In search of fuel for the solo roleplaying fire recently re-ignited, I came across Die Heart’s list of solo roleplaying resources. That led me to Ruins of the Undercity, and I was weak. You know I can’t resist random dungeon generators. So…
In a Nutshell: Labyrinth Lord solo roleplaying campaign and dungeon generator. 74-page PDF by Kabuki Kaiser, $5 at time of writing. I’m reviewing the Flexipop Edition, whatever that means. Published in 2013 so I’m behind the curve as usual.
It’s clearly designed for and integrated with Labyrinth Lord, but any other OSR retroclone should work with varying degrees of conversion effort.
CONTENTS
Introduction (1 page): What the product is, credits.
Background (2 pages): Welcome to Cryptopolis, a corrupt plutocracy of a city squatting on top of ancient ruins built (but thankfully no longer occupied) by necromancers. Long ago, thieves found a statue of the Red Goddess and certain magical texts, and turned themselves into lich-thieves who now roam the lower levels. Do not boogie with the lich-thieves, they will mess you up.
Playing Solo – How It Works (15 pages): This is a low-impact approach to solo play, with minimal changes to the Labyrinth Lord rules. You generate characters as normal, and write down an Exploration Routine; this specifies marching order, who has the torches, who’s on watch when, and who is searching for what. This last bit is important, because later on the random dungeon generator throws up traps, secret doors etc, and if no-one is looking out for them, the party doesn’t see them. Then the traps go off, and the screaming starts… Anyway, most of this section is lists of equipment organised by shop, types of hireling, and random encounters. Buying gear or hiring help takes time, during which random encounters happen, and broadly speaking they are not your friends, either above or below ground. This is solid stuff, all killer, no filler.
Into the Ruins (25 pages): This is an homage to the random dungeon generator in the AD&D 1st Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide. You roll for a starting area, then move through the dungeon dicing for rooms, chambers, corridors, monsters, traps, treasure, lighting and so forth on assorted tables. This system retains the diagonal and curving corridors beloved of the DMG, which I found irritating because I couldn’t draw them and nor could the party mapper – I think that was the point, actually.
One thing that stands out as different is that monster level and treasure type depend on the average level of the party, not the dungeon level that they are on. My instinct is that this defeats the object of dungeons having levels, which usually exist so the party can select its own level of risk and reward. Oh, and having determined the monster level you make a second roll to determine their numbers before toddling off to the relevant encounter matrix to find out what they are.
However, a nice touch is the detail on treasure formats. 1,000 sp worth of conch shells, anyone?
Fiends of the Ruins (14 pages): New monsters. Mostly taken from the Fiend Folio by the looks of it. A nice touch here is that many of them have tactics listed – what they do in various circumstances. That’s often tricky to adjudicate in solo games.
Artefacts (4 pages): New magic items. No spoilers, but I like the subtable adding a bit more detail to maps. War story: I played with a GM once who insisted that magic maps weren’t maps to magic items, they were themselves magic and teleported you to the relevant treasure. And its guardians. You were then alone, in an unknown location, half-dead from fighting whatever had been guarding the map… it generally didn’t end well.
Back in Town (3 pages): Rules for fencing loot and what happens to PCs in between dungeon expeditions.
Appendix A: Campaign Game (3 pages): This suggests a number of optional personal objectives for characters and how they might be achieved.
Appendix B: Character Background and Quirks (2 pages): Random tables to generate what each PC did for a living before becoming a delver, and what notable quirks they have.
We close with the obligatory Open Gaming Licence.
FORMAT
Single-column (mostly) black text on white, some curious font choices but nothing dangerous, occasional black and white and colour illustrations. Tolerable on the eye and the printer but not perfect.
SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT
It would have been nice to see something along the lines of the OSRIC generators for tricks and weird contents, but OSRIC is free to download so that won’t stop me for long.
The book has chambers with doors and rooms without, to my mind that is backwards but it has no effect in-game.
CONCLUSIONS
A solid piece of work this, and I look forward to playing it when next there is time. If you’re also interested, check out the Excel party log at the Castellan’s Corner.
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5.
Halfway Station 