A simple solo RPG system

I play solo quite a lot these days. To be fair, that's even the majority of my roleplaying career, as sad as it may sound to some.

Blame the scarcity of the French RPG scene outside of the big university cities, the life with a non-geek spouse, me not being a very social person, or, as of now, parenting three children.

So ! Reading about solo play, FKR (free kriegsspiel roleplaying, I'll add a link later), and reminiscing about my own CYOA book experiences, as well as the thousand of hours I've spent on single-player video games, I've put together a "good enough" system for solo play.

Of course, it's no Ironsworn — it runs on a basic oracle that accidentally plagiarizes Freeform Universal and on traits inspired by Risus, and it wants additional setting expansions to give actual meat to the bones. But here's the skeleton ! 

Oracle : for yes/no questions about the state of the world, like asking the GM. Not to be used with PC-driven uncertain actions.

Roll a d6... 

1, no, and (the situation worsens) 

2, flat no

3, no, but (unexpected advantage or leverage) 

4, yes, but (unexpected problem or annoyance)

5, flat yes

6, yes, and (success with benefits) 

It can also serve as a scale for absolute or relative values, e.g. "how is the weather today ?", ranging from 1 (awful) to 6 (great), or 1 (much worse) to 6 (much better).

Then you have your usual check, roll, throw, save, call it how you want : the roll that decides if a PC's dangerous action succeeds, or fails and provokes nasty consequences. I could do it with the oracle, but wanted a bit more granularity (as far as any of this stuff is granular !).

Roll 2d6, reach or beat a difficulty level. Those are : 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 (easy, fairly easy, medium, hard, very hard). If you have advantage, roll 3d6, keep the best two dice. If you have disadvantage, same but keep the two lower dice. Each of the ads and disads cancel each other, and you can't pile them up.

On to player characters ! They are succinct. Each PC has :

- 3 endurance points,

- 4 traits, 

- that's all folks !

Endurance is lost whenever the PC is hit, takes damage of any kind, etc. It represents their will and ability to keep going during the adventure.

Endurance is lost 1 point at a time, unless something really bad happens, in which case all endurance is lost at the same time.

If all endurance is lost, the character is K.O. : they suffer a negative consequence (remove / add / change a trait, the situation worsens...), and all rolls are made with disadvantage (ignoring and superceding all other sources of advantage or disadvantage) until rest / downtime / recovery / etc. has been taken.

Traits give advantage, most of the time, but can also give disadvantage if the situation calls for it. They represent various aspects of your character. You can choose (or roll !) in this list :

1, appearance, looks, fantasy ancestries

2, careers, occupations, skills, groups of skills

3, past, past experiences, background

4, peculiar talents and powers (unusual knacks, magic, superpowers, curses, blessings, psionic abilities...)

5, contacts, reputations, faction memberships or ranks, social class or status, etc.

6, gear, equipment, possessions, companions, pets, vehicles, etc.

Note that, as your character will adventure, they will evolve : gain, change or lose traits along the ride. 4 traits is only a starting number, really.

As for NPCs, you can stat them up however you want : adjust endurance (1 for a minion, 2 for a sidekick, 3 for a PC equivalent, 4-5 for big villains, rarely more), traits (1 to 5-6 depending on the complexity you need), and that's it. NPC traits can, on top of the usual, be reactions, attitudes, combat tricks, loot, etc.

Then you're good to go ! Playing with this, two observations spring to mind. The first is that setting expansions really are the meat you need to play. With a few random tables (locations, NPCs, obstacles, loot, examples of traits...) and more procedures, it's much easier to get a game going, even if the game setting is already well-represented in your mind. 

The second observation is that this chassis, being extremely flexible, can accommodate many types of games. I used the word "character", but it does not necessarily mean a single person : you can play as a party, an item, a vehicle, a place, and of course a faction or a governing body, all with the same setup (3 endurance points, 4 traits, 2d6 action rolls, 1d6 oracle rolls).

I'll be glad if this proves to be of use to someone, I know it works for me !

A quick and dirty Zelda conversion for Into the Odd / Bastionland

 Also titled :

Into Hyrule : Electric Zeldaland 

Because why not ? 

So this is a simple, some would say braindead, conversion of Into the Odd (hereafter ItO) for the video game series Zelda. Who doesn't want to play OSR Zelda, I ask ??

Ability scores are renamed Virtues, after the three divine attributes that regularly theme some challenges for Link.

Strength becomes Power,

Dexterity becomes Courage,

Willpower becomes Wisdom.

They otherwise work the same.

Starting equipment will need a rewrite, but this is just a quick post to get the idea out of my head.

Traditional Zelda items become standard or rare gear, or Arcana. You may give them limited uses (as Zelda's magic gauge), and they could be replenished or upgraded by Great Fairies or other benevolent beings / recipients of good deeds. That way, players get powerful relics, but not too powerful, and keeping and upgrading them is a source of adventure.

The goal of the game isn't to accumulate treasure, but to solve local problems by going into dangerous places, aka dungeons. "Local" here can range from the individual (being cursed, for example), to the village, to the kingdom. Heh, perhaps "you've been cursed" could be Zelda's equivalent to ItO's "you're in debt", a good, urgent starting point for most adventurers / heroes.

The treasure gathered along the way is mostly comprised of : useful consumables, arcana offering temporary bonuses, rare artifacts (à la important Zelda items), collectibles that can serve as crafting components / potion ingredients / elements to unlock diegetic upgrades given by NPCs who seek those collectibles. You can even set up exchange quests if you're so inclined.

There's also money, which should only be used to replenish rations and common consumables, repair stuff maybe, and can be stolen / eaten by monsters, or even consumed by some magic armors and weapons. Excess treasure shouldn't be a thing, and if it is, you could soak it with a translator willing to decipher treasure / dungeon maps for a hefty price (hello Tingle !), and with investments in shops and other main base / community-related improvements.

Of course, money is made of rupees, colorful gems which value is precisely determined by their color.
Perhaps there's something to be done with bosses and mini-bosses being the only ones able to inflict (Bastionland's) Scars, or with them dropping magic "hearts containers" that both increase HP (pardon, hearts) and give a minor mutation, boon, curse or transformation.

Small fairies can be bottled to give back x HP upon reaching 0 HP, thus preventing STR / Power damage from occurring too fast.

The setting can even be made to work in an eerily similar fashion as Bastion : Hyrule City is the only city that matters. Its underground is dungeon-like and houses many secrets. The city itself is weird and full of secrets, small findings, shortcuts and passages, colorful NPCs, including animals and hidden little people, etc. Weird, anachronistic pieces of technology abound, especially in the city and in dungeons. And the countryside gets weirder the further you stray from the city : tortured landscapes with constant path interruptions, weird monsters and machines, fish / rock / plant people, and you can even end up in other provinces or dimensions, or travel though time.

To wrap this up, what else would a Zelda ItO hack need ? 
- Zelda item conversions
- starting packages rewrite 
- an example of a starting dungeon / adventure 
- a Zelda dungeon generator ? I've got one in the works... 
- perhaps Mythic Bastionland would be a better suited ruleset, given its theming and rules ? To be continued...
Welp, I say that's an honest starting point for this concept. Tell me what you think !