Check out this “What you need to play” list

To play Lone Eons you will need:

• A Journal and Pencil
• Deck of Standard Playing Cards, jokers removed
• Dice some d6s, 3d8, and a d4, d10 and d12
• If you only have d6s, just use them. Or flip coins. I’m not your dad.
• David Blandy, Lone Eons, p.8

This is some of the best advice I think I’ve ever seen in a game. It comes from David Blandy’s Solo Roleplaying Game Lone Eon, which is a reimagining of his game Lost Eons. Lost Eons is a cool game about a world a thousand years in the future after capitalism has destroyed the Earth, (in my head it reminds me of the setting from Watt’s Cloud Empress but with maybe a little less desert-ness and a little more rain forest-ness, but these can all really be flavored to how you want them to be flavored, right?) It is time for post humas to finally see how the world has healed without your influence, so you emerge from the bunker to explore and discover. Or at least that how I think of it, I’m probably a little off but for the most part it rules and you should check it out, or in a similar vein that most OSR peeps may be more interested in you could check out David (and Daniel’s) newer offering ECOMOFOS.

Cover of Lone Eons, very pretty, Daniel Locke

Lone Eons back cover, also beautiful, Daniel Locke

The Best Game Advice

The rules are important, but you know what, do whatever you want. The idea that the games rules do not need to dictate what you do in the game.

Especially a game designed to be run solo, sure it is nice having a set of guidelines that give you procedure, guard rails and ultimately direction in play, but it is refreshing seeing rules that give you guidance rather than edicts.

Oh no, am I approaching the discussion about Rule Zero?

I guess I might be but maybe my thoughts will be different, or at least add something new to the conversation? Maybe I will just utter nonsense that has been dribbled all over the internet already.

However this shakes out, I will try to make this short and sweet, enough has been said about rule zero over the years and I do not want to linger on for too long.

A Brief History of Rule Zero

These rules are as complete as possible within the limitations imposed by the space of three booklets. That is, they cover the major aspects of fantasy campaigns but still remain flexible. As with any other set of miniatures rules they are guidelines to follow in designing your own fantastic-medieval campaign. They provide the framework around which you will build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity — your time and imagination are about the only limiting factors, and the fact that you have purchased these rules tends to indicate that there is no lack of imagination — the fascination of the game will tend to make participants find more and more time. We advise, however, that a campaign be begun slowly, following the steps outlined herein, so as to avoid becoming too bogged down with unfamiliar details at first. That way your campaign will build naturally, at the pace best suited to the referee and players, smoothing the way for all concerned. New details can be added and old “laws” altered so as to provide continually new and different situations. In addition, the players themselves will interact in such a way as to make the campaign variable and unique, and this is quite desirable.

– Dave Arneson & Gary Gygax, Dungeons & Dragons Volume 1, Men & Magic (1974), p.4

Most of the editions of that game have some sort of inclusion of Rule Zero but I think this one is enough to demonstrate what it is. Start playing use the rules necessary to get off the ground, let the game be what the game is in the moment. Rules are a way to guide play and the rest can come into being as necessary. This is the origin of house rules in dungeon games where dragons may come about. It even states that this is desirable in your game, it means that you are doing the thing that the game is designed to do. You can have fun at the table and let the rules flow from the game.

I think all too often people get complacent in looking to a book for rules. What does the rule in the book say? Let me look that up real quick…

This is fine, feel free to look up the rule during play, but also feel free to question the judgement of the book. You have permission from this Halfling to just do what you damn well please, assuming that it doesn’t completely go against the fiction you are creating with your players at the table.

Is That It?

Yeah, pretty much.

That’s it, break rules that need to be broken for the sake of the story or game or whatever else you need to break them for.

While I’m not necessarily advocating that you ignore the rules completely in your game, after all you may have people that have signed up to play in a certain game and whatever may come with that. You do have a social obligation to them to at least try to get things right.

I ran a game of the fifth edition of THAT game a while back for some students. I told them up front that I wouldn’t be using all of the rules, and that I may “get some things wrong”. They accepted that and together we told a cool little two-shot story together. They accepted that I would be changing some things, and I gave them a small list of the things I would definitely not be using and then suggested that I would possibly change other things as needed for the game at the time of play. They were fine with that. I know for a fact that if I had not made this abundantly clear for them at first then I would have had a riot when I did not call for a skill roll to search a room or some such instead of just giving them the description of what was available.

You have a social contract with your players to follow through with some consistency in the game you have decided to play. So if the players are completely expecting an outcome based on the rules you have agreed to then that’s probably the ruling you should go with, but then again when something just doesn’t feel right then you should feel safe to make that judgement call.

If there is a disagreement about the outcome of a situation you should have this golden rule at your table.

When something needs to be done and there is no quick clear rule on the spot and the outcome could be skewed by your own perspective then it is time to roll a die

• On a d6; 1-3 are varying degrees of bad decide what that looks like before rolling
• a 4 or 5 is good, decide what that probably looks like before rolling
• 6 is even better

Or flip coins, after all I’m not your dad.

Derek Bizier, the Halfling “rules rule” Master