I love talking about RPGs, and solo play in particular, but right now I have sort of run out of topics I am ready to chat about. It happens when I blog more than I play. Playing is where I run into things to talk about, so for a bit of time, maybe a couple weeks, I am going to be playing a lot to recharge the batteries for talking a lot.
I do have a few irons in the fire. I am reviewing two cyberpunk themed games, that I would like to look at from a solo angle. I am an avid fan of Monte Cook Games Cypher System, and want to discuss a few solo hacks for system, that include full single player play, and how to handle a troupe style game. Finally I would love to review a few good articles from Mythic Magazine, once I have had a chance to try out the systems that they present.
But, for now, if you are inclined to a bit of Space Noir, enjoy the Voyage of the Yggdrasil. I will post a single organized, multi link index in a day or two.
If that isn't your cup of tea drop back in a week or so.
Thank you for your continued interest
W.D.
P.S.
I am also taking a break from other social media besides this blog to focus on reading and gaming (as chatting about game eats up a rather large amount of game time), so feel free to reach out to me here if you want to pick my brain about a topic.
W.D.
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Monday, July 8, 2024
Wizard Dad: Soloist, thank your GM. (A Wizard Dad short)
For some soloist jumping in with a blank character sheet, a general idea for a setting, a game engine, and an oracle are all they need to feel prepared. Then there is the other extreme. Of which I am in.
I love everything about the role of the GM in TTRPGs. I love picking or making just the right setting, that I am in the mood to play. I like semi fabricating the interesting places I will explore (you have seen a few of those in this blog already). I like having a few NPCs ready to hinder or help. I like to know there is a problem to be solved.
When you are soloing, all of that is part of the game, and you should do as much or as little as you enjoy, as long as it leads to a fulfilling gaming experience. But unlike in a group game where the players will give you a thank you, a high five, and occasionally spring for pizza, your only reward tends to be the feeling of a job well done. And the feeling following on its heels is, now I am too tired to play this.
So I have this small suggestion. It has worked wonders to incentivize my GM prep. I give myself some Experience Points (or advancement points, or Karma... you all know what I mean). And I don't mean a skimpy little pat on the head amount. I treat every significant and difficult aspect of prep as if it were a game session. Because it is. Whether that is reading setting material to make notes for lists and cards, or it is a bit of prefabbing places and faces, or researching Emulator variations that could be of use (with the Mythic Magazine or GM's Apprentice decks and the rules that go with them can be very involved), anything that makes your game run smoothly, match your play expectations, or is just fun, but admittedly taxing, reward yourself . And if that happens to put you close to an advancement point when you start playing, well why the heck not. You earned it.
W.D.
Tuesday, July 2, 2024
Wizard Dad: Kill your Darling
This article is a bit tongue in cheek, and there would be dozen's of other ways to get the same effect, I am sure. With that said, if you can hang on loosely to a character this can be a lot of fun, especially of you are of the constantly shifting attention span crowd.
A touch of back ground. I have been without a game group now for about 9 years. I have been in the hobby for about 36 years. I ran for the same rotating group of players for about 15 years. I got to play around 20 times. I was the go to GM. I imagine a lot of people attracted to solo play were the go to GM. Nothing wrong with that.
(Turns out I am not a great player in group games. I constantly had this nagging feeling of, "I would have done that differently". Which made me kind of a rotten player. I didn't EVER actually say that, so I wasn't being a rotten human. I take some comfort in that.)
For much of that 15 year chunk we played in the same campaign (with liberal breaks to try something new) and characters were killed or retired, and were replaced by different characters, and the campaign kept rolling. The players of course were in love with their characters. I grew to be in love with the setting.
When I first started playing solo, the hobby was less supported, and I burned through characters. I was playing various OSR style games, which can be hard on characters anyway, but I hadn't learned yet how to tailor games for a single solo character (which is weird, because I tailored many games for a single player as a GM).
Now, I am not going to say I was playing wrong, and I certainly was having fun, but the fun was special sort of GM/OSR fun. I kept making new characters in the same setting from different angles.
Well, I drifted away from the OSR set, because the amount of hacking needed for solo play with out playing someone multi classed to kingdom come, was becoming bothersome. And all of those game systems I had bought, but that never had a chance to be played, were beckoning me.
Just recently I reviewed the notes on that composite setting made from 15 dead characters, and realized, this was a good setting. Every new character came at it from a different angle and in doing so uncovered more lore, geography, secret plots, powerful enemies, and interesting opportunities (which they died before checking out). I realized that I wasn't so much playing to advance a particular character, or set of characters in some cases, but I was exploring a landscape of the imagination.
Which brings us back to the title at hand and topic at hand. Kill your Darlings.
I believe the phrase started with novelist William Faulkner (because that is what google told me), and he meant not to latch on too hard to a single character or plot thread. He was referring to editing, but I think the same can be said with solo gaming, if world building is your jam.
I am starting a Stars Without Numbers game, maybe even today, that is also a sci-fi mega dungeon. And I have decided that if the character dies he dies. If a plot runs stale it dies. If beloved NPC is endangered kill it. Not because I have suddenly become a masochist, but because if that happens I start the next character from a new angle, and eventually I will get to know the secret at the end of the line, even if no character I ever play does. The journey can be for you, the player, rather than you the character, as long as you are not afraid to Kill your Darlings.
For much of that 15 year chunk we played in the same campaign (with liberal breaks to try something new) and characters were killed or retired, and were replaced by different characters, and the campaign kept rolling. The players of course were in love with their characters. I grew to be in love with the setting.
When I first started playing solo, the hobby was less supported, and I burned through characters. I was playing various OSR style games, which can be hard on characters anyway, but I hadn't learned yet how to tailor games for a single solo character (which is weird, because I tailored many games for a single player as a GM).
Now, I am not going to say I was playing wrong, and I certainly was having fun, but the fun was special sort of GM/OSR fun. I kept making new characters in the same setting from different angles.
Well, I drifted away from the OSR set, because the amount of hacking needed for solo play with out playing someone multi classed to kingdom come, was becoming bothersome. And all of those game systems I had bought, but that never had a chance to be played, were beckoning me.
Just recently I reviewed the notes on that composite setting made from 15 dead characters, and realized, this was a good setting. Every new character came at it from a different angle and in doing so uncovered more lore, geography, secret plots, powerful enemies, and interesting opportunities (which they died before checking out). I realized that I wasn't so much playing to advance a particular character, or set of characters in some cases, but I was exploring a landscape of the imagination.
Which brings us back to the title at hand and topic at hand. Kill your Darlings.
I believe the phrase started with novelist William Faulkner (because that is what google told me), and he meant not to latch on too hard to a single character or plot thread. He was referring to editing, but I think the same can be said with solo gaming, if world building is your jam.
I am starting a Stars Without Numbers game, maybe even today, that is also a sci-fi mega dungeon. And I have decided that if the character dies he dies. If a plot runs stale it dies. If beloved NPC is endangered kill it. Not because I have suddenly become a masochist, but because if that happens I start the next character from a new angle, and eventually I will get to know the secret at the end of the line, even if no character I ever play does. The journey can be for you, the player, rather than you the character, as long as you are not afraid to Kill your Darlings.
W.D.
P.S.
Keep a running total of your Experience points or advancements or what have you. Restarting with a newbie can be fun, but it can also get tedious. I suggest you restart a character at the same amount of ExP or Advancement as you had for the prior character, and use a tool (such as MM 11, pg. 4 ) to fill in the details of their back story, or maybe just let them be a prodigy who is Just That Good, out of the gate. That ,as in all things, is your call.
P.S.
Keep a running total of your Experience points or advancements or what have you. Restarting with a newbie can be fun, but it can also get tedious. I suggest you restart a character at the same amount of ExP or Advancement as you had for the prior character, and use a tool (such as MM 11, pg. 4 ) to fill in the details of their back story, or maybe just let them be a prodigy who is Just That Good, out of the gate. That ,as in all things, is your call.
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