Solo, GMless, and other non-standard-model games

We can talk all manner of games that don't adhere to the standard model of one GM and many players.

Ironsworn and Starforged are probably prime examples, as are Dream Askew and the Belonging Outside Belonging (BOB) games it spawned. Unusual arrangements like Sundered Lands (where there is one player and many 'GMs') are also apropos.

Request forums for any other specific games you want to add, maybe in the General Q&A until a better place suggests itself.

I know absolutely nothing about those, care to give me a little introduction?

Tricky, given that Solo games are games you play by yourself. :)

As a starting point I recommend you grab a copy of Ironsworn, not only is it free, but it is also rated as one of the better solo RPGs by many. Give it a read and see what you think, come back to us with any questions.

Unlike other solo RPGs it also has provision for co-op play: where a group get together and, basically, use the 'solo' rules with their own characters in the same world (normally together in a party) so there is no GM, but each player takes on those responsibilities as needed (and mainly for themself).

Ironsworn also has rules for 'guided play' which what it calls traditional play with a GM. It is still quite good in that capacity, but does have a lot of moves, all of which have more detail than is strictly needed in a game with a GM. The Solo and Co-Op are what sets it apart.

Playing Ironsworn Solo can be a good way to practice basic (improv) GMing skills for use in regular games.

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Dream Askew is a different sort of game (sufficiently different that it might need its own thread).

There is no GM. Instead, all of the players take turns being the GM for the group for a specific part of the setting. So you might take the lead with anything that has to do with 'The Outlying Gangs', and I take the lead on issues involving 'The Varied Scarcities', but may need to put that Setting Element down to take up the 'The Digital Realm' because it is more relevant to the story at this time and no one else is available, or I am the one PC interacting with that Element and need someone else to GM it for me. All players take on the roles of NPCs as needed.

Oh, and Dream Askew does not use dice, it has a cleaver system where you get a token for making a 'Weak Move' (think 6- in PbtA) and have to spend a token to make a 'Strong Move' (which is sorta like a 10+).

Dream Askew --and the BOB engine-- has spawned a whole lot of games under the byline of 'no dice, no masters'.

Thanks for making this thread, vagueGM.

I started a game of Ironsworn. It's all new to me, both a solo game and the system. So I was wondering if anyone could take a look at it and see if I'm forgetting anything important.

There's one spot in particular where I wasn't sure what to do. It starts here, where my PC rolled a successful "Gather Information" move to find out what happened in the area. So he found a direction to head in, in search of the 2 missing people. But then a bit later I asked the oracle "Do they find anymore clues along the way? (likely)" and it ended up as a no. So I kinda got stuck there and made them return to the village.

Afterwards I thought, maybe that should have been another "Gather Information" move, cause the move mentions "following a trail". Should I have used that instead?

Did I play it right the way I did? (if there even is a right or wrong way to do it ;) )

Besides that, I feel like it's going pretty well.

Without reading all the posts, I can only give vague suggestions and overviews.

It looks to me like you may be making too many rolls?

For instance, that example you give above: Why ask 'if you find more clues'? That seems like a recipe for getting stuck (gating clues behind rolls is often a problem, take a look at the Gumshoe System as a set of games built specifically to avoid that problem). Much like with regular GMing (and you are also your own GM here), don't take it to the dice unless you have, at least, a slight idea about what could happen in all cases --if you don't know how a miss would work out, maybe don't make a roll.

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Specific Ironsworn advice (though not specific to that scene):

You can (and should, it is not 'cheating') tailor your questions so that they don't block your progress (unless you intend to block progress with a 'can I progress from here?' question:).

I see a lot of yes/no questions (and likely vs unlikely does not protect you from the 'wrong answer').

Maybe you could have asked: "What additional clue do I find" and use the (...it has been a while and I don't have the book, so guessing...) Action and Theme tables for your lookup. Then you still have to make the effort to interpret how those results fit with the existing clues... or if they are some outside influence trying to lead you astray or some other excuse for 'fake-clues'.

I am sure the book tells you not to roll if you can see an obvious answer. Just go with the obvious, and save the rolls for when you are out of ideas.

Maybe start with smaller rolls (in terms of import and impact). "Which way does the clue lead me?" rather than "Is there a clue?". You can flavour the questions to add risk: "Does the clue lead me the way I don't want to go?" (possibly followed by "Why wouldn't I want to go that way?" (probably Action and Theme again?)).

I seldom use the Oracles for 'clues'. There may be better 'clue generators' out there, but most times the actual clue is pretty obvious (you are the one 'writing the story', after all). So it is more about what stands in the way of your getting the clue, or how (not whether) you can understand what the clues mean, or how much getting (or understanding) them will cost you. A clue not gotten is a clue wasted, and 'going back to town' to roll again for Quantum Ogre clues is just a time sink. Maybe add a ticking clock to mitigate time sinks?

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It is hard to find a balance in these things. Especially when you are both the GM and the player. It is easy to feel like we are letting ourselves off to easy, or cheating. It is also easy to paint ourselves into a corner and break the game.

If anyone in interested: We could put together a Guided game, here (or start a real game), and I can GM some scenes while annotating how I am using the Moves, Oracles, or dice, to serve as an example?

The World Creation is quite a big and involved thing, so getting started can take a while. I might pick some generic options that give freedom to try different things and then plonk the players into that.

Yes, that it was.

Right, so after the first "Gather information" I could have done something like "They travel for an hour, following the trail and find what they were looking for" instead of blocking myself with another roll. That would have made things much easier. :)
Yes, it's a bit annoying to have to roll again for the same thing, but I did some thinking about that already and decided the settlement might have someone who knows those woods better. A more experienced hunter or woodsman. They could lead me there without needing anymore clues. But that begs the question, do I have to roll to find that person? Since Marland lives in the town, he would probably know someone.

I'll think about adding a clock, I kinda did that already because they found out one of the missing ppl is seriously injured. So waiting the night will make it more unlikely for that one to be found alive.
I do enjoy rolling :) But your tips on which questions to ask will come in handy. I'll refrain from asking questions where one of the possible outcomes would block me. All outcomes should be things I can work with.

I've been watching "Me, myself & die" as an example playthrough on youtube. He goes through his rolls and thought process pretty well. I'm only on episode 3 though.
If you're bored and looking for a game to run, I'm happy to join, but don't feel in any way obligated. My RP needs are well satisfied with the current games I'm in :)

If you find yourself doing so often then it might be best to just ignore the dice result that put you in the blocked position.

Ignoring the dice is within the rules, as is swapping the numbers to see if those table-items work better or taking the result above or below the one you got, or swapping and then taking the above or below... or looking at the result and going "Ooh. That give me a better idea!" and doing your own thing. All these work better with questions that are not yes/no, of course.
What would happen if you fail that roll? Are you blocked again?

If it seems reasonable that there is someone who can help, then the only questions are what it will cost, or if they need you to do something for them (first or after) (Settlement Trouble, maybe?)
They are a natural part of most stories.
Given these time limits, a fair price to pay for bad rolls is Stress (Spirit, I think?) as you have to deal with the stress and strain of things slowing you down. Emotional strain from delays is often better than blocking, it adds to the story instead of detracting from it. It shows us the character of the character.

Take some actions to build up some Momentum, that way you can overcome results like this when you absolutely need to.

I don't really watch Actual Play stuff, so I can not comment. But maybe more episodes will help clarify things. Don't hesitate to ask about anything they say on there if they don't make sense.

I'll take all that into account and try to apply it.
Even with knowing all the rules it takes a certain amount of affinity to know when to apply them. I'm sure I'll get better at it. :)
What do you mean with "take some actions"? Do you mean that I should work towards rolling more moves that reward me with +Momentum?

Ain't that the truth. :)

Also true with GMing other games. Often the players can carry on without the GM interfering and knowing when to intervene with mechanics is a useful skill. GMing for oneself can be a good way to get lots of GMing experience with that sort of thing, as well as practice in thinking on ones' feet.
Having high Momentum is good. Going straight for the Moves that you think will get you the results you want can often leave you unfulfilled. Taking the time to get momentum going means that you can improve your chances when you come to doing the final, 'important' Move.

This is especially true in combat. You need to have Initiative (which does not mean what DnD pretends it means) to 'finish the fight', and if all you do is go after the 'finishing move', you can end up never scoring the Strong Hit needed to get Initiative to do it. This can lead to strange edge-cases where you just keep piling on the damage but the fight never ends (but let common sense prevail).

Momentum let's you force the Strong Hit, so you can end the fight.

For what it's worth, I started playing in a Wanderhome asynchronous play-by-post game on discord (Belonging Outside Belonging, which is a kind of "No Dice, No GM" freeform hack of Powered by the Apocalypse) and it's a lot of fun. I've also been wanting to try Apothecaria, a solo/journaling game. Both very different tone from Ironsworn though.

If you have any advice that you think will be helpful, please share it here.

Wanderhome does look interesting enough that I picked it up, even though I am not much of a fan of anthropomorphic animals.I have not yet read (or played) it, though.
"Belonging Outside Belonging" (BOB) is the official term they are using for games based on Dream Askew. I still think of the in terms of Dream, since I played the original version of that way back in 2013, before the Dream Apart merger and kickstarter, and subsequent explosion of BOB games.

Not all BOB games keep the strict 'no masters' bit. Many of us found, rather quickly, that someone needs to take on many of the oft-overlooked GM tasks to keep a game going. Without someone willing to 'push', games tend to flounder with everyone looking to everyone else to do something, or not wanting to overstep. Having someone --who is designated as the 'moderator'-- feel that they have a duty to step up and make something happen, smooths that out a lot. Many newer BOB games include an assumption of such a role, and even encourage someone to take on a more traditional GM role and not play a PC if there are enough other characters. I have not played as a pure GM for anything other than teaching the games, though.

The 'no dice' part works surprisingly well (with the right group) and plays and feels a lot like normal PbtA. I have had groups forget that there were no dice and be surprised by that fact when they were telling other people about the system after months of play.
That does look interesting. Though, I have to admit, I had not had much success sticking with any solo/journaling games before Ironsworn. And even that I mostly do co-op and guided with the solo feeling slightly more like 'practice' than actual play. :(

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Mythic GM Emulator came close to working a few times, and bolts onto your preferred game system, meaning you can play whatever game you like in a solo capacity. It can be worth adding to an Ironsworn game to supplement the rules and its Oracles.

I have also used the tables from Maze Rats to create on-the-fly spells and effects in many games.

If you have access to it --and even if your don't care for scifi-- the new Ironsworn: Starforged game has cleaned up some of the rough edges on the rules and is worth a read to help clarify things.

I could try to describe what's worked for us. We've been playing for a few months now without a GM (about 4 of us)... BoB does play like PbtA in style. But I'd say it also feels very close to "pure" play-by-post or "collaborative storytelling" freeform roleplay. We have a section for character sheets, game resources, etc, but also an active out-of-character section where we can keep check on each other's topic boundaries and story consistency -- though you have to allow for some inconsistencies.

What I did notice is that we don't even bother with the "token" mechanic at all (esp since there's no GM to award them) and instead we wind up just using the playbook moves as story "prompts" to spark ideas for our posts. Wanderhome in particular has sections for building the location details and NPC personality traits, etc... very similar to random tables. Also, with GMless any player can "take control" of an NPC to move the story along. When we get bored of a particular location, then we could start building the next location in the OOC section -- each contributing some detail, using the gamebook for ideas.

It does help for there to be someone who initially sets up the different game sections, etc to get it going. Maybe not a GM exactly, but a "facilitator" -- the discord we're on also has moderators which helps. EDIT: I imagine BoB could also work really well for one-on-one (duet) games.
I really like Ironsworn, though I've yet to try it much. Journaling games are more like free-writing, using playing-cards or tarot decks and the game's prompts to get ideas for "what happens next" in the story. Where as Ironsworn seems more random-tables, dice-rolling, resource management. Just depends on what one wants I guess. P.S. I also have a copy of Mythic GM Emulator too and I should try using it more.

Quick question about a move in Ironsworn. I rolled the "weak hit" on "Fulfill your vow". This states:
So what I'm not exactly sure about is, is this vow complete? Cause it tells me to mark XP but also that 'there is more to be done'. Which kinda contradicts each other.
Also is there any gauge on how much of 'more to be done' it needs to be? Or is that completely up to me.

You can see here how I thought to resolve it.

A Weak Hit is still a Hit, so you succeeded. So, yes, that vow is complete. You do get less XP though.
And it tells you the most common way of dealing with the unfinished business. But you don't have to deal with the unfinished business if you don't choose to. (you may Swear a new Vow, not you 'must').

The loss of XP is the mechanical consequence, the 'more to be done' is fiction, and you can act on it, or not, as you choose. But it does give you some direction, and a thing to do next, if you choose to accept it.
Don't as me... Ask the Oracle. :)

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From the book:

Right, I didn't think about that. lol :)
I do think that I did it right, based on the action & theme that I rolled. (it kinda couldn't have been clearer) So I just have to ask the oracle about the 'difficulty' of this next step.
I didn't realize the book had a larger explanation. I was using the reference sheets.

I think I know what to do now, thanks! :)

Envision it if you can, else Ask the Oracle. That is pretty much the rule for everything Ironsworn. :)
It can be worth reading the details and examples in the book to get a clearer idea of what the author intended.

I riffed my answer off the top of my head (and general Ironsworn Principles) and then copied the text from the book, read it and almost added a "... um... that's what I said" :)