Who hasn’t dreamed of going on a fantasy quest? To grab a band of merry men (and women), saddle up your horse, and head directly into the nearest dungeon to hunt for fortune and glory. However, sometimes you have the urge to quest, but don’t have the friends to do it with or the time to enjoy a traditional TTRPG campaign. Thankfully, this is where Heroish comes in, as it allows you to enjoy a fantasy quest whenever you want, wherever you are.
Heroish is a solo-TTRPG made by TechDweeb. In it, you play a fantasy hero who must wander the land doing the things TTRPG fantasy heroes do: slaying monsters, exploring dungeons, and gathering as much loot as possible before returning home.
Hitting The Road For Adventure
Before the game starts, the player prints off the zine (or the separate map if they want a bigger version) and collects 7 six-sided dice and ten coins. The player then places their token on the town.
The game is broken into 3 main stages: movement, fighting, and returning to town. Movement allows you to spend one of your coins to move one space along the road. If you end up in a space with a monster, a fight (naturally) breaks out.
Thankfully, combat in Heroish is pretty simple as it uses a poker-like system. First, you pay coins equal to the monster’s value (with stronger monsters costing more coins), and then you roll three dice. You then have to decide to either continue or fold.
If you fold, you lose the coins you spent. However, if you decide to continue, you pay the value and roll an extra die before once again deciding to continue or fold. If you continue here, you repeat the previous step one final time. With the five rolled dice, you attempt to make a poker-like hand (with a pair being the lowest and five sixes being the highest); if this hand is better than the one listed alongside the monster, you’ve defeated it. The monster is removed from the map, and you receive rewards equal to the coins they paid in. However, should the player fail to make the hand, they lose the coins they paid in, and any heroes in their party leave.
At any point, you may move back to town. When you arrive, your rewards are turned back into coins, and all the heroes you currently have with you leave your party. Thankfully, while in town, you can recruit more heroes (each of whom gives you a die of specific value and an ability you can activate by spending a coin). You can also spend some time in the tavern, where you can do a simple double-or-nothing bet to increase your coins.
The game ends in one of two ways. You either defeat all the monsters on the map (earning you a win) or you run out of coins (and thus lose due to bankruptcy).
More Brains Than Barbarians
Heroish is a really fun fantasy game that straddles the line between a TTRPG and a traditional board game. It is clear that the game is designed to be a pick-up-and-play title, and it does a great job of bringing this vision to fruition. The setup is quick, and the rules are simple enough to learn as you go along.
However, the game contains several clever flourishes that make it a really fun experience. The poker-inspired dice system is a great idea because, unlike a TTRPG standard roll-over-or-under system, it adds a level of strategy to each battle. And, having the option to stick or stay after each roll adds loads of tension to the game, meaning you’ll be on the edge of your seat whenever you end up in combat.
This is enhanced by the separation of coins and rewards. While this may seem superfluous at first, forcing the player to return to town to turn their rewards into coins (which they need to move and enter fights) adds a further layer of risk and reward to the game, as you constantly need to decide if you want to risk another fight or go back to town and claim your rewards (which forces you to re-buy any heroes you currently have), meaning that this game is pretty tense and will often have you debating your next move for several minutes before making it.
My only gripe is that there is no way to randomize the map, which does limit the game’s replay value a little. An optional roll table that allowed you to randomly select what monster was present when you land on a monster space would be a lovely addition in a future release. That said, this game is ripe for future expansion, as future zines could add extra maps, monsters, and heroes to the mix, giving players the option to go on numerous different adventures.
Heroish is a really fun experience that’s perfect for people looking for a fantasy solo game that captures the classic Zelda, hack-and-slash feel and is light on solo-journaling elements. The game’s mechanics strike the perfect balance between being easy to learn, while having enough strategy to make each action feel like a big deal, meaning you’ll be on the edge of your seat the entire time.
