Strange Aeons Cooperative / Solo rules

[Cherno]

Hello fellow Agents & Lurkers,

Today, I was inspired to brainstorm a bit for a set of cooperative and solo rules for Strange Aeons after I was asked about my experiences withthe game. I realized that since my group is not composed of roleplayers or storytellers but players more inclined to min-max and powergame if the option presents itself, Strange Aeons as a straight PvP game can quickly derail into who get the best weapon/skill combination first. At the same time, I realized that Arkham Horror is the one game that has hit the table more often than any other in my solid collection of boardgames and we enjoy it a lot playing together as a team trying to overcome the encroaching darkness.

So I thought to myself, why not try to set up a framework for cooperative and solo playing Strange Aeons?

From the top of my mind, these are the pillars of the ruleset:

1. A solid Artificial Intelligence that allows for a varied and somewhat unpredictable game
2. Random or semi-random terrain generation
3. A event-driven style of play, where the investigators initially only have a general idea about what they are supposed to do are encounter, and then running into all sorts of unforeseen situations the more they explore the tabletop. This is influenced by All Things Zombie and similar games by THW that divide the area into sectors, with hidden random encounters in some of them.

Everything can be realized by customizable card decks or plain charts, but the card deck method is a lot more flexible.

That's pretty much all I have collected so far. Comments welcome. I will probably update this thread every once in a while. Also note that it is just as possible that I lose interest in it in a few days and abandon it for some time, so don't despair

[Momotaro]

Weirdly, Gibby (on this forum) and I just today played a tabletop fantasy game using the Mythic GM Emulator  from DrivethruRPG to replace a GM.

It's similar to Matrix-style games.  The game engine is really very light, and driven entirely by player choices.  Players take turns to ask "yes/no" questions, and the group determines the odds of a yes answer.  Once that's decided, someone rolls to see whether the answer is a yes. 

So "Is there a guard at the castle gate?" is Highly Likely (85%); "Is the alcoholic nightwatchman awake?" is Unlikely (25%). 

There are rules to determine the focus of each scene (a set of keywords tied to an action, all rolled randomly), and the focus can change.  We started off hunting for a young lady who had gone missing, suspected killed by undead, but it turned out that the undead in the area were only there by coincidence, and she and her boyfriend were planning to betray her village so they could run off and get married.  All determined by the players as they went along.

All very fast and loose, and the idea is to make a creative challenge rather than a tactical one.  But it's built to be integrated with existing rules for skill tests and combat if you prefer (or you can run the combat using yes/no test).  And your ideas, like event cards or random encounters, could also be worked in easily.

If you like, and I get time, I'll put together some thoughts and a game report.

[Oldben1]

I'm working on something similar, although just the solo part.  I'm going to try and use the mechanics and stats of Strange Aeons and fuse them in a dungeon crawl.

[Cherno]

Did some more brainstorming last night.

A typical campaign would play like a combat-centered Call of Cthulhu adventure, with the investigators starting on a rather normal crime case and then uncovering clues that sees them unravelling a fiendish plot that culminates in a big showdown with the mastermind / big otherworldy beast.

So after finding the first clues in the 1st mission, they can then proceed to a choice of 2nd missions, depending on which clues they found. There, they find more clues, and when they have all the required pieces, they can attempt to solve the case by "unlocking" the last scenario. A campaign would have from 4-6 scenarios, with each one having a playtime of 45 mins - 1 hour each.

The board gets deivided into 4x4 or 3x3 regions, with buildings being their own seperate regions.

The "starting row", a.k.a. the table edge where the investigators start has no clues tokens.

Before starting, a number of clue tokens as specified by the scenario along with a number of blank ones are put into a draw bag, mixed, then a few are discarded again, this means that players can never be sure how many clues are in there. Example: put 5 tokens of Case A and 9 blank tokens into the bag, then remove 3. The bag now contains 12 tokens total (one for each of the 12 board regions sans starting row), with 3-5 clues and the rest being blanks, or maybe random occurences.

Clues tokens are uncoverd when they are in line of sight, with certain effects limiting the sight range (rain, fog, nighttime). This would of course also have an effect in combat.

If the token is an enemy or group of enemies (or even NPCs), they are placed immediately and combat starts. The players may roll some sort of reaction check to see if they can ambush the encountered group (or vice versa).

Otherwise, the clue must be investigated by moving into contact with it (for example, it might be a bloated body, with the cause of death being drowning... Even though there's no body of water for miles around! This would be one clue).
When all clue tokens have been resolved, the scenario ends and the investigators can use the collected tokens at their headquarters (police station or whatever) to see if they can find out more, interrogate suspects, or ask for an increase in their budget.

Each player would control one character, and may add an agent or civilian in the course of the campaign, depending on who they meet and persuade to help. Some characters may even have an ally at the start of the game (think of "Ashcan" Pete and his dog in Arkham Horror).