🍒🧊⚰️ Semi-Review: Scarlet Heroes
Feb. 1st, 2026 12:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solo_knightSemiReview: Scarlet Heroes
First, a trigger warning.
Previously, I have skipped over horror games because I don’t do horror. This is a dark fantasy game (post-apocalyptic within its world: a lot of bad stuff happened, lands were overrun, they had to settle in one small corner of the world) and like a lot of old-school games, it’s dark.
This one is extra dark, and after reading the built-in scenario I decided not to play within this world and I will skip the provided starter adventure. I am also not going to use the provided monsters because while some of them are your standard scary things, one random find was decidedly icky, I’m not going to give you a precise trigger warning because that would give the game away and spread the ick.
Mechanically, there’s a lot to like about Scarlet Heroes. From a setting point of view, I see no reason to choose this over a thousand other heroic fantasy settings.
What is it?
Complicated.
Mode 1: This is an old-school game with simplified rules for one player and one GM, or for a solo player. It provides a dedicated setting but is compatible with other OSR content.
Mode 2: This is a solo/duet framework for running old-school adventures including conversion tables and -advice.
Mode 3: This is a supplement helpful for solo roleplaying with a lot of tables and advice on how to design your own monsters/solo adventures.
Is it playable out of the box?
I can’t tell. I have been reading these rules for most of January 2026; I still have not reached the end of the manuscript (I'm posting this on page 122 of 130, but these are sections - Wilderness Adventures and Dungeon Adventures – that deserve to be read thoroughly and I want to take notes, dammit), and I have skipped a lot of the content (tables, bestiary, list of potions etc).
I refuse to spend time in the world/mindset provided, so some changes are necessary. For me. Mechanically, it seems sound.
Amendments:
A kinder world. A quick skim has shown the world to be somewhat sexist, definitely racist, orientalist, deterministic, and absolutely brutal.
I will not study it in depth.
Tools
A polyset for rolling on tables, including 2d6 and 2d8 (they form the basis of A LOT of rolls. Yes, you can roll one die twice, but that makes it much harder in places to keep track of things; two polysets might make life easier).
Price:
$15 (sales may be available)
Verdict
🍒 I am cherry-picking
🧊 Put on Ice
⚰️ Peruse with caution, especially the monster descriptions.
All in all, I like this much better than Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC); I want to try these rules to try and convert an existing adventure; I can see myself using the tables and the DM advice; I can see myself using the character I rolled up in a world where they aren't doomed to fail right from the outset. (I would not have created this character if I'd known more of the backstory. I thought I was creating an outsider, not someone who will be killed on sight in most of the setting.)
Reading this book has given me a much better understanding of how old-fashioned DnD worked in principle/game loop; I now have a better idea on how to create magic items for games that just say 'the gamemaster will make everything up, have fun', and I've taken a lot of notes on various aspects of adventure design, loot distribution, etc.
I can also see using the tables provided to spark inspiration; there's just enough content without, for the most part, being too restrictive.
The Scenario Table (3x 20 different scenarios for Urban, Wilderness and Dungeon settings) looks to hit the sweet spot for me, for instance: there are enough details in the description that something is likely to rattle something loose in my brain without feeling constrained by them, and while I am not interested in running crime adventures (most of the Urban tables are full of crimes), I want to try the game loop since it sounds super useful; I think it will solve one of my problems with how to set up adventures (but that, I think, will have to wait for another post).
All in all, I don't regret buying this, I just wish it was kinder.
(And yes, this is complex enough that a new tag was born, the semi-review. This is far more than first impressions, but it's also not a full review as I haven't actually played anything yet.)
First, a trigger warning.
Previously, I have skipped over horror games because I don’t do horror. This is a dark fantasy game (post-apocalyptic within its world: a lot of bad stuff happened, lands were overrun, they had to settle in one small corner of the world) and like a lot of old-school games, it’s dark.
This one is extra dark, and after reading the built-in scenario I decided not to play within this world and I will skip the provided starter adventure. I am also not going to use the provided monsters because while some of them are your standard scary things, one random find was decidedly icky, I’m not going to give you a precise trigger warning because that would give the game away and spread the ick.
Mechanically, there’s a lot to like about Scarlet Heroes. From a setting point of view, I see no reason to choose this over a thousand other heroic fantasy settings.
What is it?
Complicated.
Mode 1: This is an old-school game with simplified rules for one player and one GM, or for a solo player. It provides a dedicated setting but is compatible with other OSR content.
Mode 2: This is a solo/duet framework for running old-school adventures including conversion tables and -advice.
Mode 3: This is a supplement helpful for solo roleplaying with a lot of tables and advice on how to design your own monsters/solo adventures.
Is it playable out of the box?
I can’t tell. I have been reading these rules for most of January 2026; I still have not reached the end of the manuscript (I'm posting this on page 122 of 130, but these are sections - Wilderness Adventures and Dungeon Adventures – that deserve to be read thoroughly and I want to take notes, dammit), and I have skipped a lot of the content (tables, bestiary, list of potions etc).
I refuse to spend time in the world/mindset provided, so some changes are necessary. For me. Mechanically, it seems sound.
Amendments:
A kinder world. A quick skim has shown the world to be somewhat sexist, definitely racist, orientalist, deterministic, and absolutely brutal.
I will not study it in depth.
Tools
A polyset for rolling on tables, including 2d6 and 2d8 (they form the basis of A LOT of rolls. Yes, you can roll one die twice, but that makes it much harder in places to keep track of things; two polysets might make life easier).
Price:
$15 (sales may be available)
Verdict
🍒 I am cherry-picking
🧊 Put on Ice
⚰️ Peruse with caution, especially the monster descriptions.
All in all, I like this much better than Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC); I want to try these rules to try and convert an existing adventure; I can see myself using the tables and the DM advice; I can see myself using the character I rolled up in a world where they aren't doomed to fail right from the outset. (I would not have created this character if I'd known more of the backstory. I thought I was creating an outsider, not someone who will be killed on sight in most of the setting.)
Reading this book has given me a much better understanding of how old-fashioned DnD worked in principle/game loop; I now have a better idea on how to create magic items for games that just say 'the gamemaster will make everything up, have fun', and I've taken a lot of notes on various aspects of adventure design, loot distribution, etc.
I can also see using the tables provided to spark inspiration; there's just enough content without, for the most part, being too restrictive.
The Scenario Table (3x 20 different scenarios for Urban, Wilderness and Dungeon settings) looks to hit the sweet spot for me, for instance: there are enough details in the description that something is likely to rattle something loose in my brain without feeling constrained by them, and while I am not interested in running crime adventures (most of the Urban tables are full of crimes), I want to try the game loop since it sounds super useful; I think it will solve one of my problems with how to set up adventures (but that, I think, will have to wait for another post).
All in all, I don't regret buying this, I just wish it was kinder.
(And yes, this is complex enough that a new tag was born, the semi-review. This is far more than first impressions, but it's also not a full review as I haven't actually played anything yet.)
no subject
Date: 2026-02-01 01:04 pm (UTC)"Reading this book has given me a much better understanding of how old-fashioned DnD worked in principle/game loop"
Because the 'white box' rules were such a mess* people had to do a lot of making their own stuff up. Even the 'one GP at the end = one EP' wasn't in them.
The alternative was buying stuff from places like Judges Guild (and then having to make stuff up, just less of it) or skipping off to another system entirely - my school group went to the then FRPG Tunnels & Trolls which still left you having to make stuff up but the actual systems were vastly more complete and made more sense.
* The university I went to was the venue for several TSR UK events in the early 1980s. I crashed one and asked Gygax why those rules were such a mess. He said the printers had told them they'd sort out the mess of notes they had. They didn't, they just printed them.