A lot of people have commented to me that once they get a ruleset, make a character or more, then they get stuck. I started thinking about why this happens and what way there might be around it.
"The Solo GM's best friend" are my thoughts on this conundrum. In short what I'm suggesting is that having an explicit type of anchor point in your mind can help propel the story forward, whether your story is episodic and more gamey, or more open-ended and story oriented, or some mixture of the two.
https://youtu.be/iEmuToC6N3c
Thank you for your advice. Indeed, the most challenging step is not to have you character ready, but to start the immersion in the world/universe you’ve chosen.
ReplyDeleteThredith Undomiel Yep. And there’s nothing wrong either if your whole experience is just making a character and not “doing” anything more. But sometimes you want to!
ReplyDeleteGeek Gamers It has happened to me with the Mythras RPG (Runequest 6). I had so much fun creating my character (which was a long elaborate process due to the nature of the system), that I never got to actually play it. Although, I'd like to play it. Specially its Mythic Rome variant.
ReplyDeleteThredith Undomiel Well that’s playing too—though maybe not ultimately all one wants to do. I totally get that happening. It’s happened to me as well for sure.
ReplyDeleteI just started “running” my first solo game using Swords & Wizardry and the Midgard setting from Kobold Press. Thus far all I’ve done is character creation, but the process I’ve been using has helped considerably to flesh out a beginning narrative. After I rolled up my character (3d6 for ability scores, in order), I used the Universal NPC Emulator (Conjecture Games, Zach Best) to determine my new character’s motivation and personality, as well as his two traveling companions (his motivation was “indulge friends,” so he needed friends to indulge). From that I decided he and his friends were returning from war and hiring themselves out as mercenaries. I rolled his Social Status (from the Midgard book) as low: a serf. That meant he’d perhaps been conscripted by his lord but didn’t want to go back to the farm, so his wartime buddies were helping him to escape to the Free City of Zobeck where he could become a freeman. Now I have a starting point for my campaign!
ReplyDeleteDevin Parker Interesting! And funny you mention S&W as I am going to be doing a video on that system in the near future. It is quite suited for the RPG soloist, IMO.
ReplyDeleteGeek Gamers I contributed to the Kickstarter for the 3rd printing and have a beautiful hardbound edition that I’ve been dying to use, so I figured no time like the present. I also wanted to use something that would be fairly instinctive to me for my first attempt at solo gaming. I’m looking forward to your video on it!
ReplyDeleteI like using the tables from Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells to give characters a "complication" (this is part of character creation -- examples: debt to crime lord, lotus powder addiction). This is instant background for your character as well as instant conflict for your story.
ReplyDeleteOr, use the SS&SS adventure generator (or tags from Sine Nomine books) to create your initial conflict and leave the complication on the back burner. If you're using Mythic, the complication is a Thread (and possibly NPC) that could pop up unexpectedly on a random event and really add a twist!
Spencer Salyer I’m not familiar with SS&SS but will look into it. Sounds like it has some great resources.
ReplyDeleteGeek Gamers it is "old school inspired" sword & sorcery and has some great random tables (I believe they appear on the AdventureSmith app, too). There's also an Addendum of optional rules with even more random tables. Both PWYW and there's a sci-fi variant recently crowd-funded.
ReplyDelete