I recently came across Sun Rot, and it immediately caught my attention because it seems to have been designed specifically for those of us who are unable to leave well enough alone when it comes to games, miniatures and new projects. It is part roleplaying game, part skirmish game, part board game and part miniature project, all wrapped up in a grim and decaying fantasy setting beneath a dying sun, which means it manages to combine several perfectly respectable hobbies into one potentially expensive distraction.

At its heart, Sun Rot is a cooperative, GM led adventure game in which the players control a small band of characters trying to survive in a world populated by strange creatures, questionable allies and the sort of situations that generally deteriorate as soon as someone announces that they have a plan. The setting is firmly grimdark, although not in the polished heroic fantasy sense that the term sometimes seems to have acquired. This is a world that looks worn out, diseased, unstable and probably best avoided altogether by anyone with even the slightest instinct for self preservation.

The rules are deliberately light, with characters drawn from four broad classes, Fighter, Wizard, Cleric and Astrologer, while actions are resolved through a combination of dice and cards. The dice determine whether the character has managed to achieve something useful, while the cards can then introduce complications, consequences and unexpected developments, which rather neatly prevents success from becoming too reassuring.

This is where the game begins to move away from a conventional board game and becomes much more interesting. Rather than providing a precise answer for every possible situation, Sun Rot gives the GM and players enough structure to keep events moving and then expects them to decide exactly what those events mean. A simple encounter can therefore become considerably more complicated as one player attempts to solve a problem, creates another and then watches with growing concern as somebody else makes the perfectly reasonable decision to interfere.

For me, that is one of the strongest parts of the design because the emphasis is clearly on creating a narrative rather than calculating the mathematically perfect move. The cards and dice create the circumstances, but the players have to turn those circumstances into a story, and this should produce the sort of games where everyone remembers the ridiculous sequence of events long after they have forgotten who technically won.

The boxed edition contains a substantial amount of material, including more than 250 cards, a double sided board, card terrain, character and monster standees, tokens, twelve dice, rules and a large collection of scenarios. In practical terms, that means you can open the box and start playing without immediately discovering that you also require a separate starter set, three expansion packs and a piece of terrain that appears to have been discontinued six months ago.

The real attraction for me, however, is that Sun Rot does not have to remain a board game.

The supplied standees can be replaced with miniatures, the card terrain can be replaced with proper scenery, and the game is miniature agnostic enough to encourage the use of figures from an existing collection. This is where the whole thing starts to become particularly dangerous for anyone who already owns more miniatures than is strictly necessary.

There is also a dedicated Sun Rot range available through North Star Military Figures, including the principal characters, Lunar Celebrants and several monster packs. The official range gives the game a strong visual identity, but it does not lock the player into using only those figures, which is exactly how I prefer these things to work. You can use the official figures, substitute something suitable from the collection, convert your own or simply rescue an old fantasy miniature from the back of a drawer and give it a new career.

This flexibility is probably what makes the price of the game easier to justify. If Sun Rot were simply a US$99 board game, I would probably hesitate, particularly once Australian postage had been added and the package had acquired the usual impression of having been personally escorted across the Pacific. If it were merely a rules light RPG or a small skirmish game, I might have the same reaction.

The difference is that it is all of these things at once.

You are getting a board game that can be played straight from the box, a rules light roleplaying framework, a skirmish game that can be transferred easily onto a fully modelled tabletop, a large collection of scenarios and, should you wish to surrender completely, an entirely new miniature project.

That combination is where I think Sun Rot becomes well worth the money.

The RPG element provides the story and character framework, the board game components make the whole thing immediately accessible, the skirmish element gives the action a proper tabletop presence, and the miniature side opens the door to painting, converting and terrain building. None of these parts appears to overwhelm the others, so the game can be approached as casually or as obsessively as the player wishes.

You could play entirely with the contents of the box and never buy another thing, which is theoretically possible.

You could also gradually replace the standees with miniatures, build dedicated scenery, add the North Star figures, introduce creatures from other ranges and eventually reach the point where the original board has quietly disappeared beneath several square feet of lovingly constructed ruins.

That seems rather more likely.

There is also a design philosophy here that I find appealing. Sun Rot does not appear interested in producing a rule for every conceivable situation, instead using simple mechanics to generate problems and leaving the GM and players to interpret the consequences. For some people that will be too loose, particularly those who prefer every uncertainty to be resolved by consulting paragraph 7.3.2 on page 84.

For me, however, the freedom is part of the appeal.

I have always preferred games where the rules create situations rather than attempt to dictate every detail of what happens next, and Sun Rot seems to work very much in that spirit. The game creates the problem, the cards make the problem worse, and the players then have the pleasure of discovering exactly how much damage can be done while trying to repair it.

The more I look at the complete package, the more I think it offers very good value for the right sort of gamer. At roughly A$138 before postage it is certainly not cheap, but looking at it simply as a board game rather misses the point. For someone interested in RPGs, skirmish games, tabletop gaming and miniatures, it effectively provides several different forms of gaming within the same system.

That is either excellent value or a highly efficient method of emptying both the wallet and the painting queue.

My approach would be to start with the full box, use the supplied standees while learning the game and then gradually replace the characters and monsters with miniatures as particular favourites emerged. The North Star range provides an obvious starting point, but the miniature agnostic nature of the game means there is no real limit to what could eventually appear on the table.

And that, I suspect, is where Sun Rot will cause the most trouble.

The dying sun, grotesque monsters and questionable magic are all very well, but none of them is quite as dangerous as the moment you realise that the game has given you a perfectly legitimate reason to start another miniature collection.

I already have enough projects.

Naturally, that probably means Sun Rot is exactly the sort of thing I need.