McButterpants - Call of Cthulhu - OOC

I'm adding this thread in case anyone wants to comment.

I apologize if I'm writing too much. I'll probably post at least once per day. Let me know if its too much. I can always move one game to another forum so I'm not coming up in your feeds all the time.

I have to admit, writing it down in this forum really makes a difference. It's still early days, but I definitely feel more connected to the games.

I don't think you're posting too much. Post away....🙂

I am going to try a different approach to solo. I've heard some people run the game as GM and use an emulator to determine what the players do. I figure I'll experiment with this for a bit to see how it works for me.

That's an interesting idea. Let us know how it goes.

Could you elaborate on what the difference between emulating players and emulating GMs is in practical terms?

It's something I've only heard about so I don't have any experience. From what I can find in my searches, there's not much information on it.

Typically when you play solo, you emulate the GM. "Is there something in this room?" - roll to confirm. "Is there an exit? Is it locked?" - roll to confirm. All of the rolls are from the player's point of view. You are asking the dice to respond as if they're the GM.

I'm looking to turn the tables. I'm hoping to use the dice to determine what the players do. I think I need to set up predetermined actions for some - ex. the Thief always checks for traps and listens at doors, the Fighter always kicks in the door if they don't hear any noise, etc. I also want to bring in factors like alignment, background, biases, group dynamics, etc. I'm really just playing around at this point.

I do understand the theory, but it doesn't seem like there's much practical difference.

Emulating the GM: Is there a trap door? - > Are the players aware of the existance of a trap door?

Emulating the players: Do they find the trap door? - > Are the players aware of the existance of a trap door?

But I'll let you try first and revisit this question later

Sorry, I didn't explain myself well. You are correct for solo games that are created as you play. I typically play through published adventures where all of the information is detailed. RPGs are terrible at segregating GM only material from Player Friendly material.

My biggest challenge during solo play is avoiding spoilers. To combat this I decided to focus on running the game as GM and use an emulator to decide how the players react to the set up. The variability of the story - where the PCs go and what they do - will be determined by dice rolls. I will have to experiment and see how that plays out. It seems like an interesting challenge.

So, this solo play was way more of a story than I was planning. My typical journal is almost illegible. It's a mish-mash of partially completed sentences. I edited this story more than I would normally, but just enough so that it made sense to others. I tried not to spend too much time on the editing. I didn't want this to turn out to be a short story writing exercise. My focus was to describe the scene that I see in my mind. It does take a bit more brainpower than my other solo games, but I like the final product.

I wish the players would have survived. There was an interesting love triangle that I was hoping to tease out over time. Maybe I'll resurrect this group for another adventure.

Congrats on "finishing" it though, I thought it was well written.

Yes well done. While I haven't done anything solo in quite some time, deciding to just play the game or write prose was always a small battle for me. Inevitably what I generally ended up doing was playing through and then editing for clarity if I planned to share it.

Thank you for reading! I figured I'd put a bit more time into the prose in case anyone does read it. I'm happy to know that someone else enjoyed it.

I had thought about doing that for a previous game that I'd played, but it didn't feel right for me. I had lost that scene that was so vivid in my mind.

This write up did make the solo game longer and more challenging. There were days that I struggled to get to the table because of the pressure I put on myself to write it out. Some days it was just a small scene from one character's perspective - just to move the story along.

Still, the story was all mine. I focused on scenes that appealed to me. I think that's what I like most about solo. I set the pace and what scenes to play out.