The Electric State by Free League Press
Swedish painter Simon Stålenhag has become prominent in the last decade because of his evocative retro-science fiction artwork. Tales from the Loop was turned into an Amazon series set in an alternate reality where humanity made significant technological advances. Things From the Flood was an artbook about a world where the water rose and brought strange creatures into the lives of ordinary people. The Labyrinth focuses on an ash-covered world of ruins where the apocalypse ravaged Earth. Like Tales and Things, the Electric State has been turned into a tabletop roleplaying game by Free League Publishing. Included in the core book are solo rules. I haven’t dipped my toes into Free League’s Year Zero system yet, so I thought this one would be a good start.
The Electric State takes place in an alternate 1990s where the United States was ravaged by a civil war. Technology advanced slightly faster than our reality, leading to the development of neurocasters—headsets allowing the user to enter a virtual world nearly indistinguishable from the real world. The fact that people can create perfect worlds contrary to reality has led to thousands becoming permanently trapped inside, lost in the bliss of digital perfection.
While wearing a neurocaster, a person can remotely pilot drones and robots. The landscape is littered with unmanned ones; some tower in scale while having the appearance of colorful cartoon characters, creating an unsettling juxtaposition. The whole of society outside the most dense urban spaces has been allowed to collapse into ruin. The only things still in pristine shape are the broadcast towers for the VR helmets, which have been allowed to be placed wherever the company wants them.
That company is also rumored to be in control of Pacifica, the sovereign nation once known as the State of California. The war led to the fragmentation of the U.S. While The Electric State is written around Pacifica specifically, the book encourages players to go beyond its borders and see what became of the rest of the continent.
A game of The Electric State focuses on the Journey, a trip from point A to B with a predetermined number of Stops along the way. In a solo game, the player is expected to control several characters, as the in-game Tension mechanic is a big part of the gameplay loop. However, with solo, they encourage players to spotlight a different character at each Stop. Think of it like a TV series where each episode or two is a Stop; in that narrative, we learn more about a specific character. You could play a game similar to the TV series Lost. The Journey is The Arc, with each Stop becoming an Event. That Event would showcase an aspect of a particular character while still including the others.
The Year Zero system is about rolling pools of D6s. Each character has four Attributes – Strength, Agility, Wits, and Empathy. You’ll roll several D6s equal to the Attribute that comes into play and need at least one die to come up as a 6 for success. The more 6s you roll, the greater your success will be. Your Gear can also provide D6s, but rolling a 1 on those reduces your Gear Bonus. If that ever reaches zero, your Gear will experience a critical failure. The rolls work even when opposed with the character who has the greater number of 6s succeeding.
Beyond that, you’ll also be tracking Health and Hope, representing your physical and mental well-being. Damage reduces Health, naturally. Hope is brought down by Pushing Rolls (failing to roll a 6 or continuing to roll to get more and failing) or traumatic events on the road. If Hope ever reaches zero, you have a Breakdown, and there’s a chance of mental trauma being added to the character. Neuronics brings Bliss into the game, an attribute tracking how much joy you receive from being in the virtual world. You may have to put on a neurocaster to investigate or hack. While you are inside the virtual world, your Bliss may increase due to certain actions. If Bliss is ever higher than Hope, your character’s mind will be trapped in the virtual world and need help to escape.
The solo rules here do a good job of shifting things enough to make the game work for a single player without a GM. To accomplish this, there are lots of tables that use a d6 or d66. A deck of standard playing cards is brought in to manage threats and countdown clocks. As far as solo supplements for a standard tabletop RPG, the tools are pretty good. The Journey already works as a progress tracking system, and the additional content here helps make that a process that can still surprise a solo player and provide exploration.
I decided to create three characters. The game provided ten archetypes, so I rolled a d10 to choose and ended up with an Investigator, a Runaway Teen, and a Criminal.
My Investigator is Wyatt Butler, 45. He’s been working as a P.I. for years and previously served in the war. He has a belly paunch, a receding hairline, and is a chain smoker. His favorite song is “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” by Poison. As an Investigator, Wits are his strong suit. His goal is to deliver evidence to the district attorney in San Francisco to save the life of a man on death row who was wrongly convicted. The threat that could stop him is the drone following Wyatt since he got his hands on the evidence. His Flaw from the war and years of dealing with the seedier side of humanity is that he sees the worst in everyone he meets. Even Wyatt knows he won’t last long thinking that way.
My Teen Runaway is Stella Shaw, 17. She grew up in the Exclusion Zone, formerly Nevada, now an expanse of desert and ruins. Stella keeps her hair buzzed short, always wears a jacket that’s a little too big for her, and listens to her Walkman as long as the batteries hold out. Her favorite song is “Dreams” by the Cranberries. Being a young person, Agility is her greatest Attribute. Her goal is to start a new life in San Francisco, which seems as real to her as Oz or Neverland. Holding her back is the very vivid trauma of the Exclusion Zone and the dehumanized state she watched people live in for so many years.
And then there’s Crystal Hooper, the Criminal. She was part of a revolutionary group, The Children of the Eclipse, but left as she realized they behaved far more like a cult than a group ready to take political action. She didn’t walk away empty-handed, stealing cash from the group’s leader, Randy James. Crystal’s goal is a terminal one. She took a bomb that the Children built and plans to set it off inside the walls of Fort Whitley, a Pacifica military base outside of San Francisco. The threat is Randy, who is in pursuit with several of his top followers. They plan on dragging Crystal back into the wilderness for “retraining.” Crystal’s strongest Attribute is Strength, which makes her the group’s muscle. She keeps her hair shoulder length with it, currently dyed dirty blonde to try and hide, bears a scar across her left cheek, and always sits where she can keep her eye on the door. Her favorite song is “No More I Love Yous” by Annie Lennox.
These are our three characters, who will be embarking on a journey for the next few weeks.
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