from Jenga tower - this is a representation of the damage to the ship (you were both hit by an asteroid and have a deadly xenomorph on board). 

Each day you roll a d6 and draw that many cards. There is a look up table for each card, broadly Hearts concerns the ship systems, Diamonds its structures, Clubs the crew and Spades the alien. Each card presents the outline of a task or experience you have that day. Many stipulate removing a block from the Jenga tower, should the tower fall it's game over man!

The most exciting card result was one which told me I had got the distress beacon working; now I should place 10 tokens on the card. Each day roll a d6 and on a 6 remove one token. When there are no tokens remaining a rescue ship shows up, remove one final block from the tower and if you manage that, happy ending, hurrah!

On day 14 some other event demanded I remove a block and my tower came tumbling down. At that point I had not managed to remove a single token...

Yeah I really enjoyed it. It only took about an hour to play. I think next time I’d make more of an effort to set up the right atmosphere like i did with English Eerie. I think a map of the ship may have improved the experience for me, maybe given me a more concrete way to imagine it all and more confidence in making up details on the fly.

You can order a print + pdf copy from his website here.

The Magus (14-03-21)

 This is another solo journaling game, a very recent one which i got because some ttrpg person i follow tweeted about it, not so much because they were super impressed by it (which they were) as the fact that it sounded relevant to my videogame side-project 'Seasons of the Tower'. It is beautifully presented - a pdf made of powerpoint slides with Mork Borg like handling of font and brilliant use of AI generated images and public domain paintings as backgrounds. It took me about 3 hours to play.

The game reminded a bit of My Life with Master, only here you play Master. After playing  English Eerie I had actually been thinking that MLWM might make a fine solo game as the system is there to shape a story. 

You start by deciding some background details about the world and who you are, then the game progresses by way of Events, of which 17 are provided in sequence. Each event involves either learning a new Spell or gaining a new Bond (relationship with another person). After resolving the event you roll 1d4 and 1d6, subtract the lowest from the highest and jump that many events ahead. The game ends after 7 events, or when a Calamity occurs, whichever comes first.
 

In terms of character stats there is Focus, Power, Control and you can accumulate ‘Scars’, evocative tags relating to event outcomes.

Focus is gained from positive event outcomes, lost from negative ones, can be spent to re-roll dice, and 3 can be exchanged for a point of Power (I only got one during the whole game and I think I was quite lucky with my rolls).

Power determines what dice you roll when resolving a Spell Event (i.e. a d10, d12 & d20), with each event dictating a Difficulty (they get increasingly higher). Every die roll equal to or greater than the difficulty counts as a success, the more successes the better the outcome, this essentially creates the cost of learning the new spell. 

You can increase your Power by sacrificing a Bond. I did not do this, I only had one bond throughout my entire game and I had to sacrifice that (a frog familiar) to gain a spell. Max Power is 3, at 1 you roll a d8, d10 & d12.   

Control has 3 levels; Perfect, Cracked and Broken. Once you've reached Cracked you have to start rolling a d8 Risk die with every future roll, should it come up 1 a Calamity occurs and the game ends. At Broken the risk die becomes a d4. I went from perfect to broken over the last 2 events of my game (as I had nothing else to spend to stave off the failed spell rolls).

Each Spell Event presents a table of adjectives to roll on, and from this you decide the details of the spell that you are trying to learn. 

I really enjoyed the game, it is very evocative. I would have liked some pointers at the start for creating my character - there are some, but a random table for ‘who you are’ would have got things off to a faster start. I decided my character began as an undertaker which definitely gave the whole game a dark cast from the outset.
 

The only bond I got during the whole thing was the first one, which I feel did likely rob my game of some intensity; I did not get to make the choice of sacrificing Bonds for Power which is kind of what the game is about - like Ron Edwards seminal Sorcerer it asks what are you willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of power? This does make me wonder if playing cards might be better for progressing through events than dice rolls, though the specific dice roll mechanic, subtracting one from the other somehow feels resonant with the theme (and I realize now is inspired by Thousand Year Old Vampire).


I bought The Magus on itch.io 

And my play through (I couldn't really call it a journal) is recorded in a google doc here

Electric Bastionland (06-03-21)

 

This is another game I was led to by Ben Milton of Knave & Questing Beast fame and the last one I read (just for the record, right now I’m almost finished reading Knock a really impressive OSR zine and UVG will be up next). It’s an OSR ruleset but the setting is *much* more like Over The Edge than D&D, in fact it is OTE that it reminds me of the most. It's also a sequel to Chris McDowall's previous game Into the Odd which I have not read.

The system is very stripped down and all the rules are explained in 4 pages - the vast majority of the rest of the book being taken up with Failed Careers (character classes). So the rules - there are only 3 ability scores, Strength, Dexterity & Charisma, all rolled on 3d6. Saves are made on a d20 roll under basis. Combat is fairly radical - there is no roll to hit, you simply roll damage and deduct that from the opponent’s HP - Hit Protection, once you reach 0 HP you are wounded and further damage is removed from your Strength score. Each wound inflicted requires a Critical Damage save (against Strength!), failing this means you are incapacitated and will die within the hour if unattended. There's a Scar Table to roll on if you reach 0 HP, which interestingly is the only opportunity a character gets to improve their stats, there is otherwise no leveling system ("5 Bloody Mess - You need stitches. You are DEPRIVED until its done by a Specialist. Reroll your Maximum HP on 2d6 and keep the result if higher"). Disputed initiative is determined by Dexterity saves. 

The 300+ page book is laid out so that you can start playing immediately and learn what you need as you go. Most of the world flavour comes from the player characters Failed Careers, out of 100 or so: Cryptohistorian; Student of history that never was, or  Inseparable Twins; There are two of you, identical in most ways. Your career is determined from a look up table where you cross reference your lowest and highest ability scores. These give you some random piece of equipment and the answers to two questions specific to your background (“How are you messed up by experimenting with time?”, “What does the elder twin get?”), serving to balance out the roll of the dice with the power of starting equipment/abilities. And to make sure the game has direction from the outset, the failed career of the youngest player determines who the group as a whole owe £10,000 to (The Hot Slab, Morgue and Social Club:Take shared ownership of a case of 12 bottles of Highly Carbonated Formaldehyde. It can be drunk without harm for a mild buzz, but causes foul-smelling trapped wind).

A key difference between this and OTE is that where OTE gives you maybe hundreds of pages about the denizens, gangs and zones of its city, Bastionland just gives you some tables and rules for how to make up what the players will find there. There is something really engaging, vital and incredibly efficient about this. In the words of it's creator Chris McDowall; “This is a game to be played, not a textbook to be studied. It’s designed for the game table, not the library.” That's me told.

Physical and digital copies of Electric Bastionland can be ordered from the creator's website.

Knave (06-03-21)

 

I first heard of Knave when I bought Rakehell (though I have no idea what lead me to that) and did not really know what it was, though I have a feeling I may have looked it up on drivethrurpg at the time. It was after I got Mork Borg that I thought I should read some of the older OSR systems to see how it compared, having seen these references to Knave I assumed it must be old, or at least well established. Then I realized it was created by the Questing Beast guy (Ben Milton) who’s videos I'd been watching. That seems like ages ago now, more from the amount of Questing Beast I’ve watched and the number of games I've bought on his recommendation, than the actual length of time.

Knave is a 7 page, no frills pdf. Like Mork Borg it dispenses with the D&D Ability scores and uses only their bonuses, but is even more efficient - you roll 3d6 for each and keep the lowest die roll as the bonus. Savings throws are made by rolling a d20 and adding the appropriate ability bonus, with a total of 15+ granting success. To this it adds the concept of an ability Defense score - this is your bonus plus 10, the number which has to be beat (d20) in an Opposed Save, i.e. when an opponent is trying to do something to you, or you to an opponent. Hit Points (1d8) and Armour (the opposed save which must be beat to hit you) round out the character stats. Leveling up improves Armour and 3 other ability bonuses by 1, increases HP by 1d8 and happens every time you gain another 1000 xp.

There are no classes and encumbrance is a simple slot based system. Anyone can cast magic, but a spell book is a weighty item which takes up one slot and holds just one spell which can be used once per day, thus carrying a lot of spells comes at the expense of wearing armour etc.

Character Sheet

In addition to these elegant streamlined mechanics there are a number of really good d20 feature and personality tables to roll on, the combinations of which make for distinct, flavourful individuals. Having spent a considerable amount of time working on a complex procgen character system for a videogame I’m surprised by how evocative this small set is. A Background dictates what you did previous to becoming an adventurer (Alchemist, Cook, Outlaw etc) and a Misfortune explains why you've become just such a knave now (Addicted, Exiled, Robbed). Then there's a Virtue and a Vice, and adjectives for Physique, Face, Skin, Hair, Clothing & Speech.

From Random Charater Generator https://perchance.org/knave-lotfp

It also comes with notes on how to convert D&D monster stats (super easy), a list of 100 random spells, oh and like Mork Borg it has Morale and an NPC Reaction Table.

The whole thing is incredibly elegant and I’m using it as the system for this solo game I’m playing, critically my characters were all rolled using an online generator (the excellent one I used is 404 now, but this one here does the trick, albeit without the ability scores).

Knave is on Drivethru.

Mythic - Game Master Emulator (27-02-21)

 

Mythic is an RPG which has within it a system for ‘game master emulation’, i.e. solo play, apparently there was sufficient interest in this that the author (Tom Pigeon) published just the emulator rules as a standalone, which is what I bought.

How I got here - I read the Questing Beast Newsletter for February (2021), it contains many fascinating links some of which i am still investigating now, one of them under a section on solo RPGs is a video by Geek Gamers. This video is an entire metropolis of rabbit holes all by itself, although solo play seems to be the focus of the channel. In this video she uses the Fate chart from Mythic extensively and its basic structure. Having been inspired by English Eerie I had already embarked on my own solo play rpg before I watched the GG video, otherwise I would likely have tried playing a game using the whole Mythic system, as it is I have only borrowed from its tables on the odd occasion.

Mythic is based around asking questions - which arguably regular rpgs are too in that they essentially progress via the players and GM asking questions of each other. So you frame a question about the circumstances - was the village massacred by a new threat? Is the chest trapped? Then decide the likelihood that the answer is yes and roll on the Fate table which modulates the probability by the Chaos Rank to produce an answer from from Exceptional Yes to Exceptional No and includes the possibility that a Random Event occurs.

The Chaos Rank is an indicator of the general state of control the player has over the world, it is modified by the outcome of each Scene. This is the basic structural unit of Mythic, you decide what the setup and purpose of a scene is then use the Fate question format (or whatever additional RPG rule-set you are using) to resolve it. Randomness is interjected by rolling before beginning the scene to determine if it should be altered or interrupted entirely. The details here are generated from 3 tables, one which sets the focus of the random event (a player character, a story thread etc), and 2 others which are d100 lists of Actions and Subjects to be interpreted into some kind of encounter. Lists of NPCs met, NPCs important to the player character and the Story Threads provide further grist for the random event mill.

Thus far I have only used the Action and Subject tables for my own solo RPG, but I may well give the system as a whole a go at some point, though I generally prefer making my own quick tables for possibilities rather than following the twenty question approach.
 

English Eerie (11-02-21)

 

A solo journaling RPG, so unlike everything else here, I write this after having actually played it, which took some time as I followed the advice of the game and played just one day for each real day. The theme is M R James style horror, the game provides 10 Scenarios which you play through using a d10 and a deck of cards, turning one over for each morning and afternoon, resolving whatever they present and writing up your journal entry to reflect this.

Your character has 2 stats, Spirit and Resolve and 10 points to split between them at the start of the game (I think I went for 6 resolve and 4 spirit). About half of the cards present you with some kind of obstacle the severity of which is a expressed by a target number you have to beat on a d10. You can spend Resolve to gain a bonus, +2 if declared before the roll +1 after. Failing loses you a point of Spirit. The specific end of the game, the story outcome, is determined by how much Spirit you have left when all the cards have been played. As its a horror game the ending is likely to be grim, I had 0 so yeah.

The other key mechanic is the Grey Lady card. The deck is structured around these, you organize the cards such that all are random except the 6th, the 12th and the 19th (the final card) all of which are Grey Ladies. When a Grey Lady is drawn you must lose a point of Spirit or Resolve and consult the Tension Table to see what occurs. The target number of all obstacles is increased by 1 for each Grey Lady that has been revealed.

Beyond their name, Spirit and Resolve, your character is defined by 3 Fears and 3 Defining Features, the idea being that these should give you details to play with when writing your journal entries. This is the weakest bit of the game for me, I completely ignored what I wrote down as they were created without knowledge of the Scenario and consequently not relevant.

The 10 Scenarios included provide the story setup, specify the kind of character you should be and provide the details to use with the cards. The cards cover what Secondary Characters exist and their relationships to you (‘Secondary Character Obstacle' being one and 'Secondary Character Harmed' another), what Environmental Obstacles you must deal and what Clues arise. They also provide the Tension Table which outlines the event caused by each Grey Lady and finally the Spirit Table which reveals your fate.

The game comes with a booklet of cards to print, but it can be played with a normal deck of playing cards. I made my own set as I've been getting into lino-cut printing. 

 

I played one day per real day, and followed all the advice - wrote by candle and well, monitor light  and went one step further by using dip pen and ink to record my tale. I really enjoyed it, I’m almost tempted to try make something of my journal, it was actually fairly long in the end. The only real issue was that a detail I invented, which became central to my story, turned out to be a bit discordant with the end. Although I realize writing this that I could probably have adapted it more to fit. Interestingly this tangent, which involved goat people, essentially 18th century depictions of the Devil, was suggested to me by one of the clues (‘The sound of distant piping in the air’) calling to mind a painting inspired by Tam O’Shanter, but yeah satanic goat people seemed a bit at odds with the alien world ending.
 

One final point; I think the game might be improved by having Fears rolled from a table for each Scenario to make sure that they are always relevant, and potentially do the same with Defining Features, although perhaps those could come from a game wide table. As much as anything this would eliminate any choice paralysis at the start of the game and let the player get into it faster, although maybe that's just the influence of Knave & Mork Borg on my thinking, maybe other people like a reflective character creation phase for journaling games.

English Eerie is on DriveThrough.

Universalis (05-02-21)

 

Arguably harder to write about than My Life With Master, I came across a reference to it while reading around MLWM before writing it up. In some ways more like a board game, Universalis is essentially a structured way to create and tell a story in a group.

There is no GM, at the start of the game each player gets a number of coins which each spends in turn to establish facts about the story. Once play begins coins are spent to introduce or take charge of components (characters, locations, props) and assign them traits. Players can spend coins to challenge each other and dice are used to resolve complications, i.e. when there is a contested outcome. Coins are won from the resolution of complications or minimally refreshed at the start of each new scene. In this way a story unfolds.

It looks like a really carefully considered system, the rules come in at just over 100 pages.
I’d really like to try it and I’m surprised I’ve only come across it now. It looks like a potentially useful creative tool when working in groups, and there are many lovely aspects to it, the advice on adding traits and setting up scenes for propelling a story towards where you want it to go look like good advice for writing generally. The pdf I downloaded is from 2002 and there was an updated edition in 2006, but the publisher website is sadly defunct. Indeed I could not actually purchase it anywhere, which is a real shame as they really deserve the cash.