Solo Roleplaying: go play with yourself

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Solo Roleplaying: go play with yourself

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Let's talk solo games. I pushed a bit for someone else to make this because I have no successful experience with the design style/genre, but it also happens that I have a lot of these in my library from all the failed attempts, so... let's go.
For those who have never seen them: remember CYOA books? You're in the right ballpark. Instead of a GM and players, it's just you and the dice, and usually an "oracle" to interpret the dice and fill in the gaps where you'd normally have other people's input. There are systems for converting existing games for solo play, and there are systems designed for solo from the ground up (the latter almost universally work better, at least according to popular sentiment).

Solo games have had a boom recently with new entries getting created and put up for sale all the time, but a few names that stand out of the crowd:

Ironsworn - the juggernaut of solo game discussion, Ironsworn is a combination solo/GMless/guided play game primarily designed for solo play, building off the PbtA framework with heavy alterations. Thanks to the combination of "PbtA-based" and "completely free base game", Ironsworn is probably the most commonly recommended solo game I've run into. Shawn Tomkin has also put out Delve, an expansion that converts Ironsworn to do D&D dungeon crawling. Ironsworn and Delve were in the Racial Justice & Equality itch.io bundle last year, if you bought that. Update: Starforged, the sci-fi conversion, has successfully funded on Kickstarter alongside Sundered Isles, a "pirate fantasy" full conversion using the newer Starforged rules.
Thousand Year Old Vampire - a journaling game based on telling the life story of... well, a vampire across hundreds or thousands of years. Prompt-driven, high production values especially for an indie project.
The Wretched - another journaling game, The Wretched pulls Dread's Jenga tower mechanic together with card-based prompts for short-run survival horror. The default setting is an Alien-ripoff "alone against a murderous alien" scenario, but the "Wretched and Alone" SRD has been used for more games in the horror genre in other settings. This was also in the RJ&E bundle last year.
Scarlet Heroes - Sine Nomine's entry into OSR solo games. Similar design to Stars Without Number, designed to work with most OSR content out there, and comes packaged with a southeast Asian setting. If you want "D&D but solo play", you're likely looking at this or...
Mythic GM Emulator - the granddaddy of a lot of the GM oracles used in solo games, Mythic started out as a universal system with a GM emulation tool included for solo play; the GM Emulator is just that tool sold solo, system-agnostic. It won't do anything special for your setting or system of choice, but it'll work to some degree with just about anything that wants a GM. 2e is out now, and incorporates a lot of improvement over the course of 1e's lifespan.
SOLO by Zozer Games - in the same vein of "solo engines added to existing games," SOLO is a solo engine for Cepheus Engine (free Traveller based off the first Mongoose edition) and Traveller itself.
How to Host a Dungeon, "a solo game where you create a dungeon while following it through its history by creating a map."
Artefact, following a magical artifact as it passes through the hands of adventurers. The author also kickstarted a scifi version called Bucket of Bolts.
Five Parsecs from Home, a goon-made solo wargame.
Four Against Darkness and its hacks, various games for playing adventuring parties in generated dungeons or quests.
Delve and its hacks, described by StarkRavingMad: "They use basically the same mechanics, drawing cards from a regular deck of cards and drawing a map on a grid, and are essentially solo RPG Dwarf Fortress (Delve), Dungeon Keeper (Rise), and Rimworld (Umbra)."
Wicked Ones has a paid solo supplement alongside the free core game.

Happy to edit and extend the list with further suggestions as they come up.

edit: The following are some more suggestions that have been put out - I'll work on a more updated OP eventually. I haven't been doing much in the solo genre so I don't have much more insight to give.

Apothecaria is a journaling game about being a novice witch in a cozy fantasy setting. You search for potion ingredients across different locales, encountering events and inhabitants along the way. The author Anna Blackwell is actively supporting the game with regular expansions featuring new exploration areas and crafting opportunities.
Star Trek Adventures has some extensive solo support.
Five Parsecs from Home and its sibling games are miniatures-focused solo wargames.
The Drifter - a Western solo rpg
Blood Moon Apocalypse - a survival horror zombie horde solo rpg
Across a Thousand Dead Worlds - a very good space exploration horror solo or GMed game.
The Broken Cask - a run your own fantasy inn solo rpg
Entity - an alien planet exploration rpg. Has a simple system. More of a journaling game than the rest.
Star Drifter - a Scifi solo rpg by the creator of The Drifter, above.

Have any experience with solo RPGs? Play reports, maybe even games of your own? I'm interested in folks' insights, it's a neat design space.

SkyeAuroline fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Apr 7, 2024

# ¿ Feb 14, 2021 21:55

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 12:56

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Ironsworn is pretty fantastic and I'm really looking forward to the Sci-Fi version coming out later this year. I'm in the playtest discord for it and it makes some nice changes that will probably get backported to Ironsworn (by players if not by Shawn himself).

As someone who has never managed to score a regular RPG group, I'm kinda happy and excited to see Solo RPGs start to become a more common/recognized thing.

I'm similarly hopeful for it to turn out well. I've had several abject failures trying to make Ironsworn itself work and I'm hoping scifi will at least make the setting side marginally easier.
Didn't want to stick it in the OP amid the resources, but... yeah, I've had a lot of failures and no successes with solo play so far.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2021 05:59

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Drone posted:

It's worth noting that solo RP is way different in terms of feel than actual tabletop roleplaying, and I think a lot of people confused by the genre don't really grok that. It's far less about engaging with a game and its systems for me and more about providing me with something I like to think of as "structured daydreaming." Your mind crafts the story within the confines of the world/character you have set up, and rolls are made and crunch introduced based on need. Some systems work better and worse for it (I can't imagine doing something like 5e solo, but apparently a poo poo ton of people try to make it a thing), but in the end it's mostly up to the player to determine how much or how little the system actually impacts their little structured daydream.

This is almost certainly where the disconnect comes in for me, too. Most of the appeal RPGs have in the first place is the social element, but much left to carry games with just my own brain in isolation.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2021 14:44

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Drone posted:

Yeah, think of solo RPGs as almost a writing exercise, even.

A lot of people do the "write a diary entry in-character" thing (which I was also intro'd to by the pretty cool Traveller solo game Log of the Grayswandir a few years ago). A lot of people will keep a notebook and actually write out their stories as they happen, jotting down their ideas and events that happen in the inner monologue, and actually writing out things like scenes and dialogue as if they were writing a short story. Some people draw a lot. Some people worldbuild.

I mainly just bullet-point my adventures in a Google Doc, and this works well. For scenes that are more interesting, I try to bullet-point them when I actually "play" them through and then later spruce them up a bit and write them out in actual prose. Here is an example of the very first encounter in that Star Wars solo game I'm attempting... not to provide you with any idea of quality or anything like that, but just to give you a clue as to how an actual "play session" looks when I do it. Note: there are substantially less rolls involved in that log because I'm playing from a prewritten adventure... if I were doing this in something like Ironsworn, there would be a lot more rolling involved as I leave things like scene generation partially up to that game's oracle. Likewise there is a lot more pre-baked setting detail because it's Star Wars, and because it's playing through a module.

There are many ways to enjoy solo RPG's tough and the beauty of it is that you can enjoy it the way that comes most intuitively to you. Since you're on your own, you don't have to worry about things like catering to anyone else's playstyles or whims in the game.

Log of the Grayswandir is neat for sure.
But yeah, I think that's the ultimate disconnect - though I included them in the OP I don't really consider journaling games "games", they're just packs of writing exercises with a usually haphazard connection between prompts. They are, however, what I've had the most success on so far; I got 6 or 7 draws in on a Wretched run before I quit, partly because the prompts started running in direct opposition to what I'd already written and partly because it just wasn't interesting. My scifi experience is a lot more thorough than my fantasy experience, part of why I'm hoping Starforged turns out well since maybe deep familiarity is what I need to make it work. Just couldn't even get it started at all.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2021 16:06

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

aldantefax posted:

Games which prominently feature the player improvising and writing things down rather than resolving tasks seem to be what is being referred to as "journaling games", correct? As in, you are really just committing to a randomized writing prompt with the "randomized discovery" portion missing as well as a lack of "task resolution". Something like that? That is, if the majority of what you do in a solo RPG is writing to prompts with minimal dice rolling and what not, then it is a journaling game. That would make How to Host A Dungeon a visual journaling game, as would the Quiet Year, perhaps.

Yeah, while I don't have How to Host a Dungeon to use for comparison, The Quiet Year is structurally very similar to solo journaling games, if not the same thing. It's a good springboard to reach the definition at least. And your definition is pretty solid.

quote:

I'm curious for the purposes of this thread since part of firming up things to design for this specific category that isn't just another solo boardgame like Mage Knight feels important to define. Maybe "solo RPG" is just another phrase that does not have a well-defined space like how calling everything created by "artisan" be it bread, a chair, salad fork, sharpening a penicl, whatever no longer has any real meaning.

That might also clue in what SkyeAuroline's looking for, which is "a solo RPG that features randomized discovery, task resolution, a sense of cohesion and continuity...and Stuff"?

"and stuff" pretty much hits it in its uncertainty - it's the unachievable goal of "having the group play experience without having a group" that's my holy grail and might make a solo game work for me as a model of play. It isn't realistic and it's why I was hoping someone with more realistic aims wanted to take up the torch of OP.
I don't think "solo RPG" has lost its definition entirely (or failed to get one in the first place) - I'd put it more in the same arena as "PbtA" where you have a vague idea of what you're getting going in, and it's at least a functional category for grouping games, but it doesn't meaningfully narrow much down.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2021 06:12

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

quote:

Actually shouldn't this thread also include after action reports of solo roleplaying?

Yes please. It's a chunk of why the thread exists at all.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2021 19:19

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Yeah, Shawn has been pushing hard to get everything ready for the Kickstarter. The playtest stuff is already really good. Anyone who likes Ironsworn and likes Sci-Fi is gonna love it.

Been tempted to play some using the playtest materials but part of me keeps saying to wait. Well, that and the same struggle I've had with Ironsworn about struggling to think of a good inciting incident (start).

Eternally my stumbling block. Been hoping Starforged will make it a bit easier. Does that bear out with what you've seen of the game so far?

# ¿ Apr 14, 2021 00:49

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Will be holding out to see how the feedback goes, but hopefully Starforged is much more usable. If nothing else, at least I'll have Traveller solo material that I never bothered making work with Traveller to try and work with.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2021 18:58

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Looks like Wicked Ones just got solo rules. Author posted over on the solo RPG sub. Main game just went free too.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2021 19:14

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Been having the urge for Ironsworn in any setting but its own for a long time now. I think I've seen assets that would work for you out in the wild from other folks seeking the same.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2021 20:07

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

I'm unfortunately very not good at custom much of anything. Plus Starforged does exactly one of the things I'm interested in (Traveller without resorting to Zozer SOLO or another "turn it into a spreadsheet balancer like EVE without the interaction multiplayer brings"). So no rush here.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2021 02:45

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

So... any folks here done a Thousand Year Old Vampire playthrough that they kept the notes for? Kicking mine off; stumbling hard on resources, hoo boy.

# ¿ May 8, 2021 05:40

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Josef bugman posted:

Oh dear, losing all of them or just not "getting" them as it were?

Setting them up, primarily. Completely freeform with only two or three examples is a little too loose for a system. Managed to figure some out that should be fine though.

# ¿ May 10, 2021 13:44

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

potatocubed posted:

I have also started playing 1000YOV. If you want to read along as I play the Google Doc is here.

Excellent writing so far. I'll see about putting mine up if/when I get further. Not nearly as good of prose from me though.
Glad to see folks share their experiences.

# ¿ May 10, 2021 23:20

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Almost a full month after making my character, I finally decided I'd actually play some Thousand Year Old Vampire. Got 7 prompts in, 8th prompt I didn't feel an immediate answer for but I'll loop back around to (maybe at work tomorrow). Once you get over the hump of the initial setup, these journaling games flow pretty easily. Much easier than trying to play a "full" system does at least.
Soundtrack for the writing effort, too.

e. I did end up skipping a few rolls and rerolling after getting prompt 1 five times in a row for the first five rolls, which I think is the big drawback - limited prompts per roll and the dice engine is less than guaranteed to move you away from where you're at. More in the back, but I just opted to roll 'em over and see what I got instead from a new start.

SkyeAuroline fucked around with this message at 16:07 on May 23, 2021

# ¿ May 23, 2021 16:05

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Less than 24 hours left on the Ironsworn: Starforged Kickstarer. They also succeeded in making their final stretch goal, the Pirate Fantasy "Sundered Isles" reskin.

Good to see it's happening, hopefully this brings some of the Starforged improvements back towards Ironsworn well.
I've started a Starforged game myself, too, using a Traveller adventure as a seed/some framework. That was unwise, but we're underway, so... we'll see how it goes.
---
Retrospective: not great, since I'm barely an intro and a few moves in with no desire whatsoever to continue. Don't care much for Starforged default setting assumptions or its array of truths, writing my own felt like it would diverge too far for the game mechanics to keep up, and I've walked into the trap of "characters I don't care about in worlds I don't care about doing things I don't really care about". Might just shelve this until the full release + Isles, then see if a mechanical synthesis of the three can get closer to what I want.

God I wish there were good player emulators so I could faux GM instead, but that takes AI we don't have yet (not even aidungeon).

SkyeAuroline fucked around with this message at 20:15 on May 26, 2021

# ¿ May 26, 2021 13:25

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

OP's been updated with more of the suggestions from the thread. Anything else need adding (or removing), you think?

# ¿ May 26, 2021 23:49

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Everything Helical said, pretty much. This is a place for sharing experiences, sharing logs is/can be part of that.
Since I mentioned shelving Starforged I immediately jumped back in... with adjusting all the oracles and some assets to do Destiny's Dark Age setting, which is definitely a work in progress. Will share when I get there.

# ¿ May 30, 2021 05:26

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Galaga Galaxian posted:

I continue to be frustrated with my biggest trouble with Ironsworn/Starforged; thinking of a decent Background Vow and/or Inciting Incident.

That's usually the trouble for people, it seems like. Did just get a thread on the Ironsworn sub going for Starforged inciting vows a couple days ago, if that might help you.

# ¿ May 30, 2021 13:54

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

https://twitter.com/cat_elm/status/1400372926063464450?s=21
Charity bundle of 75 games, includes quite a few solo games. I can't vouch for or against quality on any of them, though.

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Made myself a little thing to try to get myself to commit to playing. Since I'm throwing in a healthy amount of Star Wars flavoring into my Starforged, I might as well start it off right...

Very nice! Getting the extra bits added in around a game to flavor it always helps, in my experience, solo or otherwise.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2021 15:55

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Gave another Wretched and Alone-based game I picked up a while back, Rigged, a shot. Unfortunately the author's itch.io is no longer available. I think this one works better than Wretched did, mostly on account of setting the expectations for the game better up front; Wretched changes tone from "little crewed ship like the Nostromo" to "half mile long ship with thousands of crew" in the space of a handful of prompts, while Rigged settles on generic cyberpunk hacking pretty early on. Still not my speed, but at least I can tell my issue is more with the format (flip cards and follow prompts not necessarily related to the nominal purpose of the game) than specifically "this setting doesn't click with me".

Learning, at least. Also spun up yet another Starforged character but haven't wanted to work on them at all yet.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2021 23:38

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

EnjoiThePureTrip posted:

Did anyone get a copy of the Thousand Year Old Vampire secret companion book? And then did anyone that got their copy figure out what it is?

There was some discussion in the industry thread. It's like this on the inside.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2021 14:49

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Comstar posted:

Is that a ...joke? A book of redacted text? Or are you supposed to fill in yourself?

It's nominally an art piece intended to represent how the protagonist vampires find no meaning in "familiar" words and pictures, or along those lines.

YMMV on whether it actually works as an art piece. I'm not in the camp of "gently caress this guy for doing this, never buying again" but I am a little wary. It was, at least, described up-front as being a thing people shouldn't buy.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2021 17:43

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

iceyman posted:

Is that the official explanation or just conjecture at this point?

I bought it and I'm rather annoyed at it, not for the art piece gimmick, but for the sheer laziness of it. A lot more effort could have been made to get the point across rather than a simple ctrl A redact job. As such it's mildly amusing for 5 seconds and then never to be bothered with again.

source for following

redditor who asked Tim posted:

Hey, /u/beyond_my_ken. I was kind of pissed, too, when I got my copy, so I reached out to Tim and basically just asked him to explain the joke, or the point of the art, or whatever it was that I clearly didn't understand. (I also asked if he'd prefer I keep his response private, but he didn't say to do that, so I'm gonna talk about what he said.) Maybe you'll find some solace in a paraphrase of what he said to me in reply.

I asked if the empty contents of the book was some kind of commentary on how a vampire takes the form of a human, but lacks the actual substance of one no matter how similar it might be. He was excited that I was offering interpretations and asking direct questions about the nature of it--I think he wants people to engage with the idea. He said that the blank book pointed at the themes of TYOV--the loss of memory, identity, etc.--and how picking up the book could evoke the experience of the vampire hearing language or seeing images and finding no meaning in them.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2021 18:14

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Imagined posted:

It's like, how much more blank could it be? And the answer is none. None more blank.

It could be blanker, though - without the redaction effect it could be used as a journal as companion to the game. It's exactly not blank enough it can't be used for anything.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2021 14:13

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

90s Cringe Rock posted:

someone who is good at solo roleplaying please help me, I can't bring myself to start writing in any of the notebooks I already own

Ow, I'm attacked. Everything on hold even as I start thinking of new things to do solo. :smith:

# ¿ Aug 24, 2021 18:17

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

HopperUK posted:

There is nothing wrong with spending money on things like this for heavens sake. Not unless it's causing you problems.

I actually have found this newish hobby to me is finally making me use the notebooks I've accumulated so hooray.

It's a dril joke, if you missed it. It's okay to spend money.

90s Cringe Rock posted:

spend less on games you will never play and stationary you will never use

all together now: NO

More seriously, it's actually been almost entirely free for me so far, just not successful.
Ironsworn (several failed starts from "just character creation" to "maybe 20 lines of text from starting to losing interest): $0
Starforged (one attempt made it as far as 3 sessions, the rest same as Ironsworn): $20 I think?
TYOV (actually kind of successful, but didn't finish my sole run and didn't have the repeat play value for me): $15
A couple Wretched and Alone hacks, including one that's disappointingly been taken down since: $0
And now I'm eyeing Blades in the Dark for solo troupe play to see if I can work through my RPG burnout, but I already own BitD from playing it with a group (unsuccessfully) so it may as well be a $0.

And all my tools are electronic and free for a mix of reasons, so I'm all of $35 in on solo games and I've gotten at least a few hours of what I'd call successful play out of it. Not the worst return on a hobby I've had, for sure.
Various issues holding me back from getting a lot more in there, but that's a whole other thing.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2021 18:45

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Settlement rules are something obvious I felt was missing from Ironsworn and Starforged (besides one asset, I think, in the latter). Good to see someone working on them, even indirectly, and a neat idea for a project overall.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2021 19:39

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Ended up revisiting Starforged and off to a decent start. Wrote up an in-character prose version of the setting truths that I ended up liking quite a bit, then of course made a character that didn't fit with that perspective so it's a little disconnected, lol. But maybe this third or fourth time is the charm for making things work. Fingers crossed?

# ¿ Apr 3, 2022 20:31

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Drone posted:

I rolled up all the prep work for a Starforged campaign back when playtesting first started pre-KS and really, really liked the completely randomly-generated world I came up with and the character that I ended up with. I never really found the time to properly sit down with it, but it's a world I've wanted to go back to for awhile now.

Turns out my character was a frontier doctor (unsanctioned by the official Healer's guild, ofc) whose colony was destroyed by a pandemic of something called the Ironphage that threatened to expand to the sector at large, and who took on an epic quest to find a cure.

And as cool as that idea felt at the time, two years after Covid I just can't do this storyline anymore.

Ouch. Yeah, there's a few games that have fallen into the territory of "boy, I can't really do this right now" for me following the events of the last few years. I had a Red Markets campaign brewing that I was about ready to take to my group, and then poo poo went sideways and it was definitely not nearly as "unrealistic" of horror as it could have been.

Maybe another character in the same world would let you go forward with the setting you enjoyed? It doesn't seem too hard to keep the broad strokes and focus somewhere else.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2022 20:49

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

SimonChris posted:

I was fighting a mysterious space jellyfish in an abandoned derelict when I had to Pay the Price. I rolled Action + Theme and got Defeat History. This could only mean that this was a psychic jellyfish capable of feeding on people's memories. Now I am stuck in a barely functional derelict, with no memory of how I got here or what I am supposed to be doing.

I saw people earlier, but they fled at my approach, and then I fell into an open maintenance shaft and got lost. Now I am thinking that these people have also had their memories drained by the psychic jellyfish. The crew are still here! They have merely forgotten how to operate the ship.

This is my first time playing Ironsworn, and I am really impressed by how every new twist seems to explain things that happened earlier, even though nothing is actually planned out in advance.

Sounds like quite a lot of fun, and a creative use of that oracle pull. Very nice.

Not having as much luck on my own effort - aforementioned game already petered out and any interest in it is dead. Ah well. I'm sure I'll be finding myself in the same place again in 3 months, like the last several times.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2022 21:14

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

HopperUK posted:

It's okay if the stories peter out. You don't have to finish for it to be a worthwhile activity.

You might know this but I know it's a sticking point for some people.

It is, and I remarked on the same to a friend who read what I wrote. I'm consistently disappointed by the results of solo games, but it's still worthwhile to engage creatively with something, even if it doesn't necessarily work out.

I would prefer to get a little farther than "prologue and swearing my first vow" next time, though.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2022 21:53

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Antifreeze Head posted:

What makes those paints better than whatever else is out there?

I'm not ever going to change from what I have since I bought ~14,000 bottles of paint from a freight liquidator, but I am curious.

They're effectively designed to do every step of a base coat and shading with one paint that doesn't require super fine detail or layering. An example from when they first released, all of these are a single paint over primer:

# ¿ Apr 19, 2022 14:13

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Ragnar34 posted:

I wonder if it's worth making a thread where GMs (and solo players) stuck coming up with a story can come in and see if anyone's got a good next step for their specific thing. Like the Iron/Starsworn oracles, except guided by human minds. I gave up on Ironsworn for a couple months thanks to writer's block, the oracles weren't sparking anything, and I had zero idea how to resolve it until last night when I rolled one more time and got an idea that might or might not get me back in. I bet this isn't uncommon.

Either way, Rangers of Shadow Deep looks cool and this weekend I'm planning to use Gloomhaven components and household items to see how far I can get while a kitten tries to eat my pieces and hands. She eventually stopped trying to catch the mouse cursor, so I figure she'll chill sooner or later. Are there any strategies I should or shouldn't try? I don't want to get invested in a strategy and discover it gets unfun or unreliable.

The GM Advice thread does this for standard (non-solo) games on a fairly regular basis. A dedicated thread might not be a bad idea though.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2022 15:23

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Doctor Zero posted:

Got drat that’s nice. And they’re giving away ironsworn for free?

Oh, that reminds me. I finally started my Starforged game. I’ve been toying with the idea of putting it online to read, or even do videos. It’s entirely possible I’ll do neither, but would be people actually be interested in listening to it? Reading it?
.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2022 00:44

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Angrymog posted:

I tried out the current version of Dead Belt - https://acoupleofdrakes.itch.io/dead-belt - to decide if I wanted to back the kickstarter for the expanded version. Below is short, sad tale of Mizzy Random, wanna be ship salvager.

Mizzy Random, down on her luck scoundrel needed both money and to stay away from people for a while. How hard could salvaging be?

The airlock of her temporary ship, the 'Any Port' connected up to the side of the civilian transport she'd located. A small ship, but hopefully one with something worth pulling from it.

The airlock had attached to the galley - not glamourous, but someone would want to buy it. (5 of diamonds, load 5); heartened by the this early success, Mizzy moved on. The next module however had been stripped so clean that she wasn't even sure what it had been; she wasn't the first person here, and it looked like the earlier crew had really known what they were doing. Mizzy swore, headed back to the galley and started loading her ship.

This was the 10 of spades - Picked over. I could have spent a point of grit to turn that into a mixed success which would have made all salvage worth half, but decided to just call it off and pull the galley stuff out.

Stowing the gear was going to take some time - this wasn't money for nothing after all; these chips wouldn't be free. (Rolled 4-5 on the airlock move, and chose to check my gas). The second trip to get the remainder of the galley fittings went well enough until it was time to try and shove everything into the Any Port. Realising that the items could be a danger if allowed to slide around the ship, Mizzy had to use up time and gear to secure it in her hold. (1-3 on the airlock move this time, chosing to test gas again, and spend a point of gear)

Returning to the salvage yards, it was time to cash in and chat to the creditors. The 'bank' were not amused and made it clear that the amount she owed was only going up unless she had a better run soon. (Rolled a 1, and debt went up to 5), nor was she able to avoid paying upkeep on the ship. After drowning her sorrows, Mizzy went to the breakers and spend 3 of the remaining 4 cred on a supply bank for the ship. It increased the upkeep by 1, but would hopefully be worth it in the future.

Ship two.

Another day, another small civillian transport.

It wasn't an auspicious start. The module that she'd chosen to attach to wasn't the most stable, and the impact of the airlock had made it nothing more than a gap with a bit of superstructure attached. (10 clubs - spacewalk, and then the module is removed and is just a gap).

Something goes horrifically wrong, a push off at the wrong moment sends Mizzy tumbling through the emptyness of space and away from both the wreck and her own ship. A few hours later, as her visor starts to frost up and her vision dims, her last thought is, "Well, gently caress."

Rolled badly on the spacewalk subtable, and foolishly didn't spend grit to turn it into a mixed result. Then drew two black cards. The second spacewalk roll was a mixed success, in which I drew my third black card, which means death.

RIP Mizzy Random, lost in the vastness of space.

I'll try another game in a bit and hopefully they'll last longer. I made some bad decisions with whether to spend resources or not; Mizzy could probably have survived the spacewalk if I'd spent a grit to turn that first failure into a mixed result.

RIP Mizzy. It looks like Dead Belt is taken down - it's an unavailable page for me, at least.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2022 00:37

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

potatocubed posted:

Played my first Solovember game last night with an old favourite: Thousand Year Old Vampire.

It didn't quite gel like my first playthrough, but Eloise (later Lorelei) was an interesting character to inhabit for an evening. An artistically-inclined peasant from the south of what-would-become-France, she was turned by an older vampire trying to get back at her fiance for reasons that never surfaced. She killed her mother and sister -- the latter who she raised as a vampire -- then spent a hundred years as a living weapon after being mind-controlled by a different older vampire, which pretty much permanently hosed her up by making 'kill it' her default solution to any and all problems. Multiple times she was discovered by a mortal who chose to try and help her, and she ended up reflexively killing them when they made some tiny mistake.

Just as she was starting to rediscover her old, artistic self, her sister (who had never gotten over being turned back in c. 1000 AD) sealed her in an iron box and sank her into the sea. Game over.

This sounds great! I should really get back to my current TYOV playthrough at some point. Got 10 prompts in, stopped for IRL stuff, and just never revisited it. Thanks, brain.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2022 17:06

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

A positive update: I decided to give Godbound a try using Mythic 2E, and for once I actually managed a complete "adventure arc" of a traditional-style game (not a journaling game) solo. Two mortals and a Godbound set out to clear out a bandit hideout, and get way in over their heads. I'm not sure where I'm gonna take things from where I reached, but it's going to be an interesting road ahead. Combat balance is messy with this group size and composition, which is the biggest hurdle right now besides my own (lack of) creativity.

I also kept a running journal of the whole thing, since I don't do well with theater of the mind, which means I can share the full play log in case anyone wants to read it.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2023 20:33

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

SimonChris posted:

The author of Thousand Year Old Vampire has just published A Collection of Improving Exercises, a solo game about a book of perspective drawing exercises, and then there is some kind of game-like experience??? Even after reading the description, I am not sure what you are supposed to do with this, but the author has earned my trust.

After the stunt with the TYOV companion volume, my trust in Hutchings is pretty well gone, but I'm interested to see people's thoughts on this once they actually get into it.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2023 13:39

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 12:56

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Mode 7 posted:

What do you mean by 'stunt' with the TYOV companion volume? I get that some people pre-ordered it and were disappointed at what they received but I thought Tim's comments when he was announcing it made it pretty explicit you were getting an art piece and not any sort of game or functional object.

And he's making similar statements this time around; it's "a game - of sorts", "there's more but I won't promise more", (paraphrasing this one from the entire second to last paragraph) "getting told what you're buying is a spoiler that ruins the point". I'm personally just following his own advice:

quote:

Don't buy this expecting a definite game, or a clear experience. If you have the slightest doubt wait and hear what your trusted friends have to say. Seriously. I am an "artist" and this is art with all the capacity for shock, dissatisfaction, and risk that implies.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2023 14:57

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Solo Roleplaying: go play with yourself

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