I have recently had the privilege of being a playtester for Jon Cohen on One Shot in the Dark: Return to Duervar and I really had a blast doing it.
By way of full disclosure, Jon and I have been collaborating along with a few others to create a network for solo semi-actual-play podcasts, and he has been a voice actor on my podcast, so it is fair to say I consider him a friend and colleague. And I am a massive Tale of the Manticore fan. Portion your salt appropriately.
One Shot in the Dark is an ultra-light solo RPG scenario that allows you to have a pretty satisfying solo dungeon crawl in 15-50 minutes using a deck of cards and some D&D dice. You can read my review of One Shot in the Dark here. Suffice it to say that it is a great way to scratch the dungeon crawling itch, makes very few demands on your time, and costs as much as a large coffee. It is good fun, and I have played it a few times over the years.
The original One Shot in the Dark was very much a generic D&D-style dungeon crawl. It features a Fighter, Cleric, Thief, and Magic-User heading into a dungeon to slay a terrible monster.
OSitD: Return to Duervar is instead tied into the setting of Jon's podcast Tale of the Manticore. You play a search party of four dwarves: a Warrior, a Priest, an Artificer, and a Deep Delver investigating a ruined dwarf stronghold still haunted by the corrupt clan leader who had brought a curse down on the stronghold and brought it to ruin.
You don't need to be a fan of Tale of the Manticore to enjoy OSitD: Return to Duervar; while there are plenty of Easter eggs for fans, the one-page backstory to the scenario is more than enough to get your imagination running.
What I Loved
One Shot in the Dark is Still A Fun Game
Everything I loved about the original OSitD is still true about OSitD: Return to Duervar: it is an excellent Rules-Light game, lightning Fast, it is very Flexible, and Jon's writing and dungeon design is powerfully Evocative.
It Showcases the Game's Flexibility
With only a light reskinning of the character classes and some very simple, evocative descriptions and you have a fresh new experience just as evocative as the original. I immediately started thinking about how easy to would be to tweak this to create a solo cyberpunk adventure, or a game about scouting new star systems.
Jon has released a guideline to make this even easier with a free OSitD Module Maker kit that walks you through the process very smoothly.
It Shows You How Little You Need to Have a Good Time in an RPG
During my initial playthrough, I found myself developing a pretty deep affection for my crew of dwarves. My fighter, Hilda Axegrinder couldn't seem to miss, and killed even some of the deadliest foes in a single blow. I found myself calling out "Hilda Crush!" as she pulverized enemy after enemy.
Likewise, the way my delver was useless in a battle to the point of feeling like an utter coward, but kept saving the party whenever the chips were down made him immediately a fun character that I imagined as a smarmy git that the rest of the party loved to hate.
You can get a pretty amazing emergent story complete with interesting characters with so little if the game's design is congruent, and OSitD: Return to Duervar does a great job of creating that space with very little.
My Biggest Gripe Has Been Fixed
My single largest complaint about OSitD is that there just wasn't enough of it. I wanted more adventures, and was hoping to see a bunch of additional scenarios come out using this system. Now we have both our first official expansion and a tool that hopefully will inspire a surge of OSitD games.
Cleaning Up My Favourite Loose End
As a fan who has been listening to Tale of the Manticore for four years now I also have to say that the choice of scenario was really satisfying. In the series you can watch as a corrupt leader causes the city of Duervar to forsake its honour and eventually become accursed and fall into ruin as the PCs flee from it.
We know from the story that the worst perpetrators became tormented undead, and brought down a plague of undeath on its citizens.
But after that, the PCs never return to Duervar. They instead head out to another Dwarven hold with different problems. Duervar has only been mentioned a few times in the hundreds of episodes since.
To me, a wealthy dwarven citadel, haunted by its corrupt ruler and stalked by the undead remains of its citizens sounds too good to pass up, and I have been waiting for years to hear what lies within. Finally having a chance to crawl it myself was very satisfying.
Growth Points
Honestly, a lot of the growth points I found on this product, I drew to Jon's attention, and got the great satisfaction of seeing him take all the advice he was given by us and use it to polish OSitD: Return to Duervar to a fine sheen. No product is perfect, however, and I have two gripes about Return to Duervar that remain true, if mitigated.
It's Easy to Create Nonsense Dungeon Layouts
When I was exploring the residential district of Duervar, I found myself having to pass through both a smithy and a dungheap to reach the local temple, and the Smithy was also bordered by a Necropolis.
OSitD generates a dungeon room by room drawing them from a deck of cards. Every location on a given floor feels like it belongs overall, but they can be arranged in some truly absurd ways. If you are using the game to create a dungeon map for other uses, some creative license might need to be taken.
The Game is Swingy
I practically cruised the first floor of the dungeon on my first playthrough, but the third floor was so unrelenting that I was begging the dice gods for mercy on behalf of my Dwarves, No two experiences are going to be the same, and you will have sessions where the characters die horribly, and others where they seem invincible.
Conclusions
One Shot in the Dark: Return to Duervar is, like its predecessor, a uniquely "snack-sized" solo D&D experience. you can run a dungeon on your lunch break and have time left over for a second cup of coffee, and they will feel satisfying in the end. For long-time fans of Tale of the Manticore, it is also a great way to step into the story and explore a dungeon you got to watch fall into darkness.
Here's hoping that with the Expansion Module Maker's Kit along with the generous license therein, we will see a lot more to come!
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