Galaga Galaxian posted:

So for Captain's Log, do others think 1 Task Roll should equate to one scene, or do people prefer to have multiple task rolls per scene as appropriate? From what I've read the book on page 231 does say "scenes are likely to have one or more dice rolls." but text in other areas of the book kinda implies that generally 1 task = 1 scene with the exception of Extended Conflicts (including combat). I do like the idea/challenge of trying to keep scenes to a single task, if only to keep things moving and avoid rolling for little things. Also as a sort of "you're running out of time/tasks in the episode, better solve that problem!" tension building mechanic.

I don't see myself always doing 1 scene = 1 task, however.

Star Trek Hyperion episode 1-1: 'On a Pale Horse' posted:

Mission: Divert course and respond to a plague related planetary distress signal from an unknown planet.

Scene: Cold open. No rolls. The MC shows up for duty at the USS Hyperion which is docked at a starbase. A scientist yells at him for being in her way. The captain meets up with the MC and the Scientist and they realize they are both going to be on the same ship.

Opening Theme and Credits

Scene: The captain and senior officers review what they know. The visiting scientist calls the bridge complaining that the rescue mission will delay her arrival at the starbase. I rolled to see if the captain would deal with it herself, or send the XO (Lt. Galdi - my main character). She sent him instead.

Scene: Galdi goes to the scientist's quarters. They had a rocky encounter earlier where she was rude thinking he wasn't crew. I rolled to see if she would apologize, ignore it, or double down on it. She apologized (although I know from the plot in my head she didn't mean it).

Scene: Galdi goes to Medbay to introduce himself to the Chief Medical Officer, and see about the ship's capability to deal with a planetary plague. No rolls at all. Galdi gets called back to the bridge..

Scene: The ship is entering the system. They need to assess the situation. (Rolls for scanning, both fail) The system has no evidence of warp technology, although the distress call came over subspace. No further subspace communications detected (if they had succeeded they would have found evidence of advanced technology abnormal for their development). The planet seems to be at a pre-warp stage of technology equivalent to Earth 2050 - 2100. They hail the planet and talk to someone in charge. They give the crew the run down on the plague, but seem very wary. The captain convinces them to share data by sending it to the ship (Roll Diplomacy, both succeed). The ship enters orbit and scans the surface. (roll sensors, one success) they find evidence of a small ship crash that clearly was not a native ship based upon some kind of technobabble, but they can't determine what it was exactly, and the ship appears to have been moved. The captain asks about it and they admit an alien ship crashed and they suspect the plague to have originated from that (Roll Diplomacy, one success). While the ship's labs analyze the data, the captain asks to come down (roll diplomacy, both succeed) and they agree. The captain decides that although the aliens clearly now know other worlds exist they don't have transporter technology, so she decides to send a shuttle with the XO, the CMO, Security, and maybe one other.

Secene: The shuttle descends through the atmosphere to the landing coordinates given - a landing facility some distance from populated hubs. The shuttle lands (rolling reaction by the aliens - the crashed ship is a federation shuttle I already know - 18). Not a good reaction. The crew wonder when they are not greeted or there's nobody waiting for them. The complex is obviously inhabited. They get their gear read and open the loading ramp. They are greeted at gunpoint by a large squad of aliens in some kind of tactical armor and are ordered to toss any weapons forward. The crew exchange glances, tense music swells, and...

CUT TO COMMERCIAL.

girl dick energy posted:

Playtest Rules, The Adversaries posted:

Horror from Beyond (Ace of Clubs)
You’ve been having strange dreams lately, of a vast underwater city, filled with bizarre symbols and statues, and an impossibly-large creature rousing from its eons-long slumber.
Forbidden Knowledge: There are things man was not meant to know. Whenever one of your stats is increased above its starting value, gain 2 Doom.
The Stars Are Aligned: Your insignificance in the face of such a horrible reality weighs heavy on your mind. Double all Doom gained during the process of resolving Clubs events.

Enemy Within (Ace of Diamonds)
You keep waking up in strange places with blood on your hands and no memory of how you got there. What were you doing, and why don’t you remember…?
Don’t Know Your Own Strength: That wasn’t… that’s not what you meant to do! Whenever you choose an O result on a dXO, gain 1 Doom.
Strange Compulsions: Why did you say that? This isn’t like you. When told to make a choice during a Diamonds event, instead randomly determine which option to pick.

Serial Killer (Ace of Hearts)
Someone dear to you has gone missing. Your only clue is that the last time you spoke to them, they were nervous about an upcoming date with someone ‘way out of their league’.
Mounting Casualties: People are dying, and you can’t help but wonder if you could have done more. Whenever you discard an ally for any reason, gain 2 Doom.
Compassion Fatigue: And yet, the more it happens, the harder it becomes to care. Ignore all effects on Hearts events that would increase any of your stats.

The Beast (Ace of Spades)
You’re being hunted by something. What, you can’t be sure, but you’ve seen it in the corner of your eye, watching you from the shadows. Why can’t anyone else see it?
The Scent of Blood: You cut your finger while cooking, and felt the Beast’s gaze boring into you. At the end of each event, if any of your stats are below their starting value, gain 1 Doom.
I’m Not Crazy!: No one can see the Beast but you, and people are starting to question your sanity. While resolving Spades events, ignore your Abilities and those of your Allies.

girl dick energy posted:

I had two incredible, horrifying, amazing galaxy brain ideas for a horror roll and write because World of Horror has been living in my brain rent free.

First idea was how to handle a variable timer without adding extra rolls to a system, a “doom track” kind of deal. The idea is simple. Rolling under your target deals you damage, rolling over your target succeeds but increases the Doom Track (or your Madness, I’m not sure which, but same difference in this case) by your overshoot.

And this next part I’m just going to paraphrase my train of thought.

Okay, cool, that’s a fun idea, but it’s way too swingy. Even 2d6 could suddenly lead to huge jumps in Doom. 1d6 would be better, but that’s very plain and hard to work with. Fate dice? Sicherman dice? Hm, possibly, but they’re kind of a specialty product, and it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect the average player to have those, unless they were to modify a normal die or something.

…five pipe on a d6 can be made into an X. Six pips can be made into an O. That’s 1d4 with two specialty sides that I can control the effects of based on the player’s abilities and what they’re doing. The player would have to choose whether to carry the burden of memory or carve a reminder into their face.

Of their dice. With a sharpie. But still!

And now I’m in the process of playing with the math of 2d4 and brainstorming ideas about what I want to do with the X and O. A simple critical hit/miss mechanic feels way too linear and flat and at that point I might as well just use d4s. Will report back with ideas later.

Fake Edit: My working title for the name of the modified die is a dO.

quote:

Version 1.4 of Captain's Log contains the following key revisions (plus minor typo fixes):

--Page 78: Removed duplicated information at the bottom of the right column.
--Pages 85-88: Revised the focus tables to allow for more random distribution of results.
--Page 94: Renamed Liberated Borg to Borg (Liberated) to match the entry and reorganized the table alphabetically.
--Page 143: TOS era ship list: Removed Centaur from the list and added Walker, and reorganized the table alphabetically.
--Pages 147-159: Reorganized the ship entries so ships are listed in their correct era.
--Page 174: Revised the Starship Talent Matrix to allow for more random distribution of results.

quote:

--Pages 85-88: Revised the focus tables to allow for more random distribution of results.
--Page 174: Revised the Starship Talent Matrix to allow for more random distribution of results.

Galaga Galaxian posted:

And did they actually account for the bell curve effect or rolling 2d20/3d20 or did they simply randomize the entries instead of having them alphabetically sorted?

Ubersandwich posted:

It's "On a result of 1-10, roll a d20 on first half of the table; on a result of 11-20, roll a d20 on the second half."

Looks like they added a couple of items to make each table be two 20 unit tables.

Doctor Zero posted:

I guess Modiphius is listening to feedback. They came out with updated PDFs for Captain's Log.

quote:

We released the Captain's Log Solo Roleplaying Game just a few weeks ago and it has been such a monumental success that we're selling out of some of the covers in some territories, and we're already discussing the possibility of another print run! Almost overnight it's become one of our best-selling titles and there's clearly an appetite in the RPG community for solo roleplaying, so with that in mind, we've collected a few products that might scratch that itch! Read on to find out more about Captain's Log, the system neutral Solo Gamemaster's Guide, and Ironsworn: Starforged!

Helical Nightmares posted:

I get promotional emails from Modiphius and evidently Captain's Log is selling quite well. Even though the pandemic is over I wonder if there is a uptick in interest in solo games?

Anyway here is what Modiphius had to say

Modiphius posted:

Description
Celebrate 50 years of Star Trek: The Animated Series by using this full-color guide to add many of the amazing and creative elements of the first Star Trek animated series into your ongoing missions and campaigns.

You don’t need to have watched the series to use this new supplement in your Star Trek Adventures games. The Animated Series continued to build on many of the central tenets of Star Trek storytelling, picking up where the original series left off: diversity, exploration of the Human condition, and more. Build on your game, no matter the era of play, with the contents of this guide.

The Star Trek: The Animated Series supplemental guide includes:

Nine player character sheets for the main bridge crew, including series newcomers Lt. Arex and Lt. M’Ress
Ten NPCs representing a variety of Starfleet officers usable in your game as supporting characters or NPCs
Five new player character lifepath options (including Aquan, Kzinti, Pandronian, Phylosian, and Skorr), plus reprinting the Aurelian, Caitian, and Edosian to bring all The Animated Series options together
Descriptions of many series-specific worlds, equipment, and spatial phenomena
A variety of spaceframes and unique starships presented in the series, including the Aquashuttle, the Romulan Stormbird-class battlecruiser, and Kulkulkan’s starship
Ten NPCs (including Harry Mudd, Cyrano Jones, and giant Spock!)
Eleven new creatures and critters (including the sehlat and le-matya) to challenge your player characters
This 69-page PDF supplemental guide for the Star Trek Adventures roleplaying game requires a core rulebook to use.

This is a PDF product; upon purchase you will be emailed a link to access it. There is no print version of this product. You will receive a standard version of the PDF with dark text on light background.

TM & © 2023 CBS Studios Inc. © 2023 Paramount Pictures Corp. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Cthulu Carl posted:

There seems to be an uptick on solo wargames too.

doctorfrog posted:

There a thread for this?

Helical Nightmares posted:

So here is a progress report of sorts on the solo games I am in the process of reading...

Galaga Galaxian posted:

My current Starforged game has hit something of a writer's block and stalled out, so I was thinking of setting it aside for a bit and playing something else. After some thought I was considering a cyberpunk game. My first impulse was just to do it in Starforged since thats what I'm comfortable and familiar with, however does anyone know any of any (preferably good) solo RPGs for Cyberpunk?

BigRed0427 posted:

Has anyone else here tried Koriko? Journaling game with Tarot cards, dice and a heavy dose of Kiki's Delivery Service. I love it so far.

https://mouseholepress.itch.io/koriko

PrivRyan posted:

Has anyone heard of EndlessRPG? I underestimated this app, its quite handy for solo dungeon crawling. It generates a player facing dungeon (fog of war for you) and even puts down traps/encounters in rooms. Although made for 5e/PF, I used it for an OSE dungeon crawl and replaced generated with something from random encounter list in OSE.

It’s ugly as sin though, I’d like to replace the tile set if I can.

PrivRyan posted:

Has anyone heard of EndlessRPG? I underestimated this app, its quite handy for solo dungeon crawling. It generates a player facing dungeon (fog of war for you) and even puts down traps/encounters in rooms. Although made for 5e/PF, I used it for an OSE dungeon crawl and replaced generated with something from random encounter list in OSE.

It’s ugly as sin though, I’d like to replace the tile set if I can.

Doctor Zero posted:

It looks like some Dwarf Fortress like thing?

BigRed0427 posted:

I saw ads for a kickstarter for a game called Dont Play This Game. It looked good and I missed it 😞

chainchompz posted:

The third expansion for '5 parsecs from home' just dropped yesterday. Picked it up but haven't had a chance to glance over it or play with it yet. Adds new mission types, environments, etc.

XenoCrab posted:

7) All of that money buying a bunch of rulebooks and adventures wasn't a waste!

XenoCrab posted:

Now that I've put a few dozen hours into playing a number of systems solo* I've come to a few realizations:
1) It's fun! It may not be for everybody, but there is a lot of entertainment to be had
2) It takes some work, but the work is really play. Don't think of creating the backstory, setting, possible events, etc... as getting in the way of adventuring; just as a different phase of the game
3) Some form of journal is necessary. Rolling dice and moving characters around on an overworld or dungeon map is meaningless without context and keeping a record of events makes them real
4) Using regular pre-written adventures works well and is preferable to solo adventures, which tend to be too limited, but putting the time into world & campaign building is great too
5) Running both sides of a combat encounter (especially in a more tactical system like PF2e) is fun & rewarding as long as there is a way to balance the cognitive load (e.g., smaller party size)
6) Random tables can be very helpful, but having too many is a recipe for indecision
7) All of that money buying a bunch of rulebooks and adventures wasn't a waste!

I've also tried running systems both physically and digitally and for PF2e I think using FoundryVTT is a huge advantage because it takes care of so much of the optimization, but for lighter systems using a pencil and paper and dice offers a great way to get away from the computer.


* Ironsworn, Pathfinder 2e & various OSR/NSR systems (OSE, Basic Fantasy, Cairn, Mork Borg, Scarlet Heroes, Broken Shores)

Zapf Dingbat posted:

How do you handle prewritten adventures?

XenoCrab posted:

Now that I've put a few dozen hours into playing a number of systems solo* I've come to a few realizations:
1) It's fun! It may not be for everybody, but there is a lot of entertainment to be had
2) It takes some work, but the work is really play. Don't think of creating the backstory, setting, possible events, etc... as getting in the way of adventuring; just as a different phase of the game
3) Some form of journal is necessary. Rolling dice and moving characters around on an overworld or dungeon map is meaningless without context and keeping a record of events makes them real
4) Using regular pre-written adventures works well and is preferable to solo adventures, which tend to be too limited, but putting the time into world & campaign building is great too
5) Running both sides of a combat encounter (especially in a more tactical system like PF2e) is fun & rewarding as long as there is a way to balance the cognitive load (e.g., smaller party size)
6) Random tables can be very helpful, but having too many is a recipe for indecision
7) All of that money buying a bunch of rulebooks and adventures wasn't a waste!

I've also tried running systems both physically and digitally and for PF2e I think using FoundryVTT is a huge advantage because it takes care of so much of the optimization, but for lighter systems using a pencil and paper and dice offers a great way to get away from the computer.


* Ironsworn, Pathfinder 2e & various OSR/NSR systems (OSE, Basic Fantasy, Cairn, Mork Borg, Scarlet Heroes, Broken Shores)

girl dick energy posted:

Huh. I might do something like that with LANCER, since all my attempts to actually get a campaign running have gone bust.

Zapf Dingbat posted:

How do you handle prewritten adventures?

Angrymog posted:

My take on pre-written adventures is that I read the entire thing first, turn some sections into mini-games/add conditional rules to them (e.g. places where you search things), and make some sections gamebooky choose your path things to stop me just exploring every avenue. Also adding clocks for time pressure/NPC schemes etc.

HopperUK posted:

What's your favourite unexpected or cool thing you ended up writing in one of your games??