I have been looking for a good solo engine for awhile now and nothing has fully stuck with me. But this one is proving to be an interesting exception. I have decided to use it to model a super-hero game. So far I have created a team of four heroes who have been patrolling. I am using the "Oracle" for some of the narrative beats and a hodge-podge of "Super Hero Mission Generators" from around the web that I am adapting for use with this game. I am four days (a dozen patrols) into my quartet's adventures, and so far they've saved a villain (unknown to the general populace) from a vengeful new hero (in a very close battle indeed!), thwarted a robbery, and saved an airliner (carrying the very same as-yet-unknown villain) from a vandalism-caused crash! The battles and the rescue have been generally close, and I have been using minions or bystanders to fill out the teams- in the case of the latter, they don't fight, but they do sometimes take hits that might otherwise have struck down a hero or bad-guy. The system is working pretty well for me so far! My only complaint, really, is that there's a -lot- of wasted space on many pages- it probably takes a third more paper to print than it should based on the content. All in all, this has been fun and is inspiring some great solo play!

Interesting system , that I enjoyed reading . This system is composed of character creation, system rules and solo rules/tools. It expands the dice pool system I enjoyed for years playing Tunnels and Trolls fifth ed. With these rules you can build a sandbox world in any genre you choose . Creating foes and npcs, monsters appears to be easy with these rules. Simple rules for magic, super powers etc. You will need to use your imagination with this game , but thats not a bad thing , after all its good mental exercise and creativity, its the way played back in the day . I purchased this game on sale , and im happy with the purchase.

For what it is, and what it is supposed to do, this system is perfect. It is rules-light, fast, and easy. It is fairly granular, so there isn't a wide range for variation; however, in the way that I have tended to use it, it does its job beautifully.

This is an excerpt from an email I sent to the designer, which I realized would work well as a review, so I pasted it in here:

So I got the PDF a while back from RPGNow, read it, and found it fairly interesting. I actually know the crew that created Tunnels & Trolls, so the reference to it (and the way you handled the "all or nothing" of combat, as you mention) was pretty interesting to me.

However, I hadn't really used the system.

I've got three campaigns theoretically going, but haven't really enjoyed running any of them, so when some friends were coming over and mentioned gaming, I decided to run a fantasy game set in my own world, and wanted a simple system, since they can have difficulty mastering new systems, and even 5th edition D&D, which I like a lot, was more complex than I wanted for a possible one-shot.

I chose B&L, and have really enjoyed it, as have the players.

The system is simple enough to be easy to pick up and keep up with, and while on the face of it, the available options are limited, this allows the players and GM to "write" the characters and situations as they wish. No nit-picking of options or lists of choices to make, no restrictions on what race or class to choose from, and this allows the players and GM to "write" the characters and situations as they wish, something I've sometimes seen more specifically detailed systems give people trouble with. Just decide who and what your character is and get going. I was able to whip up four sample characters in a few minutes, and make all of them interesting enough to appeal to the characters.

Play has been fast and easy, and the players all understood what to do, remembered what to do, and figured out how to use their characters' various traits and skills to their advantage very quickly ("I'm a soldier, I probably know where to find a good tavern.")

All of this has really contributed to my appreciation for the system, though I do sometimes wish it was slightly less granular, as there isn't a lot of room for nuance. But at those times, I try to remember that what a foe is like is up to how to describe it to the players, not what its stats say, or whatever.

The dice pool system is interesting and I can see the potential in the core mechanics. They resolve in an interesting manner although I do regret the choice to use 1 die per skilled character, simply because it leads to more reaching than I enjoy just to have moderate odds of success.

Even the example of the thief picking a lock and "This character had crafted a fancy set of lockpicks in the past so he was assisting" isn't my idea of narratively important and it's drags the speed of the game down a bit.

Complaint aside, it's easy to house rouse and enjoy the pooling.

As for solo play, it contains a few random tables for mythic style gaming, but I can't see myself using these tables over what I already have. Besides, I didn't find this style of play particularly engaging and this won't be dethroning any of my current favorites.

At the end of the day I can't say I'm satisfied with the purchase. The price was too high for it's contents. It's worth a picking up for the dice pool mechanics, but I'd recommend waiting for a sale.

Bottom line up front (BLUF): 6 USD is entirely too high a price for what you get. The group mechanics for overcoming challenges is interesting and looks like it could be really effective for narrative style gaming. This is a very lite set of rules. The author frequently points out that it can be used with other systems. Use the oracle with your favorite system to use those rules while running solo or use the mechanics in place of the rules of your aforementioned favorite setting. In other words this is just a quick set of rules to run your favorite game/setting using other mechanics and... There are some quick tables for jumping into a randomly generated setting. FATE does that better. The oracle could be easily replaced by Mythic or any other solo system out there (the oracle is very basic). The only really original (at least to me) bit is the dice pool system for overcoming challenges.

The book lacks art. It has few (and basic) examples. There are no pre-generated PCs or settings. The page layout wastes a lot of space. I imagine the book could have been done in half the pages.

I have a soft spot for solo games. This one presented one unique (and effective) idea for running challenges. The rest of the rules are done better elsewhere. So for just the unique group creation/rules in a solo setting it deserves a 3 star rating. If there were more to these rules it might be worth 6 dollars, right now I couldn't recommend more than 1 or 2 dollars at most.

Buy if interested in Solo gaming.Reading made me want to try out the dice mechanics before I had even finished the book , definately going to use the Combat/Challenge system in some way in my own Solo games.I do like all of Nordic Weasel's games that I have bought,great company that caters well to the solo rpg market.

This is a great lite system that does exactly what it says on the tin.

I found the solo mechanics quick, easy and could create fun situations on the fly:

Within minutes of looking at the solo tables I had my charming duelist and his theatrical mage mistress overhearing a plot to depose the city ruler by the head priest (after almost being caught in a delicate position in the Sun Temple).

The combat and challenge system is streamlined and fast. Yet brilliant enoughtl to handle fighting minions, big bads, environment problems like climbing walls or bluffing guards.

In short, fast simple mechanics with a fun character creation system. A steal at this price.