Nothing Goes to Waste is a role playing game written and published by Stefano S.
The supplement is available as a 17 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover and one the credits.
The opening paragraph explains that this is a solo exploration game.
The World explains that this is a desolate and barren place, inhabited by Hunters and Runners. Hunters are the only ones with any kind of civilisation, gathering in gangs, with members known by their number, with a maximum of ten in each gang. If no prey is found, the member with the highest number is sacrificed. Runners are those who have devolved.
The Game explains that you manage a group of Hunters. What’s needed to play is a standard deck of cards, at least one d6 and writing materials. The game is started by separating the face cards and drawing ten cards from them, each of which is used to represent a Hunter.
General Rules explains that turns are made up of Movement, Exploration and Hunt. Moving allows a group to move to an adjacent hex, Exploration activates events and Hunting allows the gathering of resources. Tests require the Characteristics of the lowest three Hunters. At the end of a turn, the numbered cards are drawn and it four aces are drawn, the Good Earth has been found.
Movement, Exploration and Hunting are then covered, with Events, which can include Hunting, happening when an exploration test allows it.
The Group (Characteristics) covers the three levels of Hunger. This is no effect, to one fewer die, to sacrificing the last Hunter, which resets Hunger. If there are no Hunters to sacrifice, the game ends.
Loot is something that may be found.
The Hunters covers Life, which is physical resistance and reduction to 0 results in death, Exploration, the ability to explore an area, Hunting, the ability to hunt and Special Ability, which can only be used once per game for each Hunter.
The Runners gives an overview of these; they are covered more later.
Lands explains the icon types and what they mean, along with the starting point.
Group covers the Hunters, and the stats depending on their card, and is effectively the group character sheet.
After this are d6 tables of events for terrain types.
Runners has stats for Runners depending on terrain type.
The final four pages of content have three hex maps of existing settings and one page of blank hexes to make your own map.
Nothing Goes to Waste in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a two-column format and the primary error noticed was that the event tables are all in Italian. There are a number of black and white illustrations. Presentation is decent.
This is a solo exploration game of a familiar type, though with more mechanics than some of these have. It also has perhaps more of a chance of success than some of such games, or at least a potentially attainable and defined success point, though the chance of failure can still be large and the overall setting is still dark. Nothing Goes to Waste can be found by clicking here.
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