Have had Entity sitting in the nerd cave for some time now. Originally picked this up on DriveThruRPG.com and had printed it out bound it and then forgotten about it. This is a solo storytelling role-playing game with quite a bit of positive feedback that I'd read about.
The concept is there are interplanetary adaptive Pioneers ( IAP) which were developed by NASA utilizing AI driven synthetic astronauts to explore and adapt to diverse environments all over the solar system. However this occurred 10,000 years ago before a rogue black hole disrupted the solar systems gravitational balance the event led to the collapse of the solar system and the termination of all life within. You are an IAP that was on a survey vessel launched prior to the destruction of the solar system. However, your journey was diverted to the discovery of a nebula that contained the remains of a colossal spatial object resembling a pyramid. You are now within this period and you must explore it.
In this game you step into the role of an AI synthetic astronaut stranded in these alien ruins that make up the pyramid. You're tasked to take at on missions that are progressive, each one made up of expeditions within each mission in an ongoing loop until you reach various milestones. Two 10-sided dice determine the outcomes of all of your actions. These 10-sided dice rolls determine things like locations of explorations how you travel there and things you encounter as well as site activities such as collecting data, recharging energy, gathering resources repairing your spacesuit, and implementing suit upgrades.
Your character sheet is created by three primary traits which are technology, analytics, and adaptivity. Within those traits they are divided into three unique edges - for instance technology is made up of tobotics, engineering, and information technology, while analytics is made up of physics, biology, and chemistry and adaptivity is made up of survival, communication, and navigation. Each of these traits with its associated edges is created by assigning your traitsand edges numbers you distribute. A 5, a 4, and a 3 are divided amongst your traits and then on the edges you distribute and allocate a 1, a 2, and a 3 for each. This creates some replayability as you will use these to try to have successful die rolls for various actions throughout the game.
Once you've completed your character sheet you then begin by selecting missions which are accomplished by expeditions. Each expedition is composed of two distinct undertakings - an exploration followed by a side activity Expeditions are further broken down into a location of the expedition as well as travel and anything that might occur on your way and a location encounter all randomly determined from die rolls on tables. Side activities then are chosen by you and can do things such as collecting data recharging energy and so on.
Various aspects of your missions and expeditions have keywords for the Random Encounters that you generate. For instance you might experience a toxic geyser that erupts nearby releasing poisonous gas. The keywords for this encounter would be chemistry and survival you then roll against your current scores for chemistry and survival by Rolling 2D 10. If the results of both d10s are less than or equal to the difficulty class set by your chemistry and survival scores (added together) then your action proceeds without complications as a full success. If only one d10 is less than or equal to the difficulty class it is a partial success. In this instance the action is carried out but there's a complication called a strain which is marked onto your spacesuit. A failure results if both details are greater than the difficulty class and the action itself is unsuccessful. An impairment is now marked as a consequence. Strains can be repaired on your spacesuit - impairments cannot be. Too many impairments and your synthetic astronaut character will die when their space suit fails. There can also be advantages and disadvantages assigned to your die rolls depending on what is being tested.
You can also update your suit and you have starting upgrades such as an integrated multi tool and adaptive energy shield and adaptive resource conversion unit. These allow you to reroll dice or avoid gaining strains or possibly allow you to gain data or energy by converting the resources that you may have gathered.
The missions are the goals that the IAP seeks to realize such as building research stations or perhaps neutralizing poison gas sources and gives narrative direction and has you randomly determine the Expeditions that you'll be going on using tables. Each mission that is undertaken also comes with a number of aspects that must be completed. Aspects are achieved on a location encounter table and if you roll a 10 plus on your two dice you have the opportunity for completing an aspect when the time comes. Additionally one of the other ways that you can affect this die roll to gain aspects is by spending data that you have collected on side activities.
I found that it took me a while to fully understand how the game flows and works in Entity. Enough so that I was really confused about how to obtain the aspects needed to complete a mission. However after watching a YouTube video on how to play entity this cleared it up. I highly recommend the Entity walkthrough and play through done by Hollow Ponds Solo Sagas (see the link below). This helped me get a good grasp of this wonderful game.
Overall I am very impressed with Entity. It has a great setting, a great theme, and extremely well thought out and colorful narrative aspects. I also understand that the author Peter Scholtz is very active on Discord and regularly will discuss this and other games that he has produced. Entity has new supplements and additions to the game such as Entity: Continuum which I have also purchased on drivethrurpg.com.
If you're looking for a great solo RPG storytelling game to while away an afternoon with, pick up Entity!
Peace...
Yoda
