Playing around with Stay Frosty by Casey G., with a few simplifications and "horizontal scroll".
https://solounmondodicarta.wordpress.com/2017/10/06/stay-frosty-searching-for-arkek/
https://solounmondodicarta.wordpress.com/2017/10/06/stay-frosty-searching-for-arkek/
Paul Drury Hi Paul, the Stay Frosty scenario generator is quite open-ended. This is an RPG, not strictly a skirmish game: the goal is telling an interesting story about a squad of space-marines. In a social game, GM and players cooperate to this end. In a solo game, I have to do all by myself. I guess that a TPK would be a lost game, but you as a GM (both in social and solo games) have means to avoid this, keeping at least some of the characters alive, so that the mission can proceed. Or maybe also a great TPK could be a won game from a story-telling point of view....
ReplyDeleteThe Tension system in Stay Frosty promises some spectacular FUBAR outcomes. I haven't come there yet, and I am looking forward to see how it goes :)
Thank you for the reply. The story telling aspect comes through clearly, but the element of a game (being to "win" or at least not lose too badly etc) seems to be missing On the other hand it seems to generate a lot of fun. Which is very important.
ReplyDeleteI posted a couple of boardgame reviews this weekend in video about "Ambush" and "B-17 Queen of the Skies" which are solo wargames with an emphasis on achieving a certain condition at the end of the scenario. Perhaps that could be added to the "Stay Frosty" system or even to the system of "Two Hour Wargames"?
Paul Drury Hi Paul,
ReplyDeleteskirmish games can be played in a number of different ways from pure story-telling to “hard” wargames and from fun-and-silly to documented historical simulation. My current focus is on fun and story-telling.
There are several campaign systems that could be applied to Stay Frosty. THW (I am thinking of Chain Reaction, but I am sure similar ideas appear in their other games) has a simple campaign system, where the outcome of each mission defines the nature of the next mission. Ivan Sorensen of Nordic Weasel Games has created a number of solo friendly rule-sets that include “pluggable” campaign systems with the generation of several linked scenarios: for instance, FiveCore has a table in which the various outcomes of a fight have specific scores that you add up to determine who won (objective achieved, men lost, preventing the enemy from achieving his objectives etc.)
Another interesting campaign system is Platoon Forward, by TooFatLardies. But, as the title says, it is aimed at platoon level games (considerably larger than the small squad games I enjoy the most).
I am not familiar with Ambush!, but I think your review provides an excellent overview of the game. If you are looking for a similar squad-level game but more flexible (i.e. with random generators instead of pre-cooked missions) you could check Nuts! by THW or Five Men in Normandy by NWG.
http://www.twohourwargames.com/nufive.html
wargamevault.com - Five Men in Normandy 30 cal edition