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Double-post to mention that I not only started working on my solo RPG, I found some old notes I started years ago for a similar project, so I won't even need to start from square one! Working title is The Bequest, it's going to be a hybrid of a more traditional journaling game/roll-and-write, and a press-your-luck roguelike, with just a dash of Dwarf Fortress's Legends Mode thrown in, with each character's death (and there will be many) contributing to the history of the world as they try to accomplish a goal too grand for any individual alone. The tone is going to be a little more glib than I've made it sound with that rather dry description. Not quite openly a parody or pastiche, though; I tend to find excessive irony deeply, deeply exhausting, and prefer a certain level of sincerity and genuine love for the genre/medium in my heartbreakers. Would folks be interested in hearing about/chipping in their opinions as I work on the development? I know from experience that feedback, positive or negative, keeps me more focused on projects than working in a vacuum and being accountable only to myself does. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 09:24 on Jun 13, 2023 |
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Jun 13, 2023 09:19
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never really thought about using bones files in solo games, even though I'm already always reusing characters
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Jun 13, 2023 09:40
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girl dick energy posted:Would folks be interested in hearing about/chipping in their opinions as I work on the development? I know from experience that feedback, positive or negative, keeps me more focused on projects than working in a vacuum and being accountable only to myself does.  How does the Legacy bit work? Do you have an end goal for the entire set of characters? Do you go with something like Legacy: Life among the Ruins where you lead a family in "strategic mode" and then zoom in to particular characters for particular climatic scenes?
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Jun 13, 2023 09:59
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Fat Samurai posted:
Also laughing at my own stupid jokes that I forgot I made... 
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Jun 13, 2023 10:49
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lol
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Jun 13, 2023 13:27
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girl dick energy posted:It's a persistent world, with both the layouts of specific dungeons and the geography of the overworld being established over time by multiple characters. There's also going to be a 'debriefing' of sorts after a character dies, with the player determining, partially via rolling on tables and partially by choice, how the world has changed because of their actions. this is good poo poo, please keep posting about it!
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Jun 13, 2023 14:00
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Subjunctive posted:this is good poo poo, please keep posting about it! Human-analogues, well-known for their skill in agriculture and their penchant for inventing games, brewing alcohol, and inventing games involving the consumption of alcohol, (and sowing seeds whenever and wherever they can, both literally and metpahorically) are kalamen, singular 'kalaman'. Though it's usually just shortened to 'man' or 'men'. Mancala. The dwarf-like community-focused individuals skilled in earthworks, strategy, and risk management are the gammon, singular gammack. They're stoutly-built, almost round, and covered in short, thick, soft fur. Backgammon. The goblin/kobold analogue are a reptilian species, fiercely individualistic, with brightly colored, glossy scales, a child-like penchant for mischief, and a reputation for giving disingenuous apologies. They're called the sauri. And the most long-lived of the races, tall, thin, and tree-like, with a regal bearing, they've been around longer than anyone can remember, but very few people can be said to actually understand them; they go by many names, but most just call them the Royal Ur.
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Jun 13, 2023 15:32
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girl dick energy posted:Does anyone else have any experience with making their own solo RPG systems? I've got some ideas bouncing around in my head, but I'd love to know if there's any common mistakes or pitfalls that new designers tend to fall into. Not exactly, but like most, I futz around with systems with an eye to one day (likely just before the heat death of the universe) making my own. I’ve tried out a bunch of different systems from Wretched to Ironsworn /Starforged, and I think the biggest thing is to make sure you have a lot of potential variety. For instance, Wretched uses a deck of cards (and a Jenga tower optionally), but you end up using most of cards in the deck before you’re done, so I had no interest to play it again because I’d just see the same events in a different order. On the other end of the scale, Ironsworn and StarForged have no end of variety, but can be rather daunting to start out. You (or at least I) have to watch videos of people plying the games to really get a handle on how it flowed. I think ideally if a game started with simpler mechanics and then branched out from there, it would be perfect. I haven’t decided how to do that yet. The other thing that a lot of games don’t nail is finding the sweet spot between a glorified random dungeon generator and an open-ended write-what-comes-to-mind pure journaling game. I’ve read a lot of games that are too far on the latter end. The former end seems to be a style thing, and there are plenty of options that are great. Games that are too open say things like “4 of clubs, Mechanical - imagine a situation with a mechanical object. What could it be? What is the trouble? How does it complicate things?” Uhhhh.. can you give me more? If I wanted to free-wheel my imagination I’d just write a book. Ironsworn/ Starforged games get away with stuff like that thanks to having reference tables, and of course the oracles, which help to give you a little structure to hook the imagination, and of course, you can always just ignore that if you already have a great idea, Doctor Zero fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jun 13, 2023 |
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Jun 13, 2023 23:33
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girl dick energy posted:Each of the races is named after a different classic board game. I like this idea a lot but I feel like I should probably tell you that gammon has some other definitions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gammon_(insult)
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Jun 14, 2023 00:16
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Runa posted:I like this idea a lot but I feel like I should probably tell you that gammon has some other definitions Edit: They are now the Gambon (singular Gamback). If this turns out to be some kind of soundalike for an insult or slur as well, I'm going to cry. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Jun 14, 2023 |
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Jun 14, 2023 01:05
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https://www.modiphius.net/blogs/news/modiphius-entertainment-acquires-five-parsecs-from-home-five-leagues-from-the-borderlandsquote:announcing the acquisition of the Five Parsecs From Home and Five Leagues From The Borderlands game IPs by Ivan Sorensen’s Nordic Weasel Games. The deal also covers the original Five Core system, Weasel Tech, and Five Men From Normandy games. Five Parsecs Tactics seems like a platoon-level thing with tanks and both map & narrative campaigns. Five Parsecs Planetfall has planetary colonisation, exploration, research, and base-building. Both are apparently compatible with your Five Parsecs crew, and that is getting a collected edition of its supplements (including a bug hunt one) Five Leagues is getting more supplements. They're doing a retail version of Five Men in Normandy. Weasel Tech has some neat campaign stuff about the relationships between your pilots and the characters on the ground/command team.
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Jun 14, 2023 20:11
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So, I think I’ve hammered out the main mechanic. 3d6, with one die of a different color. It’s roll-under, so higher stats and lower rolls are better. If your two dice that are the same match, you get to subtract 1 from your total. If all three match, it’s an automatic success. Gives similar odds to a d20, but with a bell curve to make it less swingy.
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Jun 15, 2023 00:42
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Does it use a margin of success mechanic of some kind? Swing doesn’t matter if you don’t care about how hard you missed. Edit: Or some mechanism where you take a penalty on the roll to get some kind of bonus effect. A bell curve makes that more "masterable" because the penalty scales depending on how good you are at the skill. But then again you could put skill modifiers on the bell curve and use a flat die distribution that's more legible. Siivola fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jun 15, 2023 |
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Jun 15, 2023 19:22
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90s Cringe Rock posted:https://www.modiphius.net/blogs/news/modiphius-entertainment-acquires-five-parsecs-from-home-five-leagues-from-the-borderlands Hell yeah
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Jun 15, 2023 20:04
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Looking for recommendations for a solo roleplaying game or system that was made by a woman/women to take a peek at. Paid or free is fine. I'm really new to the solo genre and would like to check out some suggestions from others if they know of any! I'm tinkering with ironsworn a lot but wondering what other creations are out there from people I might resonate with more.
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Jun 18, 2023 01:33
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feverish and oversexed posted:Looking for recommendations for a solo roleplaying game or system that was made by a woman/women to take a peek at. Paid or free is fine. Lighthouse at the Edge of the Universe and Fox Curio's Floating Bookshop by Ella Lim Apothecaria, Umbra, RIse, and Delve by Anna Blackwell (Rise, Delve, and Umbra are very similar games with different settings, Apothecaria is a different kind of thing) They're smaller more journaling type things than Ironsworn, but they're interesting.
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Jun 18, 2023 04:13
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StarkRavingMad posted:Lighthouse at the Edge of the Universe and Fox Curio's Floating Bookshop by Ella Lim I hadn't considered I wanted a solo RPG ala stardew but now I deffo intrigued, these are great recommendations ty edit: theres currently some community copies of the floating bookshop available 
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Jun 18, 2023 05:13
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I'm gonna pick up AndrewB's Pencilquest, because I feel like experimenting with what I do and don't like about how that game does stuff will give me a lot more solid footing on how I want to proceed with TBQH.
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Jun 18, 2023 05:38
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feverish and oversexed posted:I hadn't considered I wanted a solo RPG ala stardew but now I deffo intrigued, these are great recommendations ty https://mkirin.itch.io/iron-valley Ironsworn system adapted to "life and farming simulation games such as Animal Crossing, Story of Seasons (Harvest Moon), and Stardew Valley. This game attempts to capture the feeling of working towards player-driven goals while making the most out of each day."
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Jun 18, 2023 05:59
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Bottom Liner posted:https://mkirin.itch.io/iron-valley Okay this is cute as gently caress. I'm glad I came to ask I had no idea how many variations there were. Do I have enough empty journals??
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Jun 18, 2023 06:19
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feverish and oversexed posted:Do I have enough empty journals?? I don’t know much, but I know this: no.
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Jun 19, 2023 02:28
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Subjunctive posted:I don’t know much, but I know this: no. I just bought three new ones today because I want to try everything RIGHT NOW  looking for suggestions for other solorpgs that have a generational or year spanning mechanic (looking at thousand year vampire rn)
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Jun 19, 2023 03:47
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I snagged Iron Valley (a hack of Ironsworn/Starforged for telling your own Stardew/Animal Crossing/Harvest Moon story, and I'm really enjoying it. I'm only a few entries in, but I'm finding it a lot easier to keep entries brief with this than with Apothecaria. The balance of narrative/journaling and mechanics is really interesting to me. I tried Four Against Darkness a while ago, and it didn't really catch me. The pure-mechanics take seemed better as a random dungeon generator than as a game. On the other hand, as someone mentioned above, with something like Apothecaria, I get so involved in writing vignettes about interactions with my weirdo NPCs that I'm going pages between any mechanical actions. I found Penciltown much more toward the 4AD side, but I could certainly see someone building a narrative off it more easily - and I did enjoy Penciltown even if I never finished a game. I liked The Broken Cask's balance for being more toward the game side, while still including a few small lines of space in which to add abbreviated story notes. And I feel that Iron Valley has a decent balance as well, though leaning more towards the narrative side. In Broken Cask, the narrative elements are fully optional, and it functions well as a great little sim game; in Iron Valley, I really feel like the (modified) mechanics of the Ironsworn system serve the narrative aims of the game and help get the player in the right mindset. I'm thinking specifically of the idea of progress tracks, and the way that promises (as opposed to quest structures common in many classic games) have steps, and are largely meant to be taken at your own speed. I always had this problem with the Sims, too, like, no human being is going to force themselves onto a treadmill for 18 hours a day until they hit Maximum Fitness, then immediately switch to 18 hours a day of reading increasingly complex books about how to fix sinks and refrigerators. Iron Valley explicitly says that you are not to try to tend your plants or animals more than once in a day, which I appreciate. feverish and oversexed posted:Okay this is cute as gently caress. I'm glad I came to ask I had no idea how many variations there were. I bought a discbound journal with dividers, because I know I'm going to be jumping all over the place trying out solo games forever. Discbound means I can easily take out sections and tuck them away for another time if I get tired of one system after a while. I even drew up a little character sheet for my "farmer" (who is actually a civil engineer who promised his Bubbe he would come back and help revitalize the town someday).
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Jun 19, 2023 04:34
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So Iron Valley is a bit more “journaly” than vanilla ironsworn? I’ve never really been into most things I’ve looked at that label themselves “journal” games, but maybe this might be something I could gel with if it still has a lot of ironsworn flavor/mechanics. I’ll have to check it out.
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Jun 19, 2023 05:45
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Galaga Galaxian posted:So Iron Valley is a bit more “journaly” than vanilla ironsworn? I’ve never really been into most things I’ve looked at that label themselves “journal” games, but maybe this might be something I could gel with if it still has a lot of ironsworn flavor/mechanics. The game is free (suggested $5 purchase) so you can definitely try. I was reading the manual last night and it notes that you can play it sorta less involved or as an ongoing journal  I really didn't understand the scope of all these games and now I'm on a binge collecting as many as I can to dabble and try some. I had liked ironsworn so much I bought all the physical copies but now I'm regretting that choice, I think there's much better options for me out here. I've now decided I'm going to cobble together some hybrid version to incorporate all the things I think sound cool and I have a stack of half used and new journals ready (I really like the idea of old styling journaling, I want to try to incorporate my own sketches in some of this soon). I'm thinking Ironsworn/Ironvalley hybrid with settlement building and generational (dynasty) mechanics 
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Jun 19, 2023 05:51
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Definitely grabbing Iron Valley, what a cool hack for Ironsworn/Starforged (which I already play and like).
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Jun 19, 2023 05:57
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Yeah I've been looking for an animal-collecting, let's-make-friends RPG to play with my kid and Iron Valley looks about right.
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Jun 19, 2023 07:13
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Galaga Galaxian posted:So Iron Valley is a bit more “journaly” than vanilla ironsworn? I’ve never really been into most things I’ve looked at that label themselves “journal” games, but maybe this might be something I could gel with if it still has a lot of ironsworn flavor/mechanics. There's more to it than draw card, look up prompt, think about prompt, write journal entry, so...I think that qualifies it as more than a journaling game? It doesn't exactly have, like, failure states for things. There are action rolls but if you fail then generally the only thing that happens is that Time Passes. If you break a promise (i.e. vow) then you're supposed to come up with consequences in terms of the way the other person sees you after breaking a promise. But I'm sure you could make it a bit more perilous if you want. I'm learning that nearly every solo game I play is apparently a journaling game, but that's more of a personal problem.
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Jun 19, 2023 07:13
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I either posted about before or found out about it from here, but Scraps is a non-violent exploration/crafting solo game I'd recommend. You're an inventor-slash-adventurer who comes up with ideas for new things to make, and sets out to explore the world and find bits of things to make your creation a reality. The way it handles your inventory of scraps by coloring in different areas is pretty neat and fun, and I had a good time building things and thinking about how my home village grew and changed with my character's discoveries and projects. I just think it's neat 
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Jun 19, 2023 08:39
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My bucket list includes hacking together an Apothecaria/Scraps mashup. I love how they feel so complementary. Apothecaria is very regimented and precise about gathering the right ingredients for your potions while having nothing to say at all about the act of brewing them, while Scraps has a whole unique mechanical system for crafting but kind of abstracts away the foraging/gathering elements.
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Jun 19, 2023 15:10
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feverish and oversexed posted:
The number of journals you need is always the number of journals you have +1. Or maybe +3
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Jun 19, 2023 15:15
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wizzardstaff posted:My bucket list includes hacking together an Apothecaria/Scraps mashup. I love how they feel so complementary. Apothecaria is very regimented and precise about gathering the right ingredients for your potions while having nothing to say at all about the act of brewing them, while Scraps has a whole unique mechanical system for crafting but kind of abstracts away the foraging/gathering elements. Please, please share this when you get around to it, I have had similar thoughts but I am too stupid to hack it.
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Jun 19, 2023 17:40
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I'm curious now to how many people are running their own half-baked (or fully baked as the case may be), unpublished homebrewsDoctor Zero posted:The number of journals you need is always the number of journals you have +1. Or maybe +3 I had (have) a really bad (good) habit of collecting empty journals, but I had an issue with filling them. I literally just got rid of a bunch of never used journals last month I'm kicking myself over, but at least it gives me the excuse to get several more and keep them now!
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Jun 19, 2023 20:54
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Thousand Year Old Vampire is incredible. I still think about the lady vampire I made sometimes. She had bad luck. Apothecaria is my favourite Anna Blackwell game but Apawthecaria is beautiful in hard copy.
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Jun 20, 2023 17:00
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Ok I picked up Iron Valley and it’s just a lighter Ironsworn. Not at all what I think of as a “journal game”*. Cool. Seems cute. Might have to actually play this. Though I say that about most Ironsworn/Starforged hacks I’ve seen.  * aka here is a prompt do some writing, way too free form for me. Im sure there are some with more to it than that but I definitely need more structure and Uhhhh granularity? I dunno how to put it really. Also I prefer to keep the written record of my play to brief summarization instead of writing significant prose so they’re kind just Not For Me. I’ve seen some good play reports for a few though. Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jun 20, 2023 |
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Jun 20, 2023 17:57
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I now have multiple games going and its going to take me months and I'm thrilled. I literally had no idea how large this genre was outside of DnD, let alone how many solo options there are!HopperUK posted:Thousand Year Old Vampire is incredible. I still think about the lady vampire I made sometimes. She had bad luck. I finally settled on trying this one because I was looking for games that had "time passing" and "generational" mechanics. Not quite what I wanted, but its really great all the same. here's my TYOV game currently:   I've decided I definitely want to turn all my games into mini comics now, which is slowing me down horrendously What listening recommendations do you all have while you play? I've been randomly picking let's plays of solo RPGs as a sort of background noise (I enjoy being able to take breaks from playing or drawing to engage with something else in moments)
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Jun 20, 2023 18:11
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Galaga Galaxian posted:
I came (back) to RPGs and found solo RPGs via modern board games, and something that really sticks out to me in this niche is that games need to both generate a narrative and have a "game" to it to keep it from just being a creative writing exercise or roguelike dice chucking simulator. TYOV is great at generating narrative if you dig in and have some writing ideas and don't mind digging through Wiki for historical stuff to fill in details, but doesn't come off as much of a game for me. Something I keep coming back to is what board game designer Cole Wehrle told me about his process. I'm paraphrasing, but basically he said that he approaches game design as mechanics being verbs and components being nouns, so that what the players do naturally creates a narrative instead of relying on flavor text written down on cards or pages. RPGs, and especially solo RPGs thrive when they have a similar approach of mechanics being the verbs to interact with the flavor/setting of nouns. Ironsworn (and PbtA at large) works so well for me specifically because it has just the right mix of verbs and nouns to interact with and naturally generate a story that feels like more than creative writing. You're making choices and managing resources that have direct impact on the narrative outcomes and possibilities. The moves have a baked in story effect, but they're kept vague enough to not dictate anything while also being discreet enough to point you in a specific direction for your story.
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Jun 20, 2023 20:14
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feverish and oversexed posted:I now have multiple games going and its going to take me months and I'm thrilled. I literally had no idea how large this genre was outside of DnD, let alone how many solo options there are! I use mynoise.net to find some suitable background noise. They've got every possible genre of sound you could want there including some low-key ambient music if that's what you like. Love your little cartoon vampire 
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Jun 20, 2023 20:15
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thanks for the background noise recommendation. I did end up playing it for other purposes yesterday. I actually enjoy running background noise like people talking, or tv shows etc. I've ended up playing Let's plays of TTRPGs while I'm playing for the most part. I've spent a lot of time looking for a mechanic I want to explore, generational/heir based gameplay, and I found a few, it seems Legacy: Life among the ruins is a solid choice, anyone here played it solo, you likey?
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Jun 21, 2023 19:11
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feverish and oversexed posted:thanks for the background noise recommendation. I did end up playing it for other purposes yesterday. I keep thinking about playing it but haven't. There's a game called Lineage (as well as offshoots, Lord and Reign of the Star Kings) which is entirely about writing the history of a royal house over time that I quite like.
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Jun 21, 2023 19:31
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