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From publisher blurb:
The crimson mist churns a hundred miles from shore, red with the blood of a butchered world. Here in the Sunset Isles the last fragments of humanity struggle to withstand the fury of the native Shou and the corruption within their own divided ranks. Hard-eyed men and women brood in the waterfront dives and shabby tea houses, selling their swords for a few bright coins or the promise of a dead man's treasures. In the wilderness, the lost cities of vanished empires and fallen races lie deep within the jungle shroud, and the desperate efforts of colonists and refugees strain to contain the horrors that threaten on every side.
It is a time for legends. It is a time for fearless warriors and eldritch adepts to rise from this hard-pressed people and defend them from the nightmare that threatens to engulf them all. The wealth of ages awaits those steely souls with the courage to cast down the guardians and break the vaults of the festering dead. A new world struggles to be born from the red ruin of the old. It is in need of scarlet heroes.
Scarlet Heroes is an old-school tabletop role-playing game designed to provide classic sword and sorcery gaming for one player and one gamemaster. Unlike most other RPGs, Scarlet Heroes is built to support one-on-one play, with no need for a full-fledged party of adventurers to provide an evening's entertainment. Whether for a spouse, kid, curious friend, or just as an alternative to boardgames for those nights when only one or two friends can make it to the gaming session, Scarlet Heroes gives you the tools for good old-fashioned skull-cracking adventure.
Scarlet Heroes can be used both as a stand-alone RPG and as an overlay over your favorite old-school game to make its adventures playable for single PCs or very small groups. It shares the same classic statistics and basic game mechanisms as these old-school favorites, but by changing the interpretation of these numbers it makes it possible for a single courageous adventurer to dare perils that would otherwise threaten a half-dozen freebooters. With Scarlet Heroes, a GM can pull out a favorite module, grab a convenient friend, and a have a full night's adventure with no tweaking, alteration, or adjustment of the material needed.
Inside the pages of this book, you'll find…
A full stand-alone RPG system that can also be used as an overlay atop most popular old-school games.
The Red Tide campaign setting as a default for the game, with a full bestiary of Southeast Asian-inspired monsters, suitable new magic items, and a full list of new cleric and magic-user spells for that setting.
Sixty new adventure tags of the sort beloved in Stars Without Number and the Red Tide Campaign Setting sourcebook. Mix and match to fashion your own perilous circumstance.
Solo adventure tools for genuine single-player RPG gaming. Mix your own creativity with table results to create a narrative for your own hero's adventure… or use them as inspiration in crafting something for a group.
Five crisp new maps by Dyson Logos, unkeyed and ready to be filled by your own creativity.
- Made the host understand solo role-playing.
- Provides structure and rules for solo freedom.
- Great rules for dungeon crawling, hex crawls, and urban adventures.
- Has ways to generate quests and great oracles.
- All-in-one book with super simple rules.
- Designed specifically for one hero, scaled down for solo play.
- Mythic GM emulator
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Dungeon crawling — Includes great rules for dungeon crawling.
- Hex Crawling — Includes great rules for wilderness hex crawls.
- Oracles — Features great oracles for generating content.
- Quest Generation — Has ways to generate quests.
- solo RPG — Focuses on role-playing for a single player.
- Urban Adventure Generation — Has ways to generate urban adventures.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- It might be hyperbole to say that a game can change your life, but I don't really think so.
- Hobbies for a lot of us are the reason we we put so much of our time, so much of our life into our hobbies.
- Acquire was my family's Monopoly.
- I think Acquire is a perfect little economic game.
- It's not an exciting game, but I just I always have fun when I play it.
- The game that changed many of our lives.
- Playing D and D was an act of rebellion.
- it would be impossible to imagine this hobby. It would be impossible to imagine the Dungeon Dive without Dungeons and Dragons.
- It's a huge bohemoth in this industry and I am very very thankful for that game being in my life for 40 years probably.
References (from this video)
- All-in-one solution with excellent solo oracles and rules.
- Offers dozens, potentially hundreds, of hours of gameplay.
- Best buy in the business.
- Great for solo play.
- Handles urban adventures exceptionally well.
- Great wilderness and dungeon generation rules.
- Fantastic adventure tag system.
- Excellent combat scaling for solo play.
- Converts seamlessly with other OSR inspired books.
- Provides everything needed for hundreds of hours of play.
- Fantastic solo system.
- The setting (The Red Tide) might not appeal to everyone.
- Standard miniatures/standees might not match the exotic monsters.
- The front cover is not very good or inspiring.
- Sword and Sorcery Fantasy
- The Red Tide (Pan-Asian/Japanese/Chinese influence)
- Mythic GM emulator
- Conan
- Faford
- Grey Mouser
- Elrich
- White Box
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Adventure Tag System — A genius system that combines elements like terrain, enemies, and complications to inspire adventures.
- Dungeon Creation Rules — Simple rules for creating dungeon size, layouts, and rooms.
- Frey Die — Allows solo players to deal damage to creatures, scaling combat effectively.
- GM-less Solo Play — Designed from the ground up for solo play without a GM, or for one GM and one hero.
- OSR Compatibility — Includes rules for incorporating other OSR games and deriving hit points.
- Solo Oracles — Includes some of the best, most useful solo oracles and rules.
- Sword and Sorcery Focus — Designed for powerful, capable heroes in the style of Conan or Faford.
- Urban Adventure Rules — Handles mystery and conspiracy well with scene-setting and clue-finding mechanics.
- Wilderness Adventure Rules — Includes rules for terrain, hex crawling, and random events.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- It's Fun to Go Alone. This is the top 10 solo RPGs.
- As a matter of fact, I've done an episode on uh solo analog dungeon crawl.
- And boy howdy did I fall in love with this game.
- This is a game that that treats the kind of spirituality and folklore and mythology of the Japan in a very very respectful nature.
- Holy crap, what a game. I love this game. It is so much fun.
- This game is super super simple.
- The simplicity can be a little confusing because as you're reading the rules, you're kind of like, 'Oh, wait. That's it. I don't get it.'
- Morgborg, man, what a game. I love this game so much.
- The solo rules that made me understand solo role playing.
- The generosity liberal thirdparty licensing.
- Scarlet Heroes really is the game that made solo role playing click with me.
- This is an all inone solution with some of the best, most useful solo oracles and rules I have ever played.
- The urban adventure rules in Scarlet Heroes handle that really well, better than just about any other game I've played.
References (from this video)
- Considered the best solo RPG by the host
- Excellent, comprehensive solo gaming rules
- Covers both urban and wilderness adventures
- Includes rules for hex map and dungeon generation
- Hex generation rules are basic.
- May require additional tools for more robust hex map generation.
- Solo RPG for urban intrigue, mysteries, crime, political intrigue, and wilderness adventures.
- Urban and Wilderness
- Adaptable to various narrative styles
- Sandbox Generator
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Dungeon generation — And then if you find a dungeon, we also have rules on generating a dungeon.
- Hex Generation — this is when you will use a hex map and you will roll on your different feature tables, your different terrain types, the details of the hex map.
- Solo play rules — designed from the ground up for solo play with all of the rules you will need in the solo gaming section.
- Urban Adventure — Scarlet Heroes has everything you will need for your urban adventures. You know, intrigue in a city and solving mysteries and crime and political intrigue.
- Wilderness Adventure — But we have our wilderness adventures.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This is one of the best tools for hex crawling that I know of.
- It just works so effortlessly.
- This little snap box here has everything that you would need to have a little solo hex crawl.
- So just a really really neat little pocket uh hex crawl.
- This isn't a game in and of itself. You will need a game. You will need a system.
- This is one of my favorite subgenres of the tabletop hobby.
References (from this video)
- Effortless and fun map generation
- Generates underground biomes and mega dungeons
- Connects mega dungeons to the overworld
- Excellent tool for hex crawling
- Limited hex generation for coasts or water features
- Underground biomes, mega dungeons, overworld
- Sandbox
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Hex Generation — Generates hex maps, including underground biomes and mega dungeons that can connect to the overworld.
- sandbox — Allows players to create their own story, fun, and objectives.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This is one of the best tools for hex crawling that I know of.
- It just works so effortlessly.
- This little snap box here has everything that you would need to have a little solo hex crawl.
- So just a really really neat little pocket uh hex crawl.
- This isn't a game in and of itself. You will need a game. You will need a system.
- This is one of my favorite subgenres of the tabletop hobby.
References (from this video)
- Handles combat in a way that fixes many common solo RPG combat issues.
- Still has some lingering problems with combat.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Fray Die — Heroes have a die that is rolled with their normal attack, which always hits and applies damage.
- Modified Damage Table — Rolls a single die for damage and applies results from a chart instead of rolling weapon damage.
- Scaling HP — Uses hit dice to determine HP, so a monster with 6d6 hit dice has 6 HP, and a monster with 4d8 has 4 HP.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- one of my least favorite things in a solo RPG when I sit down to play is it is combat.
- Oftentimes combat just gets so tedious for me.
- You know, your hero's turn, you roll your D20, and you miss. And then the enemy rolls their D20, and they miss.
- And I often just get really bored with uh combat in solo RPGs.
- But, you know, I look at combat like these are, you know, you're you're you're you're playing heroes most of the time.
- You're playing people who are good at what they do.
- And they should be able to always do something good on their turn just to kind of, you know, progress the heroic narrative that we are so interested in.
- character death to me is not fun. It's not exciting, especially when I'm playing solo because I want my characters to progress.
- Narrating the outcome for me is always more interesting than just ticking down points of damage until one side dies.
- And so I do like just kind of combat simulation where you don't go through each roll one at a time applying damage and it just it just kind of alleviates some of that tedium that I do find.
- When I think about interesting combat in a game, in a tabletop game, I prefer it from a more narrative side, rather than from a tactical or skirmish side.