The Indie/Zine RPG Review Part XII: Into the Zone

Into the Zone (Exalted Funeral/Round Table Games)

$15.00 in Print+PDF (on sale as of 8/9/23 for $12)

Not to be confused with Into the Zone the Solo RPG, or Enter the Zone the Solo Journaling RPG, Into the Zone is a multiplayer conventional rpg that no doubt can be hacked to do solo journaling, and maybe somewhere on itch.io that's already been done. I'm still puzzling through the hows and whys of solo journaling rpgs, but that's not relevant to Into the Zone....so let's get in to it!

What it is: a 36 page rulebook in the artpunk zine rpg style, with a tight rules lite experience aimed at emulating video games and films like the STALKER series, Metro 2033, and...um, other games, books and maybe film that are also riffing off of the rather deeply inspirational Stalker and also influenced by the tragedy at Chornobyl. A recent influence of note is the movie Annihilation, and to a lesser degree the Southern Reach trilogy. Into the Zone tries to broaden the thematic concept by letting you place your particular restricted zone in any number of locations with any number of randomly rolled quirks. 

As I read this book I will note that it engages with the more artsy "artpunk" style characteristic of Mork Borg and other Stockholm Kartel productions. It is, however, perfectly readable and nothing really poses an interpretation issue....the style informs the reader and player as you go along, and does a good job at it. For example, when you look at the character roles you will see that the skeptic's write-up looks like an online cluster of posts, while the vagabond is presented like a criminal history report, the soldier a Institute of Anomalous Studies referral, and the scientist a tablet file for review. Only the pilgrim is boring. Honestly, the only graphics issue at all is the preponderance of white font on black background on most pages, which can be an eye strain for some.

The System: At first glance Into the Zone looks like it's emulating a die-based mechanical process similar to Savage Worlds, but its a ruse! Don't believe it....its more insidious and weird than that. Yes, you assign die codes to your stats, which are muscle, prowess, smarts and grit and yes, those sound similar to some Savage Worlds stats.....but really your assigning letter ranks, which just correspond to die codes (Rank A = D6, Rank B = D8, etc.). And it gets better: your difficulty is always target #6. You need to beat it on two rolls, usually two stats (sometimes the same stat twice). Do you add these rolls, or do you pick the better of the two, which means lower in this case? I'm not 100% sure! I think you don't add them, unless you clearly do. It's not totally clear at all times. And yes, the system is roll under the target number! So a Rank E (D20) is positively abysmal, as you have higher odds of missing TN 6. That sweet spot at Rank A (D6) is what you want. 

This leads to some oddities, such as when the system tells you to improve your ability one step that means going, say, from letter grade C to B. Once you wrap your head around this part, and accept that other parts are going to be roll high (ex: when you panic, you make a stress test and try to avoid going over a 20+ on the roll after adding your stress level to a smarts+grit check).

The necessity of two dice on all rolls is an oddity to me. The exceptions where you total the dice instead of comparing them is an oddity in rules consistency. I may not even be right on whether or not you compare dice on tests or total them. It's not all clear at times. I suspect with a few patient players we could puzzle it out.....but to contrast, most of the other systems reviewed so far in this series were fairly intuitive once you discerned their intent, and were generally consistent with either sticking to roll high or roll low resolution mechanics.

That's not to knock Into the Zone though, I think its mechanical design is just fine....but maybe it needed a slight rewrite and a few extra sentences to clarify its intent. Combat rules are one page for example and aim for simplicity and speed as much as possible. 

The Setting: half the book is setting, which is defined in a "roll and improv" approach with tables for artifacts, anomalies, afflictions, stress and panic results, equipment, resources, encounters, and mixed in are some details on effects of exposure on excursions, a page of creatures (10), setting up a cordon (the base of operations stalkers...er, zoners? can return to), and in the back surprisingly is an example of play and two dense pages of GM advice on running the game.

The setting is pretty simple, from the ultra narrow focus of SF about well-armed survivalists going in to a mystery zone where something horrific has happened that does not have to be due to a nuclear accident (indeed, a chart lets you figure out what it might be or is rumored to be, and can include everything from aliens to a "paracausal awakening.") The players play the stalkers, who go in to the wilderness and stalk things in the zone, looking for arifacts, wealth, power or truth depending on what their focus is (the aforementioned pilgrims, soldiers, scientists, vagabonds and skeptics). Playing some "Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl," Metro: Exodus or watching the movie Stalker might give you the level of focus you need to make this plot happen. It does look to me like there's enough procedural chart-rolled content for a GM to pretty much run from the book with no real clue as to plot direction, going "improv" the whole way.

Supplements: I don't see any support content for Into the Zone anywhere, though while searching I learned of an unrelated solo game of the same name, as well as Enter the Zone which I grabbed in print. It's a shame, this book could use a formal campaign/scenario expansion to help new GMs out.

Who is this for? Well, if you like the inspirational source material this game might be a no-brainer. That said, I am not 100% on board with the game's system as written....it has some unclear bits, and seems a bit cumbersome for a rules lite system. I could easily see using this as a chart/scenario resource for exactly this sort of campaign using some other game system, though. Maybe BRP or GURPS for more complex systems, or just use the charts here as an adaptation to Mothership or CY_BORG. I guess sure, I could run it as-is, too, and let that play attempt inform my judgement on it. 

If you have no idea of the Stalker subgenre however, this might seem a bit weird and dense to you. Still....if you are like me and you loved the movie and book Annihilation, you may notice some worthy content here for consideration.

Sidequest: The Role of Improv in Indie Zine RPGs

 While reviewing this various indie zine RPGs, I realized that an important component of this subgenre/style of RPG is the need for improv and emergent gameplay features. Most of the indie games I have explored in this style of game have a heavy focus on providing tools for unanticipated/unplanned gameplay elements, whether that be from randomized charts you roll on to programmed adventures which include very minimal detail to deliberately allow the GM to riff on the content. All of this leans in to the dominion of the field of improv, which of course goes beyond RPGs, but using improv with these kinds of games is facilitated by also aiming for simpler mechanics; fewer moving parts mean easier improvisation without rules causing a contradiction.

Improv is a necessity in any RPG, but for a lot of bigger name RPGs with more complexity in design and setting an emphasis is on providing a sandbox full of toys. While you can improv a random new monster design in D&D 5E by throwing out some stats real quickly, it's going to be mechanically harder to make it interesting than, say, concocting a new random monster in Mork Borg, Mothership or Into the Zone. 

Likewise, many pre-published modules for games like Pathfinder, Traveller, D&D and other big name RPGs are loaded with enough details that the GM often only needs to consult the module to get the needed answers, and we all are familiar with GMs who are not terribly good at thinking off the cuff and as a result tend to try and hedge the players in to "recognized" actions within the module. Honestly, not everyone is good at improv, and in my many years of gaming I can say that this is a key reason there are far fewer GMs than players out there. 

The indie zine scene modules are emphatically directed in the opposite direction, of course. I think part of this is because there's a large segment of the hobby that consists of gamers who do not actually find satisfaction in muti-hundred page tomes filled with elaborate and preset details. Improvisation in gaming can be immensely satisfying, and for many having a starting point from which to riff off of is much more satisfying than having to parse out an elaborate scenario where all variables are accounted for. I know this is what grabbed me when I ran the Haunting of Ypsilon 14, a tri-fold introductory module for Mothership 0E. The "aha" moment for me was realizing that the tri-fold was taking what amounted to exactly the same level of outlined module details I might make for my own game design, then repackaging it into a format that used the economy of design to improve its utility while necessarily requiring the GM to improv; a room might contain only one sentence with the key information you need to know about it, requiring the GM to elaborate as they see fit on extra details. The monster is basically described, primarily a stat block, so my version of the haunting creature is probably not exactly the same as another GM's would be. But the module goes even further in providing randomized events, including where the monster is in the complex in a given turn, who the next victim is, and so forth. It means that any time one runs the module, the play through will be different. In the end, a double-sided tri-fold module generated nearly four sessions of playtime for my group. I think the expectation is it will be good for one night of gaming....but between the sort of group I have and the level of improv I engaged with on it, the module lasted us much longer. 

In contrast, I tried running some Starfinder and Pathfinder Adventure Paths a while back and found them intensely limiting and restrictive. People complain about railroad type modules an gameplay, and unfortunately Adventure Paths tend to do this. Linear gameplay in this sort of module can be satisfying to a certain kind of player or GM, but it may not work well at all for players who are accustomed to having more directional control over their futures, or GMs who want to be surprised at what happens in play as opposed to preprogrammed narrators who might as well be reading from a pick-a-path programmed adventure book for all the lack of freedom the adventure path allows.

I guess what I am saying is that I can see why this new market of indie zine RPGs lean heavily into playstyles that actively encourage improv and emergent, unanticipated gameplay experiences. This is a market that I think has been underserved for a while now. It's not enough to say something is "OSR" anymore, as OSR gameplay, while it can encourage a certain level of improv and emergent gameplay is still also incredibly restrictive in that most OSR products are slaved to a specific feel and approach of the early hobby defined by original D&D or AD&D, and is why so many OSR games are just different reskins of the same OD&D rules interpretations. In the end, with an OSR game you're still dealing with orcs, goblins, elves, dwarves, magic missiles and any myriad of OGL compliant D&D tropes. The new indie zine RPG wants to build into spaces untouched by game setting convention, and the best of these indie zine RPGs do exactly that. 

Okay, next week I'll review Into the Zone, Screams Amongst the Stars and probably Death in Space!