Review: Oath:: Oath Multihanded Solo, or Why I Play Games

by rwinder

0. PREAMBLE
So: hear the saga* of the high thanes, whose bloodlines still stain the land, even as the first wounds they struck and have never healed lie outside our ken. The elders* who safeguarded those secrets in their Hinterland exile have themselves faded. Know that we have but the echo of their vow that the Chancellor is eternal, whosoever lurks behind the mask that yet weathers history's scathing waves. Thus, we must choose a rocky shoal to mark our path's beginning. On time's boundless ocean beyond this, for us historians, here be dragons.*

Before Oath
Lurking for several years at the periphery of my gaming field of view was the behemoth known as Oath: Chronicles of Empire & Exile. It intrigued because it made a promise (or oath?) of an endless ever-evolving landscape of civilization and ruin, politics and war, and the intense feelings it produced in its players, many who played it with devoted groups or vocally found it off-putting.* While Oath could support even a single player, it seemed clear that the game was intended for a dedicated group of four or so who would learn it, retain its rules, and maintain good-natured grudges. That simply would not work for me, and therefore I held back making so expensive a purchase.

Yet, Oath would not be denied.* Why may become apparent as I describe my experiences with Oath, playing it solitaire, but multihanded. By this, I mean that I opted to play out games without automation, instead making decisions for each faction in play to the best of my ability, a tradition typical to wargamers, although my own experience with it is limited.

Thus, this will not be a customary review.* I do not intend to convince you to buy Oath or sidestep it. I will not explain Oath's rules in any clear fashion; I mostly assume you know a bit about Oath if you are reading this review. Heck, I do not even mean to persuade you that Oath is suitable for solitaire play. The reasons I play games may have little to do with the vast majority of players. My experiences with Oath have been useful to me in reinforcing and sometimes exposing why I play games. That I hope will be entertaining, if not instructive.

1. THE OLD OAK KINGDOM

We treasure those earliest fragments of written history carved into the bark of ancient trees, the Old Oaks* that watched in silence and whose leaves murmured the right to rule to the Azure Bloodline, their first king an heir to the mask long in hiding.* What they called their kingdom none now know, for it is not among these runic whispers left us or in our war songs, which howl only how the deposed Midnight Bloodline once stole the scepter to reclaim their honor.* Or sing of how it then fell to the Sallow Bloodline, whose thanes championed the folk oft forgotten under the boot of the Chancellor.*

What's Needed for Multihanded Solitaire
I suppose there's no firm boundaries on board games one can play multihanded solitaire,* but there are games that seem well suited for it. Setting aside games designed for one player or to allow a single player,* if I am going to go to the effort to take on different personae, I want the game to immerse me.* Thus games more on the Euro side of the spectrum that are not accommodating of one player do not hold great appeal for me. I'd rather the game feel alive, and the wargaming tradition I mentioned above is no stranger to this. Those games seek to make worlds come to life through the mechanics over say presenting a puzzle to be solved, and the tradition of playing all sides is lively there.

Yet my appetite for wargames is limited. They do not compel me to return to them again and again,* even if I appreciate the theory that can go into their design and enjoy seeing the gears spin as a simulation.* I need something else, and that goes beyond immersion.

I need to feel less that I am experiencing a story than creating a story.*

Storytelling vs Storyhearing
When the word story appears in the context of a game, there's no telling what it'll conjure for a someone. Those wargames tell a story, but the story is typically specific, and one is usually allowed only the opportunity to bend history rather than dominate it.*

Outside the scope of wargames, I think the majority of players view story as an interstitial element usually divorced from gameplay, often a reward for achieving a milestone* or an explanation of an otherwise unadorned mechanic.

Those both seem like storyhearing to me. Storytelling should exhibit more agency.* Certainly, there are plenty of role-playing games (many of them soloable)* where telling a story is required, but typically what separates those from out-and-out creative writing is rather murky.

For me, and especially in the multihanded solitaire context, storytelling is what I did in the game and how good the story is will be magnified by the answers to the questions of 1) "how many compelling and memorable actions can I take within the rules?" and 2) "how many opportunities do I get for my imagination to be fired?"

Oath's reply to both questions is this: quite a few.

2. THE PHANTOM CENTURIES

Then came two hundred years of raucous strife, where the thanes' great ambitions burgeoned and withered within a lifetime only to see it repeated throughout the span. The only scraps here are fragments of tattered memory, a great battle where viscera fed a fertile valley* and bawdy ballads with twisted lyrics of dissolute lives.*

Variability
Compelling and memorable actions require at least the ability to make a decision, but decisions are not sufficient to spur those adjectives.

What makes things memorable for me are decisions that emerge from complex and unique game states, opportunities for great rewards on taking a risk, or seeing the game bend into places that are unexpected either allowing the action or because of it.

Over the games of Oath, I was witness to a variety of interesting game states:
a long-lost heir barging into a civilization that was content to keep the other factions as exiles, only to win the game by becoming a relic thief and hiding in the slums, waiting for the Chancellor to die.
a Chancellor with a citizen controlling a vast army in the Hinterlands and facing the prospect of having to travel to the Provinces to prevent an exile from realizing an oath, knowing it meant he would stray into range of the citizen who would try to wrest the scepter from him; he ventured forth and withstood the coup that followed.
a vengeful deposed Chancellor crossing the map to salt the earth* of his replacement while later in the same game the Chancellor added a boiling lake to the salt flats... a very salty game with the world itself being brutalized!

By the term compelling, I mean that there's a reason to return to the game. Vital to that is variability. The game should present something new each time I play it. The scenarios I described above are not simply memorable, but distinct. The game delivered multiple consecutive instances of unique situations.

Not simply unique by happenstance or randomness. Consider the idea of input or output randomness in games. There are many instances of output randomness in Oath (um... those dice!) but that is chiefly to add excitement to the outcomes of conflicts that may have serious underdogs. There is also the input randomness of the cards I find and the game states that emerge.

Oath's board is a grid of opportunity with other opportunities to hunt down in the decks. This means that any given game state for any given player will present different possible paths to victory, and how those paths force players to step on each other's toes leads to unique scenarios.

Not just different scenarios. Different scales. There's a world of difference between a conqueror seizing power through force and a victor cowering in hiding and hoping time is on his side in a bid to steal the win with his theft of a couple relics. Sometimes these moves feel huge and sometimes surreptitious or pathetic, but what it is not when playing all sides (with an investment and sympathy with all sides) is boring.

The lack of guardrails on what can happen, which may delight or irk some groups, can be a real benefit in multiplayer solitaire where my predominant goal is less how to win but rather the hope of seeing something happen that makes me want to see what else might happen next time.

Design as Play

I imagine a common occurrence for those starting Oath, even after playing through the playbook* with its explanations of actions and motives, is to pause for a long while and ask "what now?"

That's largely because one really has to figure out how to win.* This is still true in multiplayer solitaire, in fact if one plays it with four "players" as I did, you have to do this four times. For the Chancellor, it's more a game of holding on, but for everyone else it is a hunt for a path if one does not present itself, even if there's considerable ability to lean into the benefits of the first few cards seen.

I can plan and scheme for each contender for the mask, but the game presents so many paths, strategy often gives way to new realities and fresh tactics when it returns to a certain color's turn. Much has been made about "king-making" and Oath, but I was surprised by how uncommon it felt in my games. Perhaps that sense was helped by an implicit alliance between the blue and black factions and the red and yellow factions, but I only recall a few games where one color had the dilemma that would definitively choose the winner. And while I definitely had failures of memory that allowed a faction to win without being properly contested, that felt honest and not like I was biasing an outcome.*

What this all amounts to is that the game feels like it gives the tools to design not just a victory but a story and a place, even if permanence is terribly elusive.

Effectively, Oath gives me the chance to design a game to play within its framework of opportunities. One can't design just any game at any time, but spotting what is now possible is a large measure of what is fun, even as it does not really feel like solving a puzzle.

This is because of the cards. The cards are characterful, distinct, and dense. Consider these happy-go-lucky blokes:

This is essentially a minigame in its own right, as many of the cards in Oath are... or challenges that say "hey, you can do this thing" without telling me if it's a good idea or not.

"Gambling Hall" was used a couple times in the one game it where it showed up. It did not seem to have much impact (although I did OK on the gambles) and it certainly was not decisive for victory, but it did give this game its flair.*

Room to Interpret

Let's linger on "Gambling Hall" a bit... specifically the art. OK, just consider all the art. It is cohesive and warm and playful and vivacious, but using adjectives is like trying to slap post-it notes on a curated museum exhibit. Let's try this another way. It effortlessly exhibits an I-could-have-made-this quality,* which is a way of saying it is actually the product of purposeful, practiced vision to invite that feeling.

Getting past just the aesthetic appeal of the Artist's contributions across the components of Oath, there's a wiser quality at work: the room to interpret.

I almost called this "the vagueness" but the Artist's creations are anything but vague. Indeed they were created with the expressed inspiration of the Muppets as the veneer atop the wargame innards.* What I am trying to get at is that there's not a lot of lore weighing this down. There's elemental images that give tremendous room for interpretation.* I mean... just look at him:

Apologies to all for my crummy, washed-out photography

WHO IS THIS GUY??? Whatever your canonical answer, in my game, that is for me to decide. I actually think of these distinctive depictions as more sigils or heraldry for the different factions or families... or "bloodlines" as I call them. For me, it's less that this fella is a cyclops, but that the one-eyed figure is the symbol for this blue-hued family. Oath is commodious when it comes to letting me both sink into the art and read into the art.

Reading between the fragments is another element of Oath that makes it suitable for my wants, but first...

The Joy of Meanness

I mentioned the lack of guardrails earlier. While this means that the game can tend toward a "what-do-I-do" factor, it also can tend toward cruelty.

In a game with a fragile group of players, either of these can be problem. Paralysis can slow a multiplayer game to where people decide it's not worth the effort. Cruelty may be less a risk, but it's still dangerous depending on the players.

Oath stokes meanness by begging the players to upend each other's plans for victory.* Oath courts hurt feelings by forcing one player to be a "king-maker" at the critical moment. Oath makes you hate the Designer when the vicious dice rolls that should have been a lock make you look like dumbass.

This element of play has struck some bad notes in similar games* I have played with others, but you know what? In multiplayer solo, the meanness is kind of joyful as the only feelings being hurt are your own and if you play a zero sum game by yourself, you actually win provided it was fun.

3. THE CLOUDED BLOODLINE

Four ancient bloodlines stretch to before all memory: the proud and feathered Midnight Bloodline with their most ancient claim to rule, the cowled upstart Azure Bloodline with the favor of the now all-but-forgotten Old Oaks, the ardent and cantankerous Sallow Bloodline, always grasping at their chance generation after generation, and the subtle Vulpine Bloodline, always on the outskirts as if awaiting their moment, which at last came to them for but a short season only.* Know that once a fifth intruded in their conflict, arising from unknown mists as the Clouded Bloodline, these thanes an enigma that faded almost as soon as it threatened.*

History and Memory
The major fragments of Oath, the chunks represented by the cards and the purposeful actions, are weighty but also leave ample distance between them for larger stories to emerge. It does not always happen, but every game has some character, so far (after a paltry ten games)* unique.

The encouragement of the winner (or me always in solo) to write the chronicle allows the illusion of narrative to emerge. The terse stories of the individual games I told above and the turgid prose I use as my sections' framing device* are funhouse mirrors of the elements and actions of the game. I don't out-and-out lie in my histories, but even I embellish, reaching a point where the I have to believe the story I tell myself with only the recurring cards I can look back on as archaeological evidence to maybe support it.

That's history. History where I might strive for Thucydides but end up with Herodotus. The more time removed, the more like Herodotus I feel when reflecting on the events.*

The written history might be incidental and an afterthought of the Designer when it comes to the turning cogs of history working within the game, but it's one of the encouragements that elevates the game to being worth revisiting solo but playing all sides.

I don't think reading-between-the-lines is an afterthought here, not given the fluid map where spatial distances are more relative to the centrality of place or the migration of both players and cards throughout it driven by war, vision, or conspiracy suggest.

I think the conversation intended is about the nature of war and politics and their relation to history. Maybe implicit in that is how it ties into what is personal to me, the player: memory.

Memory is actually one of the most challenged skills in a game like Oath. I do have to hold a lot in my head about the game state, and while I find that a bit much when playing with others, it's good practice for keeping the mind limber when playing alone.*

Nevertheless, things are forgotten and lost forever. Opportunities are overlooked, major players who didn't leave an impression don't linger, and the scrawl and embellishment of history might have its roots in fact, but it branches in a totally other direction when I try to recall it.*

Immersive games like Oath will leave memories, factual or not, and without that, I don't think the rigors of multiplayer solo are quite worth it.

And Oath has another trick up the sleeve to seal the deal.

Something More

What are history or memory if nothing is left to read or remember?

The campaign nature of Oath - just this side of legacy - ensures that writing the chronicle feels worth the effort. That the game state will carry on to usher in the next game adds a continuity that makes history a bit more than what was written by the victors and a bit more than the wheels of strife and intrigue.

What is in the Cradle might later become a ruin in the Hinterlands and then come back to glory. Cards of great moment find their moments pass as they are supplanted in the slow march of time. And the dynamics and motives of the factions change as each new era has its own paths to power.

Knowing that victory is not the only criteria that matters at the end, but how I win will affect the next game, makes the choices and outcomes feel more alive and pregnant with meaning. Especially when every rise sets up new vulnerabilities to bring about a fall.

The flow and the chronicle really do allow for a narrative as real and false as history, not something retold or alternative, but emergent in its own right.

I have pushed most asides out of view so far, but this one I'll leave in the main text because it provides a comparison and a capstone to my thoughts on Oath. I can only think of one other experience that had a comparable comprehensive grip on my imagination, one which I also played multihanded solo: the legacy game SeaFall. It seems to be conventional wisdom that SeaFall is a "bad game" but I think it was merely because the game was indulgent in ways akin to Oath. It had big concerns, complex states, emergent and punishing gameplay, and was mean (or at least highly competitive).* But played alone and patiently, SeaFall unfolds its own peculiar history that is in a word tremendous. It's not exactly the same as Oath in how it lets players read-between-the-lines, but it is the only other big, published board game I have played where that entangled me to where I felt I experienced and did more than my share to define and enrich the world and its history.*

That is why I play games.*

4. THE HIDDEN EMPIRE

Anon, the horns blare the onset of our age, when the Azure Bloodline reclaimed its long-standing right as the trees vowed, establishing its rule from a hidden valley known to only those who believe the right rumors.* With the succor of the mysterious mountain-dwelling fire-talkers, they have defended the bloodline destined to wear the mask against the avarice of other thanes.* And we look ahead to idyllic days, as all those thanes now pledge undying fealty to the Azure Bloodline,* ushering in a new millennium of peace.

All in All
Despite writing so much about Oath and its fathomless variety, its aptitude for storytelling, and its interplay of history, memory, and anyone's slippery grip on victory, there's more there to unpack that I have not discovered as to why it so suits me for multihanded solo play.

I'll end with one additional thought. The game is useful. It gives me ideas.* I crave ideas, whether for game design or creative writing.* Those two things are somewhat overlapping for me, so it might be that this is the real crux of Oath's allure.*

That's not to say it's perfect...

What I Don't Like about Oath

My neoprene mat has one end that does not lie perfectly flat.*

Oath mat needing some help to be flattened (guest-starring the campaign tarot game, Hoki*)

A Speculative Epilogue: My Future with Oath
Despite leaving a (so far) ten game campaign in a completely unified state where everyone is a citizen, the world under the surface is full of discord. I wonder if I should try resetting and start afresh, or see if I can push the underlying cards into a different direction.*

It depends on whether I can rope others into playing the game. I think it unlikely. The gaming group I play with that would be most inclined to enjoy Oath wouldn't want the level of commitment it would take, although I am sure they'd appreciate the game for what it tries to accomplish. I don't think they have the same goals I do. I'm not sure anyone does.

I might also try the clockwork prince, but there's enough going on with me running the rules that I don't need to manage a fussy AI who is playing a broken version of the game. Anyway, that doesn't do much for evoking the kind of memories I am looking for in Oath, which should be fueled by ambition and desire, not flowcharts, even if it owes a lot of heritage to the kind of procedural wargames where those fit well.

Then there are the expansions on the horizon. Is it odd that the expansion content I am most excited for are the pink and brown colors? I have emotional investment in the character of the existing factions, so the thought of more to mix in means more stories with little overhead. After that it's the new cards, also seemingly an "add-on" vs. the main course, but in Oath the cards are the blooms of the flower. More color.

I think the bulk of the two expansions are largely intended to fix problems that I don't really have. I run all the factions. I make all the choices between games, win or lose. I do think, though, there is room for more to do between the games. Maybe I'll come up with my own ideas to implement* - I have been known to be crazy that way - but I would much prefer to tell the story with pieces provided me in this case. Maybe after another year or so of games multihanded solo, I'll be ready for the freshness these will bring.

Acknowledgments
You have reached the end. I hope you have found this worth reading, even if I grant it is an excessive amount to say about a much more off-book way to play the game. I did try to keep it largely* focused, pushing the details and more extraneous digressions to a bunch of footnotes.* Thank you for your time.

I also should thank Leder Games, who put all the Oath cards online* making it so easy to decorate the review with a more than a few vivid examples.

I also want to thank those on BoardGameGeek who suggested I overcome my reluctance and try Oath; I appreciate your insightful remarks.