Thursday, October 20, 2016
What makes a RPG particularly useful for a Solo game? In the past, I've gone with ones that I'm particularly familiar with, so I can play them with minimal fuss. However, for new ones, what elements do you look for that really make them "sing" in a Solo session. What works for a standard group, but doesn't for Solo, and vice versa?
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Great questions! For me, I'm all over the map. While familiar titles are certainly easier to get into. I'll sometimes create a game or seek out new games to play test. [My first big solo romp used an early draft of Ewen Cluney's Magical Burst.] Sometimes the criteria for my choice of solo games is "what doesn't work" for my gaming group. I'm also into the indie game scene so I have a tons of quirky titles that I would just like to explore.
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ReplyDeleteAs with most things "it depends", whatever anyone recommends it has to be one which you find mechanically interesting.
ReplyDeleteBy which I mean if you like Fudge dice then choose Fudge or Fate. If you're a dyed in the wool d20 fan then something OSR or D&D would suit you, etc.
The second thing, which I think is often overlooked, is NPC creation.
As someone who comes to the table unprepared*, and expects to learn along with my character, then NPC creation has to be easy and fast.
There's no good me choosing GURPS 3e when it would take me 5 minutes to stat up an NPC who might be important, or might not. Better to say here's a Minor noble who wants X and go from there.
This doesn't necessarily mean light systems only, lots of games come with pre-prepared archetypes, OSR games in particular are well covered here.
So mechanically interesting to you and fast NPCs are my cornerstones.
*I mean I come to the table with an opening scene, a list of names, locations and maybe a few other lists I might randomly roll on.
I'd say that depends on what you hope to get out of solo games. The more detailed the mechanics are, the less work you have to put in for creating the story; more rules lite games are going to encourage more active imagination.
ReplyDeleteIndeed! Just to flip the coin on the crunchy goodness of GURPS, the last solo game that I did had almost zero mechanics. You dealt tarot cards before play, swapped them around, and then played them in order as story seeds. The first card is your 'character', no sheets or stats, their fate is woven into the spread of the cards and the player's interpretation of them.
ReplyDeleteI can only give one plus for that post, but it deserves more. :-)
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