Solitaire "RPGs" e.g. "Oraculum"

[ejh]

I'd like to start a new thread to talk about some things Mark Johnson and I brought up in http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=7632">this thread.  (Hmm... BBCode seems to be totally failing for me.  I'll have to use plain html blockquote elements to mark off the quotes.)

We both presented minimal mechanics systems for freeform solitaire play.  His a lot more minimal.

Mark Johnson:

Solitaire: A Short Storytelling Game for One Person
 
Solitaire is a storytelling for one person.  Like the card game, "cheating" is not really an issue since you are both the player and the referee.  In this game, you attempt to create a satisfying imaginative space by the means of statements.  
 
A statement is simply anything that can be said about the characters, the setting, motivations, actions, etc.  All statements must be sequentially numbered, written down and evaluated with a "T" for True or "F" for False.  If play is going to be shared with others online or in print, it might be helpful if the die roll and target number is listed as well.
 
Sample Statements:
The Sea of Nye is filled with pirates  
John hates Mary.
Pedro is a fluent speaker of both Spanish and English.
Vera is strong for her size.
Gunther impales the guard on his sword.
 
You can give yourself a number of free statements to start off with.  Free statements are automatically true.  These will normally be used create a protagonist, define the setting, create a situation, etc.  A game module in Solitaire could consist of simply a list of starting statements.  
 
The Play Cycle:
1) Start imagining.  
2) Write down a new statement and number it sequentially after the last statement.  
3) Decide how likely the statement is to be true and assign it a target number.  
4) Roll the die.  
5) If you roll the target number or below, mark the statement as "T" for true.  
6) If you roll above the assigned number mark the statement as "F" for false.
7) Repeat as desired
 
When assigning a target number give out lower numbers for vagueness, complexity and non sequiturs.  Give out higher numbers for simple, specific statements that build logically on previous facts.
 
Enjoy.

....

I just posted a quick mock up of what I thought that "daydreaming with dice" might look like.  I felt it was more appropriate to call it a storytelling game in its current form.  I am not sure that "game" is the right term either since there are no victory conditions.
 
However, it could probably be drifted into a RPG if you added the following rules during the setup phase
 
1)  Identify one character as the protagonist.
2)  Give the protagonist a goal.  
3)  When the protagonist achieves the goal play ceases.  The player has won.
4)  When the goal is no longer achievable play ceases.  The player has lost.
 
Thoughts?

Me:

Funny you should mention all this.  I recently bought http://www.mythic.wordpr.com/">Mythic, which is unusual not only because it has some of the most embarrassing art ever to appear in an RPG, but also because it is designed to be played equally well with or without a GM, alone or in groups.
 
Honestly, it's a little rules-heavy for me, so I hacked together my own ripoff version of it which I called 'ORACULUM'.  I haven't had a chance to really playtest it yet.
 
Here's the rules in their current form.
 
 
Oraculum Rules
--------------------
 
ORACULUM
 
 
I always like something different.  Mythic (http://www.mythic.wordpr.com/) is very different.  It advocates a style of roleplaying where one uses an oracle -- a die roll -- to control/represent the world outside one's character's point of view.
 
This is different from the traditional style of roleplaying, in which the GM controls the world outside the character, the player controls the world inside the character, and the dice dance about the boundary.
 
Can something like this work?  I'm curious.  I remember reading about an experiment where students were given the opportunity to participate in a "new kind of therapy" in which they could describe their problems to a hidden "counselor" and ask yes/no questions.  They would receive the yes/no reply, and that's all.  They uniformly described the advice they received as extremely helpful and insightful, despite the fact that the yes's and no's were randomly generated.
 
We are good at seeing patterns in random events, filling them with what's in our heads, and perceiving it as being outside of us and independent of us.
 
We are good at consulting oracles.
 
Mythic is really original, really different, but the rules are a little cumbersome for my tastes.  Anything more complicated than Over the Edge is likely to be too many rules for me.  So this is an attempt to play Ken St. Andre to Mythic's Gary Gygax.  I would like to just play some Mythic, but I know the details are just going to drag me down.  (I am Short Attention Span Dude.)
 
Oh, BTW, I don't know enough about probability to be certain about this, but I think that what Mythic is doing is rolling the dice to determine the probabilities of different "Bayesian inferences."  Cool.
 
The Rules
 
The Oracle
To determine if something is true, one rolls one or more dice, takes the highest or lowest, and checks this chart.  This is called "consulting the Oracle."
 
1: "No, And..."  Not only is the answer "no," something else unexpected is true that is an extension or exaggeration of the answer being "no."
2. "No."  The answer is no.
3. "No, but...."  The answer is no, but this "no" is ameliorated in some way: there's something that makes it less than a simple, complete "no."
4. "Yes, but..."  The answer is yes, but this "yes" is diminished in some way: there is something that makes it less than a simple, complete "yes."
5. "Yes."
6. "Yes, and..." Not only is the answer "yes," it's somehow "extremely yes."
 
(Designer's Note: man, that's a pretty tight spread of results.  "Ands" and "buts" are actually more likely than plain answers!  Maybe d10s would be nicer, with the curve like this: 1= "no and" 2-4 = "no" 5 = "no, but" 6 = "yes, but" 7-9 = "yes", 10="yes, and".  Hmmm.)
 
Likelihood
 
Before making an Oracle Roll, the players should agree on a base Likelihood of the answer being "yes," based on everything they know about the situation which is not explicitly codified as a Theme or Fact (see below).  It's a big ol' guesstimate, and all that matters is that the players more or less agree on it.
 
-3: Almost certainly not, 6% chance
-2: Very unlikely, 13% chance
-1: unlikely, 25% chance.
0: might be, might not be.  50/50 chance, all other things being equal.
1: Likely. 75% chance.
2: Very likely, 88% chance.
3: Nearly a sure thing, 94% chance.
 
And so on from there in either direction.
 
Base Likelihood is modified by Themes and Facts and their Relevance.
 
Facts
 
Not everything that is the case in the game world has to be written down in so many words, but key facts should be.  These key facts can include the capabilities of the characters (see "attributes and skills" in traditional RPGs), and anything in the character and nature of the world around them.  Facts are often established by means of Oracle rolls (which may be influenced by other Facts...)
 
One may never contradict a Fact.  If the answer to an Oracle question is already implied by a Fact, that answer is an automatic "yes" or "no."  No roll.  However, usually, facts do not imply other facts, they only suggest them.  If someone is rich, that doesn't imply they drive a nice car, it only suggests that they are likely to.
 
Facts have a numeric value.  The default value for a Fact is 1, but for facts which represent something that is going to come up often and may vary quantitatively, they may be assigned any low positive value (usually 1-3, but possibly higher).  For example, in a game with a lot of combat, the Fact that someone has Fighting Ability may be indicated as having a value of 1, 2, 3, or more, to indicate degrees of fighting ability along a scale.
 
Themes
 
Themes are basically Facts which never imply anything, they only suggest things.  
They tend to concern intangible things about the story, not tangible facts in the game world.  For example, the Theme "Sword & Sorcery" might exist, describing the world in general, making any event which is in keeping with the Sword & Sorcery genre (as understood by the players) more likely.  Or more personally speaking, a character might have the Theme of "comic relief" attached to him, suggesting that he is unlikely to either suffer great tragedy or achieve anything very heroic, and influencing Oracle rolls where either of those are about to happen.  Facts are things that objectively exist in the world; Themes are metagame -- about the story told in the game.
 
I'm still working on where Themes come from and how they are established, but to start with, each character can have at least one Theme for free, and players may establish as many Themes at the outset that they like concerning the world.  Any non-player character or thing in the world which is important to the players can have a Theme established concerning it, though probably not every one will.
 
 
Relevance
 
Relevance is the degree to which a given Theme or Fact matters for an Oracle roll.  It has to be guesstimated/eyeballed, just like Base Likelihood, for any given roll.
 
Relevance
+3 nearly guarantees a yes
+2 strongly suggests a yes
+1 suggests a yes
-1 suggests a no
-2 strongly suggests a no
-3 nearly guarantees a no
 
If the Fact or Theme doesn't have a numeric value attached to it, just add its Relevance to the Base Likelihood.  If it has a numeric value, multiply the Relevance by the numeric value.  (i.e. if I have "Strong 2" and I'm trying to open a stuck door, for which the Relevance of my strength is +2, I have a +4 to add to the base Likelihood of my opening the door.)
 
Redundant Facts should not be included multiple times in the same Oracle roll.  If your character has a Strength fact and a Warrior fact and is trying to open a stuck door, you couldn't use both of them because "well, warriors are strong."  That's already there in the Strength fact.
 
The Roll
 
Once appropriate modifiers have been added to Base Likelihood, if the number is zero, roll one die.  If the number is positive, roll one plus that many dice and take the highest.  If the number is negative, roll one plus that many dice and take the lowest.  Read the result off the Oracle table.
 
Starting The Game
 
To start the game, you should describe your character(s), using a paragraph, a list of Facts and Themes, or both.  You should also describe the world, and the opening situation, using the same techniques: a paragraph or so, and Facts and Themes.  (You can go into as much or as little detail as you like here.)  To give the story some momentum, the opening situation should be a "kicker" in Ron Edwards' sense -- something which is going to change your character's life and to which he or she must react somehow.
 
If multiple players are playing, they should include in the "world/opening situation" part whatever they can all agree on.
 
From then on, you tell the story.
 
You can make your character do, or attempt, anything you want.  Whether your character succeeds at what they try depends on Oracle rolls.  What happens outside your character's control depends on Oracle rolls too, but it requires you to initiate questions.  If you never ask an interesting question of the Oracle, nothing interesting will ever happen.  If you ask a lot of interesting questions, a lot of interesting things will happen.
 
Adding New Facts
 
You can ask a question about a new Fact or Theme to be added to the list -- after all, facts and themes are nothing but a formalized statement of important elements of the game world.  Assign that Fact or Theme a likelihood of being present, and make the roll.
 
You can also use Oracle rolls to get rid of existing Facts.
 
8/12/2003
 
Example of Play
 
What this needs is an Example of Play.

[Mark Johnson]

Oraculum and Solitaire are really essentially the same game with the following exceptions:

O = modified dice pool
S = roll under

O = analog resolution (ands/buts)
S = binary

O = D6
S = DX (user chooses fineness of resoluton)

O = stronger guidelines on judging likelihood
S = weaker guidelines

O = separate categories for themes and facts
S = both themes and facts can be statements

Feel free to use anything I wrote in my game for yours.  Be aware that my game was inspired by:

- http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/nomic.htm">Nomic for the logs and the binary statements

- http://www.io.com/~hamster/">Matrix Games for the resolution

- AD&D 1st Edition for the roll under mechanic (although used in tons of games, that is where I first encountered it)

- Universalis & Donjon for facts as units of measure

Talk soon!

[ejh]

That's funny; the influences you cite also influenced what I did.  No wonder it came out similarly. :)