Just got back from a big social media break, during which I got some solo RP done. Rather than spit out a giant blow-by-blow log, I just wanted to share some of the procedural stuff that's working for me. I struggled to get solo play off the ground and feeling natural for quite a while, so maybe some of my solutions will help those of you in the same boat.

Just got back from a big social media break, during which I got some solo RP done. Rather than spit out a giant blow-by-blow log, I just wanted to share some of the procedural stuff that's working for me. I struggled to get solo play off the ground and feeling natural for quite a while, so maybe some of my solutions will help those of you in the same boat.

The Kit

- Stars Without Number (Revised, Deluxe) for task resolution
- Mythic GM Emulator simplified with Morning Coffee Solo Variations for general improvisation and GM processing
- Gamemaster's Apprentice Deck (Sci-fi) for ideas, prompts, and events

The Experience (and Tips)

1 - Randomly generate your character's backstory.

If you rolled up a character's stats, but just can't seem to decide what to have them do in your solo game, generate the backstory. By turning prompts into events, you'll start to create the supporting cast and factions, and have interactions that form your character's opinion of them.

Li Jianyu, my psychic warrior, came from a planet knocked back to pre-automotive industrial tech by The Scream (SWN's galaxy-wide psychic feedback wave that crippled most of the super technology leaving tons of convenient, adventurable ruins). Planet tags included Mercenaries and Pretech Cultists (people who worship any of the old super technology that still functions).

Armed with that info, I created a few categories of formative events (psychic power origin, warrior skill origin, youth, adult life), and drew prompts to flesh out the details of each. The resulting backstory nuggets were only 2 to 3 sentences each, but they made me decide what Jianyu thought of the mercenary factions, the pretech cultists, his family, the city government, and so on.

He turned out to be kind of a jerk who felt his psychic teleportation powers made him superior to everyone. Play would begin shortly after he'd lost his job and ruined his reputation, putting him in prime position to have an interesting story about proving himself and overcoming his toxic, reckless nature.

2 - Start in motion.

SWN contains tons of random adventure hooks, both as elements rolled and combined from tables, or as fill-in-the-blank frameworks seeded from your planet tags. At first, when I generated my hook, I struggled to start the scene where it would be delivered and negotiated.

To get past that block, I just decided how the adventure started as an element of backstory, rather than play it out as a scene at all. A mercenary General knew Li Jianyu had past experience with smugglers, and offered him a few thousand credits to hunt down their hideout.

This way, I could jump straight into my actual first scene of clear tension (Jianyu escorting a shipment of dummy weapons through the jungle to bait out smuggler saboteurs) rather than playing out a scene that basically had to go well in order to get the game off the ground.

In your later adventures, when you've got tons of context to make quest setup interesting and nuanced, playing out negotiations and such could be fun. But don't be afraid to start your first session right in the action. Find the earliest encounter that offers chaos or a chance for interesting success/failure, and start there.

3 - It's okay to be the audience.

This is probably the largest departure in how I play from what the Lone Wolf community led me to expect. While the "camera" follows Li Jianyu, so to speak, I play him in an almost third person omniscient style, allowing myself to know things he doesn't know.

For example, later in the adventure, a random prompt generated a crashed starship. This is a big deal on a world knocked back to late 1800s technology. Factions will race to scavenge and exploit it, and it actually significantly modified the main plot by offering an opportunity to attack the smuggler hideout while most of their number were out fighting for the ship.

But to get back to the point, when my prompt generated the ship, I drew another prompt to figure out what the ship's purpose was even before Jianyu attempted to investigate the wreck. It turned out to be carrying biological weapons, which lined up with a previous rumor that one of the smuggler leaders had a bio-weapon on a dead-man's-switch.

Upon investigation, Jianyu found the ship wreckage too dangerous and incomprehensible to explore on his own, but I (the audience) know what's inside well in advance.

That doesn't bother me. Nor would it bother me to know that a trap or an ambush is coming up since I'm not playing from Li Jianyu's perspective, but as his audience. For me, play is watching him, documenting his quest, and being nervous about whether or not he succeeds at things. Treating him more like an observed character has freed me from the player role expectations that I couldn't seem to fulfill, and that therefore disappointed me.

The Conclusion

That first adventure isn't over yet. I expect the next scene to be a big mercenaries vs. smugglers combat, and I'm finding traditional RPG combat to be a slog when played solo. I'm brainstorming ways to speed up combat so that it can be consequential without being over-simple (and I welcome suggestions). Maybe a system of 3 exchanges (Engagement, Struggle, Climax) after which the advantaged side wins at a cost based on how many opponents refused to retreat?

Anyway, hope some of this helped or interested you. Questions welcome.