Two lights shone in the darkness.

The first was bright and blazing, a pyre fed by two resevoirs of oil. It sputtered and flamed all through the night, casting its rays through the dark and foggy air. A thousand ships had seen that light in their time, carefully keeping their distance from the craggy and rocky shoreline that threatened their hulls.

The second was not nearly so warm nor bright. It sat atop a tiny candle, and served little more than to shed a dim glow over the bone-yellow paper being written on by the lighthouse keeper, a Mr. Thomas Salford.

“This is a game that is fun.”

When I wrote my original post on Into the Woods, I mentioned the original box-set rules for Basic D&D, also known as “The Red Box.” The first line of this rule book: This is a game that is fun.

Let’s ignore both the clumsy childish sentence structure and the somewhat cringy “I have to tell you it’s fun or else you might not realize it” sentiment, and focus on the content. “This,” meaning the original Basic D&D RPG, “is a game,” meaning not a sport or tool but something to enjoy in your leisure hours, “that is fun.”

I’ve talked a lot about this amorphous concept, both in passing and as a nebulous “good” that we should all be aiming for in our RPG games. I’ve talked about how competition is a kind of fun that RPGs tend to eschew, opting for a co-op play-style. I’ve talked about how different kinds of practices both support and weaken the “fun” of the medium. I’ve talked about how the “Tyranny of Fun” can limit the medium, and how “fun” might not even be the be-all-end-all of our games.

I think it’s time to stop beating around the bush, be a Better Socrates, and explore this core concept of our hobby.

Iron Valley, by M. Kirin, is a solo RPG powered by Ironsworn and based on Stardew Valley. You play a recent transplant to Iron Valley, a quiet little community where an old family farm sits waiting for you to build it back up to its proud industrial roots. Or, maybe you’ll make friends and get married, or spend your time exploring and charting the spooky forest, or any number of other adventures that await your attention.

Iron Valley is one of any number of RPGs that have come out in recent years that are, for lack of a better word, cozy. The goal of the game isn’t to amass loot or slay dragons, it’s not to save the galaxy or avert planetary destruction, it’s to spend time with community, find new friends and nurture the world. That’s not to say you couldn’t be a monster-slaying defender of the town — you can do anything in an RPG — but the focus of the game isn’t violence, it’s humility.

The art of playtesting is a rich one, and I won’t have the time or the energy to spell all of it out.

Instead, I’ll detail the things I want to explore with playtesting, and how I will do so.

Tactiquest is a Tactical RPG still currently (at time of writing) in the beta playtesting stage. Written by level2janitor, (who you may remember also wrote Iron Halberd) Tactiquest is a half-diceless sandbox RPG designed for fast fights, diverse play-styles, and fantastical stories. Each creature-type you chose grants you bonuses, each class has multiple perks to shape your strategy, and there is the requisite extensive list of spells.

What’s half-diceless mean? I’m glad you asked.

This story was made using the solo RPG: The Magus, by momatoes. It is a “crunchy” journaling game: while there are only seven “scenes,” you have to make choices about your character that drastically adjust the results of the story.

Eventually, the High Sorcerers learned of me, but by then it was too late. Several of the rasher youths tried to dethrone me from my tower but I had grown too powerful for them. Two lay dead, another fled while acknowledging my strength. The wiser sorcerers granted me clemency; a farce and a pantomime, but welcome all the same. I would not have been able to resist them all had they united against me.

But I was one of them now; a Sorcerer in my own right. I did not need to hide my self away and skulk through the underbrush like a timid vole. Now I was the tiger, claiming the region as my own territory.

I dreamed my ghost regularly, drifting through the streets and forests of my land. I saw the people muttering in hushed tones, disgusted at my rule. Many left my lands, eager to live free from my protection. I do not begrudge them their foolishness; I took from them rarely and their blind hatred of my power harmed only themselves. I did not even punish those who spoke out openly against my claims, as I easily could have.

It might have gone differently. Had I not had Trella’s kind heart and gentle words to keep me from the darkness, I might have gone down the same path as so many others.

Last time I looked into a whole new ruleset. Now, I’d like to put all the rules I’ve come up with so far in one place, slot in some numbers, and see if that shakes anything out. The following are three different rulesets with…wait, three?

I told you this would happen. After the last post, my mind kept working, and shook out a few more ideas, as well as some polish to previous ones. When my brain gets wandery, it gets wandery.

First, let’s go over the universal basics of all the three rulesets:

Time passed slowly for me. I studied, practiced, plied my trade while scraping together what living I could from the surrounding lands. I often went hungry if I could not find simple work in the nearby towns, and every moment spent away from my practice was a blade that pierced my heart.

As the years passed I created more spells, discovered minor tricks and cantrips that provided me some amount of comfort. I delved into the old artifacts and found a measure of their use. I even managed to provide meager repairs to the tower, enough to keep it from collapsing down on my head. It was something of a home now; not nearly as cozy or friendly as Trella’s, but certainly better than a tent or cave.

Things might have continued in this manner, steadily improving as I toiled towards greater and more exotic astral power, had I not found the gemstone.

In the end, I decided to ask Trella if I could stay for a time, to both peruse her small library and help in any way I could to repay her kindness. She seemed delighted at the suggestion, and so for several months I shared her house, spending my days tending the yard or working in the nearby town, or studying the books in her library. The more I read, the more facinated I became by this strange and wonderful world. She had books on flowers and trees, books about animals and insects, books about stones and how rivers moved and even some on the secret ways of the guilds. Books about making iron or tanning hides. Books about brewing ale or making candles from wax.

I kept up my practice from my own book, late at night after she had gone to bed. I had looked long and hard through her library for books on magic, but only a few volumes provided any minor insight, and they were written by Royal Witchhunter hands.

The most useful book was a diary by the old Royal Witchhunter Primus, Fenlark the Bloody. In it, he went into solacious detail about rituals he had disrupted, profane acts he had prevented, and provided far more information than might have been prudent. His descriptions of magical instrumentation and unholy sigils provided me with keys to unlock hithertoo unknown secrets in my book, and as such my abilities grew in strength.