Sunday, July 30, 2023

Review - Operation Solo Endeavor

I picked up this supplement for Operation Whitebox for two reasons. Firstly I'm a huge fan of Operation WhiteBox and I've written a few scenarios for the system too. I thought I might have some fun solo-ing a team through one of my own scenarios.

I like what I found in here. An intro to solo playing, then a straight into a useful table for determining a mission objective. This table is short but it gives a nice variety of mission types. It then guides you into generating some VIPs for your mission. They might be NPCs, officers, targets, or otherwise. There are tables for theatre of operation and then significant places for the mission. 

Next we move into "Planning" which takes you the player through the design process of what you want to do when playing, and what sort of NPC you might want to prepare. 

It also introduces a mechanic called "Tension". This is a great idea. Its a ticking timebomb for a disaster. As you play it ticks down to something very bad happening. You never quite know when this bomb will go off or what form of DOOM it will take.

Then there's a guide on how to ask/answer the questions that drive the game, and gives you simple "oracle" to get your answers. It's a simple D10 mechanism ... but ... its variable, and you you can tailor it to the situation, ... and ... it drives that Tension mechanism.

Another great set of tables provide you inspiration and flavour for answering questions and feeding into your story. Talking of which, there is an nice set of NPC names tables, tailored to various nations involved. Beyond these, the book gives you plenty of advice on story telling and handling a team of players rather than a single character. 

To sum up, I'm really happy with this product, its a perfect fit for Operation Whitebox, and I'm going to be using it tonight! My only gripe, is that I'd like to own this as physical book.






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