My (early) draft for a Solo Story System which uses the Otherkind dice mechanic. (I don't know how I'll name the system, it's just a placeholder right now.)
I worked on it several months ago but somehow lost momentum. I somehow want to incorporate a cool solo mechanic into it that makes uses of randomizers (image generators, i.e. Rory's Story Cubes) obsolete. But I have no idea how.
We know that we can play almost every RPG solo but I want a system which already does incorporate a solo mechanic. So far, my system is a re-hash of Otherkind Dice and the system by Tiny Solitary Soldiers.
Anyway, although I'm NOT happy with it, I just thought I'd share in the hopes of a) getting feedback and b) inspiring other folks.
Will look later, but +1 anyhow for getting shit done.
ReplyDeleteI think otherkind has lots of potential for solo, pushing to come up with threats and stuff
ReplyDeleteI'd also look at Psi-Run for inspiration. Its flash back system is great for world building.
ReplyDeleteit's a good beginning. I think many solorpg players have trouble with the settings because many people play sandbox games and want to make new original settings from scratch. This is the hardest way. I usually reduce the homeworks using a setting I know well (rpg, novels, history), I make one or two dedicated tables and I am ready for the fun ;-)
ReplyDeleteif an rpg rule is in contrast with my solo system, the latter always prevails.
good start. I am interested to see where will you take this thing further.
ReplyDeleteI commented on the doc, but I want to add my voice here that I like the direction you're taking with it. Very happy to see folks here adding their takes on solo rpging in the form of tools. This is exactly part of what I was hoping the group would lead to (assuming the community here has in any way influenced or encouraged you) .
ReplyDeleteLast night it occurred to me that this Otherking dice system will be just great to implement for solo wargaming. Once I develop the ide further, I will let you know here.
ReplyDeleteFyi, original Otherkind Dice post by vincent baker: http://www.lumpley.com/archive/148.html
ReplyDeleteI thought at one point about a solo otherkind hack where you get the risks/consequences from inspirational decks that are chosen according to mood theme and situation. Levi Kornelsen 's work can be very inspirational here and be easily integrated.
ReplyDeleteIvan Vaghi that sounds interesting, can you elaborate? I don't understand how that would work.
ReplyDeleteYou know how in otherkind you have to come up with 2 risks for every roll and how in apocalypse powered games the risks are codified into moves? What if you had risks being picked by decks according to the situation? Those risks could also contain elements of gm hard moves, pushing the plot forward. Does it make sense?
ReplyDeleteI had a similar idea on the burner for a while. I wanted to actually correlate the game events to real-life events. Not necessarily a 1:1 time relation, though that would be cool, but something like "Getting up for work without using the Snooze button" would be one of my daily goals. Meeting that goal would earn me some sort of minor modifier in-game. Working that day would be the quest, or the next room, or the next level of the labyrinth, and I'd do something like correlate combat to a handful of things that might happen throughout the day. Inspirations include Chore Wars, the Time Sheet that GURPS 3e uses (and many similar sheets) and how that system accounts for downtime between sessions, Shotgun Diaries (where things are handled very simply with straightforward dice rolls and narration), and games like the Zombiess!!! where terrain is generated on-the-fly. It's a very rough idea but I think once I got it started I'd just spend a few minutes a day writing up what I did (translating it to game terms) and then maybe shoot for larger encounters on holidays or weekends. Something like a running journal. Your write-up is eerily similar to what I had jotted down. The key to the whole bit was just forgoing formal generators and actually using the day's events to inspire/translate to events. I want(ed) something that I could work on a little every day and be thinking about during the day but that wouldn't take up too much time in learning a new system or rolling and calculating. Just a thought - hit me up if you want to talk more. Cheers! ;)
ReplyDeleteAlright, so I tried to edit something into your document but I've never done that before so I'm not sure how it came out, and also... I didn't realize you had written more than the initial paragraph. So my notes are largely based on that but still apply I think. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteSorry for the triple post, I was inspired. :)
ReplyDeletehttp://thebwogosphere.blogspot.com/2015/08/bwogonauts-have-friends-too.html
Very nice! I really like this system for abstraction.
ReplyDelete