Like many (hobby) things, FAD rewards a deeper commitment. Bring some of yourself to the game in terms of adding extra routines or just elaborations that add color and meaning. I treat FAD (and any other system) as a framework to inspire my own imaginings. The more systems I experience, the more material I have upon which to draw ideas. Don't be afraid to mix in things borrowed and enjoy the adventure.
I think you're right, and I think this is good feedback regardless; some things you can't fully draw the complete value from something without the investment.
I love 4AD and TTT adds a new depth and richness to the gameplay. The many different types of supplements available allow me to take my game in a direction that interests me - classic old school fantasy with lots of mapping and journaling as the story progresses. I enjoy soloing a party of four and the simplicity of this system helps me do this pretty easily. It’s some of the best fun I’ve had in many years of gaming!
See this is so great, and I think it's extremely likely that I will hit a moment in my soloing journey where all I want to play is a game like 4AD, and I am warming up to the fact that it's more than just one single book; it's like building a big puzzle.
Thanks for giving this one a go and making the vid. TTT isn't really recommended for right out of the gate play, if one wants "crunch" right away, I'd recommend Digressions of Devouring Dead as sort of that Advanced 4AD. I think it should be noted that there are different authors of 4ad, game lines, so to speak. All the White titles (TTT & DDD included) are all written by one specific author. In only these books, one will find complex rules, references to other White Title books, and adult humor/art. All other 4ad books do not include these. Second point, is that 4ad never is advertised as an "RPG" or solo"RPG". At the end this is sort of addressed, but really 4ad is better defined as a boardgame than rpg. The good news is that it can easily be adapted into an awesome rpg. I've used it for after school middle school clubs in the past (just using the core book and card expansions). When played as a rules-lite rpg it has a lot of merit. Though that involves Play-Mastering (ie, 4ad is golden in that it gives you the bearbones, leaving it for your the play-master to sandbox and build up- I now use 4ad as my basic rules system for a lot of D&D module playthroughs). Again, HOW to do that is left to you (but it is really simple to do). Someone asked about charisma and oracles. This is cleverly baked into the system. Each monster has a reaction roll. As a GM, secretly roll the monster reaction behind a DM screen. The result tells you the GM how to Roleplay the encounter, leaving it up to the players to decide. A Bribe reaction doesn't have to be a bribe, it probably means that socialization is possible, but the monsters "Want something" in turn for not attacking the players. Again, that's not how the encounter has to go, it just gives you the GM an idea how to RP the encounter on the fly and allow the PCs decide how rp their part. How to do skill challenges? You can either stick to the reaction oracle when needed to see if the PCs successfully intimidated the monster, for example, or just use a L4 challenge and - or + 1 depending on the class, like if there is hatred involved or + if halflings are present and use halflings as your charismatic character (also give them +1 stealth rolls to sneak past enemies). My favorite supplement is probably Wayfarers & Adventurers because I love using Character Traits and Milestones as oracles to create backstory for each character. I always view the Milestone EXPLAINS the Character Trait, and usually when putting those two together, my brain quickly comes up with a paragraph backstory uniquely for that character. In summary, don't go with TTT right out the gate, and if wanting solo-rpg or lite rpg, there is a lot of value here but because the game wasn't built to be this, you will be dissatisfied attempting to do it out of the box, instead, what is golden here is that it gives you barebones skeleton of a rules system to build up from and easily morph the game. How I play the game and the rules I houserule look nothing like the core rule book. That for me is what gives its fun. Usually the imagination just needs something or 1+2 = kind of formula. There is enough random blokes in 4ad's content to take items and re-morph them into those narrative bits (even if the game wasn't designed that way). Turn a character trait into a magical piece of treasure and combine two milestones together to get the playdough to morph a quest into. Again, once the imagination has those 1 or 2 bits, it can quickly remorph it into narrative.
going to get Advanced 4AD, I do see myself having phases where this is what I want, especially when I want to game and don't have the mental bandwidth to summon each and every scenario
@@amanisalone that's just a term I use not an official one (but White Titles basically is official). Check out Wayfarers & Adventurers (PNP Arcade does a blackfriday sale each year and they have most of the 4ad pdfs) as I see that, in my mind, as the most "role-play" vs "roll-play" of 4ad because I can rubix cube Character Traits and Milestone to create fast backstories. Others state that they see a lot of value in the "Twisted" line of books. Twisted might be more what you are looking for how to add roleplay rpg into the system. Roll two Twisted Dungeons for just one dungeon and explain each represent a different faction from within. Twisted Final Fights are bosses that all can be fleshed out to be big bads of an "episode" or campaign. One option is get a blank sheet of paper. Roll random dice drop. Each dice dropped is a location in your above-game world. Then maybe take a Twisted Boss and maybe a random milestone and combine them to create an overall season plot? Each dice drop location represents a different dungeon or key location (even a troublesome town or hamlet) and each uses its own twisted dungeon. Again, this wont be "super narrative" but at least it gives kind of a framework of how campaign with the system as is can go. As for just roleplaying, I have experience where I did no GM prep and was able to play hours of funny episodic-like adventures with an after school club just with the rule book and card expansions. There might might be rpgs out there that GMS can play with no GM prep, but 4ad has all the bits there. Just note, as written, it ISN'T an rpg, its a dungeon run simulator (you are not your Warrior, Elf, Dwarf, Cleric), your this observer looking down on your dungeon, much like you would a mouse maze, and your party of 4 are your little maze-rats you're watching to see if they make through the maze or not. That's rules as is. It can be morphed into an rpg, though. For example, my monster conversion method is to take a D&D monster encounter, find its 4ad cousin, then divide each monster's HP by its 4ad's cousin and get its "Life". Then just keep the number encountered the same as the prewritten adventure and go from there (I added in my own Implosion Rule to this mod, if while defending and a 1 is rolled, monsters attack again and the player needs to defend again, the inverse of an explosions roll). OR a more simplistic way to convert D&D is ignore the encounter's number encountered and instead roll the random d6 number encountered from its 4ad cousin (instead of 4 goblilns in the D&D adventure, you face d6+3 goblins).
From my understand there two books mainly due to the limitations of print on demand services like Amazon’s. There are page limits for paperback prints and hardback prints are quite a bit more expensive.
One of my huge gripes with 4ad, every passage references 9 other books, its like reading through ads constantly. It breaks immersion and is more mental dross that slows me down 😡 ...but ive also had many hours of fun playing...but i cant stand how spread out everything is, i have to thumb through 5 books all night while im playing, and there are no stats!! All it needs is a charisma stat so you can make some freaking social checks..but instead EVERY CLASS DOES CHECKS DIFFERENTLY and hence there are actions that a barbarian cant take but a wizard can. Like bathe. Barbarians arent allowed to bathe. And some classes arent allowed to woo..So frustrating. Ive got ttt both tomes, but i never read them. I tried but my brain glossed over and i bought micro chapbook rpg instead...i have some real issues with and mixed emotions about 4ad..but i guess i better read them tomes maybe
I should write a tiny line each video as a form of exposure therapy for you...but I'm afraid I might permanently damage the teacher-brain part of you and that would just be cruel to do someone with such an awesome handle!!
I am such a fan of TTT, I don't play a massive amount, but I always encounter something new every time I sit down with it. Troublesome Towns really elevates 4AD to another level. Thanks for covering this supplement!
PS: There's an artifact left over that made it to print: Some map symbols were changed from "B" to "Bu" for "Bully". I remember having some initial confusion about "Boss" vs "Bully" map symbols. Hope this helps anyone who decides to give it a play. :)
4:45 Exactly! The lack of role play threw me off from this game. The same goes for D100 Dungeons that is pretty much the same game. I had to make up reasons for adventuring for my character(s) and make up pretty much everything. Solo RPGs (and RPGs in general) are not rolling dice until a counter goes down to zero. They are called Role Playing Games for a reason. Role play. Not Roll play.
Not sure if you knew this, but any of the 4AD books with white font titles (I think they're all co-authored by Bouchard) have "adult" content. Having rules for "strumpetry" was going to be a given.
@@amanisalone Yeah, I believe that it is. I think it was discovered early on when people were buying supplements and the tone of the originals (all with yellow font titles) took a sharp turn into topics they weren't expecting. Enjoy your random table of harlots and STIs while dungeon crawling, regardless.
Completely agree on that front, and I think that I'd prefer this to a journaling game, but not as much as a narrative-medium crunch RPG (the man alone sweet spot)
Hei Man Alone, do you know the game called Mutant Epoch? It is a ttrpg that generaly requires large groups but some wille ago the author released a 1 PC adventure book for that ttrpg. The thing is, all his adventures books, for 1 or more characters, are written as chose your own adventure, what makes great for solo. The thing is... creating a character in that game is realy detailed and everything matters. So, if you like post-apocaliptic games with tons of art and tables, Mutant Epoch is the best. The last rules expantion is just a tome with 530 pages , more than 1225art images, with the base game you will have 20 character types to play and more than 200 mutations
How much generation is too much generation? Is the aim SoloPlay or SoloGMing? Could a Dev provide just a specific group of mechanics and leave ALL the specifics to the player? Imagine a dungeon crawl where you roll to determine size of room (a la 2d6 dungeon) then, you roll on an Action and Theme table (like Ironsworn) to spark the creation of the room you’ve just generated. How does the player determine the resolution of the challenge/event? How does the Character determine how THEY’D approach the challenge/event? Seems like an interesting concept - wonder if it’s too fluffy
I think of systems like 4AD as analogue computing languages. They simulate very well, but the speed is limited by how familiar the user is with very extensive rule set.
I played 4AD and found it tedious. Maybe I didn’t take it far enough but it was just a step above NoteQuest to me which I found too repetitive. I’d much rather play RoSD.
They may have invested in a better flowchart design but they still couldn't pony up enough money to pay real artists (Most of the book's art, including the covers, is AI generated)
damn I had no idea! I did think the cover of the original looked a little janky (something about the depth perception seemed off). It's so interesting to see the difference between black and white art like this in something for example like forbidden lands that is just absolutely gorgeous, makes the 4AD art look like etch a sketch in comparison
@@amanisalone The original 4AD cover is human-made of course. That also came out before AI art was that good. I'm talking about those two supplements from the video specifically
I'm pretty sure that the creator, Andrea Sfiligoi (who is an artist himself and has drawn many of the covers personally) has vowed not to use any AI generated art.
@@amanisalone @lavalmartin2552 Do you guys have eyes?? I've seen eough AI art (and experimented with it myself enough) to recognize that style at first glance by now. Look at the chain mail armour, the swirls of the shield, the belt of the dwarf, the buildings in the background, the eyes of the characters etc. etc. etc. None of the fine details and patterns make sense and become a blurry mess if you examine it properly.
I love 4AD. Ive had a ton of fun with it and plan to continue to do so. But maaaaaanalooone, the designers are a weird bunch of dudes. They have some juvenile sexual predilections that seem to make it into a lot of the books. That is extra odd when you consider they are all middle-age or older. 😂
Like many (hobby) things, FAD rewards a deeper commitment. Bring some of yourself to the game in terms of adding extra routines or just elaborations that add color and meaning. I treat FAD (and any other system) as a framework to inspire my own imaginings. The more systems I experience, the more material I have upon which to draw ideas. Don't be afraid to mix in things borrowed and enjoy the adventure.
I think you're right, and I think this is good feedback regardless; some things you can't fully draw the complete value from something without the investment.
I love 4AD and TTT adds a new depth and richness to the gameplay. The many different types of supplements available allow me to take my game in a direction that interests me - classic old school fantasy with lots of mapping and journaling as the story progresses. I enjoy soloing a party of four and the simplicity of this system helps me do this pretty easily. It’s some of the best fun I’ve had in many years of gaming!
See this is so great, and I think it's extremely likely that I will hit a moment in my soloing journey where all I want to play is a game like 4AD, and I am warming up to the fact that it's more than just one single book; it's like building a big puzzle.
Thanks for giving this one a go and making the vid. TTT isn't really recommended for right out of the gate play, if one wants "crunch" right away, I'd recommend Digressions of Devouring Dead as sort of that Advanced 4AD. I think it should be noted that there are different authors of 4ad, game lines, so to speak. All the White titles (TTT & DDD included) are all written by one specific author. In only these books, one will find complex rules, references to other White Title books, and adult humor/art. All other 4ad books do not include these. Second point, is that 4ad never is advertised as an "RPG" or solo"RPG". At the end this is sort of addressed, but really 4ad is better defined as a boardgame than rpg.
The good news is that it can easily be adapted into an awesome rpg. I've used it for after school middle school clubs in the past (just using the core book and card expansions). When played as a rules-lite rpg it has a lot of merit. Though that involves Play-Mastering (ie, 4ad is golden in that it gives you the bearbones, leaving it for your the play-master to sandbox and build up- I now use 4ad as my basic rules system for a lot of D&D module playthroughs). Again, HOW to do that is left to you (but it is really simple to do).
Someone asked about charisma and oracles. This is cleverly baked into the system. Each monster has a reaction roll. As a GM, secretly roll the monster reaction behind a DM screen. The result tells you the GM how to Roleplay the encounter, leaving it up to the players to decide. A Bribe reaction doesn't have to be a bribe, it probably means that socialization is possible, but the monsters "Want something" in turn for not attacking the players. Again, that's not how the encounter has to go, it just gives you the GM an idea how to RP the encounter on the fly and allow the PCs decide how rp their part. How to do skill challenges? You can either stick to the reaction oracle when needed to see if the PCs successfully intimidated the monster, for example, or just use a L4 challenge and - or + 1 depending on the class, like if there is hatred involved or + if halflings are present and use halflings as your charismatic character (also give them +1 stealth rolls to sneak past enemies).
My favorite supplement is probably Wayfarers & Adventurers because I love using Character Traits and Milestones as oracles to create backstory for each character. I always view the Milestone EXPLAINS the Character Trait, and usually when putting those two together, my brain quickly comes up with a paragraph backstory uniquely for that character.
In summary, don't go with TTT right out the gate, and if wanting solo-rpg or lite rpg, there is a lot of value here but because the game wasn't built to be this, you will be dissatisfied attempting to do it out of the box, instead, what is golden here is that it gives you barebones skeleton of a rules system to build up from and easily morph the game. How I play the game and the rules I houserule look nothing like the core rule book. That for me is what gives its fun. Usually the imagination just needs something or 1+2 = kind of formula. There is enough random blokes in 4ad's content to take items and re-morph them into those narrative bits (even if the game wasn't designed that way). Turn a character trait into a magical piece of treasure and combine two milestones together to get the playdough to morph a quest into. Again, once the imagination has those 1 or 2 bits, it can quickly remorph it into narrative.
going to get Advanced 4AD, I do see myself having phases where this is what I want, especially when I want to game and don't have the mental bandwidth to summon each and every scenario
@@amanisalone that's just a term I use not an official one (but White Titles basically is official). Check out Wayfarers & Adventurers (PNP Arcade does a blackfriday sale each year and they have most of the 4ad pdfs) as I see that, in my mind, as the most "role-play" vs "roll-play" of 4ad because I can rubix cube Character Traits and Milestone to create fast backstories. Others state that they see a lot of value in the "Twisted" line of books. Twisted might be more what you are looking for how to add roleplay rpg into the system. Roll two Twisted Dungeons for just one dungeon and explain each represent a different faction from within. Twisted Final Fights are bosses that all can be fleshed out to be big bads of an "episode" or campaign. One option is get a blank sheet of paper. Roll random dice drop. Each dice dropped is a location in your above-game world. Then maybe take a Twisted Boss and maybe a random milestone and combine them to create an overall season plot? Each dice drop location represents a different dungeon or key location (even a troublesome town or hamlet) and each uses its own twisted dungeon. Again, this wont be "super narrative" but at least it gives kind of a framework of how campaign with the system as is can go.
As for just roleplaying, I have experience where I did no GM prep and was able to play hours of funny episodic-like adventures with an after school club just with the rule book and card expansions. There might might be rpgs out there that GMS can play with no GM prep, but 4ad has all the bits there. Just note, as written, it ISN'T an rpg, its a dungeon run simulator (you are not your Warrior, Elf, Dwarf, Cleric), your this observer looking down on your dungeon, much like you would a mouse maze, and your party of 4 are your little maze-rats you're watching to see if they make through the maze or not. That's rules as is. It can be morphed into an rpg, though. For example, my monster conversion method is to take a D&D monster encounter, find its 4ad cousin, then divide each monster's HP by its 4ad's cousin and get its "Life". Then just keep the number encountered the same as the prewritten adventure and go from there (I added in my own Implosion Rule to this mod, if while defending and a 1 is rolled, monsters attack again and the player needs to defend again, the inverse of an explosions roll). OR a more simplistic way to convert D&D is ignore the encounter's number encountered and instead roll the random d6 number encountered from its 4ad cousin (instead of 4 goblilns in the D&D adventure, you face d6+3 goblins).
From my understand there two books mainly due to the limitations of print on demand services like Amazon’s. There are page limits for paperback prints and hardback prints are quite a bit more expensive.
Benediction is a good dog name. Everyone would call him Ben, but you'd know ;)
One of my huge gripes with 4ad, every passage references 9 other books, its like reading through ads constantly. It breaks immersion and is more mental dross that slows me down 😡
...but ive also had many hours of fun playing...but i cant stand how spread out everything is, i have to thumb through 5 books all night while im playing, and there are no stats!! All it needs is a charisma stat so you can make some freaking social checks..but instead EVERY CLASS DOES CHECKS DIFFERENTLY and hence there are actions that a barbarian cant take but a wizard can. Like bathe. Barbarians arent allowed to bathe. And some classes arent allowed to woo..So frustrating. Ive got ttt both tomes, but i never read them. I tried but my brain glossed over and i bought micro chapbook rpg instead...i have some real issues with and mixed emotions about 4ad..but i guess i better read them tomes maybe
@@ericdollarhyde3296 lol yes!!! Eric you are who I was referring to in the video! You are the charisma stat person!!!
You should try 4AD's Echoes of the Dead, it's a great three-part campaign for beginner paladin characters, I love it!
The old teacher part of me cringed when you wrote on top of the book 😀
I should write a tiny line each video as a form of exposure therapy for you...but I'm afraid I might permanently damage the teacher-brain part of you and that would just be cruel to do someone with such an awesome handle!!
@@amanisalone Haha thanks!
I am such a fan of TTT, I don't play a massive amount, but I always encounter something new every time I sit down with it. Troublesome Towns really elevates 4AD to another level. Thanks for covering this supplement!
PS: There's an artifact left over that made it to print: Some map symbols were changed from "B" to "Bu" for "Bully". I remember having some initial confusion about "Boss" vs "Bully" map symbols. Hope this helps anyone who decides to give it a play. :)
4:45 Exactly!
The lack of role play threw me off from this game.
The same goes for D100 Dungeons that is pretty much the same game.
I had to make up reasons for adventuring for my character(s) and make up pretty much everything.
Solo RPGs (and RPGs in general) are not rolling dice until a counter goes down to zero.
They are called Role Playing Games for a reason.
Role play.
Not Roll play.
Not sure if you knew this, but any of the 4AD books with white font titles (I think they're all co-authored by Bouchard) have "adult" content. Having rules for "strumpetry" was going to be a given.
No way is this true?? lol if so that's a hilarious code word
@@amanisalone Yeah, I believe that it is. I think it was discovered early on when people were buying supplements and the tone of the originals (all with yellow font titles) took a sharp turn into topics they weren't expecting. Enjoy your random table of harlots and STIs while dungeon crawling, regardless.
That is true
The board game aspect is what attracts me to games. Journaling isn't for me. I like the dice rolls more than character and world building.
Completely agree on that front, and I think that I'd prefer this to a journaling game, but not as much as a narrative-medium crunch RPG (the man alone sweet spot)
Hei Man Alone, do you know the game called Mutant Epoch?
It is a ttrpg that generaly requires large groups but some wille ago the author released a 1 PC adventure book for that ttrpg. The thing is, all his adventures books, for 1 or more characters, are written as chose your own adventure, what makes great for solo.
The thing is... creating a character in that game is realy detailed and everything matters.
So, if you like post-apocaliptic games with tons of art and tables, Mutant Epoch is the best. The last rules expantion is just a tome with 530 pages , more than 1225art images, with the base game you will have 20 character types to play and more than 200 mutations
How much generation is too much generation? Is the aim SoloPlay or SoloGMing?
Could a Dev provide just a specific group of mechanics and leave ALL the specifics to the player?
Imagine a dungeon crawl where you roll to determine size of room (a la 2d6 dungeon) then, you roll on an Action and Theme table (like Ironsworn) to spark the creation of the room you’ve just generated.
How does the player determine the resolution of the challenge/event? How does the Character determine how THEY’D approach the challenge/event?
Seems like an interesting concept - wonder if it’s too fluffy
@@Papa_Nebo believe me papa neeb we have been thinking about this ALOT and no it’s not too fluff
I think of systems like 4AD as analogue computing languages. They simulate very well, but the speed is limited by how familiar the user is with very extensive rule set.
I played 4AD and found it tedious. Maybe I didn’t take it far enough but it was just a step above NoteQuest to me which I found too repetitive. I’d much rather play RoSD.
Welcome to Asmodeus' Fireclothing Bakery . . .
More seriously: Ker Nethalas: one rulebook (not including the zines). It's the edgy alternative. And no fucking alliteration.
Sounds like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book where you are missing pages. No thanks. I don’t need strumpets in my life.
32:03 HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa
They may have invested in a better flowchart design but they still couldn't pony up enough money to pay real artists
(Most of the book's art, including the covers, is AI generated)
damn I had no idea! I did think the cover of the original looked a little janky (something about the depth perception seemed off). It's so interesting to see the difference between black and white art like this in something for example like forbidden lands that is just absolutely gorgeous, makes the 4AD art look like etch a sketch in comparison
@@amanisalone The original 4AD cover is human-made of course. That also came out before AI art was that good. I'm talking about those two supplements from the video specifically
I'm pretty sure that the creator, Andrea Sfiligoi (who is an artist himself and has drawn many of the covers personally) has vowed not to use any AI generated art.
@ wow! The plot thickens! So what is true?!??
@@amanisalone @lavalmartin2552
Do you guys have eyes?? I've seen eough AI art (and experimented with it myself enough) to recognize that style at first glance by now.
Look at the chain mail armour, the swirls of the shield, the belt of the dwarf, the buildings in the background, the eyes of the characters etc. etc. etc.
None of the fine details and patterns make sense and become a blurry mess if you examine it properly.
I don't think you'll ever know how much I appreciate the safety PSA!
I love 4AD. Ive had a ton of fun with it and plan to continue to do so.
But maaaaaanalooone, the designers are a weird bunch of dudes. They have some juvenile sexual predilections that seem to make it into a lot of the books. That is extra odd when you consider they are all middle-age or older. 😂
I watch all of your content unless it's about 4ad... So my input is that you were probably too soft.
lol needed this
Avoid the books with the White Titles. They are misogynistic, gutter sexual innuendo, and demon worshipping.
The rest of the 4AD material is great
This is incredible - did everyone know about this but me? Why does this distinction even exist?? So odd!!