Starting Solo: Finding Your Style

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If you’ve spent any time on the Solo Roleplaying message boards, you’ve seen, or perhaps even posted, a question like this: How do you start solo roleplaying? The specific question might vary, but the impetus behind most of them is, “How does one go about playing what is typically considered a social, multi-player game by themselves?”

Foolishly, I used to try to answer this question.  I say foolishly, because there are so many different aspects to the hobby and ways to play that it’s impossible to give an adequate answer in a single post.  It’s like asking how do I know the Bible is true?  There is no single simple answer. I had to read or listen to many different discussions covering a multitude of topics – history, archaeology, science, literary criticism, medicine, psychology, and so on – before I arrived at a comfortable, confident solution. And even now, I’m always learning more.

The same is true for Solo Roleplaying.  There is no single simple answer.  Each game has its own style.  Each player has their own method and uses different systems and tools. And the more you play, the more you learn.  So, I gave up long ago trying to answer such general questions.

What I can do, however, is try and break the question down, and help players, both new and old, focus on what they are looking for in the hobby and help them find tools to facilitate their game. That is what I hope to accomplish with this and following “Starting Solo” articles.  I am going to start by focusing on game style.  Not all games are the same, of course, and what aspects of tabletop roleplaying appeal to a player will help them determine what experience they are hoping to find and what style of game will best recreate that.

MAP GAMES

This first type of game I would consider rather niche. Being that solo roleplaying is niche in general, that might make mapping games the nichest of the niche.

When you are with your roleplaying group, if you are the one who is always keeping the map up to date, or exploration of the world your characters inhabit is as exciting as the story itself, then map-making games might be something that you would find rather interesting.

The Quiet Year - Source: Wyjdzie W Graniu

This style of gaming is rather self-explanatory.  The main point of games such as The Quiet Year and Cartograph is to draw a map by reading and responding to a series of random prompts. While some map games may contain light RPG mechanics, for the most part, there is no storyline or ultimate goal to be reached.  That being said, rich stories do often arise as you develop the history the land, the people who live in it, and they interact with the various locations, buildings, and events drawn on the map. Another way to look at it is “gamified worldbuilding.”  (Watch my daughter and me play the map-making game This Virgin Land Of Ours.

Delve - Source: BlackwellWriter Games

Of course, not all maps are of the overworld.  There are dungeons that need to be mapped, as well.  One such game is Delve. Instead of drawing what can be found on the land’s surface, the game asks you to draw what is under the ground.  Delve adds an extra layer of creativity in that you not only draw the map, but detail and decorate the rooms and caverns, as well.  (Watch me play a session of Delve.)

 

  

 

JOURNALING GAMES

 

Another big reason to play a tabletop RPG is the story. There aren’t many other games where the player participates is developing an expansive story involving the characters they play and their interaction with the world around them.  Sometimes, however, the story being told by the Game Master may not line up perfectly with the story you, as a player, really want to tell.  Or even if they do, you might just want to experience more stories than can be fit in your normal gaming sessions.  In those cases, Solo Journaling Games might be able to fill that need.

A journaling game is pretty much what it sounds like. Within the game’s them, the player creates a story based on prompts generated using common items such as a deck of playing cards or dice.  Alone Among the Stars might be the most basic form of journaling game.  To be fair, it is little more than a creative writing exercise.

Thousand Year Old Vampire - Source: Tim Hutchings

However, many other journaling games provide more story, structure, and RPG elements. Games like Thousand Year-Old Vampire and Apothecaria provide more detailed backstory and specific goals in order to direct the players writing.  Character skills, resource management, and other elements typically found in traditional tabletop games add opportunities for success/fail checks throughout the game that affect the narrative and story’s outcome positively or negatively.

One of my favorite types of journaling game are Wretched & Alone games, named after the original The Wretched.  A W&A games starts by dropping you in a situation and presenting specific goals, such as you are a lone survivor on a derelict spacecraft and you must survive long enough to be rescued, but adds various systems (diminishing tokens, a block tower, dice rolls, special cards, etc.) that present obstacles and ramps up the danger. The result is very much a game-like experience that increases the tension so that, as the game lasts longer and longer, every journal entry could very well end of the game in failure.

Another aspect of journaling games enjoyed by many players is the opportunities for creativity beyond the story.    How the player decides to record the game adds to the fun.  While the term “journal” is often associated with a pen and notebook, a player may choose to record their entries using audio logs or video clips.  Additionally, how each of these entries are formatted can add color to the game.  I’ve written journals in the form of a dating show contestant’s interviews to radio communications between Santa his elves on Christmas Eve.  Once, I even spilled blood.

DUNGEON CRAWLS

Up to this point, we’re just exploring and writing story.  What about battling monsters and finding treasure? Isn’t that the main reason to play tabletop roleplaying games?  Well, maybe.  Maybe not. Regardless, Dungeon Crawl-style games focus primarily on the task of searching a dungeon in search of treasure while killing monsters along the way.  Popular games of this type are FourAgainst Darkness  and D100 Dungeon.

Four Against Darkness - Source: Rob Standifer

Gameplay is pretty straightforward.  Similar to traditional RPGs, the player starts by creating and equipping a standard fantasy character: Fighter, magic-user, rogue, etc..  Next, they move through the dungeon, randomly generating each room, chamber, hall, or cavern as they progress. Also generated randomly are any creatures, objects, traps, or treasures in each room.  The goal is to survive as long as possible and collect enough treasure to improving your character and explore more dungeons.

These games tend to be big on mechanics and short on story.  Each dungeon might be themed  and have an immediate goal – there’s always a long-lost ancient sword that need to be retrieved so the true king can rule – but don’t look for some epic plot or deep NPC interactions in which your character may become entangled.  While you can always invent this story on your own, it is not an inherent aspect of the game.  For that, you would want to consider one of the next two game styles.

STAND ALONE SOLO RPGS

The previous styles have each focused primarily on one specific aspect of roleplaying: exploration, story, combat. However, I suspect that most players exploring this hobby are looking for a combination of all of these. Ideally, they’re wanting to create a solo experience similar to the group experiences they have with their friends.  These last two styles attempt to do that.

Source: Joshua Meehan

The first style I will refer to as the Stand-Alone Solo Tabletop Roleplaying Game. These games provide everything needed to play through an epic adventure alone, except for perhaps dice and paper.  These are games like Ironsworn, Starforged, Riftbreakers, and Plight. Each title contains rules for character creation, gameplay, and combat. Additionally, tools and tables are included to simulate a game master’s input.

It's this last item, game master simulation, that is unique to Solo roleplaying and the thing that can be the most confusing or difficult for someone getting started in this hobby to grasp.  In a traditional game, only the game master knows all that is going on and how a player’s actions to cause it to evolve.  In a solo game, however, how does the player accomplish this without knowing everything that is going to happen?

Source: Blackoath Entertainment

The honest answer is that they can’t.  Not totally, at least.  In a solo game, the player is both character and game master: roughly seventy percent character, thirty percent game master.  As the game master, the player is creating the world and devising situations in which to send their characters.  While they can’t do this without having some idea of what lies ahead, the game aids the solo player by providing means of keeping much of the information unknown until the appropriate time.

The most basic mechanic for this is random generation.  Almost anything that can chosen from a list can be generated randomly. What can be generated randomly will differ from game to game, but some such items might be the characteristics of non-player characters, room descriptions, types of quests, and monsters that attack the party. 

Many times, however, choosing an item from a list is not sufficient.  Your game will often require more complex descriptions or explanations to move the story along.  It’s the tools that provide these complex answers and descriptions that really make the game interesting.  For instance, let’s say your character hears a loud noise coming from behind a door.  In a traditional game, You would enter the room and the game master would tell you what happens.  In a solo game, however, the tool, often referred to as an oracle, will generate a phrase, concept, or series of words from which you must extract the details of the situation.  Again, using the loud noise example, the oracle might generate the words “aggression” and “damage”.  This might be interpreted as a fight between two opponents where one has stabbed the other.  Or it could be the room has been ransacked, an open window suggesting the vandal had escaped just prior to the characters entering the room.  Or anything else that those words might suggest and fits into the story.

I realize this might sound confusing or overwhelming, especially if you are unfamiliar with solo play.  The beauty of stand-alone games is that the rules often take the time to explain ways to use the tools and provide pointers on how to interpret the results. But once you get the hang of it, these prompts will often provide unexpected events in the story and surprising twists you may never have dreamed of otherwise.  I will discuss oracles more and offer some additional advice in the next article in the Starting Solo series, so keep your eyes open for that post.

TRADITIONAL TABLETOP ROLEPLAYING GAMES

Stand-alone games are a great place to start if you are new to solo gaming, or roleplaying in general. However, if you already have a favorite game, such as Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulu, the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, or Mörk Borg, you can still enjoy great solo experiences using those rulesets. The method to do so is basically the same as a stand-alone game, with the biggest difference being that you have to assemble all the tools and aids yourself.  And there are a lot of choices to be made . . . so many, in fact, that I will reserve that for the next article.  

Regardless of how long you have enjoyed solo roleplay, I hope you find this introduction to these various styles helpful. If you are just getting started, I hope I’ve assisted you in navigating the many choices that are out there.  If you are a veteran, then possibly I have sparked your interest in a style of gameplay you’ve never thought of before. Either way, this hobby has a lot to offer.  I invite you discover more by reading my adventures here on Tev’s Next Idea, and be sure to read my upcoming article in this series, where I will focus on turning any tabletop roleplaying game into a solo experience.

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Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

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