An observation: tools like Mythic are referred to as GM emulators. But in my experience so far when soloing, I spend probably at least twice as much time on GM decisions than on PC decisions. Maybe that will balance out a bit with practice. But I think it points to reframing how we think about solo RPGs. Rather than just creating a game for ourselves to play as PC, it's really just as much, if not more so, about turning GMing into a solo game.
Monday, August 28, 2017
An observation: tools like Mythic are referred to as GM emulators. But in my experience so far when soloing, I spend probably at least twice as much time on GM decisions than on PC decisions. Maybe that will balance out a bit with practice. But I think it points to reframing how we think about solo RPGs. Rather than just creating a game for ourselves to play as PC, it's really just as much, if not more so, about turning GMing into a solo game.
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Well, "GM emulators" is a bit of a misnomer if you think about how much creation is in the act of asking any yes/no question (and that's not even factoring in the times when you're not engaging the tool at all). The only things the tools are doing for you is making the decision of whether what you propose is true or not (and if you're setting odds for the questions, then you realize that even the truthiness of something is being influenced by you).
ReplyDeleteMythic and others influenced by it try to give you a bit more outside input in the form of random keywords (or in the case of story cube, images). Still, having to interpret those images means that most of the time you'll be coming up with most of the content.
one thing that I don't like very much is setting difficulties (it's a GM duty)
ReplyDeleteI was kinda waiting to share this for when my blog was a little more fleshed out but: fictionalpositioning.blogspot.com - The Solo Role Playing Manifesto
ReplyDelete"The “Emulator” nomenclature has been irreparably attached to the solo role-playing hobby despite it being a misleading title for what are essentially just tool-kits to assist with the solo-player's GM role. Simply put, you can not replace a human (Game Master) with a set of mechanics and inputs.
A solo role-player is both the Game Master and the Player at the same time. "
lino pang, I personally find it easier to set difficulties if there are descriptors (easy, hard, impossible, etc) instead of just numbers. If a game doesn't supply them, I make a chart with my own.
ReplyDeleteThe thing I hate the most is awarding XP...
Gerard Nerval there is not much difference between modifiers and descriptors, I find a GM intrusion, so to speak, the need to set the difficulty of a task when I play, for this reason there is always a random difficulty generator in my games :)
ReplyDeleteand I always use something to simplify XP awards and equipment, I want to play a game not an accountant simulator
One thing I've considered doing for setting difficulty: start with an initial difficulty based on what your character might think. Decide whether to attempt it and then roll the check. Then roll a second die that modifies the initial difficulty up or down to represent the element of the unknown. Haven't actually used this yet though.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteGajus Miknaitis I've thought about something like that, but never tried it: set a default difficulty for a challenge, and adjust based on whether I fail or win the first time. I have nothing concrete though.
ReplyDeletein bivius the system decides the level of difficulty (emulating the GM) then the character makes a test every round (max 3 rounds) and the player describes what happens during every round based on the character success or failure (interpreting and describing a scene is the creative part of the GM's duty and I like to do it and good players usually contribute to the description of a scene in my experience of group RPG) .
ReplyDeletebasically it is something like a solo Risus game :)