General Solo OOC

Hope nobody minds if I do this but I feel like it makes sense to have an OOC in this game that we can discuss in.

How would you all feel if we created subforums for the individual games/players, rather than just threads. I feel like that might work better in order to allow different threads per player (for example one for rules references, one for actual playing and one for people to post OOC about that game.

I'm up for an OOC area for solo gaming, but are asking for several OOC threads/forums for each game?

I'm opening the question up for discussion

I hesitate on including extensive content for the rules, if only because a lot of solo games are fairly short. I had considered posting stuff, but going to keep it short, maybe even specific to the game as I play it.

An OOC area would be a good thing to have though.

As an aside, it's not necessary that all of our games are identical. We could certainly build them out asymmetrically, as it were.

Hey all, glad to be here. Is it fine if I make a subforum for my game?

I'd say yes but that's what I made this thread to ask

I'm for whatever solution will allow me to "mute" a game so when lots of people play, I can still have an overview of new messages in my group games on the frontpage. Don't know if that's possible but it would be nice

I'm pretty sure with subforums, you could set permissions that you don't see certain subforums. Which is a good thought

This OOC thread is a good idea for sharing tips, resources (what solo rule sets people are using) etc. It's a very good idea.

I made everyone that joined the game a GM so that they could have complete control over the game they were running.

I have stickied this thread so it's always on top of the various solo game threads.

Good idea!

Sounds good DarK_RaideR

I want to try dip my toes into solo. I have Scarlet Heroes, Ironsworn and the Tome of Adventure Design.

Put perhaps a little Cthulhu "Alone against…" might be an easier first step?

I would suggest you go with whatever interests you the most. Cthulhu sounds like a good option. I don't know anything about that one.

There are so many ways to solo, and that's what's so great about it. Choose your own adventure is one of them and that's what Alone Against is... and probably the easiest. Whatever you do, looking forward to seeing how you make out.

@NABO I'd be very curious to see the mechanics of the game you are playing. I had a look at the info on their site. Intriguing.

In case anyone else wants to take a look, the link to the playtesting server on discord is up on the OOC thread for my game now

Hi folks! I was super excited to participate in this experiment but I simply don't have as much time as I thought I would. :-(

I'm going to bow out, but I hope to come back at some point. Best of luck with your games!

The beauty of solo is you can play a few minutes here and there whenever you want. I rarely spend more than fifteen minutes at a time and sometimes I don't come back to it for months. I don't think anyone has any expectations of timeframes so you're good @Jabes.plays.RPG.

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.

Had never heard of this. It looks great!.

I really like the yes/no, and/but. I think it gives you a lot to play with. I got excited about the Fate Dice because of the bell curve. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I like that the and/but have a lower probability of coming up. It gives them more weight. I'll try out the rest of MUNE at my next session.

Never heard of MUNE, but I'll definitely check it out. Thank you for the suggestion!