The Ravens Nest

Roll If You Want To. Roll Around The Worlds

I’ve written an entire series of articles about people and things that have been a simple drag on this hobby and, lately, I’ve tried to veer away from it.

Listen, I’m not here to bore you with a bunch of clickbait drama you could get anywhere but this particular subject caused quite a bit of a stir back in October. So much so that a follower now thinks less of me because of it and my response to that is, “Hey, fine by me.” Look, some people are just fucked and they don’t wanna have any fun for any reason and they box themselves in. It is what it is. Not my problem.

Something came up today that brings me back to this subject. I know I usually say that my first RPG was a mix of HeroQuest and GURPS and today, I realized that’s not all that accurate. I used to have a small library of Choose Your Own Adventure books that I really never completed. I never got all the endings. There were some that had plenty of alternative endings and, in junior high, I did a book report on one of these books because, well, with so many endings and the ability to continue reading it in class as part of my assignments…why would I not?

The influence of these books stretches well into today. I started with titles in elementary school like, not kidding this was the title and my first CYOA book, Space Vampire. This was around the time that D&D was starting to catch shit over it’s “occult influences” and the head of steam hadn’t quite picked up yet. Later, my mom would get me the title Villains of Volturnus which was part of TSR’s Endless Quest series. Wild that this little bit of sci-fi managed to make it through the embargo, eh? I did have a few other CYOA titles but can’t remember the titles right offhand.

Now, look, let’s face it, my fellow gamers, bookworm and escapist chucklefucks, these books were cool. They were the height of cool. Think about it like this, especially if you’ve gone through an RPG aventure at the table. Would you rather play a railroad or a sandbox? For the uninitiated here, that means would you want to just read a novel or would you like to crack open a book only to find out you’re one of the principal cast members here? Better yet, you’re the main character.

In my post about The Neverending Story, that’s exactly what happens. Bastian steals a book, hides in his school’s attic and finds himself mentally and emotionally invested in Fantastica to actually being in Fantastica, himself. That’s what reading these books was like in terms of experience. Difference is, you’re in there right from the jump. So rather than curling up with Bulfinch’s Mythology, some Robert E. Howard, Dean Koontz, H.P. Lovecraft or Edgar Rice Burroughs where you are an outside observer along a path that will ultimately end at some point, you get to take an active part. That’s the difference between railroad and sandbox.

Do me a favor, scroll on back up to that picture. See all those books? Center in on two in particular; Fabled Lands and The Doom of Malakar for Swords & Wizardry. Okay so seems like this format’s come a long way. You know those times where your gaming group gets cancelled? Yeah you can still pull out some dice, an index card, a pencil and play some Fabled Lands. It follows the style of the CYOA novels in that it’s a novel where you’re the character that has to make the choices but you’re not reading an entire page, just a passage. After that it gives you choices, you make those choices, you have a character sheet and you roll dice sometimes. Sometimes you do well and sometimes you make a choice that would leave others looking at you asking, after a pause…are you for fuckin’ real?! Keep in mind that, at present there are seven of these novels and they’re all connected. You can start in the one pictured and wind up on the fifth one before you know it and you still haven’t quite levelled up yet. That’s a lot of pages in between and the adventure…which can go on as long as you want it to go on. In fact, if you’re familiar with the layout of the Call of Cthulhu adventure Alone Against The Flames, then this will be very familiar territory for you. By the way if you haven’t tried out Call of Cthulhu yet and you want to for free, go here and grab all the stuff for free and be sure to bring your own dice.

Let’s do a bit of a rewind here back to the halcyon days of 1998. KayBee Toys was slashing prices on a ton of TSR stuff and I managed to get my hands on Terror T.R.A.X.: Track of The Werewolf. This is one you popped into a CD player, listened to a track and then had options on which track to hop to next and your decisions would affect the outcome. Man, of all the CDs I lost, I do miss that one the most. I saw one called Track of The Vampire, wonder if I can find copies of those kinda cheap…but I digress. Also, lest we forget, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch was a thing. Point being, this has left the page and ventured forth to conquer not just page but audio and screen as well. The influence reaches far and wide, that’s all I’m saying.

Here’s the thing. Solo RPGs have been around since the inception of the tabletop RPG.

That’s from AD&D First Edition, just in case but the Four Against games are absolutely boss at this, providing a more robust RPG experience that’s basically the equivalent of a dungeon/world/city crawl, depending on what it is you’re in the mood for at the time.

With each of these you can open the door a little wider and wider but you see Basic Fantasy and Mythic up there? Yeah you hang onto Mythic or Mythic GM Emulator and then you can swap out Basic Fantasy for just about anything, including Castles & Crusades, Alien RPG, Tales From The Loop, Shadowdark or even Old-School Essentials.

There’s time in between sessions and using Mythic is a great way to get yourself not only familiarized with the rules of the game but it’s also a great way to aid in prep for your next session or testing out a zero-prep session. Nothing written in blood or stone here, just good tools to keep you entertained and just because your player group’s plans changed doesn’t mean yours has to.

Then there’s Scarlet Heroes. Guess what? You make one character and now you’re playing in an open-world sandbox with a decent setting behind it. If you like Kevin Crawford’s Without Number series, you’re gonna love this one. In this one he produces more of an Asian-Centric motif and it uses plenty of monsters, hexcrawls and dungeon crawls to satisfy just about any gamer. Think of it this way, could you bypass all that and just fire up Elder Scrolls Online again? Sure, but let’s face it, if the power or internet goes out, what do? Personally, I’ll fire up an LED lantern, my necklights or use a flashlight and play. You’ll be waiting for the power and internet to come back on. What a drag that can be.

There are some others that have a little more crunch and provide a colossal open universe like Hostile which also has supplements like Earth, Zaibatsu, Orbital Platforms, Dirtsiders, Alien Breeds, Synthetics and the new Cepheus Universal just to name a few.

The thing about the CYOA games is that it kept RPGs from being further stigmatized by a media drawn to sensationalism. It allows you to play when you want and, in most cases, where you want. My own gaming group meets so rarely and seems absolutely obsessed with Magic: The Gathering that, even though I’ve directly shown them the myriad of worlds and how much fun it could be, I pretty much count on a cancellation to happen and schedule a solo game as a backup these days.

Again, their plans changed. Mine did not.

Then there are those nights where I just don’t wanna be at my computer and there’s really nothing I care to watch so, crack open one of these games, clear the table, start playing, get lost in some folklore or an open world on a work night. I’ve done that before. Start at something like 8pm and then look up only to find it’s 2am and I really need to get to bed. That’s how truly engrossing some of these games can be.

Give them a try sometime if you haven’t already, there’s nothing “sad” or “wrong” with it and the minute someone gives you shit, blow them off and play anyway.

Enjoy yourself for awhile. Never know. Might come out of it a little happier. I know I do.