I'm starting up a conventional RPG soon, and I want to try to improve it with what I've learned with Solo RPing, I especially want to try using an Oracle. Any advice?
UNE seems to be pretty popular to make your NPC's a bit more three-dimensional. BOLD seems less popular for on-the-fly GMing, but can help with transition scenes I feel.
Other than that my favorite GM's have always lightely painted the scenes with a bit of props. So any particular generator for that I think really helps with the immersion.
Oracle wise, any would work. It depends on how much paperwork (Chaos , Surge level, etc.) you want or if you just want a straight up "purer" Oracle. Like if you are going to handle plot twists, etc. as a former GM I would strongly suggest going for a very basic one, but if you want to be surprised as well and like to think quick on your feet, then go for ones filled with surprises (shamelesscoughforCRGE).
Kenny Norris ' guides on DTRPG might be helpful here, but other than that, I would try the standard Mythic GME for a mid crunch type of oracle that you can use to evaluate whether you like that level of detail, less (Oculus/Fate Oracle) or more (CRGE).
If you keep going down the rabbit hole, you'll find other interesting stuff like Perilous Intersections, Location Crafter, Free Will, etc.
Heh, as demonstrated, oracle means a lots of things to different people. To keep it simple (since the rabbit hole is indeed deep and twisted), I like making custom oracles to inspire or complicate scenes. They can be as easy as a list of 13 items/scenes that are appropriate to the setting and then you draw a card. The suit of the card further modifies the result. For example, your farm based oracle has animals and crops. Drawing the 7 of hearts might be pigs and romance. So... "Farmer Slayn drops on by the house and asks if he can 'borrow' Mr Trotter (your prize boar.) He promises you a third the piglets, seeing how his sows will have to do most of the work."
My advice would be to determine what level of randomness you're going to incorporate and then make sure your players are okay with it.
When I ran a mostly randomly generated game, I used the Sine Nomine sandbox tools (Godbound, mostly, but they're all good) to create the situations and major players (half hour prep?), then fleshed the NPCs out using my own quirks and personality tables. I used Mythic for the "oracle" part and it worked very well. I like to have "and/but" as options too but it does add another layer of things you have to think up.
I would suggest keeping concrete details in mind -- what does it smell like? Feel like? Do as much showing as you can over telling. One of the hardest things when rolling things randomly on the fly is making it feel real in the way a bit of information you've been sitting on in your notes for days can be. Plus random stuff has to be fairly generic or it won't be useful in a wide range of situations.
You could also build the randomness in as kind of a "gonzo" approach, letting stuff just be as weird and random as it ends up being. Think Castle Gargantua or a dream adventure.
UNE seems to be pretty popular to make your NPC's a bit more three-dimensional. BOLD seems less popular for on-the-fly GMing, but can help with transition scenes I feel.
ReplyDeleteOther than that my favorite GM's have always lightely painted the scenes with a bit of props. So any particular generator for that I think really helps with the immersion.
Oracle wise, any would work. It depends on how much paperwork (Chaos , Surge level, etc.) you want or if you just want a straight up "purer" Oracle. Like if you are going to handle plot twists, etc. as a former GM I would strongly suggest going for a very basic one, but if you want to be surprised as well and like to think quick on your feet, then go for ones filled with surprises (shamelesscoughforCRGE).
Kenny Norris ' guides on DTRPG might be helpful here, but other than that, I would try the standard Mythic GME for a mid crunch type of oracle that you can use to evaluate whether you like that level of detail, less (Oculus/Fate Oracle) or more (CRGE).
ReplyDeleteIf you keep going down the rabbit hole, you'll find other interesting stuff like Perilous Intersections, Location Crafter, Free Will, etc.
Heh, as demonstrated, oracle means a lots of things to different people. To keep it simple (since the rabbit hole is indeed deep and twisted), I like making custom oracles to inspire or complicate scenes. They can be as easy as a list of 13 items/scenes that are appropriate to the setting and then you draw a card. The suit of the card further modifies the result. For example, your farm based oracle has animals and crops. Drawing the 7 of hearts might be pigs and romance. So... "Farmer Slayn drops on by the house and asks if he can 'borrow' Mr Trotter (your prize boar.) He promises you a third the piglets, seeing how his sows will have to do most of the work."
ReplyDeleteMy advice would be to determine what level of randomness you're going to incorporate and then make sure your players are okay with it.
ReplyDeleteWhen I ran a mostly randomly generated game, I used the Sine Nomine sandbox tools (Godbound, mostly, but they're all good) to create the situations and major players (half hour prep?), then fleshed the NPCs out using my own quirks and personality tables. I used Mythic for the "oracle" part and it worked very well. I like to have "and/but" as options too but it does add another layer of things you have to think up.
I would suggest keeping concrete details in mind -- what does it smell like? Feel like? Do as much showing as you can over telling. One of the hardest things when rolling things randomly on the fly is making it feel real in the way a bit of information you've been sitting on in your notes for days can be. Plus random stuff has to be fairly generic or it won't be useful in a wide range of situations.
You could also build the randomness in as kind of a "gonzo" approach, letting stuff just be as weird and random as it ends up being. Think Castle Gargantua or a dream adventure.
Good point! You could go even as far as to have some of the randomness in their hands in the form of Story Cubes. :-)
ReplyDeletetoo many RPG styles and too many Solo styles, my only advice is: use your favorite RPG with your favorite Solo System. :)
ReplyDelete