Getting Wasted by Myself - Solo Wasteman Thoughts
Even before the nukes dropped and good folk became wild horrors, I've been tinkering with solo rules. At the beginning of this blog, I was writing and reading as much as I could about single player Frostgrave, since it was an accessible means to entertain and challenge myself in and about the hobby we all show up for. If ever I do an origin story episode, you bet that'll be a bullet point, along with my undying love for all things Wasteman. The only hitch was as it always is, "who the fuck do I play this with?" To date I've played 3 games in total; one with each of my roommates, and a demo game I ran at PAX Unplugged in 2017.
And then came Barry Sawada Tucker, who I'll give major props to right now. He's the homeboy that developed the Wasteman Mod Wastecluster and then the later mod titled The Periphery (addendumbs and expansions on which can be found in the Wasteman Facebook Group Files.) They're both transformative works that translate the essential Wasteman features into dungeon crawls with breaking down doors and clearing rooms like its your secret fetish you only indulge once in a blue moon. I've given it a go myself to fair success but took zero photos, so instead, let me refer you to Nicolai Ostergaard's stellar campaign of the Wastecluster mod with his series, the Gnar Cluster Fucks, where we follow some ham fisted cultists as they battle their way across the world for glory and power. The core of the mod makes for wild beat-em-up experience, and the between game upkeep harkens back to Necromunda, where you can fuel up or get kicks or whatever the kids are doing these days.
Now, these are pretty satisfying experiences so long as you're good at narrating to yourself, but there's still a heck of a lot of room to explore with the world of the Wastes. I've been tinkering with some ideas for running a more streamlined romp that I'll be playtesting with in the coming months, so keep in mind that none of these have been tried at all, and without further ado...
POSSE BUILDING AND SETUP - Let's get real here; making Enemy Characters is wicked fun. You could have your posse try to overthrow a local warlord, or raid a traveling circus! Any and all ideas can lead to customizing profiles in ways that can make for really nuanced interactions. That said, unless you're content with making a bunch of tree graphs to help characters with 4+ modes make decisions, its probably best to keep enemy ai models pretty basic.
To me that means keeping complex/modal abilities (wyrdman, bard, necromeister) to a minimum, and having thug/minion figures kitted out in one or two variations. Maybe also using combat squads would be wise, harkening back to the kill team days of old with brute squads wandering around. Incorporating klaxon counters might be a fun variation as well!
Mad Cards for AI are a little funky. I would swap one of the enemy bottle cap with, or add one of a different style, and have that initiate a mad card from the top of the mad card deck. If there's a relevant way to implement the card's effect, heck yeah! Otherwise, put it in a holding pool for the enemy, and the next time their mad card bottle cap pops up, they can try using it again, or drawing a new one.
TREACHEROUS TERRAIN - Even though we already have access to terrain with effects, let's add some more to the pile to spice things up a bit.
Suspicious Building - Select any building to count as this type of terrain. It may have other traits in addition to being a suspicious building. Sometimes you'll need to take cover from bullet rain, and other times you know there's gotta be good eats hiding in that shell of a house. Risk and reward go hand in hand, so whenever a figure of your's moves in or out of this building, roll a d10. On a score of 7 or more, spawn an enemy within 1" of your figure, and have it immediately make an attack against that figure.
Here are some ideas for the enemy figure
TARGET DETERMINATION - whenever a figure activates, roll on the table below to determine the figure's target. You are then beholden to yourself to activate those figures as effectively as you can (in character) to help them hinder or acquire their target
1-2 Nearest, most expensive enemy Boss
3 Nearest, most expensive enemy figure
4-5 Nearest enemy figure
6-8 Nearest objective
9-10 Enemy figure nearest to nearest objective
And those are my thoughts. With any luck, I'll be able to tell y'all how it went, good or bad. Best of luck to all of you out there trying your darnedest to get by and stay sane!
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| Throw down between Redcaps and Hubcaps. |
And then came Barry Sawada Tucker, who I'll give major props to right now. He's the homeboy that developed the Wasteman Mod Wastecluster and then the later mod titled The Periphery (addendumbs and expansions on which can be found in the Wasteman Facebook Group Files.) They're both transformative works that translate the essential Wasteman features into dungeon crawls with breaking down doors and clearing rooms like its your secret fetish you only indulge once in a blue moon. I've given it a go myself to fair success but took zero photos, so instead, let me refer you to Nicolai Ostergaard's stellar campaign of the Wastecluster mod with his series, the Gnar Cluster Fucks, where we follow some ham fisted cultists as they battle their way across the world for glory and power. The core of the mod makes for wild beat-em-up experience, and the between game upkeep harkens back to Necromunda, where you can fuel up or get kicks or whatever the kids are doing these days.
 |
| Nicolai's brigands, enjoying some slaughter. |
SOME IDEAS
POSSE BUILDING AND SETUP - Let's get real here; making Enemy Characters is wicked fun. You could have your posse try to overthrow a local warlord, or raid a traveling circus! Any and all ideas can lead to customizing profiles in ways that can make for really nuanced interactions. That said, unless you're content with making a bunch of tree graphs to help characters with 4+ modes make decisions, its probably best to keep enemy ai models pretty basic.
To me that means keeping complex/modal abilities (wyrdman, bard, necromeister) to a minimum, and having thug/minion figures kitted out in one or two variations. Maybe also using combat squads would be wise, harkening back to the kill team days of old with brute squads wandering around. Incorporating klaxon counters might be a fun variation as well!
Mad Cards for AI are a little funky. I would swap one of the enemy bottle cap with, or add one of a different style, and have that initiate a mad card from the top of the mad card deck. If there's a relevant way to implement the card's effect, heck yeah! Otherwise, put it in a holding pool for the enemy, and the next time their mad card bottle cap pops up, they can try using it again, or drawing a new one.
 |
| Some gnarly dudes who look like they're up for a good pillaging. |
TREACHEROUS TERRAIN - Even though we already have access to terrain with effects, let's add some more to the pile to spice things up a bit.
Suspicious Building - Select any building to count as this type of terrain. It may have other traits in addition to being a suspicious building. Sometimes you'll need to take cover from bullet rain, and other times you know there's gotta be good eats hiding in that shell of a house. Risk and reward go hand in hand, so whenever a figure of your's moves in or out of this building, roll a d10. On a score of 7 or more, spawn an enemy within 1" of your figure, and have it immediately make an attack against that figure.
Here are some ideas for the enemy figure
- Teleport the enemy figure farthest away from your posse over here! that guy wasn't slacking, he was sneaking around back, trying to catch you off guards!
- Maybe it's a feral child locked in a vending machine.
- Or a wild animal that made a nest under the kitchen sink.
- Or worse... a zombie secretary!
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| "Hey, watch the paint job!" |
1-2 Nearest, most expensive enemy Boss
3 Nearest, most expensive enemy figure
4-5 Nearest enemy figure
6-8 Nearest objective
9-10 Enemy figure nearest to nearest objective
And those are my thoughts. With any luck, I'll be able to tell y'all how it went, good or bad. Best of luck to all of you out there trying your darnedest to get by and stay sane!
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