I am working on a single player rpg. I dont know if it will work but I am willing to try. It could be played with more people but I wanted to do something when others weren't around so.. this is what came of it.
        So my main idea right now is to have the player roll random tables. I have a quest table and npc race tables and such. This seemed fine at first but the farther I go the more I realize its not exactly possible to make a table with even a fraction of the possibilities. What do you guys think. I think it still has merit and will continue thinking about it and what is to be done.
          If you want me to explain some more about the system just ask.

How many tables are going to be there? If it's all tables and tables to roll, the whole game could turn into a pen-and-paper version of Progress Quest (aka boring). How are you going to add uncertainty?

Well the tables are more for setting things up not actually playing things out.
        For example: Lets say you have to fight and subdue a bad dude. There would be tables for what the baddy looks like and any special things about him but you would play the battle using things like your characters stats and equipment. against the bad guys stats and equipment which could or could not be random depending on what you want. 
      Another thing I want to make clear is that you dont have to use the tables for everything you dont want to, if you can just make up something you think would be cool do it!
     

Hi Devin,

Given your last line, do the tables need to cover all the possibilities? It sounds like if you have something cool in mind you'll 'do it', anyway? Aren't the tables just kind of a bunch of suggestions then? Since you'll do something else if something cool comes to mind?

So you don't need to worry about the tables covering everything. Just that they give alot of varied suggestions. It might suit you to use several tables to create the one suggestion, like three tables, each making up a third of the suggestion text, or alike.

Callan S.: Yes that is what I was going for. The tables are more for reference when you don't have ideas or want to be surprised. Your last line is a little confusing but I think that I was doing that as well.
                Do you mean that there is a npc table and if you roll human than there is a table to further describe ethnicity and such? Because I am doing that. Thanks for the feedback all(2) of you if any one else has a question or feedback shoot.

Devin wrote: So my main idea right now is to have the player roll random tables. I have a quest table and npc race tables and such. This seemed fine at first but the farther I go the more I realize its not exactly possible to make a table with even a fraction of the possibilities. What do you guys think. I think it still has merit and will continue thinking about it and what is to be done.

Huh... well I suppose nothing is original. I will have to check that out. But yes I wasn't ever planning to have tables for everything, I just hadn't worked out how yet. I think I have some idea. Thanks for the tip.

Devin wrote:
Callan S.: Yes that is what I was going for. The tables are more for reference when you don't have ideas or want to be surprised. Your last line is a little confusing but I think that I was doing that as well.
                Do you mean that there is a npc table and if you roll human than there is a table to further describe ethnicity and such? Because I am doing that.

When I want to "play" and it's only me, that's when I end up brainstorming settings, situations, creating cool NPCs, secret societies, etc. and reading new games.  In other words, DM prep is what "single-player RPGing" means to me.

Some other thoughts:
Single-player Story Now! RPG = a story plotter?
Single-player Step On Up RPG = a Fighting Fantasy book?
Single-player Drama resolution RPG = a Choose Your Own Adventure book?

You could also look at those old PC text adventure games, and at how modern "RPG" computer games handle single play.

Cheers,
-John

Is this a roleplaying game in that it is a combat game?  Or actual roleplaying?
I assume the idea is to basically generate random encounters.

How about a tag based system like Spirit of the Century (I forget the actual term)
You are going on an adventure.  The adventure has tags: cave, dark, etc. 
Then as you enter rooms/areas you generate additional tags that could be for just that room or for the adventure.  Light, guards, creature, water.

Example:
You are investigating a warehouse on the docks.  It has the tags: warehouse, docks, night.
At the front door you roll and get a tag: light - the front door has a lantern illuminating it.  You might need to sneak in another way.
Later in the warehouse you add a tag: guard, patrolling.  The guard is currently in that area but patrols the whole warehouse, so the tag is added to the entire warehouse.

I assume that when you talk about a single-player RPG, you mean only one participant (not one player and one GM). Given that, I'm dubious that such a thing can exist but I am willing to grant that the issue is cloudy. My doubts come from two main issues: conflict and interaction.

Conflict: Are you familiar with the Czege Principle? Search for that term here, and you'll find a number of articles discussing it. The idea is that it's not much fun to create your own opposition. It's like playing tennis against yourself. That said, I think random generation from tables can take on part of the duty of creating opposition for the single player. Still, there's only the player to take that table entry and turn it into a living and breathing thing in the fiction.

Interaction: When I talk about interaction, I don't mean just players talking as their characters to other fiction characters. I mean players interacting with other players as real human beings. I think this kind of interaction is one of the signatures of role-playing gaming. One of the terms we use around here is SIS ("shared imagined space"), for which "the fiction" is a very loose synonym. I'm not sure that you can have SIS if there isn't someone to share it with, and more importantly, someone who can judge your contributions to it. Can you judge your own creative contributions? I suppose.

All of this, and I realize that I'm getting caught up in definitions when all you want to do is create a fun game for one player. So what if it isn't "really" a role-playing game by the semantic approximation of some dude on the Internet. =) It still is probably a kind of role-playing game, and it won't matter if it's fun, anyway.

So take my doubts and pedantry, above, with a grain of salt, but perhaps use my two points as advisement for how to make your single-player RPG better. Find an elegant way to handle the creating-your-own-conflict problem and address how the player can judge his own creative contributions to the fiction.

I think what some of us are saying, Devin, is that we need a better idea of what you mean by "role-playing game."  That term has been stretched to fit over everything from organized make-believe to tactical simulators. 

From your posts so far, it sounds to me like you're thinking about a game in which "encounters," in the D&D sense of location+monster+treasure, are randomly generated.  The player-character addresses encounters, resulting in success or defeat in each.  Is that an accurate picture of what you have in mind?

-John

Paiku: Not sure I understand your "other thoughts" list. What I understand from modern RPG video games from playing them or just watching them is that there are to design theory's.
A: The way is railroaded. You have no say about what the characters do or say beyond a few instances. This has been criticized as not really role playing. I don't think it is but hey it sells.
B: You give lots of choices and try to make them matter. It's still kinda railroaded but you can't blame them it costs money to make the art and such.
That said they both have beginnings, middles, and ends. They are a set story. Role playing games are supposed to be about making up your own and such. I don't think I'll find much help in crpgs.Thanks for the input though.
Edit: To your second post. I think that as long as you can play out the role of a character and have a way to change the narrative not just be a part of it its a roleplaying game. Role playing games have always seemed to me to be in the eye of the beholder. Someone could pick up D&D read all the rules and run a game with no combat. Sure that's not how most people are going to do it but everyone does things differently. I guess I like the FUDGE approach of here's some rules: use um don't use um whatever have fun!
Ah... I'm out of brain breath sorry. Thanks for all the response.

dugfromthearth: interesting and not that far off from what has been put down so far.

Adam:  Yes there will be no GM. I suppose there could be if someone wanted to run the game with one using the rest of the rules. You make very good points and the Czege Principle does worry. It might not be a RPG in a traditional sense but all games should be different.
    I recently read the On Writing book by Stephen King. He likes to write not knowing the ending or even what could happen 2 chapters down the road. He likes setting up what if situations that intrigue him and roll with it. If you can come up with a character who makes sense to you; I think you can have fun seeing what they will do even if there's no one there to influence anything else. I don't want to say that dice can replace people because they cant. No far from it but they can provide a portal into another world.
         Ok well with that out of the way(I don't even know if that will make sense) I want to make a random aspect to the game. Something that makes it so that "anything" could happen at any given time. I don't know how to work it in though.

First I want to say that I'm intrigued by the idea of single-player roleplaying as novel writing. I think that's something that should be explored further, in this or some other design.

Devin wrote: Ok well with that out of the way(I don't even know if that will make sense) I want to make a random aspect to the game. Something that makes it so that "anything" could happen at any given time. I don't know how to work it in though.

Anders wrote:
First I want to say that I'm intrigued by the idea of single-player roleplaying as novel writing. I think that's something that should be explored further, in this or some other design.

Devin wrote: Ok well with that out of the way(I don't even know if that will make sense) I want to make a random aspect to the game. Something that makes it so that "anything" could happen at any given time. I don't know how to work it in though.

I think that no matter how detailed you make your randomized structure, sooner or later you'll have to either leave holes in it or fill it with the kind of associative elements used in the GM Emulator upthread. Going into every single possibility just isn't possible, nor do I think it's fruitful to try. The more details you create, the more of your own ideas and prejudices (in a broad sense) you will build into the system, which, perhaps somewhat paradoxically, will narrow its usefulness.

I meant something like what you get when you ask the GM Emulator about "Details"; phrases like "The Answer involves Fascinating Decoration, and might also involve Your Mother" or "The Answer involves An Incredible Display of Masculinity". You could ask "What happens next?" and get one of these answers, which doesn't really give you an explicit answer but kickstarts a chain of associations that lead to the actual answer.