dicepool Book Club, April 2026
What You Need to Play
- The Librarian's Apprentice source material
- A deck of cards
- Two d6 dice
- Pen and paper/text editor/voice record
- A token
- Supplemental and online content (Optional)
dicepool's April 2026 book club selection was The Librarian's Apprentice. This game is a solo adventure where you are the apprentice to a librarian in the Great Library. You must find six titles, that are located somewhere in space and time, within the Great Library's infinite depths. You get to choose a familiar that will help you with your tasks and can remove some of your fatigue as you search. Can you find your librarian's titles before you get too tired to continue?
The Librarian's Apprentice has a different source material setup than the previous solos we have read for book club; instead of being a book or zine, the source comprises of three tri-fold pamphlets and reusable character bookmarks. You will also need a deck of cards, two 6-sided dice, space to layout your map, and journaling material. The initial set up of character creation and familiar selection is fairly standard, and then you jump straight into the adventure.
I really enjoyed the concept of the game, but found that the material in the pamphlets was not enough to explain the gameplay. Thankfully, there are gameplay examples that I found very helpful, and once I had figured out the round sequence, the game went quickly for me. The part that I like best about the game is the ability to choose how in-depth you want to get with your storytelling. Since this was my first run through, and I was a little frustrated trying to figure out the rules, I went very simple. I am interested in playing this again, now that I have figured out the gotcha moments.
I did not like that I had to access additional material to figure out the game, even more so because I couldn't find free material after I had already purchased the source content. This might not be an issue for other folks, but it certainly was for me. The tri-fold pamphlets were interesting, but added an additional fuss of flipping back and forth to all sides of the three pamphlets. There were a number of instances where an in-game guide would have been very helpful.
dicepool's book club had an excellent discussion (as always) and it was interesting to hear feedback similar to what I experienced. The person who enjoyed it the most had previously played through twice and this was a fun revisit for them. The other book club members were as confused as I was, but we had all managed to get some game time in. We all enjoyed, and had a hard time, with the ambiguity of the rules. We agreed that there was very little that "must" happen, so it sometimes felt like, what was the point? We all agreed that the ideas generated from playthrough were great and could be used to add to another campaign or character setting.
My game wish list would be, a small supplemental booklet that laid out an example map, and a quick start guide that would walk you through the basic path steps. Despite the awards this game won in 2024, I wouldn't recommend this game to a newcomer, but would be very comfortable recommending it to experienced folks who don't mind a little research before the game starts.
Overall, I enjoyed myself and I look forward to my next playthrough of The Librarian's Apprentice.