I wonder how we can use this for solo roleplaying games (that are not Choose-Your-Own-Adventure).
via Ivan Vaghi
Originally shared by Rob Donoghue
I am totally in it for the names of diagrams.
https://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/standard-patterns-in-choice-based-games/
"... you have a static geography, a world in which the player can toodle about indefinitely."
ReplyDeletei have only ever heard the word "toodle" (used that same way) in Germany, and only from Berliners (never in the south, where i have spent most of my time here).
Did that word enter the English vocabulary in the past 20 years?
Very interesting article. A lot to digest.
ReplyDeleteI would guess that most solo engine driven games that focus on story or investigations would look most like the first category but with near infinite potential branches. Whether there is any merging or backtracking is up to the player (though works like the 9Qs and probably Untold probably push the gameplay towards merging).
Dungeon Crawling that is randomly generated has the static geography built in as an after effect. The CYOA static geography that the article is positing sounds like a sort of point crawl.
There is no reason a player (or group of players) can't leverage a CYOA's location(s) as a point crawl. Just figure out each of the location's features and exit points towards other nodes and you have a sort of map to play in. It might require some player/character knowledge separation but that is a given with some venerable and popular settings anyway.
I'm not stating any of this as fact, but just my impression.
Continuing my random thoughts...
ReplyDeleteGoing back to solo engines, I think Mythic does this merging as well when a random event tells you to focus on an NPC or Thread. It does not explicitly tell you to merge things, but it's a natural inclination to do it at least once in a while (as far as me goes).
Also, has anyone ever tried playing a CYOA with the help of a solo engine to go off the rails a bit before merging back onto the choices given?
Finally, going back to the idea of a static geography as a point crawl of sorts: when you think about it, many of the detailed APs here could be mined as static geographies. The group has given the #sharedscifi experiment a try, but I've yet to see anyone take someone else's dungeon, for example, and putting a character through it.
Interesting indeed. I guess that makes Rewind an open ended friendly gauntlet. Near infinite branches almost all ending in 'death' which loops you back to the starting point. :-)
ReplyDeleteTodd Zircher I was thinking about the loops in your game too. I think I need to re-read it in light of this discussion. Very thought provoking stuff.
ReplyDeleteI'm imagining a game in hind-sight and you will always have one 'winning' path and all other paths ending in failure. It sounds harsh, but the reality is that each failed path can make you stronger (the state machine being foreknowledge of the 'future' and racking up Rewind Points/skills.) So early play would reveal all the dead ends and one strong path and on that main story path there will be spurs that dead-end. You will eventually reach of point of success or permanent failure/retirement.
ReplyDeleteAlex Yari This is an approach I've been fascinated by for a long time, so much so that I built support for "modules" into Pythia Oracle! It's a bit deprecated now but it's still there, haha. And The Serpent's Eye module I wrote for last month's omgam is a (rushed) attempt at something similar.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, it works well as long as the player is forgiving and generous with interpretation, but it's a lot of work for the author. I converted part of an existing CC licensed "dungeon" as a tutorial of sorts for Pythia.
I linked a blog post from a while ago where I share some enthusiasm for the idea, haha. Pythia's up to 1.4 now so not all the technical stuff is accurate anymore!
exposit.github.io - katamoiran - Pythia Oracle Update 0.6.0
Alex Yari using a solo engine or a solo RPG with a CYOA aka gamebook is much harder than it seems, a gamebook has a hidden but extremely rigid structure.
ReplyDeletepublished RPG adventures are playable in solo mode with some effort.
Gamebooks are another thing, creating an alternative scene with one solo engine takes you off tracks and then you can only do two things: 1) forget the gamebook and continue the story as you want 2) wear a novelist / writer's hat and write a narrative on how your protagonist returns to the paragraph from where you left.
Probably the only system that would work with gamebooks is a complete disassemble of the the whole gamebook and use the result as an inspiration for a solo adventure, but is it worth it? Would it be fun?
A long time ago (well before Mythic came on the scene) I sketched out a flowchart for a Traveller solo adventure. Each node was an activity/scene with skill rolls noted to go one way or the other from it, sometimes with degrees of success and/or a choice of skills to use. Some may have been just role-playing choices (no dice needed).
ReplyDeleteThe charts in the linked post would make an even easier jumping off point than sketching it all out by hand. To start I would just fill in the starting situation, the Good Ending, and the Bad Ending. I'd probably fill in a few logical sequences of events along a few paths too, and possibly a few of the partial success endings. Playing through it, you could use various generators to flesh out each scene/node, and add or modify the rolls and/or choices needed. Depending how things go, you could fill in more logical branches as you go too.
Gerard Nerval That was sort of my progression too; I started off with less specific traditional "Act/scene" structures, though, instead of specific nodes.
ReplyDeleteThe CYOA "node" approach has a lot of potential that could be mined for a more specific experience, if an author were willing to take the time to put one together!
One of the aspects I've personally struggled with when I sit down to write a solo gamebook with open-ended nodes is that it is simultaneously limiting -- the player is now going to be bounded by many of the same narrative and framework limits of a gamebook/CYOA -- and intensely unstructured -- the author has to provide many, many branches, while keeping them both bounded and open, which is hard work.
For my personal taste, a starting scenario is just more satisfying to play and doesn't require the investment up front from my author-hat.
Sophia Brandt I forgot to say thanks! I've played and enjoyed the blog author's games in the past but didn't realize there was a blog to add to my "must reads". So thank you!
I am most intrigued by the idea of a static geography or something like points in a point-crawl. You could be given some basic bounds as to how you can move between points, and then be set free to do whatever as long as you respect those rules.
ReplyDeleteAlex Yari That's how I did the Oracle's Decree thing for Pythia, as a point crawl! It's based on the trilemma dungeon of the same name, and it was a ton of fun to implement. Reminded me a lot of MUDding or writing IF.
ReplyDeleteI considered reimplementing it in a pdf but it's hard to do spoilers in pdf because they're so viewer dependent. For Serpent's Eye I ended up working in some minor social situations, just because it seemed more interesting, but it's essentially a point crawl.
I'm also reminded a bit of the BSOLO, the one with the lion. That, as written, would be perfectly feasible to solo with free scene play in each "node"!