Me, Myself, and Die is a channel run by Travor Duval who is a friend of Matt Mercer and another voice actor. He's an absolute treat with solo roleplay and goes a fair bit over the top since he has the vocal range to make every character pop to viewers. Last I checked, he was running different 'campaigns' with many of the same characters and has completed 'runs' with Savage Worlds, Dominion, Ironsworn, Five Parsecs from Home, and another one or two. Haven't checked in on him in a while but he's the reason I mainline SWADE now and use the GM Emulator.
For me, the most difficult part of getting into solo RP was realizing that I want different things in solo than I do in group play. In a group, I like crunchier systems but in solo, I prefer something a bit lighter. I think that's because the crunchier systems give me something to think about while other people take their turns but in solo, it just gets to be too much to handle. I started a half-dozen solo campaigns that went nowhere fast because the crunch just kept getting in the way before I even realized that's what was happening. It also took me a while to realize that knowing what I want to happen and using the system to just fill in the gaps was an ok way to do things. I'm glad I stuck with it though. I finally have a campaign running that I'm really enjoying. Thanks for the videos you and other soloists have made. They really helped when I was getting frustrated with it all.
I loved the Star Wars analogy. Really clarified things. Also, I never thought about the "first scene" prompts for solo play. Good idea and a publishing opportunity waiting to happen. Thanks for your great channel (as always).
A lot to digest here. I read a Reddit post the other day that gave me a different way of looking at solo play. I think it applies here too. The guy was answering the, "How do I start?" question. He said when you sit down to play, you have to know if you are a Gamemaster or a Player. Now, I've always heard that you obviously have to be both. Do you though? If you just want to create cool, interesting characters and design cool, interesting situations and see what happens when you moosh them together, then you might be a gamemaster. If you want to be deeply immersed and experience the world from behind the eyeballs of your character, being surprised and delighted by what comes next, you're probably a player. My personal revelation was that I have been struggling with solo play because I'm trying to be a "player" when I think what I've wanted all along was to be a "gamemaster". Obviously, this is a spectrum, not a binary. To me, it is more the approach and attitude you bring to the table. It was such a relief to me to think, "Wait, you mean I can just build toys and play with them? That's ok? I'm still doing the hobby?" Sometimes we just get in our own way...
I’ve had moments like “wait, have I ever wanted to be a player?” - I resisted the GM seat for a long time and I still find it to be a stressful position; ultimately what I prefer is when everyone is the GM.
@@dranorter To me the term "gamemaster" here means something different than in traditional play. You still don't want to plan and control everything. You can use oracles and random generators and be surprised by the direction things take. I'm struggling to put it into words because it's a new idea for me. (Then @amanisalone made this video and gave me even more to think about.) I know it's a very different approach, but not sure of all the details.
@ When I gamemaster, I try to use oracles and be surprised by the direction things take. The main point of prep for me is to make up some movable pieces I can then deploy during play regardless of what the players decide to do - including if the players decide the truth is different from what I expected. For example in Blades in the Dark, per the rules, the players make up their approach to a job and then my job is to accept that it’s a good approach (rather than judge how risky it is based on what I know). They then add their “Detail”, a bit of the situation they explicitly have to invent. The big difference here from solo play is that I do need to prep some pieces in advance to reduce the amount of “hmm let me think” moments. And I can’t roll on really tricky oracles mid-game for the same reason. But I can roll for big yes/no questions like “is anything supernatural actually happening here?” mid-session.
I was listening to the audio book for So You Want to be a GM and it talks about how the adventure etc are just the toys, and then the GM and players play with them, everyone is still surprised by what happens. Even the GM. And that’s what makes RPGs fun.
My RPG system of choice is Knave 2E and my solo RPG bible is Tome of Adventure Design. I also backed their latest Kickstarter for Tome of World Building & The Nomicon. Also a fan of the Remarkable book series, especially the “create your own” sections at the back of the books. Creating inns, shops, cults, and guilds can be technical. Creating something technical on the fly gives me writer’s block. These books fill out those technicalities. -Remarkable Inns & Their Drinks -Remarkable Shops & Their Wares -Remarkable Cults & Their Followers -Remarkable Guilds & Their Heroes Agree with your comments about players needing more specific prompts. I actually use the pre-generated inns, shops, cults, and guilds as “narrative hubs”. If I ever get stuck, I can use them as a crutch and flip through the details until I find something interesting. You can start your first game in one of the pre-generated inns and work your way out from there. Or you could be a new initiate into a cult or guild and be the best cultist or guild member you can be. Edit: Recently picked up The Ultimate RPG Campfire Deck. I had fun using these prompts getting into my character’s head and being more introspective. Honorable mention for The Metamophica. Always fun to give things random mutations.
Some of the problem is a lack of clarity about procedure. We know how to resolve and may have some idea how to generate but the flow of events can feel non intuitive.
@@ChadRobb do you feel like a system that has total clarity about the procedure of events in a solo game is possible? And if it were, would you still feel like you were playing a game? These questions aren’t rhetorical. I’m honestly interested because people say this all the time and I wonder if you share the point of view that I do which is that at some point, the procedure has to be left open ended in order for it to be adaptable into something unique and spontaneous by the player… Otherwise, you are doing nothing more than following an algorithm of pre-ordained steps to a limited set of conclusions. Right?
It's what makes it different from video games or choose-your-own-adventure books. There you can choose A, B, or C. "But... I want to go over there and see what happens if I break that thing!" Nope, sorry. A, B, or C?
@@amanisalone I think its less a question about total clarity and more about where the clarity is applied. I use a very "codified" system with prewritten modules remixed with hexcrawl procedures in BFRPG. I commented above but I mentioned most of my solo plays are through modules with hexcrawl procedures. I follow my hexcrawling procedures and combat procedures pretty strictly, and I'm usually having my PC and retainers traveling to the next "plot relevant" module thread. But I break apart the modules and scatter them across a map in a spatial arrangement. I heard somewhere rules are meant to elide that which we don't want to engage. I have little interest in nitty gritty of combat so I largely just use the rules to quickly resolve it. The meaningful decisions in my game are more on the macro level, where I'm engaging with "where" I am going next and "who" I will be interacting with, and the plot of the adventure being delivered to me cinematically. But the actual interactions are largely just resolved with checks and such, on a micro level. The reason I actually figured this out in my games was due to 4AD. I'd largely figured out oracle/journaling games weren't my jams since heavy creative lifting wasn't one of the modes of fun that was key for me to engage with, so I'd been diving into dungeon generation games. I also lean rules light, so 4AD is the game in the genre I thought would be after my heart but barely engaged me. I had to really sit down and think, and realized that that game was one where the procedures were truly codified and there was little meaningful decisions I could make on where I was going and what I was doing, despite procedure being very similar to what I'm using now.
"Fortune in the middle" / retroactively filling in the blanks: this is something I realise I try to add in to my own solo games, but I have never heard it expressed or defined anywhere else. I'm not even sure where this fits on your Star Wars spectrum, to have game-level emergence via scene-level filling in of blanks. Much food for thought as always, cheers!
Interesting analogy with the Star Wars metaphor. I think I lean mostly prequel, and I'm glad someone gave it a name since I feel it's often ill defined. I actually lean that way in the sense that I pre skim adventure modules and remix it with hexcrawl tools to kind of create an adventure where I already know the major plot points but get it to feel unique to my PC.
There are folks out there that need permission to 'do the thing'. Sometimes that is joining the gym or gardening, and other times it is cracking a tome of rules and making them all work together to create a solo rpg story. Once they get the 'blessing' to get started, they need feedback that they are not getting from themselves or their adventure. If they don't get that rewarding experience, or believe they are 'doing it wrong' they end up on reddit looking for a lost of things to change or replace. After a few runs up and down the jousting field, they either get that feedback or they give up, but the reddit post persists.
Technical writing is an entire skill set in its own right. It definitely isn't a given that someone with the skills to design a game will have the skills to communicate it effectively. That's just an opportunity for collaboration though :3 or to learn something new if one is so inclined. That said, I really appreciate that you've found a resource to share that nails it and might help us newbies find our footing in this new way of thinking/approaching play. I'm having some success with mythic gme and a system I'm familiar with, but it never hurts to have more to pull from so I'm definitely going to check out the Cepheus books too.
Video 86 of me liking and then commenting on every new upload to tell the viewers that the Man Alone Podcast is absolutely some of that sweet, unhinged audio/vocal-honey. Psssst. Do you have a system that you use to encourage yourself to get productive things done? I like to reward myself with little snippets of fun/relaxation. I’ll do a chore and then give myself 15 or 20 mins on a video game and then do another chore that needs done and rinse and repeat. The small and quick feedback loops keep me moving.
Have you ever tried the… now I'm forgetting what it's called… It's like a method named after an Italian guy to break up projects into smaller five minute increments I almost called it the Stradivarius method no that's violins I meant the Pomodoro method like the pasta I am really impressed that my voice to text was able to get all of that
I think sometimes authors think "constraint" is a dirty word. There's a romantic and magical view of a player's imagination, and they don't want to stifle the rainbows and stardust coming out of it. But constraints can be really important for creativity. Constraints are like puzzle pieces. And I love solving puzzles. I think it's why I particularly like something like Tana Pigeon's The Adventure Crafter, because it lets me roll for five well-defined puzzle pieces to build a scene from
Pretty much this. A game with a theme and constraints work wonders to get yourself playing. I've taking a good look at Swyvers and I liked it. I'll try run it solo soon.
Yep the sonnet is the best example of this once you know your limitations you have the freedom to work within those and do anything that you want but without those constraints your paralyzed by the possibility; you make nothing at all
Honestly, I don't understand why people are so confused with solo RPG... You play a role people. That's what you do. Even if you are speaking out what you do or the dialogues of the characters or if you just journalling or narrating or whatever, you act like the role you play. How do you start? So where is your character at the moment? In a tavern? Act like you are in a tavern. I guess you have seen a tavern. You probably have been in one. Order food or drink. Talk to the tavern owner about something. The town, the people, rumours. Then act like the tavern owner. Or a bystander. He knows something useful and he is more than happy to tell you. That's your start. Are you walking in a new town or village? What would you do? Find a room to stay and a place to eat. Again, talk to someone. Or maybe someone is trying to talk to you. Or he wants to steal your money and you get him right in the act. Are you going to do something or not? That's your start. Play The Role according to any given situation. After that, there are oracles and so many good tools for inspiration and help at any point. Just *Start the game* .
How to get started? Stop thinking about how and just start. Stop browsing content and input like these little books, or tables or Reddit. You are trying to create from the outside in when you need to create from the inside out. The way to start snd keep going is immersion. Put yourself into a world and engage in it on a moment by moment basis. If you can’t imagine your own world then use a pre-existing one. For example in one of my solo games I am currently on a journey through Faerun. Find the map of the Sword Coast, then find the map of Waterdeep, read the names of the streets, shops and taverns, go inside and order a drink, who is at the bar, what does the interior look like. Sit down with your drink, who is here. Use a random word generator to give you ideas on who is there and what happens - something like Mythic works well. Allow the story and the place to emerge - let your dice tell the tale. Also I like to think of myself as a detective who is using the dice to uncover clues as to what is going on in this place. This takes the pressure off of ‘oh, I have to generate this world’ to curiosity ‘oh, I wonder what is going on here - what’s the story, where’s the mystery’. Ok, this has been a ramble, maybe I should make a video on it! Anyway, happy solo rpging!
I've been roleplaying for (counts on fingers) 35 years and it took me a while to find my "in" to Solo Roleplaying. I wonder if the people that really struggle haven't exercised their creative muscles for a while and need to get back into the swing of it?
For games that are puzzley, I can solo play easily. Games that are story driven, I find difficult to start playing, because I don't have anyone to share the story with. When playing with others, I enjoy reading the story and driving the story forward. Solo, not so much.
Another coincidence. I bought all of the stuff from the maker of the Fate Mill d20, so I got Bell Whispers and was going through it. And I only read one story opening after rolling randomly. And it was that specific story. What are the odds? Well, 5%, but still
I feel like I spend a bunch of time learning rules and setting everything up and when I finally start im exhausted. That or I get into it until I hit something I cant find a way to resolve or that is kind of boring and i lose the game completely and move on to another solo game
Coincidentally, I picked up Solo Hostile, Hostile Rules, and Hostile setting because someone on discord said they were on sale. I noticed Cepheus Universal and was curious about it. Hostile uses that system I believe. lol you just said it was on sale as I wrote that.
1:05:30 MAN makes the point 👉 Which Trilogy suits you? OG = Surprise, Emergent Sequels = Cream Soda, how well can I do this time? Prequels = Titanic, how did we get here, and what did it smell like simulator?
I dont feel comfortable changing rules. It doesnt feel right. Unfortunately solo play basically seems to necessitate it. So i try crunchy systems but they confuse me and i cant remember all of the rules. So i try rules lite but they dont tell me what to do half the time and dont have much setting information. I think the problem is that i just want to be a player, but in solo you HAVE to be a gm. Ive never gmed before. Ive never even played a ttrpg before and solo is a hard way to learn. I watch every video like this and i now own several systems solo or not, gmes, supplements, etc. But i dont seem to be any closer to being able to actually play.
Man Alone, please tell me more about how your surgery went, I am considering getting the same surgery and honestly I was very pessimistic about even trying until I heard you were doing it. I suppose you don’t fully know how effective it was yet, just know that I’m wondering.
I will say that it was way more significant than I thought it would be…you need to make sure that you have 6 to 8 weeks that you can go without using your hand at all. pain on days two through four was pretty significant now that I'm a week out I have moments of burning pain or a bit of shocking pain when I move it in a weird way but I can tell that it's progressing and getting better no idea what the scar looks like yet because I've had a sugar tong cast on the whole time
Thank you my bro - Hey total sidenote but I saw that you commented on a video that I watched earlier about that guy who is a GM and his gaming group (which I think is his family?) makes a big joke out of everything that he does and now he wants to punish them by killing off their characters or whatever I don't actually fully understand it lol… do you have any speculation on what is actually "going on" there? I'm so intrigued by it...
I really like your point about making the language simple and like Tandy 1000 instructions. I still have a TRS80 kicking around somewhere. I think I may be the only person in the TTRPG world who feels this way, but I cannot stand the PbtA games or their derivatives. I got and followed the advice that I think everyone got which was to play Ironsworn or Scarlet Heroes and I couldn't even get past 20 minutes of Ironsworn So while I know many people will like it, that system doesn't work for me. That doesn't mean it's bad, of course. Scarlet Heroes is better to me, but I'm 0% interested in the game world the author put it in. To me, you can accomplish everything you need to with 1 page Mythic and the random tables in Knave 2e (or Shadowdark if you're fancy) or the ones in Cairn, which is free. Also, I would use either Knave or Cairn as my system when first starting just because both are very simple but effective.
Yeah I think that the Ironsworn/starforged system is a well structured emergent narrative system, I don't know that when I'm playing it if I actually feel like I am playing a role-playing game or if I am playing someone who is playing a player character in a role-playing game. I will say that whatever it does it does well and I do think that whether it works for someone or not it's a good first passage through… Then again maybe it's not maybe it creates unrealistic expectations. As I think back on my time playing those games regularly I think that there was a heavy amount of novelty with the whole process and so I don't think I have a very strong Objective appraisal of how good or not good it was because I was just so new
One of the greatest crimes against humanity is that cream sodas are not in any vending machines… Why?? They are so clearly the superior soda experience
Not fair using the Starforged Quick Reference. The main book explains the moves in depth. The reference is for reference. The main book walks you through getting set up to play and how to get started in the actual adventure. Edit: although that’s beside the point about how the other book explains things clearly, which is exactly what I want in a game (I wrote about how good the Basic D&D Mentzer version was so good at that)
No that's fair it definitely does offer an explanation of them I was more referencing the fact that it would be pretty hard to mentally index all of these and even if some people are able to do it many people I think would not be up to the mental task especially if they haven't fully bought in to the process of solo role-playing yet
Most people that say they don't get it most probably never ever GMed. That's probably why they don't know how to make NPCs. Try GMing first before trying solo play.
Yeah I sorta agree, I don't know if you *have* to GM first but it certainly I think would clear up a lot of the confusion about the sequencing of mental tasks that has to happen… at the end of the day there has to be some part of it or the player leaps from one set of instructions to another and they have to do this leap on their own and without that leap they're just reading a book. Ultimately I can give as many analogies and instructions as I could possibly think of as the day as long but ultimately you just kind of have to GO
I will tell you exactly, why I cannot pass a particular moment of SoloRPG. I am not an English native speaker. All the systems are English - which is not a problem, my English is good enough to read, comprehend and use Mystic GM Emulator or any other system in the EN world. BUT then there are the Oracle tables. There are settings. There are narratives. When you meet 100 adjectives describing a person - you MUST be a native level speaker to fully take advantage of those unusual ones, those found only in Fantasy/SF books of Tolkien and Ursula Le Guin, secondary meanings, tertiary literature references. Of course I can translate, I have good dictionaries, BUT the immersion is totally destroyed. I just cannot move my brain into the story, it's still "not mine", it's "alien". it boils down to "wisdom" instead of "Mądrość" on the card. Wisdom - I know. Mądrość - I feel. Immersion. Therefore ChatGPT is so helpful now - I started translating hundreds of those words, table after table into Polish. My goal is to remove English altogether, to be able to play in my language and then to dive into the story with no language barrier. I think then it works 100%, the first attempts are looking extremely promising.
What are you talking about? You think in your native language, and the prompt is only in English for the split seconds it takes your brain to translate it, how does that break the immersion to have a five second translation break and going back to Polish in your mind, on the paper? Also 99% of ttRPG material in the world is in English, and the way you write you're already more competent than most native English speakers. I call bullshit imaginary block.
Me, Myself, and Die is a channel run by Travor Duval who is a friend of Matt Mercer and another voice actor. He's an absolute treat with solo roleplay and goes a fair bit over the top since he has the vocal range to make every character pop to viewers. Last I checked, he was running different 'campaigns' with many of the same characters and has completed 'runs' with Savage Worlds, Dominion, Ironsworn, Five Parsecs from Home, and another one or two. Haven't checked in on him in a while but he's the reason I mainline SWADE now and use the GM Emulator.
For me, the most difficult part of getting into solo RP was realizing that I want different things in solo than I do in group play. In a group, I like crunchier systems but in solo, I prefer something a bit lighter. I think that's because the crunchier systems give me something to think about while other people take their turns but in solo, it just gets to be too much to handle. I started a half-dozen solo campaigns that went nowhere fast because the crunch just kept getting in the way before I even realized that's what was happening. It also took me a while to realize that knowing what I want to happen and using the system to just fill in the gaps was an ok way to do things. I'm glad I stuck with it though. I finally have a campaign running that I'm really enjoying. Thanks for the videos you and other soloists have made. They really helped when I was getting frustrated with it all.
I loved the Star Wars analogy. Really clarified things. Also, I never thought about the "first scene" prompts for solo play. Good idea and a publishing opportunity waiting to happen. Thanks for your great channel (as always).
Nice to see the Cepheus Universal shoutout! Would love to see you try Hostile Solo from Zozer too
A lot to digest here. I read a Reddit post the other day that gave me a different way of looking at solo play. I think it applies here too. The guy was answering the, "How do I start?" question. He said when you sit down to play, you have to know if you are a Gamemaster or a Player. Now, I've always heard that you obviously have to be both. Do you though? If you just want to create cool, interesting characters and design cool, interesting situations and see what happens when you moosh them together, then you might be a gamemaster. If you want to be deeply immersed and experience the world from behind the eyeballs of your character, being surprised and delighted by what comes next, you're probably a player.
My personal revelation was that I have been struggling with solo play because I'm trying to be a "player" when I think what I've wanted all along was to be a "gamemaster". Obviously, this is a spectrum, not a binary. To me, it is more the approach and attitude you bring to the table. It was such a relief to me to think, "Wait, you mean I can just build toys and play with them? That's ok? I'm still doing the hobby?" Sometimes we just get in our own way...
Brilliant!
I’ve had moments like “wait, have I ever wanted to be a player?” - I resisted the GM seat for a long time and I still find it to be a stressful position; ultimately what I prefer is when everyone is the GM.
@@dranorter To me the term "gamemaster" here means something different than in traditional play. You still don't want to plan and control everything. You can use oracles and random generators and be surprised by the direction things take. I'm struggling to put it into words because it's a new idea for me. (Then @amanisalone made this video and gave me even more to think about.) I know it's a very different approach, but not sure of all the details.
@ When I gamemaster, I try to use oracles and be surprised by the direction things take. The main point of prep for me is to make up some movable pieces I can then deploy during play regardless of what the players decide to do - including if the players decide the truth is different from what I expected. For example in Blades in the Dark, per the rules, the players make up their approach to a job and then my job is to accept that it’s a good approach (rather than judge how risky it is based on what I know). They then add their “Detail”, a bit of the situation they explicitly have to invent.
The big difference here from solo play is that I do need to prep some pieces in advance to reduce the amount of “hmm let me think” moments. And I can’t roll on really tricky oracles mid-game for the same reason. But I can roll for big yes/no questions like “is anything supernatural actually happening here?” mid-session.
I was listening to the audio book for So You Want to be a GM and it talks about how the adventure etc are just the toys, and then the GM and players play with them, everyone is still surprised by what happens. Even the GM. And that’s what makes RPGs fun.
My RPG system of choice is Knave 2E and my solo RPG bible is Tome of Adventure Design. I also backed their latest Kickstarter for Tome of World Building & The Nomicon.
Also a fan of the Remarkable book series, especially the “create your own” sections at the back of the books. Creating inns, shops, cults, and guilds can be technical. Creating something technical on the fly gives me writer’s block. These books fill out those technicalities.
-Remarkable Inns & Their Drinks
-Remarkable Shops & Their Wares
-Remarkable Cults & Their Followers
-Remarkable Guilds & Their Heroes
Agree with your comments about players needing more specific prompts. I actually use the pre-generated inns, shops, cults, and guilds as “narrative hubs”. If I ever get stuck, I can use them as a crutch and flip through the details until I find something interesting.
You can start your first game in one of the pre-generated inns and work your way out from there. Or you could be a new initiate into a cult or guild and be the best cultist or guild member you can be.
Edit: Recently picked up The Ultimate RPG Campfire Deck. I had fun using these prompts getting into my character’s head and being more introspective.
Honorable mention for The Metamophica. Always fun to give things random mutations.
My post at 10:00 is pretty funny, cause I did listen to the comments and ended up finding your channel. Now that same post is on a vid of yours haha
You're the real Keegan26?!
Love your rants meditative and insightful sometimes mind blowing
I see no reason why ranting and meditation can’t go hand-in-hand to achieve a heavy metal Nirvana!
Some of the problem is a lack of clarity about procedure. We know how to resolve and may have some idea how to generate but the flow of events can feel non intuitive.
@@ChadRobb do you feel like a system that has total clarity about the procedure of events in a solo game is possible? And if it were, would you still feel like you were playing a game? These questions aren’t rhetorical. I’m honestly interested because people say this all the time and I wonder if you share the point of view that I do which is that at some point, the procedure has to be left open ended in order for it to be adaptable into something unique and spontaneous by the player… Otherwise, you are doing nothing more than following an algorithm of pre-ordained steps to a limited set of conclusions. Right?
It's what makes it different from video games or choose-your-own-adventure books. There you can choose A, B, or C. "But... I want to go over there and see what happens if I break that thing!" Nope, sorry. A, B, or C?
@@amanisalone I think its less a question about total clarity and more about where the clarity is applied. I use a very "codified" system with prewritten modules remixed with hexcrawl procedures in BFRPG.
I commented above but I mentioned most of my solo plays are through modules with hexcrawl procedures. I follow my hexcrawling procedures and combat procedures pretty strictly, and I'm usually having my PC and retainers traveling to the next "plot relevant" module thread. But I break apart the modules and scatter them across a map in a spatial arrangement.
I heard somewhere rules are meant to elide that which we don't want to engage. I have little interest in nitty gritty of combat so I largely just use the rules to quickly resolve it. The meaningful decisions in my game are more on the macro level, where I'm engaging with "where" I am going next and "who" I will be interacting with, and the plot of the adventure being delivered to me cinematically. But the actual interactions are largely just resolved with checks and such, on a micro level.
The reason I actually figured this out in my games was due to 4AD. I'd largely figured out oracle/journaling games weren't my jams since heavy creative lifting wasn't one of the modes of fun that was key for me to engage with, so I'd been diving into dungeon generation games. I also lean rules light, so 4AD is the game in the genre I thought would be after my heart but barely engaged me. I had to really sit down and think, and realized that that game was one where the procedures were truly codified and there was little meaningful decisions I could make on where I was going and what I was doing, despite procedure being very similar to what I'm using now.
"Fortune in the middle" / retroactively filling in the blanks: this is something I realise I try to add in to my own solo games, but I have never heard it expressed or defined anywhere else.
I'm not even sure where this fits on your Star Wars spectrum, to have game-level emergence via scene-level filling in of blanks.
Much food for thought as always, cheers!
Interesting analogy with the Star Wars metaphor. I think I lean mostly prequel, and I'm glad someone gave it a name since I feel it's often ill defined. I actually lean that way in the sense that I pre skim adventure modules and remix it with hexcrawl tools to kind of create an adventure where I already know the major plot points but get it to feel unique to my PC.
I recently found the rules and procedures for solo play in the 1e AD&D DMG. Pretty solid set of procedures.
There are folks out there that need permission to 'do the thing'. Sometimes that is joining the gym or gardening, and other times it is cracking a tome of rules and making them all work together to create a solo rpg story.
Once they get the 'blessing' to get started, they need feedback that they are not getting from themselves or their adventure. If they don't get that rewarding experience, or believe they are 'doing it wrong' they end up on reddit looking for a lost of things to change or replace.
After a few runs up and down the jousting field, they either get that feedback or they give up, but the reddit post persists.
Technical writing is an entire skill set in its own right. It definitely isn't a given that someone with the skills to design a game will have the skills to communicate it effectively. That's just an opportunity for collaboration though :3 or to learn something new if one is so inclined. That said, I really appreciate that you've found a resource to share that nails it and might help us newbies find our footing in this new way of thinking/approaching play. I'm having some success with mythic gme and a system I'm familiar with, but it never hurts to have more to pull from so I'm definitely going to check out the Cepheus books too.
Video 86 of me liking and then commenting on every new upload to tell the viewers that the Man Alone Podcast is absolutely some of that sweet, unhinged audio/vocal-honey.
Psssst. Do you have a system that you use to encourage yourself to get productive things done? I like to reward myself with little snippets of fun/relaxation. I’ll do a chore and then give myself 15 or 20 mins on a video game and then do another chore that needs done and rinse and repeat. The small and quick feedback loops keep me moving.
Have you ever tried the… now I'm forgetting what it's called… It's like a method named after an Italian guy to break up projects into smaller five minute increments I almost called it the Stradivarius method no that's violins I meant the Pomodoro method like the pasta I am really impressed that my voice to text was able to get all of that
I think sometimes authors think "constraint" is a dirty word. There's a romantic and magical view of a player's imagination, and they don't want to stifle the rainbows and stardust coming out of it. But constraints can be really important for creativity. Constraints are like puzzle pieces. And I love solving puzzles. I think it's why I particularly like something like Tana Pigeon's The Adventure Crafter, because it lets me roll for five well-defined puzzle pieces to build a scene from
Pretty much this. A game with a theme and constraints work wonders to get yourself playing. I've taking a good look at Swyvers and I liked it. I'll try run it solo soon.
Yep the sonnet is the best example of this once you know your limitations you have the freedom to work within those and do anything that you want but without those constraints your paralyzed by the possibility; you make nothing at all
Honestly, I don't understand why people are so confused with solo RPG...
You play a role people.
That's what you do.
Even if you are speaking out what you do or the dialogues of the characters or if you just journalling or narrating or whatever, you act like the role you play.
How do you start?
So where is your character at the moment?
In a tavern?
Act like you are in a tavern. I guess you have seen a tavern. You probably have been in one.
Order food or drink.
Talk to the tavern owner about something.
The town, the people, rumours.
Then act like the tavern owner. Or a bystander. He knows something useful and he is more than happy to tell you.
That's your start.
Are you walking in a new town or village?
What would you do?
Find a room to stay and a place to eat.
Again, talk to someone.
Or maybe someone is trying to talk to you.
Or he wants to steal your money and you get him right in the act. Are you going to do something or not?
That's your start.
Play The Role according to any given situation.
After that, there are oracles and so many good tools for inspiration and help at any point.
Just *Start the game* .
Usually it is my cat screaming. But I don’t think I ever left a character truly hanging. They had some kind of life.
Man Alone with another banger. That Star Wars analogy was great and makes sense, although Star Wars is a sensitive topic for me haha.
You are not alone in that sensitivity my friend… better to not even speak of it or even think about it
How to get started? Stop thinking about how and just start. Stop browsing content and input like these little books, or tables or Reddit. You are trying to create from the outside in when you need to create from the inside out. The way to start snd keep going is immersion. Put yourself into a world and engage in it on a moment by moment basis. If you can’t imagine your own world then use a pre-existing one. For example in one of my solo games I am currently on a journey through Faerun. Find the map of the Sword Coast, then find the map of Waterdeep, read the names of the streets, shops and taverns, go inside and order a drink, who is at the bar, what does the interior look like. Sit down with your drink, who is here. Use a random word generator to give you ideas on who is there and what happens - something like Mythic works well. Allow the story and the place to emerge - let your dice tell the tale. Also I like to think of myself as a detective who is using the dice to uncover clues as to what is going on in this place. This takes the pressure off of ‘oh, I have to generate this world’ to curiosity ‘oh, I wonder what is going on here - what’s the story, where’s the mystery’. Ok, this has been a ramble, maybe I should make a video on it! Anyway, happy solo rpging!
I've been roleplaying for (counts on fingers) 35 years and it took me a while to find my "in" to Solo Roleplaying.
I wonder if the people that really struggle haven't exercised their creative muscles for a while and need to get back into the swing of it?
For games that are puzzley, I can solo play easily. Games that are story driven, I find difficult to start playing, because I don't have anyone to share the story with. When playing with others, I enjoy reading the story and driving the story forward. Solo, not so much.
Rogues and reavers is another good Guard Rail game which helps you along predetermined story beats.
Another coincidence. I bought all of the stuff from the maker of the Fate Mill d20, so I got Bell Whispers and was going through it. And I only read one story opening after rolling randomly. And it was that specific story. What are the odds? Well, 5%, but still
I feel like I spend a bunch of time learning rules and setting everything up and when I finally start im exhausted. That or I get into it until I hit something I cant find a way to resolve or that is kind of boring and i lose the game completely and move on to another solo game
Coincidentally, I picked up Solo Hostile, Hostile Rules, and Hostile setting because someone on discord said they were on sale. I noticed Cepheus Universal and was curious about it. Hostile uses that system I believe. lol you just said it was on sale as I wrote that.
1:05:30 MAN makes the point 👉
Which Trilogy suits you?
OG = Surprise, Emergent
Sequels = Cream Soda, how well can I do this time?
Prequels = Titanic, how did we get here, and what did it smell like simulator?
I dont feel comfortable changing rules. It doesnt feel right. Unfortunately solo play basically seems to necessitate it. So i try crunchy systems but they confuse me and i cant remember all of the rules. So i try rules lite but they dont tell me what to do half the time and dont have much setting information. I think the problem is that i just want to be a player, but in solo you HAVE to be a gm. Ive never gmed before. Ive never even played a ttrpg before and solo is a hard way to learn. I watch every video like this and i now own several systems solo or not, gmes, supplements, etc. But i dont seem to be any closer to being able to actually play.
"Fortune in the Middle" dang son I didn't know you studied at The Forge.
Man Alone, please tell me more about how your surgery went, I am considering getting the same surgery and honestly I was very pessimistic about even trying until I heard you were doing it. I suppose you don’t fully know how effective it was yet, just know that I’m wondering.
I will say that it was way more significant than I thought it would be…you need to make sure that you have 6 to 8 weeks that you can go without using your hand at all. pain on days two through four was pretty significant now that I'm a week out I have moments of burning pain or a bit of shocking pain when I move it in a weird way but I can tell that it's progressing and getting better no idea what the scar looks like yet because I've had a sugar tong cast on the whole time
I love your videos man.
"You need to figure out which star wars you like...." wtf....haha 😂
These are the moments i am here for.
Thank you my bro - Hey total sidenote but I saw that you commented on a video that I watched earlier about that guy who is a GM and his gaming group (which I think is his family?) makes a big joke out of everything that he does and now he wants to punish them by killing off their characters or whatever I don't actually fully understand it lol… do you have any speculation on what is actually "going on" there? I'm so intrigued by it...
So, you're saying we just need to go our own way (go our own waaaayy)....
Haha nice, my reddit post about Solo Play showed up. Alas, I still don't really get Solo play >-
I really like your point about making the language simple and like Tandy 1000 instructions. I still have a TRS80 kicking around somewhere. I think I may be the only person in the TTRPG world who feels this way, but I cannot stand the PbtA games or their derivatives. I got and followed the advice that I think everyone got which was to play Ironsworn or Scarlet Heroes and I couldn't even get past 20 minutes of Ironsworn So while I know many people will like it, that system doesn't work for me. That doesn't mean it's bad, of course. Scarlet Heroes is better to me, but I'm 0% interested in the game world the author put it in.
To me, you can accomplish everything you need to with 1 page Mythic and the random tables in Knave 2e (or Shadowdark if you're fancy) or the ones in Cairn, which is free. Also, I would use either Knave or Cairn as my system when first starting just because both are very simple but effective.
Yeah I think that the Ironsworn/starforged system is a well structured emergent narrative system, I don't know that when I'm playing it if I actually feel like I am playing a role-playing game or if I am playing someone who is playing a player character in a role-playing game. I will say that whatever it does it does well and I do think that whether it works for someone or not it's a good first passage through… Then again maybe it's not maybe it creates unrealistic expectations. As I think back on my time playing those games regularly I think that there was a heavy amount of novelty with the whole process and so I don't think I have a very strong Objective appraisal of how good or not good it was because I was just so new
Shit, now I want a cold cream soda...
One of the greatest crimes against humanity is that cream sodas are not in any vending machines… Why?? They are so clearly the superior soda experience
Not fair using the Starforged Quick Reference. The main book explains the moves in depth. The reference is for reference. The main book walks you through getting set up to play and how to get started in the actual adventure. Edit: although that’s beside the point about how the other book explains things clearly, which is exactly what I want in a game (I wrote about how good the Basic D&D Mentzer version was so good at that)
No that's fair it definitely does offer an explanation of them I was more referencing the fact that it would be pretty hard to mentally index all of these and even if some people are able to do it many people I think would not be up to the mental task especially if they haven't fully bought in to the process of solo role-playing yet
Most people that say they don't get it most probably never ever GMed. That's probably why they don't know how to make NPCs. Try GMing first before trying solo play.
Yeah I sorta agree, I don't know if you *have* to GM first but it certainly I think would clear up a lot of the confusion about the sequencing of mental tasks that has to happen… at the end of the day there has to be some part of it or the player leaps from one set of instructions to another and they have to do this leap on their own and without that leap they're just reading a book. Ultimately I can give as many analogies and instructions as I could possibly think of as the day as long but ultimately you just kind of have to GO
I will tell you exactly, why I cannot pass a particular moment of SoloRPG. I am not an English native speaker. All the systems are English - which is not a problem, my English is good enough to read, comprehend and use Mystic GM Emulator or any other system in the EN world. BUT then there are the Oracle tables. There are settings. There are narratives. When you meet 100 adjectives describing a person - you MUST be a native level speaker to fully take advantage of those unusual ones, those found only in Fantasy/SF books of Tolkien and Ursula Le Guin, secondary meanings, tertiary literature references. Of course I can translate, I have good dictionaries, BUT the immersion is totally destroyed. I just cannot move my brain into the story, it's still "not mine", it's "alien". it boils down to "wisdom" instead of "Mądrość" on the card. Wisdom - I know. Mądrość - I feel. Immersion.
Therefore ChatGPT is so helpful now - I started translating hundreds of those words, table after table into Polish. My goal is to remove English altogether, to be able to play in my language and then to dive into the story with no language barrier. I think then it works 100%, the first attempts are looking extremely promising.
What are you talking about? You think in your native language, and the prompt is only in English for the split seconds it takes your brain to translate it, how does that break the immersion to have a five second translation break and going back to Polish in your mind, on the paper? Also 99% of ttRPG material in the world is in English, and the way you write you're already more competent than most native English speakers. I call bullshit imaginary block.
If you didn't mention the Dark Tower opening, I would have unsub'd 😊
12:15 LOL! I remember Prodigy! That isht was awesome for the time! 💾🖥️💿
Prodigy rise up; Compuserve & AOL are for PUNKS