This holiday season, I’m going to review a different module, game or supplement every day. I haven’t sought any of them out, they’ve been sent to me, so it’s all surprises, all the way. I haven’t planned or allocated time for this, so while I’m endeavouring to bring the same attention to these reviews, it might provide a challenge, but at least, I’ll be bringing attention to some cool stuff!

Hwæt is a 25 page solo game of battling monsters, inspired by the poem Beowulf, by Luke Simonds. In it, you fight until you die, and then your children fight to avenge you, in a cycle of violence unending until you choose to step away from that path.

To play, you create a character — 4 stats, no other details — and set a scene of what that characters everyday life is like. Then you randomly select a problem that the monster is causing out of 6 possible problems, and the monster itself, out of 10 possible monsters.

Then you battle. To do so, you choose your action, and roll 1d12, and the monster draws a card from deck, with its suit determining which action it takes, and compare your results to the matrix in the book. You are penalised for repeating the same action repeatedly. When one of you is reduced to 0 HP, you die. If you don’t die, you age, and if you do die, the next generation will attempt to fight that monster at advantage, and the cycle continues. You’ll notice a lot of different facing dice being used here, which I feel is a bit much. I feel like there’s little added from using a full set of polyhedrals here — we could just use 1, or we could just use a deck of cards, for an identical effect, and I wouldn’t have to check when to use what. But that’s the entirety of the game.

It’s generously illustrated with public domain art, and filled with Beowulf quotations. There is nothing complex about the layout, although some aspects would benefit from additional flagging, for example the complexities in character creation get lost in the text, and could use more hierarchy or highlighting. But it’s serviceable, and certainly not hard to read or understand. But given the generous illustration, I do feel like this might be better as a set of pamphlets than the longer zine it is — I could keep my monster pamphlet in one hand, and the combat in the other, and not have to flick forward and backwards in the book, especially as it’s a very physical game, featuring many sided dice and a deck of cards.

For me, despite the art, the quotations, and the fairly clear recognition of the structure of the story, it doesn’t feel as Beowulfy as, say, a game of Agon might. And that’s despite the presence of a bunch of really fun and interesting monsters. This is the second prompt-based TTRPG I’ve read this month for Critique Navidad after Dead After Dinner, and what I’m seeing is designers either have no desire or don’t know how to write consistently compelling prompts that ground their games in a specific reality, and instead they tend to be fairly generic. I think Hwæt suffers more, though, than the other two did, because for me Beowulf is not as strong a framework to improvise based upon: I’ve studied Beowulf, and I don’t know that I could bring my knowledge of it to bear to make a compelling story. Those quotes, that top every page? Instead, work them into the pre-battle prompts, add them to the interlude for more support there, and incorporate them into the battle matrix and the new character generation.

Look, if I wanted to play a game of Beowulf, I feel like Agon is a better choice. But, you know what I can’t play solo? Agon. If you’re vibing old English literature, or reading Maria Headley’s translation, and you just have to play a solo game inspired by it, Hwæt is the game for you. But I wish this folded a bit more inspiration from the poem into the text and rules of the game, rather than rely primarily, quotes, art and my own knowledge to bring the vibes of Beowulf.

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