Solo RPGs

[Onix]

I had the idea today of having the player make two characters to start out with. One is the protagonist and the other is the antagonist, only which one is which isn't determined at first. I think that reduces the problem of the player rooting for only one character. I'd love it if there were twists where the character the player thought was the hero suddenly becomes the villain. The fault I have with that is, how do you have the powerful supervillain threatening the city right off the bat in the story?

Each character would be dealt two specialty cards. They would be things like Leader, Skill, Power, Knowledge, Friends. The character could take them right away or let them develop over the course of the game.

For example, Darth Vader would have
Leader - taken immediately
Power - taken immediately

Luke Skywalker would have
Power - develop
Friends - develop

If you take the specialty right away, it's power will be limited at a starting level but if you take the develop status it starts at nothing but you have the potential to develop it more.

Handling this mechanically becomes an issue though. How powerful is this leadership status or this power or this knowledge? Since I'd like this to be a universal tool, I could only give general information and hope it makes sense for the system being played in.

[J.K.Mosher]

I'm still thinking on character creation so I don't have much I can give on that . . . sort of concentrating on the main resolution mechanic.

I'm considering using a point system of "Influence" (may need a better name) that will be a small pool of points that the player can use to "boost" the dye size for a single skill/encounter check.

Also looking at using normal playing cards drawn in sets of 3 to establish "events."
First card draw will determine the type of event & the benefit it gives if successful . . .
Diamonds = a monetary centered event, can gain monetary based resources (ie gold or credits)
Hearts = a support or ally centered event, can gain a boost to influence, and /or an ally to assist you
Club = an offensive centered event (you lead a skirmish mission), gain a boost to offensive skills
Spade = a Defensive based event (counter hacking actions), gain a boost to defensive skills

The Second Card draw will indicated who will gain the most if the event is successful . . .
Black : Success benefits the antagonist more.
Red: : Success benefits the protagonist more.

The Third Card would be the base check number, and would use the face value of the card.

Tweaks . . .
Jokers would be a special event or condition depending on when they are revealed during the draw (ie 1st, 2nd or 3rd card).

Face cards would be considered their numerical value (Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13) if drawn as a third card, but if drawn as a first card would indicate a environmental hazard or twist has occurred (ie sudden eclipse/white out blizzard) that would impact skill check rolls, or if drawn second would be a straight up combat encounter (ie spies are discovered.)

I Think I'll have skills increase/decrease dye size automatically ( so a Haggle Skill of +1 gives access to a d10 instead of a d8, while combat of -1 would make you roll a d6 instead of a d8). Influence could be spent to increase dye size further, or offset the decreased size.

--- still needs a lot more tweaking, and inclusion of what skills will be, plus what attributes will be available. thinking I may have attributes add a +# to actual check rolls involved with skills related to a specific attribute, so lets say a charisma of 2 would give +2 to say any Haggling Skill checks, Strength of 1 would give a +1 like the grappling skill check rolls.

Now to work out how scenes, acts, and character creation will work. I think Onix your idea about making two characters at the same time, and have one become the "villian" after act one would work well.

[koipond]

Pssst ... Mr. Mosher ...



It can be played solo. It's still in testing, but yeah ...

[J.K.Mosher]

Looked at it . . . seems interesting . . . but will take a closer look once Xmas Holidays start.

Thanks for the example

[Rob Lang]

I'm writing a solo RPG based on my ramblings above, I've put it on hold while I finish judging the compo.

[J.K.Mosher]

Want to refurbish my original "RoL" idea . . . but now I have ICAR to read . . . and I'm finding myself getting drawn into the StarBound beta release . . . gonna have to kick myself to get working again.

[Onix]

I've been puttering with a universal engine and I'm making progress but it will take a bit for me to get a system that delivers enough detail and doesn't rely on a ton of random tables. So far, my idea is to linearly work through a book front to back that tells you what should be happening at each stage of the game. I've got a bunch of tools to inform the player but trying to integrate them so that they're seamless is tough.

[Onix]

Reading through this again, it would seem like adventure modules would be a useful key to a lot of the problems we've brought up. The basic idea would be to write out an adventure with very clear scenes. It would essentially be a railroad but the choices the player makes would effect their progress through the session. The trick would be to have curves in the requirements to succeed or hidden mechanics so that it's not easy to convey how to "win" a module.

Pie in the sky solution would be to have a set of cards that build a scene, define the NPCs (or environment) and the challenge they pose. There would be a theme card that would fill in gaps or resolve conflicts between cards. Sharing could be done by listing the cards that were in play.

Okay, let's reverse engineer that concept and combine it with the first. What if I made a database (equal to the cards) of elements that are drawn and put together into a scene description. The program would essentially write adventure modules with some guidance and probably a little bit of the user adjusting things to make more sense. The user could then "publish" the adventure with a smaller amount of effort. If it were just me, I could churn out dozens of games for solo play. If the program was publicly available, then players could generate and publish their own adventures. Having a series of "best" adventures would give players the ability to "share" their games much like JK mentioned sharing his experience with the fighting fantasy books.

It would be even better if there wasn't one "right" strategy to win. That there was a series of strategies that could work but with different costs. Each cost would be better tolerated by different PC specialties but the link between the costs and the strategies would be difficult to suss out.