Notorious: Let's Talk About It

From page 1 of the rulebook, Notorious is "A game of hardscrabble bounty hunting amid intergalactic war." Notorious is a solo RPG, in which the player takes on the role of a Nomad, or a bounty hunter, under contract to take down a mark in service to another faction. To play, all you will need is the rulebook, some paper, two 6-sided dice, and your imagination. Notorious was written by Jason Price and published by AlwaysCheckers Publishing.


Nomads and Character Creation

Nomads are a guild of bounty hunter loosely tied together by their commitment to follow the doctrine of the guild called "The Guild Code". The player may choose to follow or not this doctrine during gameplay and doing so will affect the character's stats and eventually the epilogue of the game.

Character generation is completed through a series of random rolls of a d6. The first roll will determine your Nomad type (or class/playbook). The subsequent rolls help flesh out the Nomad's origin, scar, trigger, species and personality. Of course you could go through and pick each option you would prefer instead of rolling for it but where is the fun in that?

Nomads have 3 stats that function more like a track as they will fluctuate throughout play. They are (1)Favor, the measure of how well your Nomad follows The Nomad Code and helps the Nomad succeed at speech checks, (2)Notoriety, the Nomad's current reputation on the planet and helps the Nomad succeed when attacking, and (3)Motivation, the Nomad's will to succeed over obstacles and allows the player to reroll dice if needed.

The descriptions of the alien species are very vague so you are free choose how to describe the appearance of each alien species that appears in your game or even create your own or maybe reskin them to match the species in some your favorite sci-fi media.  

The personality table will generate one trait for character and a question to allow you personalize a bit your character's backstory or lore. The origin, scar and trigger choices are unique to each Nomad class and further round out out the character's history or personality. 

Planets, Factions, and Contracts

Once the Nomad has been created, it's time to give them a target to hunt. Like character creation, this part of the set-up can be done with a few rolls of a d6 or a few choices off the tables. Your target will have a name, species, and one personality trait. 

Then you will roll for which planet you hunt them on as well as which faction has hired you to find the mark. Each planet has a set worldwide biome or theme, a list of prominent destinations, a list of regularly occurring species and the 3 factions vying for control of the planet.

The game comes ready with six most dominant factions in the galaxy. They are:
  • The Old Empire - THE long-standing dominant power
  • The New Uprising - Those that seek to overthrow the Old Empire
  • The Targ Cartel - Smugglers
  • The Trade Alliance - A greedy conglomerate
  • Red Moon Syndicate - Spies and covert operatives
  • The Mystic Order - Those that follow the strange and mysterious *ahem* "forces"

Gameplay

Playing Notorious is very easy and very fast. The loop follows two phases, Exploration and Destination. In the Exploration phase, the Nomad explores the planet and encounters various scenarios involving locals, factions, and hazards. These encounters can lead to combat, the gaining of assets, and/or the gain/loss of stats. The Destination phase is similar to the Exploration phase except these take the Nomad to specific locations on each planet where they once again will have to deal with encounters that may change stats, give assets or lead to combat. 

If the Nomad is able to survive the encounters long enough, they will eventually come across Leads and the eventual contract target. These scenes are special as they take place in cinematic locales with epic backdrops. They are called Showdowns.

At the end of the game, the Nomads stats will determine the impact the Nomad had on the planet or even the factions involved.

The resolution system in Notorious is extremely simple in fast. One d6 + stat represents the Nomad while the other d6 represents the challenge. If the Nomad rolls higher, they are successful otherwise they fail unless they spend a motivation to reroll one of the dice. During a combat, other stats like attack and defense come into play and may result in multiple rolls to complete. A loss in combat can set back or hinder a Nomad severely or even lead to death if the player chooses.


Things I Liked

  • Notorious has one of the better gameplay loops for a solo engine. There is no downtime whatsoever for the player. No travel rolls, inventory management, or rest mechanics that can sometimes bog down other games.
  • The questions involved when a Nomad speaks with other characters and you get change into your storytelling shoes and have a different perspective on the factions or intergalactic war.
  • The various questions that are sometimes asked during Exploration or Destination events. Yet another opportunity for creative release as you can bring forth a Nomads past/trigger, gain a piece of lore about an NPC or location, or find information about other Nomads and the guild. 
  • The Showdown scenes in which the Nomad encounters Leads or the Target. While only two short tables, they produce a very evocative cinematic scene that provides an epic setting but some exposition about the lore or the target as well.
  • The vagueness of the alien species. I like how the game leaves these species up to interpretation so that you can make them how you want.
  • The art. While art is sparse in the book, the style from Toben Bökemeyer is charming and evokes the feeling of watching a weird space cartoon on Adult Swim or even Futurama or Rick and Morty.

Things I Think Could be Better

  • More. Just more. I found some of the tables lacking only because they have 6 options and rolling on them often means you come across repeat questions or locations. While the Exploration/Destination event tables are longer, I think replayability would drop off a lot after a couple of playthroughs as you would see the same events occurring multiple times. Definitely need more Showdown options and maybe even a faction generator.
  • The heavy Star Wars presence in the factions and planets. This one is personal preference, especially coming from someone that grew up a Star Wars fan. Maybe it's just Star Wars burnout for me but I was hoping for something a bit different. This may even be considered a positive for many of you and the designer even mentions the heavy Star Wars influence on the first page of the book. However, during play, I took some creative liberties with my game to make it feel less Star Wars.

Final Thoughts

Although it only tells one type of story, Notorious is one of the more enjoyable solo RPG's I have played. I recommend this game to anyone who enjoys Star Wars, science fiction, and especially new players. I believe this is a great gateway game to recommend someone who wants to dabble in solo roleplaying. With light mechanics and a setting that feels familiar, this would be good game for players who may be intimidated trying to solo play using a crunchy system or GM emulator.

You can find Notorious through this affiliate link if you want to force Drive Thru RPG to give me some pennies when you buy something.

Or you can find Notorious on itch.io here if you want to let Drive Thru RPG off the hook.

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