Creating the Key-Lock System

If you have been following my work, you will have noticed an interesting adventure format at the back of every zine. The Key-Lock adventure is my own spin on premade solo modules. I wanted a solo module which was less restrictive than a Choose Your Own Adventure, but a bit more structured than a sandbox-y hex crawl using Mythic and my system of choice. 

Now, CYOA is great, don't get me wrong. Growing up, my favorite books to find at libraries were old CYOA adventure book whose spines had been worn out by countless other adventurers who had braved the perils held within the cover. But I wanted something a bit more dynamic that allowed the reader/player to shape the adventure in some way. That is what landed us here with a system I lovingly refer to as the "Key-Lock." Everything is very much a work in progress, but I feel as if the design is finally stabilizing and moving in a consistent direction.

Currently I have the following pieces making up the engine:

• The Agreement. The agreement is (in my mind) the most important piece of the entire system. It is the acknowledgement between designer and player in regards to the adventure direction and structure. Of course, once someone buys a product they can use it in any way they see fit, but the Key-Lock assumes that a player will agree to basic tenets in order to have the best experience/
  • The player sits in the GM seat. Any rulings, decisions and changes must be made by the player.
  • The adventure will move in a certain direction and have a generally predetermined ending (ie, a fantasy heist that ends in confrontation, death, or a showdown).
  • Any monsters stats, traps, and mechanical obstacles are to be chosen by the player. The adventure will give general guidelines, but the player must pick the stat block or challenge rating themselves.
  • The designer will leave room for the player and her choices.
• The Keys.
  • A key is simply. an unknown narrative element that must be determined by the player through role-play which advances the story.
  • Keys are to be short, concise and  sometimes determined randomly.
  • Keys will be decided upon at the beginning of every scene. 
• The Locks
  • A scene is 'locked' until all the chosen keys are determined or revealed through play.
  • Locks can be broken before all the keys are found, but will incur a penalty decided on by the player.
• Scenes
• A scene should be fairly quick to play through, last approximately 20 minutes, and always drive the story forward in a way that compliments the Agreement.
  
• A scene can take place anywhere on the current timeline.
• The next scene chosen should both capture player interest and answer the most pressing question.

A Quick Update

While life has a been a bit wild, projects have been continuing forward. In the chute currently are three big projects.

1. Alone Together Issue #7

Yep. It's just a little guy, but I have some fun post-apocalyptic adventure seeds in here and a couple changes to the little oracle in the back of the book. I just wrapped a solo play of the Numenera system and wanted to also get that on everyone's radar since it was a dream to use with oracles. Finally, with a bookshelf full of OSR games and modules that have gone unplayed for far too long, I am starting a new series where I create a character in one OSR system and drop it into a different designer's adventure module. Fingers crossed it isnt a hot pile of garbage.

2. The Key-Lock System User's Guide

Such wow. This is currently all over the place as I work on it every night in bed while waiting for my two year old to wake up at 1130 pm and demand water and the pot. Despite that, through my own solo play and design testing, things are coming together and the rough edges are being knocked off. Im hoping this will be ready for consumption sometime early.... 2025? 

3. Tea Leaves and Gunpowder Schemes

It's funny that this started as a dumb little project to keep myself busy at work one day while waiting for people to return my calls. It moved from using a home-brew system to Cepheus engine and finally landed on a hacked version of the Year Zero Engine. A fun little semi-balanced solo game that sees players designing a ronin who has stumbled upon a nefarious plot and now seeks to bring down those who would dare set their own interests above the kingdom's. The current game play loop has a player rolling 1d100, resolving an encounter, and surviving long enough to find enough clues to track down the nemesis and attempt to slay them.

It's rough and poorly balanced at this point, but its a fun little solo game and I figured if nothing else the community can always hack it up for home solo games.

Closing Thoughts

While it's been a fun and busy three months, I am very much looking forward to getting some of these bigger projects finished and published for everyone to use. At some point it would be fun to scale everything back and find another creator who could use a hand designing, writing, and play-testing games. I love solo play, but working with a small team would be a killer experience.

Anyway, hopefully everyone is having a wonderful week so far. I'll catch you all at the end of the month when Issue #7 hits digital release here on Itch.

- Alex