For no particular reason, earlier today I was thinking of the Aladdin Technique, posted by +John Fiore back in 2014. I cannot find the original post, but Aleksandar Battreps blogged about it and thankfully copy and pasted the original post. It’s a smart idea to randomise and enrich a scene description. I guess that new people here might not have seen it yet….
Just going to throw this out here without comment:
When solo roleplaying, what if instead of trying to figure out a target difficulty for you to roll against as a player, things were reframed as you setting your player roll ahead of time as the difficulty for the “GM” to beat if she wants to stop the player from achieving a result?
So, I make my roll, and then that becomes the difficulty for the GM to beat. It’s a bit like the Cortex system if you’ve ever played it or read about it.
I don’t know the probabilities, but intuitively, I think one side effect would be that the player would have more chances of succeeding.
Another iOS tool that uses AI to generate “stories”. Like Creative Writer it has potential as a solo rpg tool given enough patience to cycle through its output as you look for something useable.
https://www.bestappsforkids.com/2017/neurotale/
I got a chance to play Horizon Wars again this afternoon. The cat had kindly decided I was done with my last game when he batted all of my chits around. I found most of them, but decided maybe I’d go back to MapTool. The maps are from VASSAL Squad Leader modules, and the Chits were made on game-icons.net.
The Gaian’s (Red) are a convoy on the move, about to be ambushed. The Confederation (Blue) are a bit behind schedule and aren’t in place in time. The Confederation can bring a number of units onto a map edge equal to the round number plus 1. Meanwhile, the Gains (who began dead center of the map) have to either push through to their destination or turn back.
I chose to run them through. They aren’t heading this way without reason, and a few rebels aren’t enough to turn them back.
The Heavy Cavalry Tanks and Medium Mech on the Imperial side did a much better job than I’d expected neutralizing the Confederation fast moving Mechs.
They also chose to stick close in a convoy formation. It made sense to be able to focus fire on any obstacles, but I was hoping I could get the Confederates in play in time to throw up a considerable road block.
In the end the Confederate roster wasn’t well tuned for this scenario. The Recon units are intended to work in tandem with the Heavy Mech to throw out a wide net of damage via indirect fire. The convoy got through the city before I even got the eyes & ears in place.
In the end the imperial convoy did make it across the map with the requisite half force to claim victory. I’m going to go back to the drawing board and put together an intercept force for the next game. For the imperials it’s likely they’v been in communication with HQ, so they’ll need to swap in some heavy hitters too.
I’ve been playing around with the idea of a solo LARP. My idea is that you would work up a play sheet that would have the basic precept of the conspiracy and a handful of symbols or hallmarks of it.
You would play an investigator. If you stumble across one of these hallmarks in the real world or online a series of draws from a deck of cards would reveal whether you’ve found a valid clue, which of your skills (Instinct, Psyche, Investigation, and History) is used to understand the clue, and on a strong success a 3 card draw that gives you greater understanding of the evidence you’ve found.
It’s still very much a WIP. It would seem to be a game that doesn’t have a solid end goal, I can’t decide if it would need one. Not to trivialize the people we meet day to day, but I also have a few ideas for how to utilize them as unwitting NPCs. Currently the risk factor is also unknown. I like the idea that a certain number of failed draws would draw attention from who/whatever is behind the conspiracy and they would “disappear” your character in appropriate style.
As a concept what are people’s thoughts?
People, on Youtube we can find this Ironsworn Extended Play example. I think it can help new players or some of us who wants to know the game better!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSmtF8lf9QI
This week I received a new pen as a gift, so I was in the mood to do some writing. When a pseudo-antique ledger I’d been keeping my eye on went on clearance I knew it meant that a new Traveller Star Trader game was be called for.
With luck Samuel Tamwood survived character creation, and picked up a rival, an enemy, and a travel companion (Sara Evans) along the way. Even better, the Star Trade relationship table made them inseparable buddies who were secretly in love with each other. Lots of plot hooks there.
I went with the Trade Without A Ship option for this campaign. I like keeping up with the ship minutiae, but I wanted to focus more on the trading and character interaction this time. Bring on a different ship each trip opens up different options.
Do far it’s off to a good start. I got a good price on Petrochemicals which we’re transporting to Rech (an restrictive ice planet under rule by a dictator). Despite putting most of our funds into our first haul the TamEv Commerce decided a weekend at a resort would be a good idea to offset having. To spend a few weeks on Rech.
It would have been a good idea, since I decided that the relaxation would give me a 1 on social rolls for the trip. Unfortunately it took 3 weeks to find a ship with enough space that was heading to our destination. The warehouse fees took a toll that could have been offset by the resort fees. Oh well.
During the jump the Recycling System malfunctioned, restricting us to our cabin for most of the trip. We chose to share one in order to cut costs, and I thought this might lead to a good relationship benchmark. Instead we apparently argued about art a lot with great conviction. Some would say we were using art to mask our feelings, but I say that Sara just can’t appreciate ancient 21st Century Modern.
I had to pack it up, so I’ll have to wait to find out what happens on Rech next session.
Via Spencer Salyer
Originally shared by Luke Shiras
Looks interesting…
After spending time soloing a very large system (Starfinder–and I’m still not done with it), I decided to take a much lighter system out for a ride. Ancient Odysseys, which I played with the first as well as second book, works quite well as a pen-and-paper dungoen crawl. Book two adds in overland components and mechanics.
What’s great about it is the d6 tables spread throughout the books. These allow for easy population of your environment. Each book also has a built-in predescribed adventure path.
Trying to run a solo play with no idea of where you’re going takes a bit too long I’ve found.
Lone Wolf Roleplaying 