 February 25, 2012 - 6:46am | I just noticed this product at THW: http://www.twohourwargames.com/riandre.html I instantly realized that it could be used to run a solo game, you against the zombies. It reminded me of a solo wargame scenario I read in one of my old magazines. Similar mechanic of deck of cards. Good bad and neutral things in the cards and you turn them to see what turns up. The scenario I read was from the Napoleanic era and a group of French soldiers were essentially cut off from the rest of the French army in Russia. The Rest of the French Army was somewhere down this road that they must travel. Player gets random assets and must arrange them on the road. You dont move the miniatures just image that road as moving beneath their feet. A card may say something like Road block x# of inches ahead, manned by artillery crew and one 3 pound cannon. plus y # of infantry. Or it could say 2d6 Cossacks appear on random flank and attack. You simply place the miniatures and resolved the battle. Good stuff could be run into d6 Voltigeurs (light infantry), two engineers join you (they can quickly remove fallen trees from the road) Other rules in play is that you need horses to move wagons and cannon or men can push them but speed becomes an issue. injured can ride in wagons and not slow you down, if cannon and wagons are slowing you down (because of the loss of horses) then they can be abandoned. Speed of the French is tracked and higher speed is better as the French must travel a certain number of inches then points are calculated to rate the player. abandoning wounded who are slowing you down is negative, bringing along cannon is good (higher command likes you for that) etc. So I thought we might round table discuss the possibility of a solo SF scenario. Setting is important in two ways obviously it determines what might be encountered if its Volturnus then Ul-mor, lopers, shard grass, quickdeaths, and strangler chutes. But also setting impacts how you will run the game: gaunlet game-must move down this road and no choice of side routes, Zombie infested deserted city means laying out a ruins map and turning cards to see whats in each building for some reason -your mission is to find something before sun down when d6 groups of zombies will come out and wander the streets randomly. Right now, off the top of my head I only have the 1.gauntlet and 2.Random Event settlement idea I'm sure another set up is possible. Though it comes down to rail road (guantlet) or sand box (zombie town) I suppose the third would be the 3.random dungeon map (Space Hulk) With a Random Event Settlement sand box option I would make the center buildings worth more in some fashion, draw two cards or have a special deck with the mission objective schuffled in but that the bad stuff in the special deck is pretty bad. Consequently to prevent players from bypassing the outer buildings there would need to be good stuff there that can help them in the inner buildings. Limits on the scenario can be time- number of turns or simply finding objective. With Gauntlet its simply random events and setting doesn't change much though new features in the environment are added ahead on the road and moved down the road at the character's movement rate. guantlet can be limited by time and distance- Game over when x distance travelled or x distance must be travelled before turn y or you lose. With Random Dungeon you are randomly determining the layout and the events. In this set up distance would seem to be irrelevent. game goes for x number of turns or until certian dungeon tile discovered or certain event happens. Event and dungeon tiles can be separate or tied together. If separate, dungeon tiles can require drawing 0,1, or 2 event cards. Maps are important in Random event settlement and random dungeon scenario can be designed to use strickly the AD counters or new counters could be developed (suppose you really wanted sci-fi zombies) I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 25, 2012 - 6:55am | Fluff of the setting: time and place in the Frontier Sathar occupation on Pale, New Pale or Laco Laco Run endurance race (discussed before in other threads)- obviously a guantlet Generic Outpost cut off for some reason and someone must investigate. Laco's War between PGC and Streel. Blue Plague out break. Free World Rebellion- guantlet set up can the player get his group of vrusk refugees to the ship and off planet in time? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 25, 2012 - 7:34am | Throwing out random things that pop into my head: player may pull a card and it says, "Find Toxyrad Gauge" may withdraw safely from any air Bourne poison, toxic or radiological event. Player hangs onto this card and uses it to neutralize specified bad event. More is possible along those lines and any scenario deck should include a few. I think I need to track down that Napoleonic scenario to analyze the ratio of good to bad cards. The only problem is I have a rather large collection of wargame magazines. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 25, 2012 - 8:42am | I got a game for Christmas call Dungeon Quest that is exactly the random dungeon setup you describe. It's a one to four player game and you are trying to get through a dungeon to a dragon's lair to loot the treasure. The map is completely random (by drawing map tiles) and different every time you play. It's limited by time. You only have 24 turns to get in and get out. If you don't get out, you're dead as the dragon wakes up and kills you. Each new dungeon path tile could have monsters, traps, dead ends, treasures, etc that impact your path. As some one who did a lot of solo play over the years, I'd love to work up some solo rules for SF. Personally, I think the Random Settlement scenario would work best and it could work as either a town or a ship where you have to explore the buildings or the rooms of the ship. Although several of the gaunlet scenarious you described would work as well. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 February 25, 2012 - 10:22am | Dungeon Quest is considered a "press your luck" game. I think in this case SFSS (Star Frontiers Solo Scenarios) is a "complete the objective" game. Would Tom^2 agree? :-) |
February 25, 2012 - 10:28am | I think its possible to do generic scenarios like exploring a derelict ship or seemingly abandoned outpost as well as ones rooted into specific events or places in the timeline and setting. I don't think I like the space hulk format for a space station or ship as random tiles will likely make for a station or ship shaped in an illogical fashion unless of course we are talking stuff the size of star destroyers and death stars. A small circular wheel station could be done with tiles that only link to the next section of station but then you've sort of fused space hulk with gauntlet. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 25, 2012 - 10:33am | Dungeon Quest is considered a "press your luck" game. I think in this case SFSS (Star Frontiers Solo Scenarios) is a "complete the objective" game. Would Tom^2 agree? :-) I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 25, 2012 - 2:48pm | Should we start a new project or just bury solo adventures in the adventure writing project? Also another solo format is the pick your path style like the two basic D&D solo module produce about 30 years ago. The above formats are easier to write as they are essentially random and repayable. The pick your path style is tougher in that the module writer must flow chart every path and make sure every choice possible leads somewhere. (I consider that a bit of a negative as it requires a lot of extra work). On the plus you can write in surprises. The above formats are more open as they are based on a wargameing scenario and pick you path is more closed system wise. Pick your path is less re-usable though might simulate more of a RPG experience. Clearly MMPORPGs use both the pick your path format for some quests and random events in certain locations and tons of people continue to play so I guess we can rule both formats as valid. I also suspect that with paper buildings or terrain and miniatures my kids would play one of these scenarios over and over- most likely the search the outpost format. Hmmm, that has me thinking, solo /for kids scenario- rescue at Outpost Eleven. A mayday has come from outpost eleven because of some disaster. The electric dense is down allowing dangerous creatures into the compound and people are trapped and require rescue. After shocks or other related disaster events are possible complications. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 25, 2012 - 3:18pm | You have a good point to place these in the Adventure Writing Forum project. Question: The references you site are for combat and physical obstacles, what about role-playing events? Here are a couple of examples:
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February 25, 2012 - 3:49pm | RE: Role play; Its a solo adventure so role play will be limited, under the more open formats of gauntlet, out post and space hulk its extremely limited but under a pick your path format its limited to the written choices which are probably best limited to 3 or possibly 4 I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 26, 2012 - 5:49am | Yeah more projects! These games are similar to the solo adventures in the original AD but instead of sequencial play, a great deal of randomness is thrown in. Think this could work well. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 February 26, 2012 - 12:59pm | To make decks of cards, design them in a word processor using Avery printable business cards. Output the file as a PDF and it can be put in as a pull-out for the SFMan or as an appendix page. Readers then buy their own Avery business card sheets and print their own cards. -iggy |
February 26, 2012 - 2:37pm | To make decks of cards, design them in a word processor using Avery printable business cards. Output the file as a PDF and it can be put in as a pull-out for the SFMan or as an appendix page. Readers then buy their own Avery business card sheets and print their own cards.
Your quite correct but I was going to be lazy and just provide a list: jack of hearts equals x, queen of clubs equals y, and etc. Everyone has a deck of cards.I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 26, 2012 - 3:08pm | But is would be cool to have a deck that is SF-esque like the original BSG had with their playing cards. -iggy |
February 26, 2012 - 4:53pm | But is would be cool to have a deck that is SF-esque like the original BSG had with their playing cards.
Hexagonal playing cards? That'd be cool.I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 28, 2012 - 11:08pm | I was inspired to start a solo adventure and funny I should choose days after a mysterious worm-like race landed on Pale. jedion, great minds bro! ;-) I wanted it to feel like Star Frontiers w/o using names like PGC, Streel, CDC, etc. Almost everyone has horric images of the sathar, so why not start with them before the founding of the UPF. |
