Solo RPGs

[Onix]

J.K.Mosher's problem of not having local players makes me bring this up. I've actually heard it come up a number of times in the past from people that would like the RPG experience but don't have a group to play with yet. Can you have a Solo RPG?

There are things that could help, like the Mythic GM Emulator and some games have a which way book (or choose your own adventure) kind of set up. Are there other approaches? I've thought about custom dice but those are difficult to get anything but random gibberish out of.

The other big problem I have with solo games is that you aren't sharing the experience with anyone. The story told is completely private. Part of my enjoyment of a game is the shared experience. Is there another way to get that? Could there be an easy way to write down what happened and share it with others (and for it to be interesting)?

[J.K.Mosher]

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

I suppose it depends on how you define "role", or better stated, to what depth. In any given war game, you are playing the role of leader on some level whether its a general moving battalions, or a lieutenant pushing squads of a platoon. An RPG tends to take us down to the lowest level in one of those forces - a single person.

A sufficiently large table of random encounters, and some moving icons on the map that represent the chance of an encounter can make for a decent you vs the environment challenge. " (PDF link) could probably fulfill this sort of play very well.

What is somewhat lacking in the solitaire experience is the acting portion of the hobby. There is a difference between "66:Orc Merchant" on a chart, and your GM hunching over and trying to growl "Yer too weak to hef dat Ax. Try a ooth-pik ya little oo-man" followed by aggressive bartering.

There are a number of games split into distinct scenes, where you acquire resources in one portion and spend them in another. In "Mecha" for example, you gain overdrive points in role-playing scenes, and spend them to activate abilities in combat scenes. I could see something working like that for an over-world/underworld type of game - delving the dungeon gets you fame/gold/honor tokens, which are then spent in town to preform actions like bartering or hiring retainers. Perhaps in addition to simply getting new equipment there are semi-random social drives that hit the character each time they leave the dungeon - like spending time with a loved one or seeking fame to the neglect of all else. Along with race and class you could have archetype that determines certain limits on spending tokens (as a max or min in a certain area).

A deck of either playing cards or specially made ones would be a good way to randomize dungeon layout or monsters, or town elements. We could even be fancy and have modules pre-made that have you insert or remove certain cards from the deck to control what does or does not appear in the session. This game might also be designed to work on a chess board so that tracking events can be done with semi-standard chess notation. (A-J/1-10 or A-K/1-13 would also be good grid sizes. Or you cold get a 26x26 if you used red cards for X axis and Black ones for Y).

[Onix]

I was thinking about using classic motivations to emulate a GM. Lets set things up as a classic story of three acts. To do this, you'd have to be willing to railroad yourself into these scenes. In most scenes you'll roll for a motivation that will set the tone for that scene. The player can veto and choose a motivation twice in a game.

Act 1
Scene 1 Character generation. Get familiar with the character and set up a nice cushy life for them. Maybe they just got married. Maybe they just started a business and it's booming. Give them something nice.

Scene 2 A call to action. Roll against the motivations and use it to create the quest. If it's a positive motivation, then the character may have to leave the good life to take up the quest. The character taking up the quest could be reluctant if the call is from a positive source. If it was negative then something the character loved is destroyed. This should be played out in your rules but keep in mind that the odds are stacked in the favor of the motivation rolled. Maybe the character's business is saved but they realize that this kind of thing will keep happening unless they do something about it.

Act 2
Scene 1 Set up for the fall. The events of this scene set the player up for failure. If the scene is positive, the character thought they were doing the right thing but finds out it was all a trap, or he hurts the wrong people and has now made enemies. For motives like "Someone that helps" perhaps a mentor informs the character that they will have to accomplish some extraordinary task to succeed.

Scene 2 Put them in the worst position you can imagine. This is where the character is brought as low as they can go. (I'd have to work up ways of using the positive motivations to do this.)

Act 3
Scene 1 Get them out of it. The character must escape from jail, beat back the robot hordes, whatever.

Scene 2 Resolution. The final showdown. Will this be a comedy or a tragedy?

In each scene other than character generation roll on the following table.

Roll 1d20
1 Someone to pursue a goal (the Protagonist)
2-3 Someone to avoid the goal (the Antagonist)
4 Someone that helps (like a mentor)
5-7 Someone that hinders
8 Someone encouraging to consider a plan
9 Someone encouraging to reconsider a plan
10 Someone encouraging logic or reason
11 Someone encouraging feeling or emotional fulfillment
12 Someone encouraging excersizing control
13 Someone encouraging being uncontrolled
14 Someone to appeal to conscience
15-16 Someone to appeal to temptation
17 Someone who supports (speaks for) efforts
18 Someone who opposes (speaks against) efforts
19 Someone to express faith
20 Someone to disbelieve

[J.K.Mosher]

My little "pet project" has revolved around the solo-rpg theme, and while my signature has links to most
recent versions of RoL . . . here are links to the archived versions . . .

; ;

The introduction for each sets up the motivation, with what I will admit is the main basic premise of
the entire series . . . escape and survive in an attempt to get back home. The System uses dice and cards for randomization. Card Face values and card color have impacts to what happens as does when the card is drawn
(ie as part of a turn start, or after a check roll is made.)

Again I'll admit this is bare-bones, and linear. Rules Lite, with minimal character/npc interaction focused
mainly on combat encounters . . . can this be expanded on? If as the author I was willing to increase the formatting constraints I have placed upon myself (ie One page/ double sided, using a tri-fold pamphlet template.) it is quite
possible to expand on the options in all aspects.

What I wonder is do reader's really want a large core manual filled with options and tables to play what most of the time is a one off game to pass time . . . or is a "pocket sized" quick play type system more fitting. (Don't get me wrong I like both ideas my original Solitaire rpg was like 20-30 pages long with pages of card descriptions and options).

I think we could as a community can come up with any number of ways to randomize everything in a solo-system, but I feel the main questions I would like other community members to expand on are . . .

1- Why would you play; or consider playing a solitaire-rpg?

2- What features would you WANT if you did play, or were considering to play a solitaire-rpg?

[Onix]

Excellent questions. But it's not difficult to have a custom card deck or even decks made up. Instead of a book explaining the cards, have the rules on the cards themselves. Or have a free version on PDF and one for sale that has the custom cards.

Oh, one other thought about social interaction. What if the idea was, as the player went through a scene, they recorded their results in a forum post. In general,one scene one post. The post is the expression of what the player generated in game. That would seem a bit more fulfilling to me.

1- Why would you play; or consider playing a solitaire-rpg?
We all have those times when the group isn't available to us. If this was a system neutral GM engine, you could play test games by yourself, get that fix while you wait.

2- What features would you WANT if you did play, or were considering to play a solitaire-rpg?
Like you said, I don't really want a 300 page book that I have to flip though. For one, that encourages too many specifics. If I'm playing Icar and the book says "Orcs 1d6" well, that's not a lot of good to me.

I also don't think I want a GM randomizer. I'd want something a little more general so that I'm playing as a guided GM.

It's always hard to play as both sides of a game. If there was a way to automate one side or the other, it's easier for me to go up against stated out straw men. Maybe if I drew a card and it had numbers on it for difficulty values and if I'm running all the NPCs that turn, the PC gets that value for all his rolls. If I'm playing the PC, all the NPCs use that value. The values would be middle range to low. For the free version, you could print out 3x5 cards.

I think having a lot of guidance on how to think about what you're going to be doing in each scene would be good. If this is a 300 page book that you read outside of the game, I'm better with that. One, give the player lots of ideas about what could be done in a scene to set up the next scenes but also give them help getting the mindset of a movie director or a novelist so in one scene they can really be rooting for the character but in the next, tear them apart.

[J.K.Mosher]

SO Onix brought up an interesting twist to at least my thought process behind "Solo/Solitaire-RPGS" . . . role playing both sides of an encounter/conflict. (I'm using conflict in the broadest terms to include everything from haggling to actual fighting).

My main thought process for what I was doing, basically shrunk down the size of a "Fighting Fantasy" novel into a page or two for someone to play. Lots of dice rolling, and card flipping . . . now if I consider adding dimension in the way of having the player control both the "Protagonist" and "Antagonist" you can get an interesting dynamic.

So the next question how to do this with out too much "meta-gaming" between the sides. I'm thinking about a "Test of Concept" . . . using an isolated inn at a trade route fork (the Inn will be the "Forks Inn") facing an possible goblin incursion.

We'll see how it goes . . . will be pretty bare bones just to test the concept. Maybe. I Hope.

[Rob Lang]

After reading about the arctic circle, I want to write a solo RPG now. I have no idea how. I'm going to read like a bastard and figure it out.

[Rob Lang]

[J.K.Mosher]

My plan for my "Test of Concept" is to use some random rolls to help advance character creation after the basics are done (such as name, gender, some minor skill choices) . . . these rolls will give a few choices that expand the character further by imposing some bonuses and penalties due to changes in their "life path."

For example . . . you can start by creating say a "Fighter" type of character gaining some combat skills and then roll 1d12, and say get a "Pilgrim" life path . . . so your character may have started out gun-ho to face combat but somehow that changed and now he/she is on a path of peace and spiritual exploration. Each of these roll options will have bonuses and penalties that will impact starting skills and maybe open up other skills.

I think I'll look at a the "Hero" and "Villain" creation to be basically similar. If I can work it I want the player to want the villian to also survive.

Randomization will be smaller tables, using card values, and some dice rolls . . . might even make the mechanic that each of these choices just builds a dice pool for the final "showdown/conflict" for each side.

I like Onix's scenes ideas, and think I will try something that aside from the creation/setup scene has the player alternating control between hero/villain with some type of base modifier for previous choices being used to determine successes in current turn actions. Say if the "Hero" gained 3 allies last turn the base mod would be for the villain check rolls might be -3 for this turn. This one is ify though . . .