Mortzes and Ricksters: Post Mortym

So, having finished playing the Rick and Morty dungeon module, I have quite a lot of thoughts on both playing the module and playing it solo. Of course, minor spoilers for the module ahead:

As a stand-alone dungeon, this is one of the more unique dungeons I have ever played in. Not every room is a straight forward “kill all the bad guys” scenario and in fact some of the rooms actively discourage you from killing or otherwise have a heavy emphasis on roleplaying being the solution. The writing is also rather humorous (it helps that meta humor is my favorite type) and, in the hands of the right DM, has the potential to be the funniest officially published D&D Adventure for the Fifth Edition. Maybe even just D&D in general.

The Quiet Year Post-Mortem

My overall thoughts on The Quiet Year are that this is a pretty great map-making game. So long as you have a good idea in mind for the setting, you can pretty much make a fun story out of it. As a solo game, however, it is rather difficult to figure out a way to play this solo without betraying the core rules of the game.

While the base of the cards and the rules surrounding them make for good worldbuilding, playing the game as written solo is a different story altogether. Not only did I have to invent a new rule (the Shadow Action), but also reinvented how the Contempt Tokens worked. The end result is essentially a different beast altogether.

Thousand Year Old Vampire Post-Mortem

While not truly RPGs in a traditional sense, journaling games seem to have a large place in my heart, as some good stories can be told with just a prompt and a few gameplay mechanics to drive the narrative further. I had earlier said how Thousand-Year-Old Vampire was one of the best, if not the best, journaling games I have ever played. I’m going to expand on that by comparing it to the other journal games I have played, as I feel like Thousand-Year-Old Vampire fixed the holes I had with those games.

Now, I shall start with a disclaimer. Obviously, no RPG is created equal (even those that share the same system will have their differences), especially in the terms of quality, as some of these games were made for Jams. I love all these games evenly, as they each hold a place in my heart. However, it’s through comparing do we see how a game mechanic makes the game enjoyable, especially in examining through a solo lens. With that out of the way, let’s begin with…

A Cozy Den Post-Mortem

I ended the post for my A Cozy Den game abruptly all things considered, even if it was for a joke. In truth, there’s a lot of things on my mind for both the session and the game. You could consider this to be a mashup of a review and an editorial.

So, let’s start from the top. As I said at the beginning of the session, the setting and premise are very interesting. The RPG industry is filled to the brim with fantasy games first, sci-fi games second, and rarely any room for other types of settings to crop up except for some variation of horror, leaving the other types being few and far in between. A good selling point for me is a setting that’s completely different from the norm, and A Cozy Den does exactly that. A slice of life game but the twist is that you’re a lesbian snake girl living with other lesbian snake girls.