Previous Thread: Opening Question: So how have your solo roleplaying games been going, Veeky Forums? Any good experiences?
Are you going system-less, or are you using some GM emulator in addition to a rules set?
Solo Thread
Asher Bennett
David Edwards
I'm starting up a solo game of Ryuutama, because I can't commit the time to a big group and my regular rp partner is more interested in freeform rp. This also allows me to run the rules and put what I've read into practice so when I have time to put a group together/join a group, I feel more confident in what I'm doing.
Mostly just doing the world building semi-random character generation (roll for m/f, roll for general age range, class, type, hey - here's an idea - are these two related to this one? Yes? Okay, well that makes sense.)
It's been a lot of fun already and I'm looking forward to trying it out properly. I've written down "character instincts" to guide actions, but mostly just going off of my own story sense and rolls if I'm undecided on something.
Cooper King
Playing around with the random tables in Godbound. As always Sine Nomine books are amazing for solo players. The tactics tables in that game are great. Just roll on em every turn and you get to react to the monsters' actions.
The Location Crafter is also pretty goddamn great. Just like Mythic, it's simple as hell but useful. You can basically use it to run a random dungeon crawl by remixing an existing module.
Julian Brown
Thanks for making the thread, a solo general that I can use to talk to anons about how no one wants to talk to me outside of being a bit drunk.
I like this discussion though, someone posted a traveller solo cyoa of sorts that I'd like to try but see pic related, am I really led to believe that I'll need to tl;dr all this shit just to be able to understand the adventure?
We need a paste in for this as well listing all the solo games we've talked about and links to the appropriate reference materials.
I'd be willing to help, since this is the part of Veeky Forums that interests me the most.
Luis Young
Yeah, hoping this can be a regular thing. I don't want to be "that guy" who can never commit to a regular game, and my old oneshot/short campaign group (reasonably enough) expects people to GM too and I'm just not confident in my abilities, so I have backed off playing with them so as not to be a leech. So solo is what I can go with when I need my fix.
Colton Powell
The Lone Wolf Roleplaying group on Google plus is probably the biggest solo rp community on the net. It's got a lot of after play reports. It's a perfect time to get into solo rp because November is solo roleplaying month. People will be making content soon.
Here's a resource link from the group..
Jeremiah Morris
>I like this discussion though, someone posted a traveller solo cyoa of sorts that I'd like to try but see pic related, am I really led to believe that I'll need to tl;dr all this shit just to be able to understand the adventure?
More or less yeah. I know the book you're quoting.
Scout's Honor needs the core rules for Traveller (found in the 3 little black books, though you could just substitute The Traveller Book or Starter Traveller in their place.) naturally. Traders and Gunboats is a book of ship specifications and maps, so you may need those depending on what happens.
High Guard and Snapshot both swap out the fairly abstract default combat systems (space and shipboard, respectively) for more detailed, tactical ones, probably because the author figures that more detailed combat is better for solo play.
Most of these old books are in the ~20-30 pages range, so it's not as much reading as it sounds like.
Snapshot is pretty fun. I ran the solo scenario "They're Loose" yesterday. The crew did surprisingly well, as the beasties got out one at a time and (thanks to a die roll) decided to turn towards the poor engineer in the back of the ship. This meant that they didn't block the corridor that would have kept Bill, the shipboard tough guy, from getting at his pistol in the weapons locker. Deena, the scout ship's owner, got pretty badly mauled, but was still (barely) conscious when the engineer and Bill put the last one down. (They only suffered mild injuries.)
It also helped that the really big critter didn't get out of its cage until after the pilot up on the bridge had sealed the cargo bay door, locking it in so they could finish it off last.
(One of these days I'm going to GM a Traveller campaign, but I can't commit the time right now.)
Carson Carter
Has anyone here tried "All Things Zombie" from Two Hour War games?
twohourwargames.com
If so, is it any good?
Id love to get a PDF copy of the base set to try it out.
Hudson Cooper
How do I play a wargame solo?
Hudson Turner
Buy an RTS video game. Either that or jerk off to some historical documentaries.
Christopher Thompson
...
Alexander Robinson
This dude has your back.
solowargamer.wordpress.com
solowargamer.wordpress.com
Jaxon Brown
FiveCore
Christian Taylor
Here's a more mercantile Traveller solo game.
Jeremiah Lopez
Got any more Traveller Solos?
Bentley Sullivan
Cool, traveller general I assume?
Granted cyoas are not necessarily solo RPGs in the vein of mythic, but they do a good job of keeping you occupied.
I really want to do a mythic based dungeon crawl using the traditional, tavern/location, crawl, loot, head back to town repeat, but also using heroquest/ahq, or my dungeon saga stuff.
But I don't want to exclude the bits and pieces of the game I use. Basically using mythic to make some sense of my adventuring.
I need to get off vidya for a sec so I can actually do this.
I'm thinking a d30 companion overworld, dungeons done via Hq etc, and mythic running the whole shebang
Maybe even fluff lulz...
Jordan Allen
Also whoever gets a chance to make this next time call it "solo RPG General" /solog/ or something like that.
Funny I used to do /Gdg/ since I home brewed my games solo, but this has been a better discussion.
I've actually made a two player skirmish game that i tried to incorporate some "cpu" movement, but it didn't work out, So the comments about a solo war game make sense.
I also think a game that can be played coop and with no gm also qualifies as solo - kinda
Even a game we could do that could be called "solitaire quest" using the standard playing card solitaire or free cell. The main thing would be to incorporate an adventure with it...
Jason James
>Cool, traveller general I assume?
Yup. PDFs are in the links up top.
Christopher Johnson
Right on....
Btw is traveler fun at all?
I was browsing a book at the lfgs and it really seemed more like "designs for designs sake", it reminded me of FTL in a way (just the Picts). Meaning to say is the whole combat system chunky or is it fun and streamlined?
Leo Gutierrez
It's great fun. The base system itself is pretty simple, but very modular, and you can expand it in lots of different ways. It has a ton of GM tools for generating stuff, as well.
Combat is usually quick and decisive. Classic has a pretty simple abstract range-band system by default. Mongoose has a slightly more complex one with a dynamic initiative system and stuff.
Wyatt Sanchez
I'll definitely check it out.
Thx soloanon
Hudson Hall
Bump for interest
Jaxon Smith
...
Carson James
...
Liam Lopez
Do you guys prefer taking "regular" rpgs and solo-fiying them, or playing meant-to-be-solo games?
Carter Brown
The former. Mythic allows me to play oneshots of all the shit I downloaded over the years. It often reveals quirks in the system I don't catch by reading.
It's pretty fun but I've never lasted more than a session or three of solo play honestly. I'm curious about the experiences of people who can do campaign play.
Brayden Walker
I prefer playing stuff that was intended to be solo from the start. I find that when you're doing a solo game, more structure is your friend. Mythic is neat, but it doesn't provide the structure and restrictions that can facilitate ready creativity. It just hands you something like "adjourn wishes" and you've got to brainstorm the rest, which is good practice for your right brain, but is pretty draining to do for any length of time.
It apparently works better for some folks, though, so YMMV.
Though sometimes Mythic is surprisingly on-point. Like when my character was in a tavern where there were some adventuring types, and after a little back and forth with Mythic, he tried to figure out why the Viking dude and his shield-maiden friend were scowling at each other, basically fishing for plot hooks, and the Mythic flash spat out something like "an absence of love."
>Oh-ho, so THAT's the problem!
>Somebody's longship is stuck in the dry dock and can't go raiding!
Lucas Peterson
My latest attempt to gather a party after almost a year without playing or GMing has failed, so I decided to finally give Mythic a try.
I've started Fallout PnP game using the emulator and to my surprise session was very smooth and intriguing. At the beginning I had only a simple premise to help my village that is periodically sacked by the band of raiders and by the end of session it literaly evolved into post-nuclear "7 Samurai" (Only that I started as a peasant). I was surprised by how easily and organically threads and random events are generating. I understand that flow in Mythic mainly depends on one's ability to interpret rolls and events, but I expected results to be much more inconsistent. I was able to get interesting development of world's events, NPC's goals and motivations and threads/subthreads with unexpected twists and turns.
Briefly summing - it was engaging and atmospheric experience. I'm looking forward to continue campaign. The only drawback is that playing solo feels really awkward. I want to try to run 2-player GMless session so I won't feel so strange.
Besides Fallout PnP and Mythic pdfs I used name generators for NPCs and locations, MapTool for encounters and rolls and Excel document to keep all sheets and events in one place. I also think to use material for generating NPC's noticeable features and mannersims from a GMing book that circulates on Veeky Forums to flesh out them a bit. I hope it's not too overloaded for playing solo.
Aiden Davis
What systems tend to be the best for this style of play? I've used Scarlet Heroes' solo adventures a couple times before and it was fairly fun, but are there any others?
Colton Young
It's entirely up to you, since it's Solo RPGs.
A lot of people really like OSR and play it solo, though there's also Fate and Vampire.
Gavin Butler
bump
Nathaniel Ramirez
Favorite solo-system? (Not counting Mythic to play something else, I mean.)
Caleb White
Hm... This?
Jaxson Martin
I just used this:
>dnd.chromesphere.com
Made a fighter with the biggest weapon available and that leader that gives free basic attacks. Shit was cash.
Alexander Smith
Aside from How To Host A Dungeon, I haven't played a dedicated solo rpg, so that's kind of why I was asking. xD How to Host a Dungeon is rad, though. I wish there were more games like it. But I am sort of looking for something more D&D adventurer sort. The Traveler solo game looks cool too. I'm big into merchanty type games.
Aaron Martin
I had some fun using Four Against Darkness, which is a dungeon crawl rpg/board game thing where you run through a randomly generated dungeon.
There are a few other things like it out there, including Ruins of Undercity and Mad Monks of Kwantoom, which are both heavier on the RPG side of things.
Scarlet Heroes is pretty cool, too, and has some decent support for solo players.
David Ramirez
The Kancolle RPG has some solo rules. I got that leaked Shinobigami draft, and since its rules are similar, I think I might try out some solo ninja action, with assistance from Mythic as necessary.