A while back I picked up The Ruin d100 RPG by Jayson Lasarde (Broken Rat Games) and played a quick solo one shot which was great fun.
I have often promised myself that I would revisit The Ruin and with the expansion “The Ruin Expanded’ recently published, now seems a good time.

The Ruin d100 RPG, a brief overview.

The Ruin is a post-apocalypse RPG. The world in which the characters live and must survive is a dangerous place where strange and unexplained events, objects and things exist. Characters must learn to deal with hunger, thirst, disease and a very hostile environment, not to mention hostile raiders and wild animals.

The d100 edition uses a variation of the d100 Basic Roleplaying game engine, (there is also a 5th edi. set available), so anyone familiar with games like Call of Cthulhu, Runequest and BRP will quickly pick this game up.

There are seven character classes to choose from. Each character has six attributes, each of these start at 10 and are further modified by bonuses as you continue through the creation process. Skills are done in a similar way with bonuses dependent on which class you choose.

Rules for combat including vehicle combat are given in the game. Combat is really straight forward and easy to pick up, a skill check is required to hit an opponent with various modifies applied. Roll below your skill percentage and you hit the opponent. So if your Shooting skill is 48% and you roll 36 on d100, you hit, simple!
Doing other tasks also requires a skill check in the same way, for example, if you are trying to pick someones pocket you roll against your thievery skill with a d100, if you thievery skill is 48% then anything below that is a success.

Also included in the rules are gear and weapons tables. Stats for both scrap and constructed weapons and armour are given, scrap items being made out of whatever is at hand, constructed items are rare and made prior to the apocalypse.
A wide range of useful gear is given and there are rules dealing with bartering,searching, traders and item availability.

Sections are also included on how to build a settlement, guides to four cities (all in the USA), threats and encounter tables and how to survive the wastes.

One thing the Ruin does not do is Zombies, however if you must have Zombies in your game the adventure ‘Project Lazarus’, (available separately), deals with them.

The 138 page rule book has great full colour art and is available as a pdf. If I have one slight gripe about the book is that there are a number of little editorial errors in it, not enough to put me off playing it and at only £6.00 (gbp) I think its well worth purchasing.

The Ruin Expanded.

The Ruin Expanded is a 48 page supplement to The Ruin core rules set. It offers an update on the New York setting detailed in the core rules as well as two new setting, London and the one which I think is most valuable to the soloist, Nowhere, a sandbox that could be anywhere.

There are 5 new threats to add to your games as well as two unique trading centers, one for Central Park and one for London Docks.

What I think makes this expansion invaluable to solo play is the number of random tables given in the book. There are tables for creating a city, as well as random loot tables, random events and encounter tables to name just a few. Table are given for the Nowhere sandbox, New York and London but you could use any of the tables in any setting.

As with the Ruin d100, this pdf is full colour with some great art and you get maps for both Central Park and London Docks trading hubs too.

If you like The Ruin d100 and are a keen solo player, I think this is pdf is well worth picking up and an invaluable resource.

The Ruin d100, a solo adventure.

After an all too brief overview of both the core rules and expansion, I think it would be useful and great fun to play a solo game using both pdfs.

In the next post I will go through character creation and will create a city using the rules from the ‘Nowhere’ section in the expansion pdf which will give our characters someplace to explore.

to be continued.