So, I'm working on my own oracle for solo fantasy gaming. Since they're easy to make and fun to use, I'm designing this with random tables. This is based on two ideas, largely inspired by the tables from Instant Game.
The first idea is that a quest consists of three parts: an action, an object for that action, and an opposition to that action. Using a d10 random table for each of those three elements, I can have one thousand (10^3) different quests. This should be more than plenty, but I can always come up with more later, as I see fit.
The other idea came from the fact that most solo engines-- all of the free ones I've seen, anyway-- have some sort of system for close-ended yes/no questions, but don't have any way to handle any other sort of question. Presumably, any other sort of question is considered too open-ended, and not easily predicted by game designers. This simply isn't true. There are only six basic open-ended questions: who, what, where, when, why, and how. These are in order of importance; the last three can probably be ignored altogether. By creating random tables for these questions, my engine should be able to handle any question thrown at it.
As I said, the "who" questions are the most important, so I'm designing an NPC generator, using multiple tables. So far, I'm working on two d10 tables, but I'll probably work on at least one more. I'll have to find the right balance between simplicity and robustness for this.
While I'm working on this for fantasy gaming, these ideas can easily be adapted for any genre, or even a "universal" system. I'd rather avoid going the universal approach, though, because I find that "universal" and "random" will inevitably result in an incoherent mishmash of everything at once. Some people might appreciate that, but I don't.
What do you guys think? Does this sound like a good idea?
Sounds good. Let's see a prototype!
ReplyDeleteChris Bennett Working on it!
ReplyDeleteEasy to make? I need an oracle ghost-writer!
ReplyDeleteOvy Ortega Random tables are pretty easy to make. They're essentially just lists.
ReplyDeleteHere's a handy dandy template for ya, Ovy. Use a deck of cards to give you 13 items/encounters and the suits to flavor them. This is what I use for Rewind.
ReplyDeleteA Generic Oracle Template:
Hearts - emotional theme
Clubs - obstacle theme
Diamonds - object theme
Spades - adversary theme
Ace - authority
Two - meetings
Three - personal dynamics
Four - motives
Five - repercussions
Six - acquisitions
Seven - luck
Eight - bad luck/chaos
Nine - threat
Ten - treasure
Jack - agents/antagonists
Queen - complications
King - major opposition/plot element
I am revving to fuse oculus and De Profundis, probably solo, maybe not. But thanks
ReplyDeleteI have always thought of how to use the tarot ( which I read well) and dungeoning.
Have you seen Dungeon Solitaire: Labyrinth of Souls? The KS copies just shipped and it's pretty sweet. There's a free early version on the designer's website if you google for it.
ReplyDeleteI always miss the best KICKSTARTS!
ReplyDeleteNathan V - I love the idea of creating a system to answer who, what, where, when, why, and how questions using random tables, and it does make sense to skip the latter three. I'd love to see what you'd come up with for the options, you could create different ones for different genres, or even different adventures. From what I've seen also, there are systems that answer yes / no questions, but no so much the open-ended questions. Although MYTHIC attempts this pretty well with it's random event tables.
ReplyDeleteTodd Zircher - You've just made me think of Tarot cards. They also have different themes for the different suits, from memory I think Pentacles relates to money or wealth. And there are swords, wands and cups too. The suits are meant to relate to the 4 suits we know in modern playing cards today. With Tarot cards you have the extra Major Arcana cards also, and every card has a meaning, and when reversed (you rotate so many of the cards as you shuffle them), you get a reverse meaning. Often an upside down card has a bad meaning (the opposite of what the card originally meant). You can get Tarot Cards designed by different fantasy artists, I'm sure you could buy some beautifully illustrated with fantasy, horror or sci-fi themes. I've never thought of using them for gaming, but I think I might now! Thanks for the inspiration, and the great system you have already developed!
Perilous Intersections is based on the big questions who/what/where/when/how/why
ReplyDeletelino pang just took a look at Perilous Intersections. Yes, but... it's based on asking those questions, rather than answering them. It still relies on an idea generator for seeds. That might be fine for, say, a writer's aid, but as a player, I'd rather just focus on my character and let the GM answer those questions.
ReplyDeleteAdventure Girl I'll be sure to put up drafts of a couple of tables!
Nathan V ok I share your love for making random tables and I seriously made hundreds and hundreds of every kind of tables but the problem is you can only make very generic answers for the big questions if you want a manageable dice table or you must restrict the field of your answers: i.e: Where? (1d6: 1=here, 2=far away, 3=up, 4=down, 5=forward, 6=behind) or something like this maybe with 1d10, 3d6, 1d20 etc.. I had a similar problem when I wanted a big table of actors and actress for quick inspiration for the creation of my NPCs, I made a 1d100 table but the result usually didnt fit very well, I should make different tables for different kind of NPC (male, female, white, asian, old, young)... no thanks.... then I realized that for me the best solution was to choose between two possible actors (very different) that I think are good for the NPC I wanted, this choice can be made by a simple yes/no question and the result is still surprising (Who the King look like? 1d6: 1-3=Christopher Lee 4-6=young Robert de Niro).
ReplyDeleteI do not want to discourage you, indeed I am very curious to see what you have in mind
lino pang I think I get what you're saying. If I do understand you properly, then I respectively disagree. I think all of those issues you bring up are actually advantages for solo play.
ReplyDeleteConsider Story Cubes. What are these, if not just d6 random tables of generic pictures? And yet, almost every solo system I've seen, including Perilous Intersections, recommend them for idea generation. By using random tables directly, rather than through an abstract form, I can not only have larger tables, but also make them more context-specific. For example, if I roll a story cube to learn where the macguffin is, I might get a wolf. Since "wolf" isn't really a place, I have to interpret that as meaning a wolf den. If I just roll on a "where?" table, however, I'll get wolf den, rather than, say, bow and arrow.
I can also chain together tables Mad-Libs style. For example, the quest generator I described above chains together three tables. The quest is just to [action] the [object], with [opposition]. So maybe I roll, for example, Destroy, Ring, Black Mage. Or perhaps I get Steal, Treasure, Dragon. These are the quests for Tolkien's classics.
Nathan V I don't use story cubes when soloing mostly for the reason you mentioned, it's a matter of taste, I usually use my random tables (made specifically for the genre I'm using) or random word generators plus the FU table. Probably I misurandestood, I thought you wanted to make real comprehensive answer tables to the big questions. if you just need inspirations for your solo adventures like a fantasy quest table then you can google it, there are tons of tables like that. same thing when you need other basic random tables about locations, weather, vehicles, missions, plot twists etc.
ReplyDelete/sub. you've got my attention for sure. :)
ReplyDeleteHow vague or specific do you plan on making your tables? Right now, for example, Mythic handles the open ended questions by being vague.
I didn't really expect this to get this much of a reaction. Neat.
ReplyDeleteAlex Yari if you check out the Tolkien examples two comments above you, that should give you an idea of how specific I'll be. I'm going to avoid creating any flavor, best left to the setting and the solo player. The tables don't need to tell you the history or physical description of the ring; just that you need to destroy it. If you roll on the Where table to find out where you need to destroy the ring, you might get, say, "volcano". I don't need to tell you Mordor, specifically. Just a location.
https://plus.google.com/103360819573614339342/posts/1M27acUuYVy
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