Forked Thread: Games that are good for lone wolves (Was 4E Consequences: )

[maddman75]

Forked from: 4E Consequences: Being passive, cautious, or a loner is now unoptimized

One thing that is not helpful in this convo:

"I'm glad that 4e killed your playstyle, it was badwrongfun anyway, and now 4e won't have any of your type in it!"

Dudes, their style might not be your style, but that doesn't make it an invalid style. 4e doesn't decide what the right way and wrong way to play D&D is, no matter how hard it may or may not try to do that. Playing Loner-type characters, or cautious characters, is a valid kind of play that 4e doesn't really support. It's a fair cop: 4e can't be used by people who want those kinds of characters and those kinds of games. The schadenfreude over someone who is having a problem with their games is entirely unhelpful. More helpful might be something like "I happen to like that it encourages group play, and if most groups are like mine, 4e is probably better for most groups, even if it doesn't work that well for yours. You might want to try X (Paranoia? CoC? Dread? 2e?) instead."

Should 4e support all playstyles? Maybe it should have been more of a toolkit system. Maybe the focus is good because it helps D&D be more distinct as a game (I'm of this mind). Why might 4e have chosen to emphasize this style? What did they gain with it? What did they lose?

These are interesting avenues of conversation.

"Your way of playing sucked anyway" really isn't.

I agree. 4e may not be built for the lone wolf, but rather than say 'that's badwrongfun', I thought I'd start a thread about games where that kind of style is rewarded, and how to best run one.

The game that comes to mind the best is Exalted. In this game the PCs are essentially demigods, and can completely dominate the game at whatever aspect they built themselves around. A combat character (usually dubbed the Invincible Sword Princess) doesn't need to worry about getting combat advantage - she can defeat armies by herself. The social character can make anyone his best friend or convince the king to hand over the crown. A stealthy character isn't a ninja but the god of ninjas, can can open locks with a touch, vanish from sight, balance on a spiderweb, and so on. What you end up with is a group of characters that can all dominate in their area of expertise, then ask the question "We've got all this power - what do we do with it?"

I think the key to running a more lone-wolfy type game is heavy use of cut scenes. Try to avoid having everyone wait for an hour while the lone wolf does 'his thing'. Is the Invincible Sword Princess decimating an army with only her Daiklave? Then have the ninja infiltrating the beseiged city in the chaos. The social character could be negotiating a peace, and the holy man could be communing with the local river god to convince him to flood to stop the reinforcements. Bounce back and forth, a few rounds for each, and the game will flow just fine.

What other games are good for this style? I really feel that any variety of D&D is ill suited, but 4e moreso than others.

 

[nightwyrm]

I think the key to running a more lone-wolfy type game is heavy use of cut scenes. Try to avoid having everyone wait for an hour while the lone wolf does 'his thing'. Is the Invincible Sword Princess decimating an army with only her Daiklave? Then have the ninja infiltrating the beseiged city in the chaos. The social character could be negotiating a peace, and the holy man could be communing with the local river god to convince him to flood to stop the reinforcements. Bounce back and forth, a few rounds for each, and the game will flow just fine.

But isn't that just running four solo games at the same time? What's the point of getting everybody together to play if the players don't interact during the game?

I'm not dismissing your idea outright, but I do have my doubts about it. Even if you're doing just a few rounds per player, that may take a few minutes in real time, and with 4-5 players, that still means it's gonna be 10-15 minutes between each of my turn.

 

[jdrakeh]

I think that most games accommodate that style of play better than D&D, actually. D&D is somewhat unique in its default assumption of a specific party composition based on narrowly defined roles. Even other fantasy games that are ostensibly D&D clones (e.g., Rolemaster) don't assume specific roles will be filled by certain character types and then build the rest of the game around that assumption.

Frex, even though games like HarnMaster or Rolemaster have priests, magic users, fighters, and thieves, their heavy reliance on skills resolves most issues of narrowly defined roles by eliminating niche protection as a design goal. D&D 3x went much further toward resolving this issue than previous editions did, though the issue did still exist to some degree (especially with regard to clerics and healing).

I think that there is a choice to be made between niche protection and lack therof — you either have it, or you don't. Things like multi-classing have, I think, been employed as a conscious effort to address the issues that arise from a default assumption of a specific party composition but they seem like more of a band-aid than a longterm solution (i.e., a kind of uneasy compromise between niche protection and the lack thereof).

 

[Shades of Green]

Traveller allows for single-player campaigns. Just make sure that your character has a rounded enough skillset, and all you'll have to do is get the Type-S scout: an interstellar starship operable by a single person. In older version there were even some (minimal, but still existent) provisions for unrefereed (GM-less) solo-play, almost like a gamebook...

Shadowrun also allows for small parties or single players if you play a rigger or a decker/hacker: riggers have hosts of drones to do the dirty work for them, and deckers/hackers are pretty much self-sufficient in a Matrix (i.e. cyberspace/internet) environment. A well-rounded mage would also work OK, but should be careful when astrally projecting with no one to watch over his meat-body.

 

[jdrakeh]

But isn't that just running four solo games at the same time? What's the point of getting everybody together to play if the players don't interact during the game?

I'm not dismissing your idea outright, but I do have my doubts about it. Even if you're doing just a few rounds per player, that may take a few minutes in real time, and with 4-5 players, that still means it's gonna be 10-15 minutes between each of my turn.

Think of movies like Ocean's 11, 12, and 13. The group of theives is ostensibly a party working toward one goal, but each thief has his or her own specialty and is sent off to pursue that on their own in order to fulfill the larger group goal. This is, I think, a good example of how 'lone wolf' style play can work in role-playing games.

[Edit: It's also a good modern analogue for the aforementioned Shadowrun, as well as a good example of a way to implement a single-class D&D campaign.]

 

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Shadowrun. A party of loners was an integral part of that game's basic design, and it's one of the biggest reasons it's such a damned hard game to run - pacing can be very, very hard.

 

[Badwe]

Solitaire, best solo game ever...

On a more serious note: Diablo, Diablo II, 95% of every console RPG ever made, 80% of every PC RPG made before 2000, and as others have pointed out Shadowrun often creates a feeling of "multiplayer solitaire" when players are so specialized that the other characters aren't even able to participate in that realm of game space.

You can even achieve this in D&D, really. Find a way early on in a dungeon to force the PCs to split up. If you can properly divide turns outside of combat such that the players find their challenges at roughly the same time, then going by rounds in-combat will naturally divide itself evenly among the players. You'll likely need a big enough table to contain 4 or 5 individual battlemaps though.

Also, in case no one has pointed it out: if you are so very interested in being capable of doing equally well in a group or solo... have you considered world of warcraft? Early MMOs were often criticized for their emphasis on "Group or die" leveling, and WoW was one of the first to so successfully create a legitimate solo player experience in an MMO.

My responses might be a little snarky (maybe) but I hope they highlight the logical extension of trying to play a group RPG that favors people going solo.

 

[Rechan]

The indie game Beast Hunter is built for solo or 2-player games. It's basically "You are a hunter stalking a great, prehistoric beast in order to take its power."

HERO, I think, should be able to handle solo play very well.

Exalted isn't a bad idea, either.

I imagine that certain WoD games can function in solo play. I have not seen the game in action, but I imagine Hunter can handle it.

Feng Shui might, but I honestly have no experience with the system to testify to it.

Shadowrun also allows for small parties or single players if you play a rigger or a decker/hacker: riggers have hosts of drones to do the dirty work for them, and deckers/hackers are pretty much self-sufficient in a Matrix (i.e. cyberspace/internet) environment. A well-rounded mage would also work OK, but should be careful when astrally projecting with no one to watch over his meat-body.

This was going to be my first suggestion.

In a lot of ways, Shadowrun can be very compartmentalized. Even if you have a group of 4 guys, their skills are so specialized that you can have an hour of play for the rigger, an hour of play for the decker, an hour of combat - while the other members of the group sit on their hands because they don't have the skills to be useful.

 

[Rechan]

My responses might be a little snarky (maybe) but I hope they highlight the logical extension of trying to play a group RPG that favors people going solo.

Part of the purpose of a solo game is to give an option if, say, you only have 1 PC available for an extended time.

I've seen quite a few posters here on EnWorld that run solo games for their wives or children.

 

[Imaro]

I think many of the nWoD games are good at this, especially Mage the Awakening, Changeling the Lost and Vampire the Requiem... however I think White Wolf has also made it so that these games are also full of goals which can be sought by the players that cater to or even require teamwork as well. I'd call them pretty much balanced for either style of play. Some others of note...

Unknown Armies

Reign: (where you can actually end up running opposing guilds or kingdoms while still working together as adventurers to further your goals)

Almost any superhero game

Anima (Same type of deal as Exalted)

Cyberpunk 2020

Also, the shows Lost, Battle Star Gallactica and Leverage are good examples of this type of play as well.