The Long Road Ahead - It's Always the Journey That Matters

 Alan Tyson and Lex Lionfell's

The Long Road Ahead:
A Game About Great Journeys and Great Sacrifices

My copy of Unicycle Games' The Long Road Ahead.

Introduction

    The Long Road Ahead by Alan Tyson and Lex Lionfell is the first tabletop role playing game publication from Unicycle Games. Tyson is also responsible for the art of the book with additional graphics by J Gravelle. It is, as the name suggests, a game about epic quests, and the related journeys and resulting sacrifices, that a party must endure. This 'road' that the party must travel to face the adversary is the core narrative hook on which the entire game rests. This is true to the point that the entire first chapter is simply explaining the road and the commonalities that occur across all games of The Long Road Ahead. The game is inspired, explicitly so, by the common fantasy fiction narrative of a heroic quest where the vast bulk of the story is about the journey to defeat the given adversary and how the characters change and grow throughout the adventure. The Long Road Ahead provides several examples of this journey, from the ancient Homer's Odyssey and Exodus to the modern Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Banner Saga (pg 2). My personal favorite piece of fiction from this genre is Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward, wherein a group of the few last remaining villainous individuals go on a 'heroic' quest to return balance to a world threatened with being totally consumed - and destroyed - by the power of good.

My well read copy of Villains by Necessity.
It is an excellent 'anti-hero' example of the genre.

    The art, layout, and tone of The Long Road Ahead is, whether intentional or not, hopeful and a little lighthearted at times. Regardless, the art is both excellent and prolific throughout the book. The layout is eye catching and reinforces the hopeful tone with its choice of brighter colors. Functionally, the layout breaks up information well, though it can feel a little crowded at times.

    The ruleset is very much that of a Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) game, with the struggles concept from MASKS: A New Generation adapted for The Long Road Ahead. Moreover, a third key system is introduced in the book - character sacrifices - which have mechanical as well as narrative weight. These three systems fit together well and were clearly designed with intention to create a very specific kind of experience for players. Rather than provide character options in the traditional manner of race and class, the game provides them in the form of twelve playbooks. These are very dynamic, malleable, and the lion's share of character concepts can find a home here; from the strange to the mundane.

    A full 85 pages of the book, slightly under half, is devoted to the advice and guidance for the 'Scrivener' (the game's name for the Gamemaster (GM)). This advice is interesting and is focused on the creation of compelling narratives within the construct of The Long Road Ahead's mechanical and narrative frameworks. Some of this advice advice is arranged and presented in a manner I have not encountered before, but it made sense within the book's structure and narrative focus. Moreover, I found the advice practical and potentially useful, particularly the concept of GM moves, in other narratively focused games regardless of system.

Ruleset 

    The Long Road Ahead's core mechanical foundation is that of a PbtA game. This is a tried-and-true foundation on which to build a narratively focused game, as shown by the many other excellent PbtA games that have come before. However, The Long Road Ahead layers on top of this mechanical core two other systems that together differentiate the game from competitors: the struggles system, inspired by MASKS: A New Generation from Magpie Games; and the 'Sacrifices' system. Moreover, the thoughtfully designed character playbooks all interact strongly with these three foundational systems acting as the interlocking mechanism that transforms the game into a cohesive narrative engine. 

    The Long Road Ahead is a 2D6 system; when attempting to perform a move a player simply rolls 2D6 and adds or subtracts any relevant modifiers, and the final number determines level of success or if the roll is a simple failure. Anything above a 7 is a hit/ success of some kind with rolls in the range of 7-9 as 'mixed successes', while rolls of 10+ are unequivocal successes (pg 9). These rolls are primarily influenced by several core sources: character trait modifiers, 'forward' or single use modifiers - either negative or positive, and ongoing situational modifiers.  

    There are four-character 'traits' or stats in The Long Road Ahead: Folk-Wise, Iron Will, Nimble Mind, and Stout Heart. Each of these core stats has two basic abilities or 'moves' associated with, and governed by it. These basic moves all have a similar structure to them; on 10+ hit an effect occurs with no complications, on a 7 - 9 mixed success the effect still occurs in addition to a complication, and on a miss "the scrivener complicates things" in some manner per the description of the move (pg 12). The complications and the effects all have a great deal of room for narrative expression, to say nothing of the Scrivener complicating things on a miss. Some of the moves like "Bend Reality" and "Take Up Arms" have very specific effects and complications, while others like "Know Their Mind" have almost entirely open-ended narrative based outcomes.

    Certain moves will create a meta-currency called a 'hold' that, "you can spend for various effects depending on the move that granted you the hold" (pg 9). A good example of an action or move that generates holds is the 'Ultimate Sacrifice' which can, depending on circumstances, generate over ten holds and have a bevy of different effects. These range from "taking out a large number of minor foes" to "giving another wanderer one of your Playbook features for free" (pg 27). Holds generated by other moves tend to be less dramatic but still very useful.  

    The struggles system is pretty straight forward, mechanically speaking, but very narratively complex.  At its core when struggles are applied to a character it is represented by a -2 to a trait and all rolls associated with the trait (pg 29). Narratively, they are the inversion or over amplification of one of the core character traits, and represent an emotional challenge or trauma that a given character is facing as a consequence of their time on the road. Struggles can be 'cleared' i.e. removed from a character in several ways, but perhaps the two with the most narrative potential are 'snaping' and as a potential consequence of another character's ultimate sacrifice. Snaps are, "selfish, misguided, or needlessly aggressive actions, driven by the Struggle..."(pg 30). Each one of the eight struggles - two per trait - one for inversion and one for amplification, has a different narrative means and resulting form of consequence for clearing it. This system of 'snaping' at or out of something resonates with me on a personal level, as I am guilty of my fair share of such incidents - each one I deeply regret. I suspect it will resonate with most people as well, as 'snapping' is very natural response to extreme stress.        

    The sacrifice system as presented is a very potent mechanical / narrative tool for both players and the Scrivener. The system breaks down into two types of sacrifices: the 'Willing Sacrifice' and the 'Ultimate Sacrifice' (pg 23 - 28). A willing sacrifice is simply a character sacrificing something of high importance to them for a narrative outcome in pursuit of the greater good, while also suffering a substantial narrative complication as a result of the sacrifice. The 'Ultimate Sacrifice' while traditionally the sacrifice of one's own life, in The Long Road Ahead can also mean that something else fundamental to the character is sacrificed forever altering them and very likely having them leave the party. If handled well in the narrative by both the Scrivener and the players, the 'Ultimate Sacrifice' clearly can add a tremendous amount of weight to a character's death or other monumental selfless sacrifice. 

    

Art/ Tone, Layout, and Graphic Design 

    

    A friend of mine who is also reading through The Long Road Ahead summed up the art better than I could have by saying, "The art in Long Road Ahead is stunning. That big pink/lavender landscape opener? Let's [expletive] go!" All of this is true, the art is excellent and clearly showcases Tyson's skill in the medium of pixel art. Two pieces stood out to me above the others: the cover and an illustration of a meaningful and willing sacrifice.

Used with permission of Unicycle Games LLC.

    The cover piece reminds me of the start menu of a 1990s RPG video game after it just loaded. I can almost see the choppy animation. It depicts a party of travelers, presumably just starting on their journey, looking down on a city in the distance from the top of a hill with a ring world stretching infinitely into the horizon. I find the idea of a fantasy world organically growing from the remains of an impossibly ancient ring world to be fascinating and well worth exploring. It is an idea I intend explore to the fullest as I build out my setting and scenarios for my game of The Long Road Ahead. 

Used with permission of Unicycle Games LLC.

        The sacrifice piece (pictured above) features an image of the immediate aftermath of a major confrontation gone wrong: a knight or paladin is laying down their weapon, and it is implied - their life, to the shock of their comrade in order to save the life of a third companion held at knife point by red robbed cultists (pg 23). This does an excellent job of reinforcing and visually communicating the central theme of the rules text for a "Willing Sacrifice" which states, in part, "You put yourself directly in harm's way, give up something important to you, or compromise on an ideal or oath you hold dear, all for the greater good of the party and your quest" (pg 23). It is intentional, well done, and it immediately conveys the needed gravity of both a willing and ultimate sacrifice. Also, frankly I was a little moved by it. 

  

    The tone conveyed by the synthesis of art and text of The Long Road Ahead is very positive and hopeful. This makes sense, as one of key principals of the game is, "Hope is distant, but never absent" (pg. 4). This is further reinforced by the first of the Scrivener / Gamemaster (GM) principles "Make the Journey Hard but Rewarding" (pg. 105). The pixel art style and bright colors that dominate the layout scheme only continue to serve this hopeful tone. This is not to say that you could not use the systems that The Long Road Ahead presents to create a grim-dark game, but it might be a little tonally jarring. It is just hard for me to imagine the pixel art characters that dominate the book committing horrible acts in a grim and grimy Morkborg or Warhammer 40k style world.  

   Overall I like the layout and graphic design of The Long Road Ahead, it is eye catching and effective at presenting information in a readable and pleasant manner. One interesting aspect of the layout and graphic design, is the proliferation of text boxes throughout the book. Frequently Tyson and Lionfell will present an example of how the rules work in practice through a narrative example outside of the main text. These examples are universally excellent and I liked that each example was adjacent to, or otherwise collocated with, the actual rules text. This is a small thing, but it made everything very understandable and illustrated how the rules should function in the context of an actual game. Perhaps because of this proliferation of examples, the layout can at times feel crowded, but none of it feels superfluous. 

Playbooks and Character Options

    The Long Road Ahead has substantial options for players in the form of twelve character playbooks. These playbooks take the place of ancestries, classes, origins, etc. They are substantially less rigid than traditional classes (Fighter, cleric, rouge, ranger, wizard, etc.) and represent common motivation/ character archetypes from fantasy fiction. Because of this, each of the playbooks has options that align with multiple mechanical and narrative play styles. For example, "The One Who Turned From Shadow" has features that would allow it to make an amazing ranger or druid, a terrifying wizard or cleric, or a mighty berserker or blackguard. It just depends on what playbook features are selected and how they are narratively elaborated on. All of the playbooks have this level of versatility, or could have it with a very minor amount of narrative tweaking on the part of the Scrivener / GM.  

    Each of the playbooks is arranged into several sections: description, feature notes, first impressions, a back story generator, the playbook's features, and a milestone advancement section. An excellent and very welcome feature of each of the playbooks' descriptions, is advice on how to incorporate that given archetype at the table and the kind of impact it will have on the rating and tone of the game. This is good advice players and Scrivener/ GMs should take careful note of it. The back story and first impressions sections are handled by a simple set of tables unique to each playbook. They are explicitly designed to create a narrative basis for how the character appears to others, and a compelling reason as to why that character would even be on the road in the first place. While these tables are small, there is nothing stopping a Scrivener / GM from working with a player to develop custom options using the tables as guideposts.  

    Interestingly, there is no discussion of character ancestry. I suspect that is because it is immaterial to how the playbooks function. To be sure it may be critical to the narrative story of a character, but it does not have any bearing mechanically on the game. Unless, of course, the Scrivener / GM and the player want it to do so, and figure out a way to make it narratively meaningful in the shared fiction. 

    The playbooks, while excellent straight out of the book, are an aspect of the game I think Scrivener / GMs should be very willing to experiment with. The underlying systems are so strong that making cosmetic or minor mechanical tweaks to the playbooks seems very approachable and would be unlikely to cause any major system issues.   

Scrivener / Gamemastering Sections

    Fundamental to The Long Road Ahead, is the proverbial road and the journey along it that the party takes. Therefore, it makes sense that much of the advice contained in the GM/ Scrivener focused chapters of the book deal with making that journey and the world within memorable and dynamic for the play group.

    

    An aspect of the game I found fascinating was how it treats the Scrivener player as just another player at the table, rather than abstract away from that role into something beyond that of a normal player. To that end Tyson and Lionfell encapsulate many common narrative or Scrivener / GMing actions into nine distinct 'moves'. Which is not something I have seen done before - though apparently it dates back to the original Apocalypse World.  Each of these moves is further broken down into a 'hard' and a 'soft' variant. The hard moves "...are irrevocable and nasty, and the wanderers aren't given a chance to avoid it" (pg110). Whereas the soft moves are "...used to establish (either blatantly or subtly) threats or situations, and the wanderers can react..." (pg 110). Unlike the PC moves, which have more narrowly defined potential mechanical / narrative effects (as discussed above), the effects of the Scrivener moves are loosely defined and unbounded by mechanical / narrative constraints. I like this advice and how the follow on advice for constructing 'custom moves' is presented. It is intuitive, easy to understand, yet it is advice that can be applied to any other narrative game with only minor tweaking. 

    The Long Road Ahead places substantial emphasis and applies some structure (in the form of a helpful checklist) to session zero. The major reason seems to be because session zero is intended to be, in part, a collaborative world building exercise that defines the trajectory for the rest of the campaign. This session is intended to be where crucial details about the game world are defined, along with the entirety of character creation. When it comes to creating the world, the book encourages against using established settings, advising"...to use worlds without many fixed or established details, to give everyone (including you as the Scrivener!) room to improvise and roll with new ideas that arise during play" (pg 128). Thankfully, Tyson and Lionfell provide a couple of basic methods for starting to build out the world: adversary first, road first, or wanderers first. Each of these methods offers practical advice for how to get started world building as a group. 

 

    As one might expect Tyson and Lionfell spend a fair bit of time in The Long Road Ahead talking about storytelling and building narratives. However, at its heart The Long Road Ahead is a collaborative narrative role playing game, meaning that the way the game is played does not lend itself to traditional structured adventure/ scenario design. So traditional adventure design advice as presented in something like Matt Finch's Tome of Adventure Design, is likely not going to apply in the same way it might to a Pathfinder 2e game. Tyson and Lionfell go so far as to state as the fourth principal of the Scrivener / GM "Play to See What Happens Next" (pg 106). They further expand this out to "...let the players' actions especially the moves they make and whatever moves you think to make in response - determine the course of the story" (pg 106). To that end, they tailor their advice to support this more freeform kind of narrative experience.  This translates into The Long Road Ahead focusing in on the idea of "...the Road as comprising Arcs, which are in turn made up of many Scenes" (pg 172). Helpfully, in the 'Scrivener Appendix I: Designing Grand Designs' Tyson and Lionfell talk a little bit about how to use the 'Grand Design' of the adversary as a sort of guide to generate arcs. As someone coming from the more regimented world of 'traditional' simulationist TTRPGs, I found these sections very useful in providing ideas on how to marry up the overarching story of the campaign to smaller stories of the individual arcs. Though I must admit, I did wish the examples provided were expanded on a little bit more.  

Conclusion and Recommendation

    The Long Road Ahead is a game made by people with a deep love for TTRPGs, and narratively driven ones at that. They clearly took the time to develop out a game they wanted to play. This is shown not only in the very high quality of the game and book itself, but also by the authors' own words. Lionfell states in his bio on the Unicycle Games website that the genesis for The Long Road Ahead came from, "... when I realized that I was really dissatisfied with a particular indie dungeon fantasy game that was not doing the things I really wanted and expected it to do." 

  

    The heroic journey is a popular genre for fantasy fiction for a reason. It provides a tremendous amount of space for character growth, while also laying down an approachable framework for building the narrative within. It is an excellent conceit to build a TTRPG around, and while explicitly focusing in on the journey has been done before, a major example being Fellowship by Liberi Gothica Games. I would argue that The Long Road Ahead by virtue of what it does, focusing in on the struggles and sacrifices of the characters both narratively and mechanically, sets it apart in a meaningful manner. 

   Although I have not played The Long Road Ahead (it is the game my group is going to use for our next big campaign) I feel I can give it a strong recommendation based on the strength of the book alone. It is currently available via a couple of digital store fronts to include itch.io and drive thru rpg. Though if you can manage to find a physical copy I recommend you snap it up, as I fear they are few and far between. Especially since I bought two of them.