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Chronicles of Arax: Solo Adventure Game scratches my role-playing itch in a very satisfying way. At it's most basic, it allows you to take a Hero into a dungeon and kill some monsters while taking their treasure. By yourself, and without a GM.
The game begins with an introduction to the world of Arax, which paints the world as a grim land besieged by the forces of evil. A Hero is going to be required to make a stand, and you are that Hero.
The introduction goes on to tell you what you need to play, namely a set of polyhedral dice.
When then get to a section on Heroes. Each Hero has eight characteristics which define what he is and isn't good at, such as Fighting, Magic, Strength, etc. Each of these is given a dice type, such as d4 or d6, with the more sides the die has being better. These eight characteristics are used during the game to make Tests; you take your die type and need to roll above a certain score to succeed. For example, you might be told to make a Strength Test (4+), meaning you need to roll the die assigned to your Strength characteristic and score 4 or more to pass.
All Heroes also have a Wounds score, which is your normal hit points/life points/health points score. Hit 0 and you die (which, incidentally, happens a lot).
The next few pages are given over to explaining how Tests work and also how to fight the many battles you will most certainly do. Fighting is different to tests with a series of opposed rolls being made on your Fighting Skill score: if you roll higher than your enemy, you hit, and vice versa. This section finishes with rules for gaining experience and leveling up your Hero.
Next up we have a pre-built character for you to play, the Adventurer. There is very little customization you can do to this character besides choosing his equipment; basically all Adventurers are the same. This is only true for starting Adventurers; as yours increases in level you will be able to choose special skills (of which there are 10) to help him beat his enemies.
The lack of customization is both a good thing and a bad thing. It means you can get started very quickly, which is good, but also means that every Adventurer you take will be almost identical at Level 0. Still, with the amount of times you will die during a Quest, the 'pick up and play' aspect of the Adventurer is a good thing.
The next section of the book takes our Hero into Bloodfyre Mountain, a 20 area Quest where you are aiming to defeat a sorcerer named Goraz and his orc minions. Quests are interesting; I have seen them compared to a Fighting Fantasy or Lone Wolf book, but I don't think this is quite right. I would actually compare the way the Quest plays to be similar to a game of Warhammer Quest without the board and models. There are 20 Encounters, and you roll randomly to see which Encounter you get. You begin by rolling a d10, meaning you only start with Encounters 1-10. As you complete Encounters, you add an additional +1 to the roll, meaning that eventually you will reach Encounter 20 and the final showdown with Goraz. The way this is done is genius; it simulates the feel of progressing through the adventure and you never know exactly which Encounter you will get. It also adds much re-playability to the game.
The two pages following the Quest gives you a smattering of equipment for your Hero to purchase, as well as a list of 'artifacts and relics' that you might find during your adventures (when you find one of these during a Quest you are instructed to roll randomly to determine what you actually find). The last page includes a handy glossary of terms the game uses.
Chronicles of Arax is a fun and enjoyable game. It only takes 10-15 minutes to play through the included Quest, and seeing your Hero level up, gain new skills and magic items is nice. And because it's free, you have no excuse at least not to try it (fair warning: you may become addicted!)
Finally, I'd like to say a word or two about the business model Crystal Star Games has used for this game and it's expansions. The core rules, which I just reviewed, are completely free. They contain everything you could ever need to play the game. But Crystal Star Games also offer what they call 'premium expansions' for $1US each that adds new Quests, Heroes, Equipment and others to the game to make it more enjoyable or to offer you new options to try. This method is copied from the method of releasing Facebook or iOS games for free and offering in-app purchases to give you the edge, and it is interesting to see this method use for a pen and paper RPG. Hopefully this method will be successful and it will be interesting to see if other companies follow this method.
