[Soloing TTRPGs] General Discussion [+]

[Autumnal]

What did you do for soloing QuestWorlds?

 

[Duke_]

What did you do for soloing QuestWorlds?

That's a very open-ended question, so forgive the essay. If you're asking mechanically and for oracles, pretty much the same as I do for every other system I solo.

• Yes or no questions, roll 1d6.
  • 1 = No, and...
  • 2 = No
  • 3 = No, but...
  • 4 = Yes, but...
  • 5 = Yes
  • 6 = Yes, and...
  • If something is likely or unlikely, or extremely so, roll one or two extra d6 and take either the highest or lowest.
  • If you roll doubles, you get some random twist. Yes, you only get random events if you're asking something likely or unlikely. Feature, not bug. You're inherently looking for an outlying case in these situations, and you just might get more of an outlier than you expected.
• For anything more complex than yes/no questions, including the aforementioned random twists, draw a Game Master's Apprentice card or three and interpret the prompts in the context of the story.
• For determining difficulty / resistance, it's really not any different from GMing for players other than yourself. I don't give myself any breaks, because it makes for a dull game and story if everything is easy.

Sometimes I replace the yes/no oracle with something more derived from the game's core mechanic. I didn't in this case, but I don't imagine it's hard to hack something d20-based that fits more organically with the core mechanic and keep the "just need 1d20" vibe. Might work on that in my spare time at some point.

I definitely prefer faster, low overhead games for solo play. There's enough overhead acting as player and GM and keeping notes; I even write some imagined dialogue if the moment demands it, and sometimes it's even good. I don't want more overhead from the system, so I found QuestWorlds very well suited to how I like to solo. The ability to "zoom in or out" on conflicts allowed me to really nail the amount of focus I wanted to put on specific things.

If you're asking more "what I did" in terms of game content... I'll just spoiler-block a few paragraphs about each game, because this is already a longish post, and might not be of interest to everyone, especially if they don't know the settings.

Spoiler: Some campaign details

Glorantha: I had an Orlanthi warrior, his cousin who was a Lhankor Mhy sword-sage, and a thief who was a Lanbril cultist and had a tempestuous off-again on-again romantic thing with the Orlanthi. This was intentionally a very Michael Moorcock character triangle, though I never thought of them as specific incarnations of Eternal Champion, Companion, and Consort in the Moorcock multiverse. Just taking it as an influence.

They were running around doing subversive things in Lunar-occupied Pavis, delving the Big Rubble for artifacts, trying to get the Sun Dome Templars on their side, and generally trying to undermine the occupiers. It was cool to resolve an entire dungeon crawl with a couple of rolls, while still getting the feel that it wasn't handwaved. I ended up getting very involved GMing an original setting for my group and stopped at a good break point. I intend to get back to it after RL settles down, the group campaign ends, and the official new Glorantha genre pack is released. "Bail at any time, nobody else will give a crap" is a great feature of solo gaming.

---

Gamma World: I used the first edition of Gamma World for my "genre pack". Keywords were Genotype, Profession, and Community. I wrote up some guidelines for suitable applications and breakouts for the Genotypes, and applied common sense to the other two. I had a mutated duck (yeah I like Glorantha) with randomly rolled mutations -- heightened strength, heat generation, magnetic control, intuition, and a "poor dual brain" that would sometimes just take over. His buddy was a unmutated human with scientific and medical skills and a few cool gadgets.

The plot was the usual Gamma World fare... get a clue to an ancient ruin with some pressure to go there, go explore it, find some tech you don't understand, get in over your head and screw everything up royally, find a decently powerful artifact in dire need of repair, barely escape with your lives, run afoul of an unfriendly cryptic alliance who want the artifact you found... you get the idea.

I found QuestWorlds to be great for Gamma World. The keyword categories came very naturally and basically immediately. The flexibility of the system handled the craziness and kitchen-sink nature of Gamma World with ease. The whole thing just flowed from start to finish. I got a good story with lots of "out of the frying pan and into the fire" moments. Easily one of my best solo game experiences.

 

[Autumnal]

Oh, wow, thank you, this is very very helpful. Speaking of Pavis, I was recently chatting with my friend Ben (who was a regular player in Steve Perrin’s house campaign) and was struck by a funny idea for a campaign where all the PCs are remittance men - embarrassing scions of rich powerful families given a stipend to go away and stay away. They could be Lunars,’or from the Holy Country, Kralorela, Loskalm (my Glorantha includes the Book of Glorious Joy), or anywhere, really. They go gallivanting around the Big Rubble and points beyond.

For regular resolution, did you roll a d20’for each side, or do anything funky?

 

[stormwriter]

I played a couple of different QuestWorlds campaigns -- a Glorantha game and a Gamma World adaptation.

Did you use just the QuestWorlds book/rules? Or did you use the older HeroQuest Glorantha or The Coming Storm/Eleven Lights books?

 

[Agamon]

Good timing. As recently as 3 weeks ago, my attitude was, "Solo TTRPG? Why would I do that instead of play a vidja game?"

Now, I'm 12 chapters into my Ironsworn journal. Creative writing, with the added, "what's going to happen now?" thrown in, can be addictive...

 

[Bagpuss]

Do you consider solo skirmish games in this field of discussion?

I’ve enjoyed 5 Parses from Home (sci fi), 5 Leagues from the Borderlands (fantasy) and County Roadz (zombie apocalypse).

 

[Duke_]

Oh, wow, thank you, this is very very helpful. Speaking of Pavis, I was recently chatting with my friend Ben (who was a regular player in Steve Perrin’s house campaign) and was struck by a funny idea for a campaign where all the PCs are remittance men - embarrassing scions of rich powerful families given a stipend to go away and stay away. They could be Lunars,’or from the Holy Country, Kralorela, Loskalm (my Glorantha includes the Book of Glorious Joy), or anywhere, really. They go gallivanting around the Big Rubble and points beyond.

For regular resolution, did you roll a d20’for each side, or do anything funky?

Nothing funky, just a regular opposed roll. It can be sped up a little by rolling two different d20 at the same time. But QW has a relatively low roll volume, so I really don't think it does much to try to further streamline the basic roll mechanic. I felt like the RAW resolution system flowed just fine. I limited sequences to truly climactic conflicts after some early missteps with over-using them.

I love the remittance men idea. Pavis is kind of a place for outcasts to an extent. It's certainly not a desirable post for the Lunars there... maybe one step above the hell-swamp of Corflu...

 

[Autumnal]

Thanks!

 

[Bagpuss]

For those mentioning AI a few things to remember. AI works on prediction and pleasing the user. So it cannot do random numbers by itself, even though it will happily pretend to.

So say you are using it for D&D it will generally say you hit all the time, for CoC you will pass all your skill checks.

Imagine an oracle that only answers Yes or Yes and…

For ChatGPT you have to tell it to use its python code to get a real random result.

Also AI has a limited memory so as it goes on it quickly forgets details. So it is a good idea to ask for a summary every now and again and keep that in a separate doc.

Plus it is a huge waste of resources.

 

[Duke_]

Did you use just the QuestWorlds book/rules? Or did you use the older HeroQuest Glorantha or The Coming Storm/Eleven Lights books?

I used the QuestWorlds book in tandem with HQ:G as my "genre pack" for things like keyword structure, runes, magic, etc. Or, it could be looked as using QW to update the mechanics for HQ:G. I'm honestly not sure if it was more one than the other, or if that even matters. Call it a 50/50 blend I guess. I have the Red Cow books, but I didn't use them at all for this particular game.

I'm interested to see how much changes in the forthcoming QW Glorantha genre pack. That's a Day One purchase for me.