Haunted Houses Solitaire RPG

[ErrinF]

Hello. I recently submitted a new horror RPG to 1km1kt. It's called 'Haunted Houses', a one player game that is played solitaire with a deck of poker cards. Here is the link:



Thanks again to the good people at 1km1kt, and I hope you all enjoy the game.

[sonicforest]

Errin,

I haven't had a chance to play through your game yet, but did spend a while reading through the rules, and had a couple of comments/suggestions which I hope might be helpful:

- First off, I unfortunately found the rules PDF to be pretty hard to read because of the typeface being all caps. An easier to read font would go a long way to making the game more accessible.

- Also, I'm not sure I like the "dice deck" system of using playing cards to generate numbers. Of course, it's easy enough to just mentally substitute rolling an actual D6 (which I think most players would be likely to do), but it adds some distracting clutter to the body of the text when you keep going back and forth talking about "rolling" a number and drawing a card. It's fine if you want to keep the description of the dice deck at the beginning, but for the rest of it I'd just say "roll a D6" and leave it at that.

- The room tables look pretty good; structured enough to not be totally random, but loose enough that players probably won't mind seeing them more than once or twice.

- The monster tables look okay, though you might want to list the monsters alphabetically since there are so many of them. Also there might be a bit too much dice rolling for the monster encounters; you might want to consider having some of the monster stats be the same for all monsters of a type, to streamline play a bit.


Anyway I hope you find some of this helpful; I think the rules need a little bit of editing/cleanup, but there are some good ideas in here (and has maybe given me a little inspiration for the solo RPG challenge)


Cheers,
Steve

[ErrinF]

The game is what it is though. I have yet to pick a font for a game that doesn't get complained about. No matter which game I make, there's always one or two people that don't like the font no matter which font I choose. My choices are limited in fonts, so this time around I tried the most straightforward one. I'm pleased with it; If people want to be harsh critics of the fonts, my hands are kind of tied. I don't get it, but fonts really seem to irk some people. I just go with whatever font I think fits the game best. I really wish my font choice would have been one more to your liking, but it's pretty much set now with it's current font, as that's one to my liking.
As for you not being that into the dice deck system, you seem to be missing that it is a solitaire game meant to use cards as dice. I like the idea of a poker deck being used to simulate the roll of most any polyhedral die; If you don't and still want to play the game, by all means use dice. I'm not sure what you mean by the 'back and forth'; When you use the dice deck system, you are indeed drawing a card to simulate a virtual die roll. Is there any flaw in the odds I use to simulate die rolls? The system is exact and precisely simulates the roll of a d4, a d6, a d8, a d10, a d12, and a d20 by using poker cards. The term 'draw a card to roll a die' is apt and in keeping with the spirit of a solitaire game, which is why I regularly use it in the rules.
Glad you liked the rooms; They'll stay as is. The monsters will stay as is... giving them set stats isn't as interesting to me as random monster stats every time. Instead of being in alphabetical order, they go from weakest to strongest. That's how they'll stay, as I have them specifically sectioned irregardless of the letters their names start with. The seekers will stay as is; The mystic items and weapons will stay as is. Pretty much all of it will stay as is. I was systematic the way I laid out the game, and I think you may have missed some of the reasons I grouped things as I did. I suppose there may be an edit or two I can do (I've already fixed one part in the mystic items), but I don't think there's much more that needs to be done. If you saw a specific section you thought might need better wording, tell me about it and I'll see if I agree and can fix it up. I appreciate your candor, but at the same time I think the game might just not be your thing, as I'm guessing more analytical, adult type RPGs are to your liking. Haunted Houses Solitaire RPG is a tad more simplistic and is probably more suited for young adults and/or older children. Though it looks like it might not end up being a game you get into, I hope it does indeed give you some sort of inspiration to make a solo game yourself for the challenge. You seem like a rather thorough fellow, so I'd be interested to see what your entry for the challenge may be. Or any other game you have submitted here for that matter. I have also made a solitaire RPG called 'Squire' that you may or may not have already seen. It's link should be easy to find within the forum here, though be prepared for a font you may not like being used in Squire. Squire also uses the dice deck system, but in a more understated way you might like better.
That about sums up my response. Sorry I don't have much leeway for change within the game, but I like it how it is right now, font and all.
Thanks for checking out the game and sharing your criticisms with me. Next time I submit a game here, I hope you will do the same. And I hope it has a better font! Good luck with your entry for the Solo RPG challenge.

[ErrinF]

That last reply was supposed to start with a thank you to Steve for his commentary. Maybe the 'thank you' still showed up in the title of the last reply of mine, but I'm not seing it currently.

[ErrinF]

Per some comments left here, I have editted and updated Haunted Houses RPG, then sent an updated pdf to 1km1kt. I basically fixed up a mistake in the Mystic Items section (the Mystic Glasses needed better terminology), and I also tacked on a Dice Decks table at the end of the pdf that denotes the procedure for using the Dice Decks to simulate die rolls. This will help eliminate 'back and forth', as a player can print out the Dice Decks table seperately or can merely shoot to the last page of the pdf if they need to check the table. I hope that helps make the game more accessibale and playable. Thanks again for the suggestions.