Review: Perils & Princesses (Solo)

Hi and welcome back to my blog! Today I wanted to review one of my favorite TTRPGs: Perils & Princesses. Specifically, I wanted to review how it plays solo.

Perils & Princesses is written, illustrated, and designed by Ryan Lynch, and wow does he do a great job with the artwork. Immediately upon looking at the front cover, you get the total vibe of the game: Adventuring princesses in a slightly dark fantasy, fairytale world. The artwork is pretty consistent and original throughout, although there are what appear to be a few stock images here and there. For the most part, though, this vibe is present throughout the whole book. And while the book may be small, it is beautiful to look at and inspiring to flip through thanks to the wonderful illustrations. As a bonus, on the inside of the front cover are the quick start rules. This helps you easily keep track of information without having to flip through the whole book. The book itself is organized really well, especially compared to something like Four Against Darkness.

Now while the game is called Perils & Princesses, you are free to play whatever gender you choose. The word “princess” is mostly used as a title or even an adjective. In a funny moment, Lynch even compares the actions of Luke Skywalker as princess-y. It really drives home that you don’t have to be a posh, Snow White-esque princess to play this game.

The game comes loaded with eight classes based off of classic princess personality traits and powers. The classes are called Gifts and one example of a Gift is the Wild Heart, someone who can speak with animals and at level four, even transform into one of them. Each level you gain nets you one new skill, and the skills are pretty awesome and useful no matter what kind of game you are playing. If you are more of a combat person, the Gift of Elemental Connection where you can blast enemies with the elements might be more for you. If you are playing a charisma-savvy character, you might want to try having an Enchanting Voice. There’s really a good class for you no matter your playstyle.

It is a bit of a bummer that you can only level up to Level Four, but I also understand that it’s for balancing reasons. Once you reach Level Four, you advance your character more by finding magical items. I made my own list of magical items for my game and only took a few from the book. They were really easy to make and to connect to the game world.

Speaking of magic, in this game magic works by using Gift Dice. You gain one Gift Dice per level, so at Level Two you have two Gift Dice, and so on. You can determine how many Gift Dice you want to use against an enemy. For example, if you are casting Fireball, and you’re Level Two and want to use both of your Gift Dice, you roll two d6’s and take the sum of the dice as the damage. If you roll a 1-3 on a Gift Dice, you can save it for later, but if you roll a 4-6 on a Gift Dice you lose it until you rest again. It’s an interesting way for magic to work. It took me some time to get used to it, but now I love it and have even converted it into my game that I’m working on, Colossus.

Combat is an important part of Perils & Princesses, believe it or not. Yes, these princesses can fight and come with loads of weapon choices from umbrellas to greataxes. The bestiary is not too large, but it’s large enough for a campaign. I find it easy to make my own monsters and enemies. If you are having trouble doing so, it provides a monster generator in the book.

You have three core stats: Resolve, Grace, and Wits. You use Wits for combat order, Grace for dodging, and Resolve for melee attacks. When doing a Virtue Test, or a check, you always roll your stat or under to succeed. 20 always fails and 1 always succeeds.

There are also things called Heart Dice that I didn’t really use with my game because I was playing solo, but it’s basically where you get a free reaction in combat to help out a friend with a roll and you roll what’s called a Heart Dice. I’d have to play in a group to really get a feel for it.

That’s the basic premise of the game’s mechanics. The book also comes with advice for adventuring and it even comes with a starting adventure. I didn’t play the starting adventure but it looked really simple for someone new to the game.

Speaking of which, this game is incredibly easy to learn and would be great for kids as well as adults who love fairytales.

Playing solo was an absolute blast, even after I hit fourth level. I wrote over a hundred pages in a notebook chronicling the adventures of Princesses Robin, Elwin, Kit, and Fern. I decided to make a four-person party instead of a one-person party because the game is recommended for 1-5 players plus a GM and I assumed four would be a good number to keep the encounters balanced. And I was right. If you are playing solo do yourself a favor and take control of four characters. They’re really easy to manage, there’s not that much accountant-work to deal with in this game even if you play solo.

I played in a sandbox way with my own custom maps and events and monsters and magical items. It’s recommended in the book to make it a hexcrawl, but I didn’t do that. When I wanted to travel from one destination to another I just looked at my map, made a quick guess how many days that would take, and then set off on my journey. But now that it’s in hindsight, I would like to try it again as a hexcrawl. Maybe someday.

It's highly recommended you make your own world and lore to increase the length of the game, unless you only want to play a few sessions, then I recommend starting out at level two so you start out with more skills.

There is an adventure book out for it called Sweet Revenge. I have it but haven’t played through it, but you can bet I rummaged through it for magical items and spells. There’s also currently another supplement for it on Kickstarter called the Night Market. I plan to back it soon. More Perils & Princesses is always a good thing.

Do I recommend this game? Yes, yes, yes! It’s so much fun and easy to learn. It’s a little OSR with certain rules like equipment limits and such. It’s perfect for a small campaign unless you have enough imagination to make a world out of it, and then it’s fun for multiple campaigns. Soon I’ll be posting excerpts from my Perils & Princesses game here on the blog so stay tuned!