First Play: Bad Day at Buena Roca

"You awaken in the morning to the sounds of thunder."

That is how your bad day at Buena Roca begins. The game sets the story of a town that has sprung up due to mining activities in the area. Actually, the town was built by one main mining outfit and you are a deputy that the company pays to keep the peace. Things have been going pretty well with only the minor trespasses that one would see in any town. But on this day, that all changes. The thunder isn't from the skies, it's from the guns of a bloodthirsty gang that has ridden into town. And they are looking for you...

Bad Day at Buena Roca is based on a larger and more detailed RPG called Aces & Eights. There are some paragraphs I skipped over that I assumed were instructions on how to use Buena Roca in a larger campaign. As new as I am to RPGs, I have never played it, much less heard of it, before now. It is one of the games that came in my Bundle of Holding purchase.

The style of Bad Day is that of a Choose Your Own Adventure book. The only difference to a CYOA book is that here, some of the paths you take are decided by a die roll. The rolls are made using dice rolls against attribute scores your character has: Strength, Wisdom, or Dexterity. The die roll might be negated by your previously finding some other clue or object. Inevitably, you will find yourself in a shootout. Shootouts are resolved via d20 rolls against a Dexterity attribute value to hit, alternating between you and the opponent, and d6 rolls for damage on successful hits. If you survive, you move on. If not, well, consider yourself the Bill Murray of a western-themed Groundhog Day.

I used to read those Choose Your Own Adventure books when they were at their height. I even remember a couple of them being western themed. Playing this game brought on a small portion of of nostalgia. Not enough to make me want to run out and acquire a bunch of those books, but enough to remember the "good ol' days".

Actually, I don't recommend printing it, unless you just gotta. Just use the PDF file and use the page up/down buttons to find the next section to read. All you need beyond that are a d20 and d6 dice, a pencil, and piece of paper to keep track of your gun fights. If you aren't the kind who just happens to have some of them fancy dice sitting around, Google has a simple dice roller app thingy at the top of the search results if you search "dice roller".

No, I won't be providing a play-by-play of how my first attempt went, it gives too much away. I will say I had tied up two men, and shot three others, then got killed. Actually, I have yet to win the game, so the attempts are ongoing. It won't scratch the role-player's itch, but it's a pretty solid diversion for someone looking pass some alone time with some dice rolling and hp counting wrapped in a shoot-em-up western story.

And while I am on this subject, I got to wondering if there were any solo games made for D&D along these same lines, and I found one! So if that's more your style, check out The Saint's Tomb. It's a short game though. Shorter than Buena Roca. In fact, it took me about as long to make up a new level 1 character from scratch (it's made specifically for a level 1 adventurer) as it did to play the game to a successful completion. Maybe it's not so short if I had tried different paths. For those who are have never played, there is a link on the page to where you can get a pre-made character sheet. I might have to remember that link for later.

First Play: Five Parsecs from Home

For the last couple of years I've been playing miniatures war games meant for two or more players in solo mode. This meant the age-old method of trying to make the best moves for each side, a method I've employed since I first learned how to play chess. I played around with different rule sets and methods of unit activation to try and even out the effects of any bias I might have inserted into the game, with some success. Success being defined by how fun it was and how smoothly the game went. Some of the successful attempts have been with Full Sail, Full Thrust (fighter module), and Star Breach. However, the feeling that it's just me versus someone or something other than me isn't there as much as I'd like.

A couple of months ago, I came across some buzz over a certain title called Five Parsecs from Home. This game is one in a series that uses a base set of mechanics and rules (referred to as Five Core), then adds to it to create rule sets for skirmish battles specific to certain time periods and settings. Five Parsecs is set in a scifi universe and focuses on your crew of miscreants taking special mercenary jobs a la Firefly, though I get more of a cyberpunk feel, like Shadowrun (which I've never played, only read a novel set in that universe). Five Men at Kursk, a title I just got through the Bundle of Holding, is set in World War 2. There's a post-apocalyptic and a medieval fantasy settings available and a black-powder era version currently in production.

These games are part wargame and part RPG.

So just like Dungeons and Dragons, the first thing to do is roll some dice over and over again! I do like rolling dice! Explanation? For each of your six starting crew members, you are rolling dice and looking up the results on a series of charts. Differently from D&D, all characters start with the same stats used to modify in-game die rolls. This start-up round of rolling gives each character a general background, a class, and a directing motivation. Each of these attributes come with extras they bring to the table in the way of money, weapons, bonuses to their stats, or even rivals that are hunting them and that you may suddenly have to face in an encounter. So pretty much the only input you have on crew creation is coming up with their names and picking which minis to represent them on the table.

After everything is set up, there's a bit of worker placement to try and get more stuff and find potentially profitable "job openings". You choose from the jobs rolled, or if no jobs are rolled you take on a less profitable target of opportunity.

Next, set up terrain and roll for opposition. There are numerous foes you could face, each with a certain tabletop AI that directs you in how to move them, taking away the feeling of sameness that comes with playing both sides of a two player game (the same tactician for both sides).

Then there is some more RPG stuff that is done after the battle. Rolling to find out what happens to fallen crew members, what rewards come from a successful completion, if any new enemies were made.

(Never mind all that stuff, how did the game go?)

The Crew (all names but one from a random scifi name generator)

Name - Background - Motivation - Character Class - Special Notes
Chas Desi - drifter - Order - Negotiator - Crew Leader
Malik Tachak - drifter - Fame - Worker - My character (the rules say to pick one)
Jani Dering - from a war torn hell hole - Faith - Traveller
Big McLargehuge - from a space station - Loyalty - Technician
Jacinto Riordae - from a comfortable megacity - Faith - Artist
Dia Carthes - from a mining colony - Order - Punk

For Malik and Big I chose to use the Heroclix that I modded to be Han and Chewie. The rest are re-based Heroclix sculpts with little to no other changes made to them.

The job was a delivery, to make it fit the foe that I rolled (Unity Soldiers) and the patron offering the job (a city council), I made the soldiers a band of deserters that had taken over a portion of the city. They had taken military equipment with them, including high grade communications devices that they could listen in to military and police radio frequencies. The city wanted my crew to install and set off a directional EMP device in close proximity to the deserters' base of operations and set it off in order to disable their communications abilities.

Move 1

The crew landed their craft, the Bresi Drifter, outside the deserter-controlled zone. Starting at left and moving clockwise are Chas, Jani, Malik, Big, Dia, and Jacinto.

The layout: the commander and two rifles at the makeshift bunker at top-left, a specialist and rifle behind the cylindrical structure (top-middle), and a specialist and rifle on the right. The box of pipe sections in the middle of everything is the drop point.

Jacinto heads toward the drop zone with the EMP.

The deserter troops saw the Bresi Drifter coming and make their moves. They must have liberated some kind of RADAR system when they took off.

Chas and Jani set out across the street to try and keep the soldiers from flanking them. Chas only has grenades and a power claw and can't fire at anyone. Jani takes a shot through cover at a specialist and misses.

Move 2

Jani can't quite make the barrier and takes cover behind a bush. A rifleman knocks her down anyway. This is not looking good.

Chas gets behind a big rock, the rest of the gang takes cover by a pile of pipes. All of them miss any shots taken at the soldiers.

These soldiers move out of cover to take down Jacinto.

Dia falls next, despite finding cover behind a bush.

While Malik goes for the EMP, Big makes his way to Dia's position and takes down a specialist.

Move 3

The commander and his rifles pop around the corner of the fence. The riflemen both miss, but the commander hits home and Big is out of this fight.

At this point, Chas and Malik begin retreating. By the end of Turn 4, they have successfully retreated, no way they'd have been able to accomplish this mission after such heavy losses. Better to live to fight another day.

The dice gods were punishing! The crew goes home to lick its wounds. Big and Jani got away with minor wounds and need to spend a turn recuperating. Dia required minor surgery, costing the team 1 credit and she also must spend a turn getting well. Jacinto did not survive his wounds. Jacinto's weapons are recovered.

Will Chas and Malik be able to attempt the other job that was offered at the same time as this one? Maybe they can recruit a couple of other mercenary types to join the crew of the Bresi Drifter. Luckily, they have two water purifiers that they can clean water to sell, so at least they won't want for credits.
***

As you can see, maybe, gameplay is very fast. And yes, the game is set up to run as a kind of campaign, characters continue participating in engagements, miss fights to heal, gain experience to "level up", collect loot, and more. I really like the mix here and I'm excited to move this story along as well as to try the other titles from Nordic Weasel that I just got: Five Klicks from the Zone and Five Men at Kursk.

Game play is simple enough, less math required than Star Breach. No keeping track of health points, characters hit are either stunned or down for the count and you find out later how bad it is. I might have been forgetting about being stunned, don't think it would have helped much in the long run though.

I'll likely wait a bit before playing again, I also want to try one of the solo RPGs I downloaded.

First Play: Exiles of the Wicked Maze

While we have all more or less been socially distanced, I got an email from Nordic Weasel Games, from whom I purchased a game recently. It announced that a couple of their titles were included in the latest offering from the folks over at Bundle of Holding. These fellows partner with RPG Drive Thru and Wargame Vault, the game suppliers, to put together bundles of independently developed games. They set a price at which you may purchase some of the titles on offer, dubbed the "beginner bundle". You have the option of paying more as some portion of the proceeds are donated to a charity. A second bundle, dubbed "bonus bundle", is also available for those who choose to pay more than a certain threshold price. This second price is somehow calculated based on the donations made, so I assume it fluctuates, though I haven't noticed it change. All told, it seems to be a good way to try out some games and support a good cause.

The games are delivered as PDFs as they are RPGs or tabletop miniature wargame rules that usually only require some print-offs, dice, and pencil.

I've been directed their way a couple of times, probably through Board Game Geek, but wasn't all that keenly interested in the titles on offer at those times. However, this time was different. Perhaps it was my budgeted spending money burning a hole in my pocket. I have been filling and emptying the carts on Amazon, Ebay, and Aliexpress, but I just couldn't commit. I waited a couple days on the Bundle as well, but finally pulled the trigger, getting the small bundle with three solo-playable RPGs and two solo skirmish wargames (the Nordic Weasel offerings).

I played the first one today: Exiles of the Wicked Maze. It's a very simple game. It is also quite random as 90% of the game is rolling a d20 to find out what wants to fight you, whether a trap hits you, how much gold was in that pouch you found, what that glowing mushroom you chose to eat does to you, etc. 

There are two countdown mechanics in the form of hit points and sick points. You start with 100 hp, which goes down as you set off traps and take hits from foes. Some foes and traps give you sick points, of which you must stay below 30. You may acquire potions to restore health. You might also gamble on the mushrooms, just as likely to make things better as they are to make things worse.

The fact that randomness plays such a big part made me think that my character, who I named Shambol, would probably die. I'm accustomed to losing these kinds of games that rely so heavily on the dice gods' favour.

So, as the fluff goes, Shambol finds himself thrust into the entrance of the maze, the common punishment for the convicted felons of the kingdom. A die roll reveals that Shambol was caught producing forged official documents. However, there is a small chance that he could redeem himself and gain pardon. You see, the maze used to be where the kings kept their treasures and, as it slowly turned from safe to prison, many of those treasures were forgotten and left inside. So, if a prisoner can survive the maze, find the exit, and retrieve enough treasure to pay 5000 gold pieces at the exit, he or she is allowed to go free!

Right off the bat, the choices are to confront a foe, eat a mushroom, or try to avoid a hazard. This could be tough. I'd read some of the reviews, most of them touted the maze as a difficult game to win. Thus, I got lucky.

I think the thing that really helped a lot is that the first item Shambol found allowed me to roll twice for foes and choose the one I want. Next best was that I rolled some average armour and weapon, giving me a +3 on attacks and defense. I also got a magic bag that let me gamble the gems, throw in two and roll for a new one and got really lucky twice (unlucky at least twice as well). I chose to face a minotaur and beat it after taking three rounds of damage. I lucked out on mushrooms and alchemical finds to keep my health up then used a transporter that randomly (and really luckily) placed me really close to the exit. By this time, I already had over half the gold Shambol needed to buy his freedom. So he first cleared the path to the exit, then wandered around hoping to be able to collect the rest without having to transport again. He already had some sick points by now, but only 4. With low health, I took a chance on some mushrooms, first was a -10hp, next was a +25hp, final was a +20 sick points! I got lucky again with another alcemical find that boosted Shambol to over 80hp, then a really good artifact find put me over the top and Shambol high-tailed it to the exit with treasure worth 5465 gold pieces, 80hp, and 28sp.

The end of Shambol's adventure.

I think I was really lucky. Looking at the map, I might have gone through maybe 10% of the maze. Had I rolled some other portal exit, I think my character would have had a harder time staying alive. I'd like to try it again to see how things turn out.

Exiles of the Wicked Maze is a fun little diversion if you're looking for a narrative. It reminds me of B-17: Queen of the Skies and the print and play version of Aether Captains for the amount of dice rolling you do and for how much it's really the dice directing the story. That's not a bad thing, it just might not be for everybody. I certainly enjoy just going along for the ride from time to time.

***
It's a couple of days later and I got my almost-8-year-old son to play. I rolled for all the foes and hazards and he rolled for all the fighting and finds (Made things move a lot quicker, which is a good thing for keeping his attention). He loved it. He was quite lucky in his rolls, until he met the Minotaur (missed it three times, so he took 30 damage or more). Then, one foe encounter away from a clear shot to the maze exit, his character died, with about 100 gold above the target! Nooo! I let him give up one of his relics to stay alive, but that meant finding more treasures before he could leave, he found a King's chest, but couldn't open it. That's when the lucky streak came back. Being able to bribe the last foe he would meet with a spare weapon,  he found a relic that put him about 500 gold over what he needed. Without any hesitation, Nic Danger fled the maze with 39hp, 28sp, and roughly 540gp above the 5000.

My son covered a lot more ground, dying on that foe just before the snakey, zig zaggy bit in the bottom right. He'd found a mage bow and I so wanted him to be able to use it, but when he rolled for gems it was always one of the same three, never the ones needed for the bow.

As of my posting this there are 11 days until the end of the Solo Games bundle offering. So if you're interested in trying a solo adventure and you have 8 U.S. dollars you can spend, why not give it a go? Part of the proceeds of this bundle go to providing medical equipment to health care workers dealing directly with Covid-19.