Rest assured, you are not alone! (Well, actually, you ARE technically alone when you play solo — but, you know what I mean.) False starts? Ha! I've been doing it for years and still have tons of false starts.
My only advice for you is not to beat yourself up about what you deem are failures...you've probably learned something from the experience. Also, don't stop trying! It doesn't mean you suck at it. One of these times, you'll hit a track that is both fun and meaningful and will generate its own momentum.
May I ask, how are you doing it? Writing down detailed prose, or scribbling notes on a page?
roryb bracebuckle I kind of just wrote in shorthand sentences when I did it. The problem was that the scene didn't really have any momentum. I felt like I was dragging it forward and digging for conflict that I wasn't invested in.
More often, I kill it before it starts. "Ah, I can't think of anything to do with this character," or "The world I'm coming up with feels cobbled and thin." Maybe that's more of a confidence thing...
Often times I set up a huge world filled with a great PC, NPC's, etc., and once I am do e setting up... I don't know where to begin. What is the first scene? What kicks things off? This is hard for me (and why I am creating a scene generator.... soon to come). What I suggest is Rory's story cubes or another broad oracle to start. Once I get rolling it becomes easy, but that first step....
Right. It is a bit overwhelming when you go to start playing solo. You can feel like you just don't know what to do. But there's no real wrong way to do it. Just experiment, and try to make things work. Tweak until it gets to be satisfying. The first time I tried solo gaming*, I started with the random dungeon generator from the 1e Dungeon Masters Guide and some wandering monster tables. It was oddly satisfying. Eventually, though, you want to do more than just roam maps and slay monsters. So you need some things like Story Cubes or Itras By cards or something to fatten up the story a little and give it narrative context and twists.
* I take that back, I did after all used to play Choose Your Own Adventure books, the Death Test books from Metagaming, and other made-to-play-solo adventure RPGs back in the 70s. But that seems different.
There was a long spell when nostalgic recollections were a thing for me... I would (and still sometimes do) play old favorite characters, or even re-tool an old game to find out "What would happen if the Earl wasn't the main bad guy and we were in the wrong place all along...". Those are recycled gaming experiences that would ensure I would feel emotionally connected from the get go.
I suggest also using pre-established settings, whether it's Star Wars or a favorite published setting in D&D or what have you...something you know pretty well, or at least don't mind a little spontaneous riffing. That would be one thing on which you wouldn't need to waste creative energy.
Another useful thing that works sometimes for me is to start with set piece: "I imagine a ragtag group of heroes flying across a stone arch in the middle of a crumbling cavern complex, one of the members clutching something to his chest." That gives you something to do right away, and something to sink your teeth into. In media res is something many games these days advocate doing. After the obvious thing is resolved, next come up with a list of questions:
1. What MacGuffin are they carrying? 2. Who else wants it? 3. What do they need to do with it? 4. What stands in the way?
If you have enough of these, you can spend a scene answering whichever ones seem most interesting to you at the moment...like reading the expository of a novel during which you yourself learn about the heroes and a vague sense of the main plot. After that, it should pretty much keep things moving.
Don't feel the need to make everything up. Steal unapologetically from fun sources. Re-hash an old tried and true story problem.
Play something similar to solo Advanced Heroquest. Dungeon crawling is easier to control and keep moving. Not much roleplaying at the beginning, familiarize with the solo mechanics, after a couple of missions you can add more roleplaying, drama, new locations and genres.
Something that has helped me is to not be afraid of throw-away games. Basically go into a new game saying "I'm just going to play a short, silly game about ." Play a few scenes, have a bit of fun, and don't expect that it will continue beyond that. Small little one-offs like this are great for building confidence (like you mentioned). Play them to their natural conclusion, then move on.
As far as keeping a game going once you've found something you like, I have two pieces of advice: invest in it, and commit to it.
What I mean by invest is make the game something you can be proud of. Make a website, commission a piece of art, draw a map, share your logs with others (on this group, for example). Make it a project that has value, at least to yourself.
What I mean by commit is to make a commitment to work on it. Something like "I will work on my solo game for at least 30 minutes, 4 times per week." Then get a calendar and track it. This is a great habit forming technique used by writers and other creative people to keep improving their craft. "Don't break the chain" of days where you work on your game and pretty soon you'll have months of content for it.
I started bit by bit, mostly by playing some adventures solo in the system I was most comfortable with (pathfinder at the time). I made a group of PCs, but really only played one. I skipped the bits of the system that I don't like and were slowing me down, since I didn't really "get" the solo roleplaying games like mythic. I solo played adventure paths like Rise of the Runelords after my game group had already played it.
eventually I pared down my game engine to be a weird hodge-podge of bits cut from Scarlet Heroes, D&D basic, AD&D 1st and 2nd, Pathfinder, and D&D 5e, to the point that the engine wasn't slowing me down anymore, since I only added things that I like.
Eventually I "got" mythic, by following blogs. I used a lot of random tables, but couldn't keep track of the ones that I liked, so I wrote a tool to help me run and keep track of random tables. I liked the idea of mythic, but using it was too slow for me, I was spending too much time in the engine, so I wrote a web tool that would speed me up, and eventually merged it with my random table tool.
Basically I removed every barrier to entry that I could, so that when I wanted to play, there was really no excuse not to.
I make lots of false starts. Sometimes an idea or character just isn't as interesting as I'd hoped, or a new game system turns out to be less fun than I'd imagined. But that's balanced out with the times that starting with only vague ideas and a 2-dimensional PC spins out into an epic.
I have a worse problem with actually finishing things, but I consider most of my campaigns as still 'open'; I'll get back to them all eventually when the mood strikes. And if I get stuck, I can always try something else for a while.
I'll often put a continuing solo character through an adventure, and consider it to be an unknown part of the campaign timeline, which I will never detail -- passage of time is considered to be within the adventure only.
I'd like to chime in and say yes, it was hard for me at the beginning too. Soloing is kind of an advanced skill, as opposed to being a player or a GM. One must kind of do both at the same time (at least in my experience) to succeed at it. I found and still find starting conceptually small is key. I agree with all advice being shared by my colleagues. I especially agree with using pre-made adventures when starting out, like modules (I do this all the time and LOVE it, even modules I've been through multiple times)-- make a single character, and explore the module, using solo tools as necessary to resolve that which is inherently uncertain (combat, treasure, random encounters) and using the module for the things that aren't (why am I here? what am I meant to be doing? what's the "win"?)-- and focus on the story that emerges, not the mechanics. There aren't many surprises left for me in White Plume Mountain (AD&D), but I run it two or three times a year with a single character, mainly because it's fun to me to see, for example, how a 5th level dwarven cleric does in there as opposed to a 10th level magic-user. YMMV as always, but that's my $0.02. :)
Rest assured, you are not alone! (Well, actually, you ARE technically alone when you play solo — but, you know what I mean.) False starts? Ha! I've been doing it for years and still have tons of false starts.
ReplyDeleteMy only advice for you is not to beat yourself up about what you deem are failures...you've probably learned something from the experience. Also, don't stop trying! It doesn't mean you suck at it. One of these times, you'll hit a track that is both fun and meaningful and will generate its own momentum.
May I ask, how are you doing it? Writing down detailed prose, or scribbling notes on a page?
roryb bracebuckle I kind of just wrote in shorthand sentences when I did it. The problem was that the scene didn't really have any momentum. I felt like I was dragging it forward and digging for conflict that I wasn't invested in.
ReplyDeleteMore often, I kill it before it starts. "Ah, I can't think of anything to do with this character," or "The world I'm coming up with feels cobbled and thin." Maybe that's more of a confidence thing...
Often times I set up a huge world filled with a great PC, NPC's, etc., and once I am do e setting up... I don't know where to begin. What is the first scene? What kicks things off? This is hard for me (and why I am creating a scene generator.... soon to come). What I suggest is Rory's story cubes or another broad oracle to start. Once I get rolling it becomes easy, but that first step....
ReplyDeleteRight. It is a bit overwhelming when you go to start playing solo. You can feel like you just don't know what to do. But there's no real wrong way to do it. Just experiment, and try to make things work. Tweak until it gets to be satisfying. The first time I tried solo gaming*, I started with the random dungeon generator from the 1e Dungeon Masters Guide and some wandering monster tables. It was oddly satisfying. Eventually, though, you want to do more than just roam maps and slay monsters. So you need some things like Story Cubes or Itras By cards or something to fatten up the story a little and give it narrative context and twists.
ReplyDelete* I take that back, I did after all used to play Choose Your Own Adventure books, the Death Test books from Metagaming, and other made-to-play-solo adventure RPGs back in the 70s. But that seems different.
There was a long spell when nostalgic recollections were a thing for me... I would (and still sometimes do) play old favorite characters, or even re-tool an old game to find out "What would happen if the Earl wasn't the main bad guy and we were in the wrong place all along...". Those are recycled gaming experiences that would ensure I would feel emotionally connected from the get go.
ReplyDeleteI suggest also using pre-established settings, whether it's Star Wars or a favorite published setting in D&D or what have you...something you know pretty well, or at least don't mind a little spontaneous riffing. That would be one thing on which you wouldn't need to waste creative energy.
Another useful thing that works sometimes for me is to start with set piece: "I imagine a ragtag group of heroes flying across a stone arch in the middle of a crumbling cavern complex, one of the members clutching something to his chest." That gives you something to do right away, and something to sink your teeth into. In media res is something many games these days advocate doing. After the obvious thing is resolved, next come up with a list of questions:
1. What MacGuffin are they carrying?
2. Who else wants it?
3. What do they need to do with it?
4. What stands in the way?
If you have enough of these, you can spend a scene answering whichever ones seem most interesting to you at the moment...like reading the expository of a novel during which you yourself learn about the heroes and a vague sense of the main plot. After that, it should pretty much keep things moving.
Don't feel the need to make everything up. Steal unapologetically from fun sources. Re-hash an old tried and true story problem.
Play something similar to solo Advanced Heroquest. Dungeon crawling is easier to control and keep moving. Not much roleplaying at the beginning, familiarize with the solo mechanics, after a couple of missions you can add more roleplaying, drama, new locations and genres.
ReplyDeleteSomething that has helped me is to not be afraid of throw-away games. Basically go into a new game saying "I'm just going to play a short, silly game about ." Play a few scenes, have a bit of fun, and don't expect that it will continue beyond that. Small little one-offs like this are great for building confidence (like you mentioned). Play them to their natural conclusion, then move on.
ReplyDeleteAs far as keeping a game going once you've found something you like, I have two pieces of advice: invest in it, and commit to it.
What I mean by invest is make the game something you can be proud of. Make a website, commission a piece of art, draw a map, share your logs with others (on this group, for example). Make it a project that has value, at least to yourself.
What I mean by commit is to make a commitment to work on it. Something like "I will work on my solo game for at least 30 minutes, 4 times per week." Then get a calendar and track it. This is a great habit forming technique used by writers and other creative people to keep improving their craft. "Don't break the chain" of days where you work on your game and pretty soon you'll have months of content for it.
lifehacker.com - Jerry Seinfeld's Productivity Secret
Great advice, Karl Hendricks!
ReplyDeleteI started bit by bit, mostly by playing some adventures solo in the system I was most comfortable with (pathfinder at the time). I made a group of PCs, but really only played one. I skipped the bits of the system that I don't like and were slowing me down, since I didn't really "get" the solo roleplaying games like mythic. I solo played adventure paths like Rise of the Runelords after my game group had already played it.
ReplyDeleteeventually I pared down my game engine to be a weird hodge-podge of bits cut from Scarlet Heroes, D&D basic, AD&D 1st and 2nd, Pathfinder, and D&D 5e, to the point that the engine wasn't slowing me down anymore, since I only added things that I like.
Eventually I "got" mythic, by following blogs. I used a lot of random tables, but couldn't keep track of the ones that I liked, so I wrote a tool to help me run and keep track of random tables. I liked the idea of mythic, but using it was too slow for me, I was spending too much time in the engine, so I wrote a web tool that would speed me up, and eventually merged it with my random table tool.
Basically I removed every barrier to entry that I could, so that when I wanted to play, there was really no excuse not to.
Good luck, I'm rooting for you!
I make lots of false starts. Sometimes an idea or character just isn't as interesting as I'd hoped, or a new game system turns out to be less fun than I'd imagined. But that's balanced out with the times that starting with only vague ideas and a 2-dimensional PC spins out into an epic.
ReplyDeleteI have a worse problem with actually finishing things, but I consider most of my campaigns as still 'open'; I'll get back to them all eventually when the mood strikes. And if I get stuck, I can always try something else for a while.
I'll often put a continuing solo character through an adventure, and consider it to be an unknown part of the campaign timeline, which I will never detail -- passage of time is considered to be within the adventure only.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to chime in and say yes, it was hard for me at the beginning too. Soloing is kind of an advanced skill, as opposed to being a player or a GM. One must kind of do both at the same time (at least in my experience) to succeed at it. I found and still find starting conceptually small is key. I agree with all advice being shared by my colleagues. I especially agree with using pre-made adventures when starting out, like modules (I do this all the time and LOVE it, even modules I've been through multiple times)-- make a single character, and explore the module, using solo tools as necessary to resolve that which is inherently uncertain (combat, treasure, random encounters) and using the module for the things that aren't (why am I here? what am I meant to be doing? what's the "win"?)-- and focus on the story that emerges, not the mechanics. There aren't many surprises left for me in White Plume Mountain (AD&D), but I run it two or three times a year with a single character, mainly because it's fun to me to see, for example, how a 5th level dwarven cleric does in there as opposed to a 10th level magic-user. YMMV as always, but that's my $0.02. :)
ReplyDelete📌
ReplyDelete