What causes an in-game event to feel “real” to you when you play solo?
Reading another post (Henry Harrison's), caused me to start thinking about something.
Introspecting on my own past experience with group play (or even just making up stories with a childhood friend), I find that the things that gave me the feeling of an event “really happening” were either the GM saying so (authority) or group consensus. We never had to write things down to make them feel “real”. Either authority or consensus sufficed.
RPG system results always feel real too, because they carry some weight of authority as well. So do solo engines/Oracles, but I find them unwieldy for the amount of feedback I need from them. In part, because I want to play with the RPG system, not with the Oracle itself, which I almost want to fade into the background (something that people say about RPG systems!).
Automated tools like parsers have helped, but they also have their shortcomings because they're not AIs with personalities.
Anyway:
What causes an in-game event to feel “real” to you when you play solo?
Tam H What other kinds do I like? Lots. When hexcrawling, I like ones that generate all kinds of terrain features, landmarks, & oddities. Every hex I pass through has SOMETHING in it, encounter or no, even a description of a small flooded out stream, or a great mossy series of boulders etc makes it feel more "real" to me. The GM's Miscellany series from Raging Swan Press is great for this. I also like one that generate small minor, non-threatening, random encounters. Things like meeting a peddler on the road or chipmunks running across the trail in the woods.
ReplyDeleteIn towns & cities I like ones that generate shops, street scenes, encounters with common folk, news, gossip & so on.
Taverns: Drinks offered, what's on the menu, name/description/quality of taverns available, who's the barkeep/serving wench.
I use lots for NPC's as well: appearance, personality, profession.
There might be more I can't think of. I love collecting these kinds of tables. I've scoured the internet & RPGDriveThru relentlessly for them.
Case in point: here's two I just bought yesterday for use Supers games:
drivethrurpg.com - 100 Events for a Modern Street
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/212829/100-More-Events-for-a-Modern-Street?src=also_purchased
Hey, cool! I'm going to incorporate some of these into the spaces in Pythia that need more buttons, ha. Especially the Wilderness/hexcrawl ones, I love it!
ReplyDeleteMoonSylver's comment on set-dressing lending verisimiitude really resonates with me. The trivial details bring the setting more alive than the set-pieces and high adventure, but they sometimes only come to the fore in the post-game narration. That's why e.g., not counting game mechanics, I'll write fewer words about my Star Wars characters' gun battle with alien hitmen than I will about them checking into a cheap hotel afterwards.
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