Review: Golem - Stories of a Person Twisted By Magic
I am awake! I have been sleeping for decades, maybe centuries. I’m buried. But why? I am not who I was, and I am lost. I push my way out of the dirt and feel the sun touch my skin for the first time in God knows how long.
I hear a scream. A man is being chased out of the forest by faceless demons. I must help!
Travel through a bleak world that has moved on and forgotten the modern world in Golem, a solo RPG by N. Robinson of Bardic Inquiry.
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| Credit to Bardic Inquiry. |
Check out my review of Robinson's other game, Grimoire.
You will play as a Golem, a former member of society that has been brought back using unknown magic. You’ll be deeply distrusted by the sparse population who has been taught to fear the very magic that gave you a second life.
While people may despise you, you will still try to help them by determining the cause of a "calamity" that is slowly threatening life in this land.
What do you need to play?
Get out your deck of cards for this game, as you’ll need a standard 52-card deck to play Golem, as well as a D6 and a D20. I also recommend having a flat surface to play this game on, as you’ll be creating separate decks of cards, flipping them, shuffling them, and using them often.
You’ll also need the character sheet and the region sheet.
Finally, as with many other solo games, you’ll need something to record your progress such as a pen and paper or a computer.
Design and Feel
Golem is laid out well in PDF format with bookmarks and links within the document. (Everyone should use bookmarks and links if your PDF is more than a few pages long!) I printed it out and turned it into a zine for myself. Purchasing the game gives you access to a print-friendly file, which is easier on your ink supplies.
The character and region sheets are well done. If you print them full size (on an A4 or US Letter size), you will have labeled places to put your different decks of cards.
The book contains a two-page example of play, which is so nice to have. I had a couple of questions about how certain rules worked, and a quick read of the example of play answered those questions right away. Such a useful feature.
Also, the game comes with a quick reference sheet that has the most used mechanics and oracles on it.
Overall, there is a ton of support for players in the game.
One thing I would have liked to see would be more art within the book to break up the text and provide a bit of inspiration for play. It doesn’t detract from the game, but it would be nice to have.
I step in front of the demons with my scythe. I remember holding it back when I was a farmer. I don’t farm anymore, but I can still use its sharp edge to cut down these beasts!
Character and Setting Creation
Character and setting creation is where Golem shines.
You’ll start by creating your Golem, where they were in their past life and what their current skills are. You start with personas, which are how people viewed you before you became a Golem. These aren’t personalities set in stone, but your Golem’s personal history.
Next, you determine what your profession was before you became a Golem. Were you a guard protecting the walls of the settlement? Or maybe a miner who delved for precious gemstones? You will gain equipment based on what you pick or randomly roll for.
Finally, you’ll choose your talent, which gives you a specific way to interact with the rules of the game. Choices include things like Zombie (harder to wound) and Meditative (you have another option to replensih your mana).
After character creation, you create your region by drawing cards from the deck and drawing it onto a flower hex map.
The last part of setting creation is determining what calamity plagues your land and how your game starts. I drew the card for an evil forest slowly consuming everything as it grows.
The demons have been dispatched. But I have been damaged. Whatever I am, I can still feel pain, I can bleed. What am I? What have I become?
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| A well-designed, clean, and effective character sheet! Credit to Bardic Inquiry |
How it Plays
The deck-based nature of Golem is different from anything else I’ve played before. You split a standard 52-card deck into four based on the suits. Three stacks become your main stats of Mind, Body, and Gear, and you remove the face cards. The fourth stack becomes your oracle stack and is used for yes or no questions, open-ended questions, descriptors, etc.
You will draw a card from your Mind, Body, or Gear stack when you want to determine what happens in a difficult situation. If you draw a 10, you succeed; a 7-9 leads to success with complications, and a 6 and under is a failure. Similar to how a PBTA game works.
It’s possible to draw multiple cards and add their value together, so you could draw an Ace (counts as a 1) and then draw a 9 and combine them into a 10. The only thing is decks are a finite resource, and using a whole deck leads to bad things.
There are additional rules for magic, strives (extended challenges), wounds, and using meta-currency such as momentum and mana. There is additional scope for advancing the skills of your Golem also.
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| Region creation and exploration are especially fun. Credit to Bardic Inquiry |
How it Ends
Despite the fact that you were birthed from magic, your Golem can still die. This comes in one of two ways: your conditions stat drops to 0, representing damage to your character, or all your decks are used up.
More positively, Golem is a game based on quests. You could happily complete the game by solving the calamity you created at the start. Or you could solve that calamity and then create a new one. It’s open-ended in this way.
Or you could spend your time wandering the land, meeting people and helping them with jobs they need to be performed. Gain their trust, and you may be welcomed into their communities.
Should I Buy this Game and Who is it for?
There are probably thousands of games, modules, and systems you could play solo. So why should you play Golem?
Do you like exploration RPGs where you travel and discover as you go? Pick up Golem then! While you create your region at the start, the individual hexes are unknown until your character steps inside of them.
Do you want to try out a different resolution mechanic than rolling dice? Golem has a great card-based, deck-based resolution mechanic that is fun and interesting. Pulling a 10 is great fun, but then you know you’ve lost that card from your deck until you can replenish it at a town.
Do you like a world with lore you can build as you go? Golem is great for that. It has just enough lore in it to start off your imagination but doesn’t have so much that you feel constrained.
Do you like a game that takes up a bit of space to play? I loved laying out the decks and the character sheets and playing on my board game table. Something about having it set up feels and looks good!
Do you want a game you can play in tight spaces or on an airplane? This probably isn’t the game for you. I guess in theory you could play on an airplane tray, but you’d be cramped. I’d recommend other solo games if your space is constrained.
Do you want a game you can play only digitally? Also not the game for you. I’m sure you could find a VTT that does the deck stuff for you, but it seems like it wouldn’t be the same experience.
Overall, I recommend checking out Golem. Go explore, help the people and solve the calamity!
Check out all of Bardic Inquiry’s work on DriveThru
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I hope you liked my review of Golem. Well worth a checkout!
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