High Trust in Blossom Grove

Published adventures very rarely stand out as both entertaining fare to bring to the game table and paragons demonstrating design philosophy. One might argue the dungeon-delving paradigm embodied in B2 The Keep on the Borderlands accomplishes this. Certainly most of the adventures in Michael Prescott’s Trilemma Adventures (which I featured earlier) vividly present settings and situations characters can explore and with which they can freely interact. S. John Ross demonstrates his high-trust ideals in his latest adventure, Slimes in Blossom Grove. Intended for his Risus: The Anything RPG and his Uresia: Grave of Heaven world, it’s easily ported to any fantasy roleplaying game and setting. It demonstrates in written form elements to encourage high-trust gaming at the table regardless of system or setting and serves as an example of imbuing high-trust ideas into published adventures.

Artifacts from the Vault of Schweig

I’m culling some of my roleplaying game library and reorganizing the shelves to put more relevant material in more central areas. In doing so I uncovered a few intriguing artifacts I often forget about yet keep for various reasons. Some come from an appreciation of the designers, others for the significance of the games in the overall context of adventure gaming’s history. They offer an interesting window into what engaged me as a gamer over more than 35 year in the hobby and the diversity of publishing efforts from a variety of sources.

Cthulhu for President Pack: I ordered this by mail way back in 1992, possibly the first year Chaosium offered it. Despite leaning in one particular political direction thanks to my wife’s enlightening influence, I still staunchly believe in the Elder Party ticket. This packet came with a button, posters, leaflets, Elder Party membership card, and other goodies. I’m resisting the temptation to print a slew of flyers to leave around town, but I’m afraid they’d figure the guy with several Cthulhu-themed t-shirts and the Cthulhu “fish” on the back of his car was stirring up trouble....

The Obsolete Skill List

At bedtime recently the Little Guy requested I read him a rulebook for a roleplaying game based on one of the media properties he’s quickly come to adore. I’ll omit names to protect the identity of the game and its designers. It was published in 1991, around the time several roleplaying games in a similar style reached prominence, including Vampire: The Masquerade, Shadowrun, 2nd edition Dungeons & Dragons, and my beloved Star Wars Roleplaying Game from West End Games (to name only a few). Reading the game book aloud proved how tedious the language was; but the real test was reading the comprehensive skill section aloud. Although it eventually put the Little Guy asleep, it ran the risk of actually putting the reader to sleep.

Nearly every skill followed the same initial formula: “[Skill name] is the ability to [insert skill description].” The text ranged from a simple definition one could easily glean from the skill name itself to a comprehensive discussion of just what one could do with the skill through specific game mechanics. The game – like many of its time – relied on a core mechanic for most skill resolutions and combat, yet various factors complicated this in the manner of modifications; hence some skill definitions with tedious rules discussions buried within.

Comprehensive skill listings seemed standard practice for roleplaying games of that time; even today many games still rely on exhaustive and sometimes dry descriptions of skills perhaps more succinctly defined by their names. Sure, some skills require a little more elaboration than simply a name depending on both the game mechanics and the setting; but this could fit better into other rules-heavy procedural sections on resolving movement, combat, and other game issues.

Curling Up with Solitaire Gamebooks

I recently ordered a copy of S John Ross’ Ring of Thieves solitaire gamebook adventure thanks to a 35%-off Lulu holiday sale (alas, ordered before they announced the 50%-off hardcovers sale...). When combined with memories of immersing myself in game books – solitaire or otherwise – over the holidays during my misspent youth, I can’t help having solo gamebooks on my mind.

Frequent readers know how much I love solitaire game adventures, especially those included in roleplaying game rulebooks to help teach both the system and setting. Solo gamebooks offer a complete, self-sufficient play experience without reliance on or eventual transition to a full set of game rules in a vast, tome-like rulebook. They can scratch some of the itch for traditional roleplaying activities – a lone hero trying to overcome numerous obstacles in an adventure – but might seem limited by their streamlined game mechanics and programmed format (though that still provides a good degree of replay value as players explore different choices and meet various ends...). I realize the programmed game experience isn’t as freeform or unexpected as some other solo roleplaying game options available today, particularly those pioneered by a small but dedicated core of solo gamers exploring new tools and techniques. Like roleplaying games, solo gamebooks balance rules and story, though they employ printed text to describe situations and streamlined game mechanics to resolve conflicts. I’m not saying one kind is bad and the other good – people (even designers) have their own tastes, projects have their own parameters – but the product and the experience it delivers (intentionally or otherwise) can vary between storytelling and game.

Celebrating Solitaire Play

While discussing James F. Dunnigan’s The Complete Wargames Handbook: How to Play, Design & Find Them recently I called out an interesting quote regarding solitaire play:

“Playing wargames solitaire is by far the favorite mode for most wargamers. The most common reasons for playing solitaire are lack of an opponent or preference to play without an opponent, so that the player may exercise his own ideas about how either side in the game should be played without interference from another player.... For those players who do like to play with opponents, solitaire play is valued as a means of perfecting tactics and techniques in a particular game that will enhance the chances of success.”

Granted, this was published in 1992, hardly the earliest days of wargaming, roleplaying, or the adventure gaming hobby; nonetheless, more than 20 years ago. It’s remarkable that it embraces solo play not only an acceptable means of playing a game meant for more than a solitary player, but in fact the preferred method for an entire sector of the adventure gaming hobby.

Many feel solitaire gaming comes with a stigma, one perpetuated by a culture that often values social activities above solitaire ones, a society that often looks askance at anyone going off to do their own thing by themselves. Some folks feel ashamed engaging in an activity that by its very nature seems like it should occur among several people and not a lone player. Solitaire play sometimes becomes a guilty pleasure, something to enjoy now and then, but not the primary means by which gamers pursue their hobby.

Yet the adventure gaming hobby has a long and rich history of encouraging solitaire play. Certainly many preparatory activities occur with individual players working on their own – gamemasters creating settings and preparing scenarios, player rolling up and developing characters, miniature gamers painting armies or crafting terrain, board gamers reviewing rules and punching out pieces – but as the quotation above indicates, there’s no shame in playing a game, even one intended for a group, all by oneself.

Aside from the more immediate gratification of trying out the game without waiting to assemble a disparate crowd of friends, solitaire play allows one to explore the rules, strategies, and possibilities a game offers. Some solo activities aim to teach the rules (what I call the “solitaire tutorial” adventures that introduce some roleplaying games), while others exist simply to gratify the urge to explore the game alone.

Solo Standouts

Some game materials intentionally designed for solitaire play stand out. They range across the history and varieties of the adventure gaming hobby and demonstrate that solitaire game design has been and continues to serve as a valid gaming option. As usual, this by no means constitutes a comprehensive review of all such materials, merely an evocative sampling of games I own, have played, or heard about and admire from afar:

Tunnels & Trolls: One of the earliest fantasy roleplaying games that made its mark on the industry primarily through programmed solitaire adventures, T&T, as it’s known, published a host of solo scenarios and served as one of the earliest models for solitaire gaming materials. I acquired my copy while still in high school and enjoyed many an adventure among my growing library of solo scenarios. My characters didn’t always survive, but they fought their way through quite unpredictable twists and turns of fate.

Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! and the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks: Another high school-era gaming vice, the Sorcery! books and the Fighting Fantasy series advanced the familiar Choose Your Own Adventure concept into the realm of engaging gamebook. I still have rough-drawn maps of the Shamutanti Hills and Khare tucked away in a notebook somewhere, though they did little to help me survive the numerous deadly endings within those books. The rules engine remained simple enough to introduce newcomers to the concept of fighting, casting spells, and taking damage and the content – text as well as artwork – helped readers become immersed in deadly fantasy worlds.

Windhammer Contest: For seven years now the folks at Chronicles of Arborell have hosted a contest for short gamebook fiction similar to that in the Sorcery! and Fighting Fantasy series. I’ll admit I’ve often thought of developing an entry but never had the inspiration or time. One entry receives first prize while notable ones receive merit and commendation awards; all entries find a home in PDF format at the contest website. The 2014 contest is in full swing, with entries due by Sept. 7, 2014; the site lists the comprehensive contest requirements and guidelines as well as prizes and past entries.

B-17 Queen of the Skies: This was the first solitaire wargame I tried based on my early interests in World War II. Although many chit-and-board wargames offered solitaire options (and the alternative to play solo regardless), B-17 was one of the more notable games designed solely for solitaire play. The mission log aspect offered some record of each play session and encouraged campaign play through the historic 20 missions I sat for many hours hunched over the central B-17 diagram, placing enemy fighters along its perimeter and rolling various results on a host of tables. The game and experience inspired my own humble contribution to the solo wargame genre, Operation Drumbeat, which used a similar mission log format and a series of tables for generating patrol encounters and outcomes.

Donald Featherstone’s Solo Wargaming: Among his many books on wargaming the late Donald Featherstone authored one specifically addressing solitaire issues in this hobby, Solo Wargaming (1972, reprinted in 2009). I’ve not yet acquired a copy but consider it an essential volume based on his reputation and prolific contribution to the historical miniature wargaming hobby. The fact that another one of the pillars of the miniature wargaming hobby endorsed and embraced solo play offers great encouragement for others.

BoardGameGeek Solo Contest: For the past four years BoardGameGeek.com has hosted a solitaire print-and-play game design contest. I’ve occasionally tried to look in on entries, development, and final games, but since each year’s contest, entries, work-in-progress reports, and discussion occupies a different, hard-to-find forum topic keeps, it strays off my radar and remains somewhat hidden from the public eye. Certainly a solitaire board game design contest of this magnitude deserves greater visibility.

Ring of Thieves: One of the best and longest stand-alone solitaire adventures, Ring of Thieves incorporates rules for the amazingly intuitive yet versatile Risus: The Anything RPG by S. John Ross. He keeps it available in several format on his Cumberland Games & Diversions free downloads page, though one can also order a bound-and-printed copy from Lulu. This adventure inspired my own humble efforts at a solitaire scenario, Trapped in the Museum, employing, with his kind permission, the Risus rules.

Numerous Solitaire Tutorial Adventures: Frequent readers know I’m an advocate of using the solitaire programmed adventure format to teach mechanics and introduce setting concepts in gaming rulebooks. Some more notable uses of the concept appear in the second edition of Paranoia, the West End Games Star Wars Roleplaying Game, TORG, the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game, the James Bond 007 Roleplaying Game, and Adventures in Tekumel. I’ve written such scenarios for West End Games’ Star Wars Roleplaying Game and Introductory Adventure Game, the Raiders of the Lost Ark Sourcebook, and the Men in Black Roleplaying Game. (I’ve discussed both solitaire tutorial adventures and stand-alone solo scenarios before.)

Standalone Solo Scenarios: Several roleplaying games released notable scenarios designed for solo play beyond tutorial adventures covering rules and setting issues in core books. Ghost of Lion Castle and Lathan’s Gold for Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons come to mind as well as On Her Majesty’s Secret Service for the James Bond 007 Roleplaying Game. Almost everything published for Tunnels & Trolls falls into this category, though that game line’s prolific contribution to and reliance on solo adventures remains remarkable. (I’m sure I’m missing a slew of classic and well-designed solo roleplaying adventures, but these are the ones I own or have played.)

Overcoming Solo Challenges

Making a commitment to engage in solitaire gaming often means more than simply overcoming the stigma that some attach to solo play. Some games by their very nature of pitting one side against another – primarily board and wargames – easily enable a single player to engage in the game while running all the opponents (though some devise elaborate, programmed responses for an opposing player). Solitaire play for roleplaying games remains a challenge beyond using existing programmed adventures. Nothing can really replace a living, breathing, creative gamemaster when interacting with a roleplaying game rules system and setting. Some online groups and bold bloggers have explored various issues in solitaire roleplaying: creating an experience that’s original and satisfying without another person serving as gamemaster; recording game session details in meaningful ways; organizing one’s play space and saving it between sessions.

I’ll admit don’t do as much gaming as I’d like these days due to my busy full-time parenting schedule and household duties. Occasionally I get out to the Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS) for a round of X-wing miniatures or head to a convention with a roster of interesting games to play. Sometimes we invite friends over for some board games (generally a step or two above the dreaded “party” game level), but rarely anything too complex, and certainly not roleplaying games. Solitaire gaming – when I manage to fit it into my schedule – usually consists of trying out recent game purchases or self playtesting materials I’m developing for publication. My brief solo gaming experience with random dungeon generators and subsequent development of my own inspired me in creating Schweig’s Themed Dungeon Generator as a means to provide some programmed yet original roleplaying game scenario material...and I even managed to test it with a game engine in development, with far more satisfying results than other methods. We’ll see where other solitaire gaming efforts lead in the future.

Comments....

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Balancing Rules & Setting

A previous Game Design Journal subject -- the feasibility of creating a “core” D6 System rulebook -- sparked some insightful discussion on Google+. The examination of the issue focused exclusively on a core book of setting-neutral D6 rules, though with the possibility (if not necessity) of offering some brief setting samples to demonstrate rules elements and their adaptability to different genres (much like AntiPaladin Games’ Mini Six version of the D6 System).

Gamers and game designers have long debated which is more important, rules or setting. In many cases designers specifically craft rules to suit a particular genre. In others they adapt a core game engine (with or without a publicly available core rulebook) to original settings. Can a rules set successfully exist without a compelling setting?

Part of the challenge in creating a core, system-neutral rulebook like one for the D6 System remains finding an audience for a rules-only book without an exciting setting associated with the mechanics. Many gamers are fans of systems already attached to existing settings and seek to port it to other genres (much like West End Games’ Star Wars Roleplaying Game, the parent of D6). Others look for core rules sets compatible with their play styles to adapt to their favorite genres. Both highlight a key point -- the preferred setting -- the absence of which makes genre-neutral core rulebooks rather flat; a setting not only inspires interest but demonstrates how the rules operate within the context of a specific genre. The larger the core rulebook and more complex the system, the more work gamemasters face to adapt setting-neutral mechanics to a particular genre.

The list of popular roleplaying games with innovative, popular settings is far longer than the list of successful, generic rulebooks derived even from those exciting games. R. Talsorian’s Cyberpunk (both the 2013 and 2020 versions) emerged at a time when that literary science fiction genre remained popular in the public’s eye; but the associated Interlock system and its iterations saw only limited popularity as a stand-alone, setting-neutral game engine, despite its use in some the company’s other games. Guardians of Order’s TriStat system served it well for its Big Eyes, Small Mouth series of games but didn’t find much popularity as a separate entity. Fudge, a rules-light game engine from Grey Ghost Press, Inc., found its way into a handful of specific settings over the years, morphed into the more currently popular FATE system, and still remains available for free at the publisher’s web site. West End Game’s first attempt at a generic system, MasterBook, premiered with a setting-neutral core rulebook and two “World of” genre sourcebooks (The World of Bloodshadows-- an original property -- and The World of Indiana Jones); despite numerous licensed settings, the game failed to take off thanks in part to a game engine overly complex for its presumed media fan audience. Apart from the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, West End Games’ D6 System found brief resurgence at least twice: first in the mid 1990s when associated with the Indiana Jones and Hercules & Xena licenses (though the latter used a success-based derivative called D6 Prime) along with the D6 System: The Customizable Roleplaying Game setting-neutral framework; then in the mid 2000s as long-format D6 Systemcore rulebooks, what I call the D6 Trilogy (D6 Fantasy, D6 Adventure, and D6 Space) under the auspices of Purgatory Publishing (as West End Games). Arguably the system has seen recent resurgence with Wicked North Games’ stewardship of d6 Magazine and its incorporation of an iteration of the D6 System in its Cinema6 Framework, Azamar, and Westwardgames, and to a lesser-known extent as AntiPaladin Games’ system-neutral Mini Six rulebook (a personal favorite of mine).

Most of these systems have fallen by the wayside in the wake of more popular games firmly based in compelling settings or brands. Few can survive successfully for long in the face of the hobby’s juggernaut brand, Dungeons & Dragons (in whatever edition/flavor you choose, including the powerful Pathfinder Roleplaying Game brand). Some, like the D6 System, have enjoyed some degree of resurgence thanks to an active fan base and publisher advocates, much more feasible in an Internet Age of Facebook, Google+, and web site forum communities.

Exceptions: GURPS & Risus

Two exceptions come to mind demonstrating how a core rulebook can find success separately (for the most part) from a compelling setting: S. John Ross’ Risus: The Anything RPG and Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS.

The free Risus rules provide an “RPG lite” based on character clichés instead of skills, with a built-in depletion mechanic for dealing with hit points, power loss, and similar ability drains. The brief rules offer several optional systems to vary gameplay across genres and play styles. Its ease of adaptability -- based on character clichés covering broad skill sets -- enables gamemasters to quickly customize Risus to any genre, even those beyond the humorous ones for which the game suggests it’s best. Much of the game’s success comes not in a financially profitable sense compared to other game releases in the roleplaying game “industry,” but from a broad fan base, online community, and generous creators sharing new material. The Risusverse online community serves as a nexus for the game’s fans and a resource for numerous settings, scenarios, and even cliché lists. Other authors, like the prolific Brent Wolke, have crafted slick-looking supplements to mold their original settings to the Risus rules available on their blogs (in this case, Wolke’s engine of thwaak).

Thanks to its immense popularity, long provenance, and strong product support, Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS remains perhaps the only successful, system-neutral rules set. Unlike Risus, the game indulges in the comprehensive rules “crunch” many hard-core roleplaying gamers enjoy (I’ve not played it, but I own and have perused the “lite” version, a past edition, and a German edition). With the power of one of the largest and oldest game companies left in the “industry,” it has solid marketing and online community support. Perhaps GURPS derives its greatest power from the numerous volumes of compatible setting sourcebooks covering particular genres, specific settings, even licensed properties. They’re incredibly inspirational not only for fans of the game but those seeking resources to adapt to their own favored game engines. For instance, I’m not a GURPS player, but I still own sourcebooks for ancient Egypt and Rome, plus a few other non-historical genres (such as the fascinating Warehouse 23, designed by Risus creator S. John Ross). GURPS’ success comes both from fans and strong market performance, though, like many roleplaying game lines, it may seem eclipsed by other popular hobby gaming pursuits.

Balancing Act

Most of this missive has focused on the existence of a core rules set apart from setting, and the viability of that as a stand-alone publication. Perhaps the lesson learned -- after this ponderous examination -- depends on one’s intent. Going to the rules-only extreme runs the risk of a limited audience focusing only on game mechanics apart from setting. Creators merging rules within a specific, compelling setting -- the usual strategy -- balance the best of both according to their own tastes, with the benefit of an appealing game world putting the rule in practical context and tempting gamers with an inspirational setting. Some folks (myself included) eschew the rules altogether in favor of primarily setting material (as I’ve done with my Any-System Key setting sourcebooks Pulp Egyptand Heroes of Rura-Tonga). The balancing act depends chiefly on the creator’s intent and future marketing strategy. No matter what proportion of rules to setting one provides, it must seek success among gamers with often mercurial, broad-ranging tastes in both.