This thread is dedicated to all kinds of solo games.Fallen comrades edition.Resources: https://rentry.org/srpggPrevious thread: >>92401602>Thread Question: What have you done when your comrades-in-arms have fallen?
Anyone played this?https://jameschip.itch.io/the-adventurerI couldn't see it in the troves so I'm probably gonna buy it but I thought it was worth asking for opinions first. A lot of these itch games are really insubstantial.
just some wordgenerators I had to pass up
>>92493185>the little heartskek
>>92493185>moan day>arch lick
>>92493811
>>92494324>mfw getting fucked in Lichdomlol, lmao even
Has anyone seen this KS game called Astroprisma? At first glance it looks dope, but looking into it I can't find anything out about the artist who apparently popped into existence one day in the last 2 years. Also can't find anything on the actual gameplay, or more than 5-7 pieces of art, and of the art that I can find, none of it really looks the same / consistent. Is this all AI art or am I being paranoid? Designer / artist is Chimera Crescent who doesn't seem to have any other projects, and this is their first KS, but it's doing over $200k
>>92494715>Is this all AI artyou can safely assume so. I've regret every penny I've sent toward independent creators one way or another
>>92492939It's okay-ish. I got it when it was still free, but don't have it anymore. It reminded me a little of English Eerie in some ways. But it wasn't as good.Better than a lot of things I've tried though. It's a playable game and kind of fun. It's just not that great.
>>92494792Eh, even though I don't like it much I might just stick with colostle then.I want a writing game but I'm basically just killing time until sundered isles comes out so I don't want to dip back into ironsworn.
>>92494715>KS gameThis is already a red flag, most Kickstarter games earn money purely on the basis of looking pretty and not actually being of any substance. And if the "artist" is really as elusive as you say, then it's almost certainly AI.
I decided to play Alone Against the Wendigo. Last time I did was years ago whe I got into the hobby. I think I now understand where my tendencies to be too hard on myself in solo comes from. That solo module is brutal. 2 bad rolls and I'm now an insane head in a box. My head is so annoying with the silent screaming that the Mi-Go just closed the lid on the box lolI played 11 paragraphs.That's the module I played and took inspiration from when I began to GM. My poor, poor players... No wonder I had to fudge things so much to keep them alive and sane.
>>92494971>Alone Against the Wendigol-lewd
>>92495031There is a lewd pic of a bigfoot holding a semi-clad woman in the book, but it's Call of Cthulhu so it doesn't stay lewd.I think I remember you can befriend the Sasquatches, but if you do somehting they don't like or fail an anthropology roll they beat you to death with a club? I might be remembering that wrong.
How good are you guys at separating PC and GM knowledge? I'm good at it and have played some games alternating the PCs, Enemies and GM points of view.If you can, did you struggle to get there? I didn't, so it's hard for me to give tips to the people who ask me how to do it. Did you need some rules or rigid structure to pull it off? How much GM experience did you have? Most of the people who asked me how to do it didn't have any.I kind of feel bad that I can't help them and that I sound like it's supposed to be easy.
>>92496273It's basically the same as separating player knowledge from PC knowledge. I don't understand why that's hard for some people.
>>92497599Some people are unable to not cheat/take advantage of a rule loophole if they get the chance in social games. Players can be weird. So can GMs.
>>92492535thinking of using Starforged solely for world building, but what system rules do you guys recommend just for gameplay? feels like the starforged system is too bogged down by its mechanics. looking at traveler or mothership
>>92498273Traveller is not the direction you want to be looking if you want to slough off mechanics. Something like mothership is definitely better for that sort of thing.Micro Chapbook RPG is another light system I think is pretty good. The Scifi book in particular is one of the better versions of the system. Just be aware the author does not understand how probability works and does things like put random tables for items on a 2d6 roll when it's clearly supposed to be a flat distribution and then you roll the 7 or 8 item all the time.
>>924982732400 and Tricube Tales both are also good.
>>92498273Space Aces is decent rules light system that has plenty of random tables of it's own. I haven't played the newest edition but I've understood that it got even more mechanically streamlined - needlessly IMO - but it got even more tables and randomization options.
>>92498912>needlessly IMOagreeing with you here.
>>924988322400 looks cool (I'm thinking of running a Frazetta inspired sword+planet game), I'll give that a shot!
>>92499342Let us know how it goes
I'm starting this Solo RPG thing and I need some pointers from the more experienced. So, for context:I initially considered using a complex game to simulate a solo adventure from the point of view of several different characters.Games I considered at that time were Adventurer Conqueror King (Those beautiful and accurate economic tables for business ventures make me salivate, man), or Advanced D&D with the Crusaders era Green Book.The srpgg doc informed me it's better to avoid complex systems so I'm reworking my plan to consider either the suggested Ironsworn or World of Dungeons (It's a simplified Dungeon World. Almost what Microlite20 is to Advanced D&D).The GME, I've looked into Mythras GME or the One Page Solo Engine.I think I like the OPSE more but I want to know your own opinion here: Should I just adapt the OPSE system to the setting I want to create (add a few extra tables, etc) or should I just use Mythic GME like everyone seems to recommend over at Reddit?
>>92501954Never really looked at OPSE but mythic is fantastic for "bigger" games because the lists work really well with larger casts of npcs and plot hooks.It really depends on how random you want things to be but it's very good for entering into an area with no real specifics about it and coming out with a bunch of plot hooks that might reappear in the next location.I do think it would be pretty complex for a first game with your idea though, becuase you might have to maintain a separate list for each character, especially if they go to separate places. As for complex games I like them solo but you have to keep in mind that it can take ages to do stuff and that can take you out of the story. I think the advice to play a purpose built solo game or something simpler until you get used to what solo is like makes sense. When I'm playing stuff like that I usually end up just writing out what's happened mechanically and leaving it at that because I've spent enough time doing all of the rolls and checks.Ironsworn seems like a bad fit for your idea but I think it could work multi-pov since it can be a co-op game, you'd just have to use the co-op rules with yourself.
>>92501954I have too little experience with other systems to help you otherwise, but this is really a case where you should just do wha you enjoy the most. I would never use an oracle with complex tables simply because I prefer deciphering random prompts and generally inject the wannabe writer in me into the game. But if you'd like the oracle to be more granular, go ahead. However I think there should be a balance between the crunchiness of the oracle and the crunchiness of the system, if you're using a separate system, especially so if the system isn't designed for solo. Otherwise you're gonna get tired. You're functionally using an additional mechanical framework for things that in a normal game you don't have to roll/work for
Would anyone know where I could find the newest version for the Plot Unfolding Machine (PUM)? I've been trying my luck at the Share Thread for some time but still nothing, would really like to see some of the changes as they really caught my interest
I give myself all powers and I can’t lose the powers and I kill everyone and I win
>>92498700>Traveller is not the direction you want to be looking if you want to slough off mechanicsClassic is very simple, Mongoose has much more elaborate mechanics.
all this is pretty interesting but overwhelming, curious what setups you guys use. seems like Obsidian is as close as you'll get to an all in one for this kind of thing.
>>92505131I find obsidian to be fantastic. its like i have my own wiki for my campaign world and characters. makes keeping track of everything so easy.
If you're soloing some OSR system and you get an actual dud item like a wand of detecting metals that's just useless to you without an actual GM with an unknown but determined world, do you just get something else?
>>92505131Foundry has a lot more useful features
>>92505205You could always make it the focus of a few adventures; local merchants guild learn you have it and hire you on to prospect some hills that they've got their eye on; the local mine hires you to give a once over on "spent veins" to see if they've truly tapped them out. Stuff like that.
>>92505131Obsidian is nice for taking notes and keeping it all organized.
>>92505830I use Zim desktop wiki, because I don't trust some online service not to disappear suddenly.
>>92506104There's an online Obsidian? Why use that over the downloadable one, considering the reasons you said.
>>92505131Notepad++ with folder workspace
Time for an ugly bastard to kickstart a scene
>>92505131Everyone else has already said it but ObsidianRPG books tend to be organised like absolute shit so if you're playing anything remotely complex you will save hours of your life by just copying all of the rules into an obsidian folder, even if it's just screenshots it still makes everything 10x easier.I also got Sumatra pdf reader instead of just using browser/the default adobe one and that massively improved my experience because it runs better and lets you have multiple books open in tabs.Iron Journal/Stargazer is good for ironsworn/starforged but even there I think I'd rather play on Obsidian these days because IJ/SG keeps the journal space off to the side of the screen which isn't great if you're writing loads.
Tomorrow is the day I stop procrastinating and start playing!
Reading up on solo traveler (I don't think the Cepheus solo books are going to fit my style) and I'm pretty fascinated by the time period where everything solo got called "solitaire"Like yeah let's market our product by naming it after the most boring card game.
>>92509390Do you not know what "solitaire" means?
>>92501954CRGE is great to teach you the basics. And I do mean the basics. How to ask oracle questions. When to ask them. How to create adventure momentum. What type of question to ask.It's better than Mythic for that purpose imho and you only need to rea dit once to get it. It's like 30 pages and will teach you so much.Lite games require some GM experience, and even some game design experience. At least if you want to get the best out of them. WoD is great, but like maze&Minotaurs was made as a 'joke'. A playable and better than a lot of other lite games joke, but still a joke. I use it. But you need to decode it to use it. Like using your own level/hireling stats as a gage on own to come up with monsters/enemy stats. How to use the levels/euipment prices to come up with how much treasure you can find. You alo need to determine a lot on your own, like when does a monster use a special power. On a Miss, on a partial? On both? Depends on the monster level and type. How do you fight multpiple enemies? By rolling the numbe rof enemy in dice damage and taking the highest result? The rules are few and can be used for a lot of situations like that.It's more of a toolkit than a game. It's great. I love it.
>>92510003>CRGE is great to teach you the basicsI've tried to read it several times and just find it confusing.
>>92505205why is that a dud for solo? make up a random table for metal presence and roll for what's there. You could even research some geology to make realistic combinations (like do you ever find lead near gold? what kind of rock is that in? which is more plentiful?)
>>92509390before it was the most boring card game on Windows it was called Klondike, and Solitaire was the most boring game you can play with marbles on a special wooden board.Every day's a school day :-)
>continue Alone Against the Wendigo with one of the students, Sylvia, as the new main PC>don't even try to help my old PC>Sylvia's goal is to save everyone and get back to civilization>go back to canoe>it's been trashed>we encounter an evil looking pygmy>he shall be named Little Shit Canoe Trasher from now on>we hide>Norman sneezes. Fuck you Norman!>the pygmy flees and makes alerting noises>we gtfo>full on pygmy attack>Bernard is hit by a paralysing dart and we must leave him>we run>they gain on us with their short evil legs and trap us with bolas to the legsI'm still alive so far. And they have a temporary camp so them being this close to the Mi-Go isn't as scenario breaking as I thought initially.My first PC had all good rolls and died when she got 2 bad one sin a row.My new one is all bad roll after the other and everyone is still alive.
Uh...
>>92512275The time, it seems, has come.
>>92512275I wonder if that fetish/sex act exist. Like 2 dicks hole to hole when they cum.I've been on the internet too long.
>>92512330If you can dream it up, we can make it happen.Call us at Rekall. We offer discounts.
>>92512386We can forget it for you wholesale
>>92510003is CRGE not in the trove or am i blind/is it under some weird name
>>92512945It's a free book, all of Zak's stuff is
>>92512970ah cool thanks, everything else i've found related to this shit always ends in a pricetag so that's refreshing
>>92512985np, I've spent hours looking for stuff before only to realise that its pay what you want and thus not in the piracy thread lol
>>92513004all this is pretty overwhelming to start with especially if you're like me and most of your experience with RPGs is CRPGs instead of tabletop, lots to relearn
>>92512275Squirrel heist game?
>>92501954Honestly I'm a complete grug and I'm getting on swimmingly using ACKS.Don't be intimidated, go at your own pace.
Reading through Ironsworn: Delve is pretty interesting as someone who started with starforged.I think SF is a bit too streamlined but I can see why they went that way, the sheets delve wants you to keep for each location is quite a lot of bookeeping for a game that otherwise tries to be on the lower end of the crunch scale.
>>92513025As a fellow vidya enjoyer I got over it by inting a few characters and complaining in these threads.
>>92517722>intingWhat?
>>92517751Its short for "intentionally feeding" meaning dying to an enemy on purpose.It can also be used to refer to "running it down" which is being so fixated on a goal you put yourself in danger and are usually killed for it.I Made a couple of valiant paladins and put them through dungeon crawls that were suicide missions because of how incredibly strict my interpretations of oracle results were. Every death I became more familiar with mechanics. I slowly added more systems to create a more complete game.
every tutorial video on obsidian is by some faggot trying to sell his vault on patreon or something, i hate this
I can't believe how it took me this long to start slapping Goblin's Henchman's hex flowers to Tricube Tales and play each hex as a scene, it's really smooth.
>>92505131I want to like Obsidian but I'm obsessed with FOSS, so I use Zettlr.
>>92519747You don't really need a tutorial, just install the dice plugin and look up how to make tables and off you go.
>>92521058Which hex flowers do you use?
>>92521235In the Heart of the Eternal Forest, In the Heart of the Earth, In the Heart of the Unknown and In the Heart of the Delve and Dangerous. Some soothing near zero crunch wilderness crawling.
What's the best option for handling larger casts of characters?Like say I want to set a game in a city with a bunch of npcs who are relevant to quests
>>92512275>you swap sexes with your waifu
>>92522001>tomboy muscle gf
>>92521913Keep a list of them with their main location, goals/desires, relationships with the PCs and other relevant NPCs and how far along they are in reaching their goals if it's something specific.If using Mythic make sure you have all these NPCs on your main character list. When you get a random event with a NPC focus, you roll on the list to determine who it is about and the 2 word prompt+focus gives you ideas about the type of event.You could also give each NPC a character type. Like patron, resource giver, information keeper, whatever. People are more than one thing, but it's better to keep it simple if you have many NPCs to juggle with. A librarian would be an information keeper. The King a patron. Sir Paladinus Goodguius a resource giver (he can heal you, be your comrade-in-arm on some quests, or your riding and mounted combat instructor).Oh, and neutral/bad guys. Like competitors, henchmen, rogue (not actual rogues) elements and antagonists.
Dungeon? More like Done-geon.Wait, what do you mean it's not over and that I have to get my PCs back out and that they have to carry the loot and deal with how heavy and cumbersome it all is?
>>92524150Take more loot you fools! What can go wrong?
>>92524353
>>92524150Make a sled with the bones and entrails of your enemies and use it to drag the pile of loot outta there
>>92524376Do any of my PCs have a crafting skill/background?
At the risk of TTRPG sacrilege what's my best option for a grindy/progression based game?I basically want to do a videogame style progression where my character keeps getting new abilities but in a sandbox systemA lot of D&D stuff doesn't really fit this because of how xp/levelling works there and because the weapon progression is often just immediately going from a solid starter weapon to a best available magic sword at some point
>>92524870use a superhero system where you can buy more/better powers as you progress. Like Truth & Justice for instance.
>>92502683Your probably b8ing, but I've never understood this. Used to know a guy who would use cheats in video games to make himself immortal, give himself all the weapons/powers, and unlimited ammo then run around and kill all the enemies. I never got it, it just seems so boring to me, where's the challenge?
>>92525015Same. But some players can't stop themselves from cheating or abusing rules if they have the chance to do so. It makes GMing for them a lot harder. Maybe it's autism? Or would someone autistic not be able to cheat at all?
>>92525015There are things to enjoy about games other than challenge. Of course when a game is designed around the challenge being a key part of the fun and you take it away, what's left is likely to wear thin quickly.And while that anon's method does sound shit, it doesn't seem that unreasonable to play a solo game where you just change any result that gets your dude killed into knocked out and kidnapped or something. Plenty of "proper stories" do contrived shit like that all the time.
>>92524870unironically PF2e because it commits exactly this TTRPG sacrilege. the encounter building math actually works too so you can use that to treadmill the fuck out of yourself to your heart's content. you're expected to get each upgrade in a set sequence and everything, and if you DON'T get those upgrades you are behind on your math and fucking get crit and dieit's a pain in the dick to play solo without a VTT though. there are very good foundry modules for it, but that involves paying money. you can without it but be prepared for a sluggish encounter speed that makes 5e look like a sonic speedrunit's a system that was basically made to be a video game, but they keep making pf1 video games instead
>>92521234>you don't really need a tutorial to learn how to use a program and markdown and all these addons that make managing an entire RPG by yourself easieryou sound like one of these guys where you make an unhelpful "tutorial" that's just showing off the vault you 're shilling
>>92526119you don't need to use any of that shit lol, just make folders and put the relevant info in them
>>92526119Im really curious about what exactly your trying to do with obsidian. What are you specifically wondering about?
>>92526119I mean, you don'tI'm retarded and have never coded shit in my life and I picked obsidian up in no time. it's extremely easy and you barely need any knowledge of how markdown works. pretty much all I use is tables and headingsquit using video tutorials and just look up text instructions. video tutorials are a fucking blight for anything that doesn't involve actual motor technique. nothing involving a computer besides maybe assembling hardware requires visual learning
>>92526322NTA, give me the rundown on Obsidian. Is it Obsidian Portal? I knew Obsidian Portal from way long ago when it was probably something different (an archive of actual plays)
>>92526459The obsidian we're talking about is a generic notetaking program not obsidian the rpg website
>>92527108Oh something like Evernote/Joplin/TiddlyWiki?That would work really well for a solo game, yeah
>>92526459Obsidian is a program for taking notes, linking them, and arranging them like your own personal wiki page. It's a VERY good tool with tons of plugins. You can install it in such a way that it's completely private too.Honestly, it can become very addictive.
>>92528104I used Joplin and then VimWiki for several years as a personal wiki and they were both great. I never used them for RPGs though... The idea is making me want to pick up VimWiki again...
>>92524870this is kind of related to your question but has anyone ever used one of these systems alongside a video game that lacks in the roleplaying department? i've been running a single player World of Warcraft server for a bit now and had thought about trying to utilize some of these systems to try and add some genuine roleplaying to the game.
>>92519747https://youtu.be/W6y8TVzjmAY>>92529058I stay away from that stuff because I always spend hours on the wiki instead of ever playing games lol
>>92529798Problem with that is unless the game is very hackable your roleplay shit can't ever actually feed back into the game.
>browse the ironsworn reddit>see an interesting playthrough>they're actually just using using IS for some world generation and travel with everything else from other gamesI swear this happens with every solo game lol, everything interesting turns out to be some unholy hodge podge of about 5 games just to get a game that fits the players desires.
>>92536807It was the same at the beginning of the hobby (ttrpg hobby, not solo hobby). Most GMs do that too unless they are single game GMs (5E has a lot of those) or new to GMing.Every single GM I ever knew irl did this. Not a single exception.
I've been busy so I've only played Alone Against the Wendigo a few minutes at a time.But now I have 1 character left, the guide, and he's alone in the wild with no vehicle, weapon or equipment. What could go wrong?*fails Woodcraft roll*Anyway, the module isn't well-designed. It does feel more like a solo game than a gamebook as it has some rolls that are very oracle-like. Odd/even rolls and d6 multiple choice results (1-2: Go to paragraph X, for example) Surprising since the Luck and Idea stats should cover a lot of what these rolls do. It isn't as good a module as in my memory, but not that bad either. It doesn't lack atmosphere, but too much happens too fast for it to make any impression on the reader.When I finally get some time to play, I'm going to turn it into a proper solo game using the setting and some of the NPCs and monsters. I'm going to lean on the wilderness survival and travel aspect more. And the relationships/conflicts. It feels like that part would be more important in an isolated setting like that. The module only scratches the surface.I could probably use a Morale-like method to keep the mood of the characters relationships. Doing something that goes against the safety/goal of another character would lower the Morale between them and some triggers, to be determined, would make me roll Morale at some points of the adventure for delicious drama.
Making my own solo ttjrpg so only been playing it trying to fine tune and come up with new ideas still. Having fun taking bits and pieces from different jrpgs. Right now for going into a field or zone for combat or questing is a special 3 key word system similar to that of the .hack games. It’s fun and allows for grinding and revisiting same areas with different outcomes.
In Ironsworn/Starforged isn't paying the price with momentum a bit too good of an option?Like it's a really fluid resource that doesn't hit significant negatives unless you're death spiraling and yet the alternatives are health and spirit which take their own moves to be regained which can cost other resources and be unavailable until you reach a safe spot in the narrative
>>92537874>What could go wrong?He discovers there's no such thing as a wendussy
>>92492535Anyone know of a game where the primary game mechanic is based around prioritizing different activities?My GM for a game I play started to use this system for downtime centered around what you decide you want to prioritize that I thought was really engaging. Basicly, the highest priority thing is set at the lowest target number, in this case on a d20, it being 5. then you can chose a second goal, but this TN will be 10, then you can choose another but the target number will be 15, etc in increments of 5 until you want to stop. If you fail a check by 5 or more you may get a negative penalty.I think the idea of steadily increasing target numbers that require you to efficiently prioritize things is a really good starting point ESPECIALLY for solo play since you dont have other people to give you a sense of what is reasonable within a certain situation and you have to kind of self impose limits.
>>92540972Isn't this just clocks?Like you can put clocks in anything.The usual way is you set up a threat/problem and give it a dice and then you check it during each phase/day and whenever it rolls a 1 you decrease the dice by 1 (i.e. d12 to d10) when you roll 1 on a d2 the countdown has finished and the event happens.
>>92541185not really. clocks usually are a coutdown to something external happening. while increasing TN is increasing the likelyhood of failure. Its another way to incentivise prioritizating sure, but its pretty different in practice.
>>92540972Maybe check out Golden Heroes or it's free retroclone Codename Spandex and it's Downtime rules.
>>92540333I guess it's up to you to not make it situational and just take the hits to health or spirit like a champ if they make most sense.
>>92525015Some people don’t want challenge. Some men just want to watch the world burn
>>92538669How does that work? You go into a field and it’s like “lush / hazard / open”?>>92540333Taking penalties to health and spirit allows a chance to negate the effect. Momentum and supply are just straight up penalties.
Is there a fantasy version of the traveller character creator where you can roll up pretty much every detail of your character from scratch?
>>92540714He became a wendigo so now he knows for sure.Hoof feet, heart of ice, eats humans, go on sexy flights over the forest with his god. Things are good for old Charlie now.
>>92549751Yes.Here's an online one:https://www.pbegames.com/lifepath/Mekton 2 has one. Some Palladium games have their own lifepath-like tables. Some Star Trek rpg have them, not sure which game system it was. The one from the 90s. I had a TNG book for career paths. There's fan made ones for some settings/genre too. Like this one:https://groov-games.ihttps://www.pbegames.com/lifepath/tch.io/lifepath-generator
>>92549751Burning wheelAlso cepheus (traveller remake) has a fantasy book
>>92492535i haven't tried this in a long time, what are some good setting-agnostic solo rpg systems?
>>92540714>>92549908For my proper solo game, his sister will try to find him. She just lost her mother (he was trying to get money for an operation) and feels alone and maybe a little suicidal. She'll ask a close friend to go with her, and someone her brother respected (a friendly rival guide, maybe?). And an anthropologist so they can figure out where the expedition would have gone. But the university won't have anything to do with a rescue mission. An archeology student who believes in fate and has a theory about the migration of the Olmec to upper North America will overhear a phone conversation and get in contact with the sister, pretending to be an anthropologist. He's goal oriented, superstitious and really, really condescending. And a liar, of course.The guides are too stupid to even know how to spell anthropologist, let alone know what they do lol It's a sign that he overheard that phone call. He will become famous when he finds an Olmec pyramid hidden in the forest. He's sure of it! To make the best use of the Trust stat (my version of Morale for this adventure) I'll play all the PCs as NPCs and be the GM.I'm also using Ironsworn's Journey/Supply mechanics mixed with hexcrawl tools.I have already put some things on my blank map, like the MI-Go, the pygmy temporary camp, Ithaqua, Charlie, the dead natives he killed, the trashed canoe, etc.Since I don't want to just randomly create a story, I'll play as the 'world' and bad guys, not rolling randomly but choosing their actions. I'll make the PCs act randomly with dice rolls.
>>92550067Tricube Tales with solo rules is a good very light system. If you're going for crunch, you might as well just play some generic system with supplement like Mythic or One Page Solo Engine.
>>92549751Central Casting by JaquaysIt can turn out nonsense but despite being ancient its still the best option.It's kinda like how one of the best books on city events is still the Midkemia one which published the first edition in the 70's
Anybody have good resources for solo playing against an NPC with hidden plans? Usually I'm fine with separating GM and player knowledge, but in my game, a mastermind kind of enemy has come up. I think the appeal is trying to outsmart the mastermind's plans, which is markedly more difficult to do when you already know what their plans are. I might just make my own system if nothing exists already.
>>92556213simplest way I've found to play against an imaginary entity that's way smarter than me is just roll a d6 when I make headway against them, on a 1 they had a contingency on a 2 it was actually a trap, otherwise I made headway. sometimes those odds would go up, usually to 1-2 and 3-4 when the stakes were really high
>>92556213You could make a list of several possible actions/goals for the NPC for each step of their plan. When the PC tries to find out things about the plans, you could use a 'stat' or counter for how much he's obvious about it. The more obvious in his actions or if he fails his rolls, the more the NPC will know what the PC is up to. I would also ask the oracle every scene/X unit of time if the NPC finds out what the PC is doing/investigating. If he does and the PC didn't fail his rolls and wasn't obvious, than there is a reason for it. Maybe a spy, some magic/psychic/tech reason, whatever. Or just plain brain power deduction.I would also use a random clock, or just oracle questions each X number of scene/X time for how fast the NPC goes about his plans.When I play smart people, I find that using oracle questions at certain times works better than more concrete rules because I can take the context and what already happened more into account. It's just a lot smoother for me, but it's not really helpful as a tip for others.One thing that might work for you is using 9 Steps and a Bloody Heart, but hacking it (very very fast and easy to do) for your purpose.Ace of hearts can be actions against your PC by the Mastermind. You could make more categories by using the rest of the cards in the deck instead of only 3 types. have more than 3 random event/Ace of heart. Make a second type of random event using another card for twists (things weren't as they seemed) and maybe one for red herrings (one of the things you are investigating turns out to not be related to the main plot).
>>92552930I've just spent approximately 4 hours doing this and it is fun, brilliant and definitely the closest thing to fantasy Traveler.However I have ended the process with a noble's autistic failson who has about 5 different personality traits that suggest he's not remotely adventurous lol.Even his military service was accidental and he got shifted away from the frontlines and off into a non-combat role.There's obvious potential here for an NPC but I think it'd probably just be annoying to actually play such an incurious and dependent character unless you just want to subject them to trauma.There's a link to it on the front page of google so its easy to find.
Any good WW2 options?
>>92556601>>92559797Thanks for the advice. After thinking about it, one of the issues I have is that the mastermind should be advancing their own plans, not just reacting to my actions. I'm not sure how to bridge this dissonance.
>>92560208If you like skirmish games, Five Men in Normandy for infantry squad action. It is also free. Five Men at Kursk for more complexity, options, detail and larger scale.
>>92560230How much GM knowledge do you want in your game? If you can have some, just make a plan and roll on an oracle with odds influenced by the PCs and other NPCs actions to determine if they advance the plan, are blocked for now, change the type of action to achieve their goal, lose some advantage, etc.A 3 to 5 step plan is the best imho.Example:Old sorcerer want to get a new younger body through possession.1. Kidnap the person they have chosen as their new body2. Get rid of the people in the person's life that could figure out he's been body switched3. Perform the ritual and return to the person's life as the sole survivor of the massacre of his friend/family/community1 can become another target if one of the PCs would make a better body for him2 can still happen if the kidnapping doesn't work or the sorcerer might decide to move instead of going back to the chosen body's life if his plans are known by the PCsMy example sucks and is very generic. You could make it a lot more detailed if you wanted with 12-20 steps, but know that if your PCs shake things up a lot of the steps might have to be changed.If you want minimum GM knowledge, I would use clocks/springs/counters/whatever.You usually have a choice between randomness and suspense with these tools. If you want suspense, then go with a counter. Each miss/fail/obvious actions adds 1 or more to it. At X something happens and you start a new counter at 0. At X counters the game is over.For randomness you might use a dice instead of a specific number to add to the counter. You might even try to roll over the current counter number to see if the event happens and you have to start a new counter. If you roll under, it happens. You could make it a specific time you have to roll. Maybe each 'session'?
>soloing Stonehell using my OSR shitbrew>party has a necromancer who cast Invisibility to Undead and is checking through a hall of tombs while the rest of us (2) wait a short distance away. Gonna take her 30 minutes>While we're waiting, get the special random encounter for this section of the dungeon, a spectral boat with a crew of undead that want to drag the living onto the boat before it disappears into the mists, taking everything on board with it into Wherever the Labyrinth Lord Pleases (tm)>the way distance and movement worked out, it catches up with the fleeing party members when there's one round of combat left before it fades out>also right where the necromancer was investigating a crypt with another special undead creature, a horrible conglomerate of bones. She left the door open for her investigations and the thing is absolutely aware of us running past and joins the fraynow this is comedy
>>92561708fortunately/unfortunately the dice were just utterly on my side and nothing came of this besides some resource lossno funny kidnappings or anything"bummer"
>>925600742nd go and the character is fine for solo play but pretty boring. Basically just got an orphan who got taken in by a richer patron but then had them die suspiciously and ran away from home. The character finds some proof they've been named heir but probably can't actually use it.That's a perfectly solid start for a gruff wanderer type who eventually learns to embrace a community but it's also something that could've been done in 3 rolls in other books lol.
I'm doing a solo shameless self-insert game set in a modern setting with mild science fiction and fantasy elements (With the idea that as my character becomes more experienced and powerful, the sci-fi and fantasy stuff will become more and more prevalent.)Right now, my character is investigating the disappearance of a missing woman in my hometown. And at the moment it's pretty realistic. I'm basically handling the situation how I would in real life. Directly going to people and asking questions, showing that I'm not a D-bag, and when a combat encounter comes up de-escalate the situation as best I can.It makes me wonder how far I can get with just being a friendly, chummy dude.
by solo rpg, does it mean you being a sole player (1:1 session with a gm) or you being both gm and player?
>>92564686In this thread, that's referring to being both the player and your own GM. However, most solo games can be played 1 on 1, and we've welcomed discussion of such games before.
Where is the drowanon?
Not sure if choose your own adventure books count but this uses dice, character sheets and is compatible with the Middle Earth Role Play System (MERPS)Published in 1985 featuring a pull out hexmap. The game runs on a 2d6 resolution mechanic with 7's and 8's usually needed for success although the text or enemy being fought will dedicate the target number. You can also flip to a random page and look at the little dice at the bottom or close your eyes and touch a number on a chart to simulate rolling 2d6 if you don't have any dice. The adventure is a mission across Hobbiton to warn the Shires of the Black Riders. There's a brief meeting with Aragon in the introduction before you're sent to his room in the Prancing Pony to select your weapon and don your chainmail. Character Stats Strength 0Agility +1Intelligence 0Endurance (HP) 36SkillsMelee Offensive Bonus +2 Missile Offensive Bonus +1Defensive Bonus +3 Running +1 (away)General skill +2 (avoiding being lost, foraging, tracking, swimming, etc) Trickery 0 (stealth, pick pockets, and locks) Perception +1Magic +1Equipment; silver dagger (-1 damage) , sword (+1 damage) chainmail (+2 Defensive Bonus and -2 Trickery) Backpack, 5 meals (lembas bread. I've eaten 2) 2 silver pieces remaining (spent 1 to cross the river)
>>92565195I've played Rescue in Mirkwood, it was fun.
>>92567385Do you remember how much XP you get at the end? I want to increase my Trickey so I have no skills below +1 or my Offensive Bonus to +3 depending in how hard fighting is. So far I've avoided combat.
ACKS any good for solo? I have been reading some raving reviews about the system but haven't seen much talk around here. Worth to buy now or wait for 2e?
>>92567577I didn't really pay attention to it enough to remember, I played it as an one-shot.
>>92567639I'm about to pick up my Solo ACKS game right now using Obsidian and Foundry VTT.It's going really well, I'd heartily recommend ACKS for a solo game with my one tip being 'Play a party, not a single character'
Has anyone tried the Ker Nathalas solo RPG? I am trying it out but after going through character creation I feel like I am too stupid to play the game properly there are so many random rules all over the place to keep track of. Are all solo RPGs like this?
>>92567950I've not tried that specific one but the two other games I tried from the same publisher felt severely under playtested/under editedLike the alchemy mechanics in one of the games I did try needed so many uses/attempts to get anywhere that it would straight up never be useful unless you played for years.
>>92567967Apparently the game was funded through kick starter and had no editor and English might not the be the author's first language. I'll make notes of my attempt to play it and report back with how it goes. Some systems seem kind of clever, while others were confusing.>d6 + d8 for max hit points with d6 initial damage means there is a chance for your character to die during character creation
>>92564748It's been a busy week. Last episode we ventured into a cursed forest accompanied by a very sexy secretary bird themed pseudodragon to look for a necromancer. We saved a ninja who's serving a general we met earlier, and she told us there's something happening here. She left to report to her master and we ended up playing hide and seek with a way too powerful not!Chinese ice witch, whoturns out had found a secret to controlling the undead, slew the necromancer we were looking for, and is raising a very cool zombie army to march WestwardOur mission according to Sikret is to resurrect this necromancer and help him gain back control of his underlings. A lesser evil sort of deal
>>92567639>>92567777Or play a character that starts with 3-5 hirelings. I know the rules give you a hireling limit but the rules also assumes 3-7 people at the table can all have their own henchmen so maybe nix that rule.Been considering soloing acks myself since if do convince my group to play it it will be several years from now.
I can't even decide on a setting to run my game in.
>>92568457I always end up doing fairly generic fantasy just because there's more table generators available to switch between
>>92568457Too many options or too few?
>>92568457Coolest setting you would like to live in + your fetishes, anonalways works
>>92568457Begin as a dimensional traveler/newly created being or amnesiac and discover it as you play.I played a game as a Frankenstein Monster-type who went around taking body parts to replace his rotting/damaged ones. Good times. The world turned out to be a post-apocalyptic setting with gross scary mutants and enclaves of 'normal' humans in castle-like structures.My PC died killed by mutants, but he was able to breach the castle and let them in before dying so he took out his mad creator that way.
>>92568457go to your old toys/models and look for a transport. there's your starting home base. you need resources, upgrades, and friends.
>>925684571.Make a list and roll on it.2. Use a setting you know well. You can always modify the tone and type of adventure or explore a part of the setting that is new to you. It could even be a part of the setting with a different environment and culture3. Look for a setting online that has a few pages of explanations, a map and maybe a few random tables. Ironsworn has a lot of those for free out there for people who don't want to play in the Ironlands. They can be used with any rpg4. Play in a world with portals to other realms. The worlds are yours to explore. Some quests might require that you go to other realms5. Play a sci-fi game and use planets as different settings. Cowboy planet. Samurai planet. Dragon and castles planet (maybe the dragons are dinosaurs with cybernetics used as weapons of mass destruction, or magic is real because some spatial anomaly to another dimension makes the region unstable and the laws of physics of that other universe can apply in our own on a limited scale)
>>92567777>>92568444Any indications for playing Solo ACKS without henchmen?Would using the Heroic rules be enough?
Scarlet Heroes... how does urban adventure work? Some of it doesn't make any sense to me. Like a fire. How the hell do the scenes in the book relate to a fire if your roll/chose that as the focus of the adventure?
What combat systems do you think work well with journaling?I think combat's the worst part of ironsworn by some distance but I find that more traditional combat really gets in the way of the writing.If I have to do like 20 rolls per combat I just end up writing them and their effects down verbatim
>>92570743I'm not into journaling, but I could see Bivius working really well that way. The combat takes between 1 to 3 rounds depending and you create 2 options on what happens in each round before rolling. The base is 50/50 for the roll in that game, but you could make it a % roll of any value without having to change anything else. It would work just the same.
>>92570743>>92570798It's basically a simple form of CYOA. Make up 2 options taking into account the advantages, tactics, weapons, personality, etc. of the fighters. Roll to see which one happens.If you want more dice rolling, use another rpg game rules and/or an oracle to determine what to put in the 2 options. Like should I put in the successful option that my PC is fast enough that he closes the gap between him and his enemy before he's shot at? You can look at the stats of him and his foe and decide, you could use an oracle roll to determine it or even make a simple stat roll or one versus his foe.
>>92570743I keep coming back to witch & knave which isn't even good but it's the only real attempt I've found where someone took ironsworn/pbta "move" concepts and put them into a more normal fantasy (osr compatible) engine.I should really look at dungeon world at some point since that seems to be obvious place to go for fantasy but with "moves". Might actually go read it now lol.
>>92570743I use a personal OSR hack and basically what I do is play it out mechanically since it's fast and record the highlights and only the highlights. So I ignore (in journaling) misses or hits that don't do a lot of damage and focus on the kinetic and cool stuff. If all that happened on a turn was a bunch of misses I pretend it didn't happen, unless it happens more than once. If it's just rote "the random encounter was 3 giant rats" and we kill them in an opening round I'll either skip over their existence entirely or do some shit like "Three pairs of beady red eyes glow in the darkness, a precursor to the three rats that leap out of the shadows with a screech. In a flash of steel they're cut down and we move on."Stopping to journal in the middle of a fight is something I reserve only for really tense situations, where I'll record what got to the critical point and then resolve it, but that's just a personal thing.
>>92570447Honestly I'd say playing ACKS as purely solo is like playing Ironsworn without vows.ACKS has 'Eventually you're going to be a big fat dicked king sitting on a bit throne and letting it hang loose and full of juice while your servants do the dungeontrawling for you' as part of its central pitch
>>92571086Yeah, so? You can just play new solo games as the king's servants. Then get pissed off and murder your old character and become the new king.
>>92571008I've played DW, once you get how it wants you to do things, it's much better than /tg/ ever gives it credit for. By "how" I mean like for example, difficulty is adjusted by splitting tasks up or merging them together, which changes the number of rolls you need. More rolls = more chance for something to go wrong. It does start to break down a bit at high levels, though.
>>92571086More like it becomes Total War 3 Kingdoms but otherwise yea
What is the best crunchy game in terms of being well organized, elegant rules etc ? Doesn't matter the genre or style.
>>92569170This.
>>92571236That interests me. Could you explain further in which sense it turns into 3K?
>>92568457make your own if you have even a modicum of imagination
>>92571386I think runequest derivative stuff does it well because the base principles are so easy to understand and yet allow loads of depth
>>92571386Burning Wheel is very crunchy and well designed.
Are all these "WHAT IS A SYSTEM?" questions made by the boomper?
WHAT IS A SYSTEM?
>>92572715A miserable pile of rules.
>>92571877But what are sexy catgirl knights like IN YOUR SETTING, anon?
Damn this Obsidian is really very good, my sessions got way comfier now.
>>92505131>Obsidian>not free as in freedomAwww. No, thanks.
>>92572899n-no, not the catgirls... oracle-sama... yamete...
>>92574040if you are interested in something Evernote-like but FLOSS there's Joplin which is great
This is my next character. A thief named Rahim.
>>92571411Giant mass battles with you and your henchmen acting as powerful hero units with the enemy doing the same. The game is designed so you don't have to do any conversion. Just take your character and plonk them on a battle field when they are high enough level (and once you've hired/trained an army big enough). It's a bit complex but there's also rules for simplifying all of it to a level you are comfortable with.Anything else you'd like me to elaborate on?
>>92572899They are actually sexy wolf girls.I am very original.
>>92540333You can Endure Harm/Stress to negate the penalties. But also momentum is far more valuable.There's really no difference between 5 health and 1 health, or stress. It only starts to matter when you hit 0. The difference between 5 momentum and just 4 momentum can be what makes or breaks a critical roll.>>92570485You have to abstract it a little, but you also have to think about what your ultimate goal is. For example, for a fire your first few scenes might involve people trying to stop you from getting there, and then skill checks to reach/save the people in the fire. You'll also probably making rolls to find out who started it and get to them. It's not really going to work if you start directly in front of the fire, there are no enemies around, the fire was started by a knocked over candle, and the NPC you want to save is on the ground floor.
>>92575189Is this Scarlet Heroes? If so, don't forget you can set one of Rahim's stats to 16 (+2). What's his first adventure gonna be?
>>92575612I see that's pretty nice. Thanks
>>92575189I can tell by his forearm length that he is not over 5'0.
playing Traveller, On a mission for the Sword Worlds Confederacy to check out what is likely a rogue AI that officially, the Sword Worlds shouldn't know exists, so a spy needs us to ferry him and his spook spec ops team discreetly to the target.as a free trader we make an unsuspecting transport. Stopping off in Tizon, first day of layover and one of my crew starts an argument with a street preacher going on about the end of the world, then a week later in game i get a random event for an "Alien or offworlder" with these rolls as the result when fleshing out. is this street preacher gonna rape someone?
Anyone know of any guard detail procedures?I know of one set of rules for a caravan escort but they're pretty crappy(might repost this if we're past the bump period and the thread dies)
>>92571386GURPS? BRP? I'm sure someone will disagree. BRP is simple, but can get very, very detailed. Weapons have armor ratings and hit points for example. So breaking a weapon on a parry is this whole mini-game instead of just a fumble roll like in many other games.But BRP lacks GM procedures. So if you,re looking for a game with those, I would probably look at Scarlet Heroes or B/X. I prefer OD&D but it's not well organized. You have to go back to the Chainmail rules to get clarifications on some stuff in the 3 Little Brown Books.
>>92576573I see. I was just struggling with the Clue scenes, What are clues when the goal is to save a character from the fire? But starting the game before the fire, or it being a front to kidnap someone, might work better.Or I'm just shit at coming up with stuff. I feel like it could be possible to make Clue scenes about the path to take to escape, Conflict about keeping everyone in-line/focused and united in our escape, Action scenes about part of the roof falling or a caving floor, etc.Now that I'm not playing, I have ideas. Typical.
>>92571454>>92580393Basic Roleplaying is easy, has lots of games based on it (Runequest was the original and BRP is the generic form of it) and is always new player friendly, so the organization is good.It's still crunchy as hell even if it's easy.There's a retroclone called GORE. There's a lot of retroclones, but GORE is the best one.As for official games, the best ones are Call of Cthulhu (pre-7th edition imho), Runequest, Stormbringer. BRP itself has supplements for Sci-fi, Supers and Fantasy.BRP has a big ass book with all the bells and whistles, but the old core game form 1980 is 20 pages. Yes, 20 pages can be crunchy. There hasn't been much differences between editions. Except for the 7th edition Call of Cthulhu that made several big changes. Not sure about the latest BRP generic game. I think it still uses the old rules but I could be wrong.
>>92580852
>>92580867
>>92580874My god, it's full of nipples!
>>92580874Now Hotpants can start feeling jealous
>>92581091Always has been
>>92581399every breast connoisseur worth his salt knows aa is the kino breast size
>>92581469>aa is the kino breast sizeit's not a coincidence I designed Hotpants that way but don't tell her
>>92581399That still cracks me up. That'll be 100 gold, flattie lol
>>92581469/a/non please.
>>92581399So, is the pseudo dragon part of the harem yet?
>>92581930she's one of those career-driven types
