“Player Challenges” in a solo game

“Player Challenges” in a solo game

Here is another post which I had up on my blog. The basic gist of it is that I was looking for options that would allow one to have challenges that could not be solved by a roll against some stat. As an example of that, I shared a link to an early version of a game called Beloved, which uses what the author calls a “past you/present you” principle. In a nutshell, “past you” sets up what appears to be an “impossible” challenge, which “present you” then has to figure out the solution to. I think the game text does a better job of explaining how:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gnPx8AlhF1TMarQ165Y1vGM382c6epUvCu1-HkXvICI/edit?hl=en&authkey=CJDYi58F&pli=1# 

I also got some great suggestions from various folks, such as “character optimization challenges”, and combat AI.

Luckly, through google+, I found yet another interesting idea: using logic puzzles as the basis of quests. 

http://world-of-tiglath.blogspot.com/2013/12/logic-puzzles-as-plots.html

The author, +JeffreyMcArthurr, is doing two things that I find really interesting. One of them is splitting the puzzle’s clues so that the party needs to obtain them through NPCs. The other is using the logic problems as obstacles to obtaining information like maps, etc. I think the last idea is a bit easier to implement in a solo game, but as of now I’m not sure how the first idea would work in a solo game without a bit of meta-gaming, so maybe the group will have some ideas.

It’s not difficult to find logic puzzles in magazines, newspapers, etc. The only difficulty is finding ones that match the flavor of what you are playing, though I suppose a number of them might be easily adapted. 

(My original post, '"CHallenging the Player" in a solo game', can be seen here: http://solorpggamer.blogspot.com/2014/01/challenging-player-in-solo-game-is-it.html)