What Lies Beneath

What Lies Beneath is a solo RPG book published by  Fervent Workshop LLC.  It's available as a physical book on Amazon https://amzn.to/3v1Dwr9 and as a PDF on itch.io https://ferventworkshop.itch.io/what-lies-beneath.

First, I need to give two points of disclosure.  One, the publisher reached out to me a couple of weeks ago and asked me to do a review and gave me a free copy.  Second, I don't usually do any solo gaming so a lot of this is done outside the context of comparison to other solo RPG products.

How it works

What Lies Beneath is very much like the Choose Your Own Adventures of my childhood.   You read a short passage and then make a choice that leads you to a new passage that furthers the adventure based on your choice.

Layered on this is the choice of class you use a lens to experience the adventure through.  The gives you a spread of stats, hit points, and options.  Add to this, you have an inventory where the items you collect can give you more choices. 

Some choices require a "test" where you use your appropriate stat to use dice to determine your success or failure that leads to separate outcomes in the form of different passages the player goes to.  Tests are done with d6 dice.  Each stat has it's own type of test using the dice in different ways.

Other choices require that you have an item in your inventory or even consume and remove from your inventory some item you've collected along the way.

The book does an excellent job of presenting how all of this works by developing it in play as you go through the first part of the book.

The Adventure

I won't go into much detail but I will say that is a dark fantasy built upon common western fantasy tropes.  In my opinion, the premise is interesting enough to compel me through the game naturally.  The dark themes mostly center around light gore and light body horror, giving the material a nominal PG-13.

The scene descriptions are evocative and well balanced with details and brevity so that it flows well.  It's nice to see an artist that has the mastery of his tools so that he makes the strokes he needs and no more.

In contrast to the CYOA books of my youth, the passages are tight and go scene by scene carefully.  It almost gives the feel of a POV video.

The adventure is not very long; the whole book only has 203 pages contain all the branching story lines.  It took me from start to finish in one story thread in about 30 to 40 minutes.  I played through 8 times and read through the the rest of it to see what I missed.  I think I got as much as I could get out of it with those 8 play throughs.

Layout and Presentation

It's a good clean presentation that's easy to read.  One of the biggest problems with modern gaming books is that the art direction gets in the way of being able to read them.  Chris Scaffidi and Jason Glover worked together very well in making a simple yet beautiful document that is easy to use.

I got this as a PDF and the formatting gives me a list of links to the passages so that I can quickly jump to the results of my decisions.  This simple technical formatting of the document makes using this game book easy and maintains the flow of the adventure.  I know this is a simple thing but it shows the careful attention to detail that the team at Fervent Workshop has.

The art is on the sparse side but it's in the right places and well matched to the text.  It's all black and white and appears to be hand drawn.  It's very much like the RPG art of the 1980s.  I like it.

Final Thoughts

If you're looking for a CYOA type game book with a classic fantasy setting and dark themes then this might be a product for you.  I enjoyed both the game and just seeing the artistry of the book.

If there's a product that will bring me into being a regular solo RPG player, this isn't it.  That said, I was relaxed and entertained while doing this review. 

The biggest detractor of this book is that any individual play through doesn't give much in length or depth and is really a short form fantasy story of about four pages.  This is more a limitation of the format itself as I remember this as well from the old CYOA books rather that a weakness of this individual product.  The only real remedy of this would be a book of thousands of pages long and so convoluted that I doubt any single author would be happy to tackle the task.

The dice mechanics are a bit of a soft point for me.  I feel they are more of a gimmick rather that adding meaningful depth to the game.  There is a provided alternative so they aren't required and they do add some charm so they aren't a real detraction. 

Aside those looking to play a solo game, I could also suggest this book to those aspiring to be a GM or fledgling adventure writer.  It's an excellent example of descriptive writing and how to web an adventure.  One of the strongest points of this book is a real attempt to explore every reasonable choice a player might make and so it's a good case study for how to account for player choice while maintaining the integrity of the adventure over all.