General Solo OOC

Please hang out and enjoy the games anyway Jabes! I'll keep you listed as a player so you can come back and give it a go whenever you feel like it. You're a great gamer, and if you can make it work timewise I'd love to see what you can come up with. Personally, I had to step back from my own solo game for a couple of weeks because professional commitments and family over the holidays. Hope you had a great holiday season!

I will most likely start up a game this weekend. I don't want to make a mess of things. Do I create a sub-forum and start my game in there? I'm a bit confused on the difference between a sub-forum and a thread. Is there a post that covers how to set up a game? I think I missed it.

Thanks for the invite! I look forward to posting my games.
Nelson

You can start a subforum but it's easier just to start a new thread. How you set it up depends on the game you want to play, there hasn't been a post regarding that as far as I know. Check out the other threads (like mine) for ideas.

Yes there is, right here, by our one and only master of GP videos, Qralloq.

I've run through my game, but I was wondering what would people want to see from people who were running the solo games? I've been thinking about this as I posted, and have been debating whether or not I should go back and edit what I wrote. Any thoughts or suggestions as to what would be helpful for anyone that might want to read over what the solo-GM/players are posting?

If you feel the game write-up was missing something, then I say make some changes. Likewise, if you enjoy the editing process. The only challenge with editing is that you can end up spending a lot of time fiddling with the story. At some point it'll switch from being a fun game, to being a writing project. The more it resembles work, the less likely you are to return to it. That is the bane of solo - losing interest and letting games drop.

My approach, is to play the game and write out the story as I see it in my mind. My primary goal with journaling is to slow things down, make them concrete (vs. just daydreaming) and immerse myself in the story. I want to walk beside the character and live the adventure. That said, what pulls me into "my story" may bore the pants off of everyone else. I put a fair amount of effort to edit it so that it's readable and interesting, but I move on once it's posted. I would like to hope that others read it, but it's probably just me.

I think that's fair, especially to be wary of changing the story during any editing. Part of what I was stuck on was writing things up for people that may be stopping by to look at the games. How much space to commit to rules, or comments to explain how things work a certain way to people who might not have the game. When I first had the idea to set up a bunch of concurrent solo games, it was as much to showcase the games as it was an excuse to play them.

Oh, that makes sense. If you are looking to help people get comfortable with solo play, it would be good to provide more game detail. I found it helpful when you to put in your ooc comments explaining how you set up the game. It's like you were taking a minute to set aside the game and explain why you were doing something. I'll try to add that to my write-ups going forward.
I believe this forum is set to private. Should it be set to public?

Whoops! It should have been set to public all along. Thanks for notifying me.

I am always torn about how to write up my solo plays. Part of me just wants to see the story unfold and pays little attention to sentence structure, yet if other people will read it I like to clean it up at least a little (without changing the content meaning). But definitely, I think it helps everyone, new or not, to see the mechanics and setup methods.

I have no idea if people are (still) reading along with my solo game on Karum Station but I was wondering how those who do feel about a bit of "audience participation" taking over instead of random rolls. I could make a simple yes/no-poll in the OOC thread before I play the next session and I'll just go with whatever the majority voted.

Like, for example, if Ray and Addison were to locate Nikos Tsakiris (that's not guaranteed after all), would he help Ray?

A poll is a great idea and couldn't hurt.

Go for it! Poll away

Alrighty, I have a poll here now

Hi everyone. Thanks for accepting my application to join. :)
I decided to try and do a solo Ironsworn game and figured this would be the place to do it.(?)
I'm not sure how long it'll last. I've never done a solo game, so it might not be my kind of thing at all. But I wanna see what it's like.

Any tips on getting started?

Welcome to the fun!
It's solo, so it'll run as long as you feel like you want it to carry on. No pressure at all.
As for getting started, just dive in. Once you've got it set up and are ready to go, maybe consider letting people know what you're doing in the Games Tavern. That way, anyone that wants to follow along will be able to do so.

And of course, the universal rule is to enjoy yourself.

Welcome! I personally like to start by creating a character or two. It helps to get the juices flowing if you can picture your PC. I haven't played Ironsworn, but I've read a lot of praise for it.

I agree with @Phil_Ozzy_Fer - first rule of solo is have fun!

Alright, thanks!

I've been using the Fate Chart in Mythic GM Emulator to answer yes or no questions, but I'm not a fan of the chart. I was looking for a simple alternative and came across some Fate Dice. I've been playing around with it and I'm liking it so far. Here's what I have so far. Let me know if you do anything similar or if you have any questions.

Roll of:
One + = yes
One - = no
Blank = yes or no - it depends on what you feel is more likely to happens (this is a simplified version of the Chaos Factor)
Two + = yes, but ... the response to your question is positive, something slightly bad happens. Something that will cause your PC a challenge
Two - = no, but .. the response to your question is negative, something good comes out of it. Nothing major, just a subtle leg up.
Three + = yes, and ... you get some kind of big win. This doesn't happen very often, so it's a strong positive for your PC
Three - = no, and ... things go from bad to worse.
Four + or - = I'm still figuring this one out. I haven't rolled many, but I'm thinking it's a change in the setup of the scene. You're not fighting a madman, you're fighting a man possessed by a demon. Reinforcements come rushing over the hill to lend a hand.

I really like the fate dice because they're simple, elegant and There is a nice bell curve to the results. Three's and fours are rare, so most results will be a simple yes or no. The blank being the more likely response is a great change up.

Anyways, let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

I personally like to use MUNE. Linkie here. It's simple, using a single d6, but has some powerful features. Besides the whole yes/no/and/but thing, it has emulation for GM interventions, plot twists, and NPC disposition. Has less granularity than Mythic, but I find that the granularity isn't really necessary in the first place. I mostly like it because it's like, 4 pages, which makes it very easy to reference.