Her Odyssey is a role playing game written and published by S. Kaiya J. This is a Caltrop Core game.
The game is available as a Pay What You Want PDF from itch.io.
The game is available in three PDF versions. The print friendly version has four pages with a bit under one being the front matter and credits. The full colour version has five pages, with one being the front cover and about a third the credits. The risograph edition has technically 12 pages, but this is spreads, so it would be 24 pages. Of the 24 pages, two are the front and rear covers, two the inside cover pages and one the Credits & Etc.
You Will Need explains that are least 1d4 is needed, five are recommended, and a standard deck of playing cards, including jokers.
Creating Your Wanderer explains there are eleven stat points to assign between three stats. The stats are Vitality, roughly equivalent to Strength and Charisma, Quickness, which is Dexterity and Intelligence, and Fortitude, which is Constitution and Wisdom.
Who is Your Wanderer? has some questions to answer about them.
Gameplay Overview explains cards are drawn from the deck, determining the Hazard, using stats to meet the challenges and writing about the experience. The card drawn is then placed in the discard pile. A Hazard Card should be drawn every morning (real time), the day spent considering things and then returning to the game in the evening to resolve what happened and write it down.
Drawing Hazard Cards explains that the numerical value of the card, with Ace being 1 and King 13, determines the level of difficulty. The suit determines the kind of Hazard, and the suits are then explained with some ideas.
Making Stat Checks explains that d4s equivalent to the value of the stat are rolled and the highest dice kept. The results are absolute failure, partial failure, partial success and absolute success. The first stat check may determine what happens next; each stat may only be used once per day for a check. The total number of stat checks the Wanderer makes for a day’s Hazard is compared against the Omen Score; if it’s more, the Hazard is overcome and the day is Auspicious, if it is lower, the Hazard causes problems and the day is Inauspicious. Auspicious and Inauspicious days need totally separately and some Omen Scores are, deliberately, not attainable under the base system at the start of the game.
Your Wanderer’s Limits explains that each stat check can be passed, but the Omen Score not met, or vice versa. Auspicious days reduce stats used by 1; Inauspicious days cause not used stats to increase by one. None can be more than 5 or less than 1.
False and True Homecomings explains that the first joker is a false homecoming. The total number of Auspicious days is totalled, and this now becomes a new stat, Hope. 1 may be subtracted from Hope and added to the result of any stat check, but if Hope reaches zero, hope is lost and the journey abandoned. The second joker is the true homecoming.
Example of Play is what it says.
Her Odyssey in Review
None of the PDFs have bookmarks and only the spreads version could have really used them. Navigation is okay. The text is single column in the risograph edition and two columns in the others and appeared to be free of errors. The colour version has some colour illustrations; the risograph has some black and white ones. Presentation is good.
This is a solo game and it is at its heart a solo journalling game; it has more relation to such games than anything crunchier. There are stats and there is some crunch, but the player has control over what sort of things need rolling for; the cards just provide prompts, like they do in many solo journalling games. As this type of game, it will not be for everyone. Her Odyssey can be found by clicking here.
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