Emily Care wrote: It struck me as I read about Arabian nights and so on that part of what makes these games so g_d-awful unwieldy is the massive amounts of charts, etc. The dichotomy of wanting it to be simple and playable, yet flexible and multi-faceted could be answered by having a system for assigning stats to what's encountered as you go along. A generative system rather than masses of background. Association webs could be used to allow the solo player to create their own challenges yet not have that "how do you tickle yourself" problem.

I'm more interested in a narrative oriented solo-game, anyway. Like playing Once Upon a Time alone, but crossed with Sorcerer. :) If you have any thoughts on this, I'd be interested to hear.

Not to usurp Emily, whose thoughts I am eager to read, but I think maybe I've got an answer to part of it: why do you need a game system to do this?

I tend to agree in a sense that you don't; but then, like you, I'm constantly writing. I can create the story entirely without any sort of mechanical aid. But then, there's a quote (from Sense and Sensibility, perhaps?):

"Why do they dance? Wouldn't conversation be much more reasonable?"

"Oh, more reasonable, definitely; but much less like a ball."

Indeed, one doesn't *need* game rules to play a regular (non-solo) roleplaying game either. One can just get together with a bunch of friends and decide to tell a story.

Telling a story while following a set of rules is a matter of adopting structure. That gives you both limitations, and often inspiration, where you find that by doing things to fit the structure you come up with ideas you might not have come up with otherwise.

So I don't think "but you could just write a story!" is a valid reason to write off solo play. You could just tell stories in groups too, but that doesn't mean there's no point in doing it with rules of some kind.

On the other hand...

One of the real things that sets solos apart and challenges the concept of the solo RPG is the matter of speaking. In a non-solo RPG the "action" takes place primarily through dialogue. In a solo RPG, it has to either take place in writing or else in one's head. Writing takes longer and is less fluid than speaking (for most of us), and simply making mental notes of events in one's head is terribly ephemeral.

In a "gamebook-style" solo, events are pre-written by the gamebook writer, which allows them to move past very swiftly, but obviously puts huge limits on what can happen.

The "solo play" which character creation consists of makes a record of itself in writing, generally.

Any attempt at solo RPG design has to address this problem: "if the events of the universe are not manifested in speech, how are they manifested?"

Excellent points ejh. But while I think that there is good reason to want such a game...

I would say that one of the biggest problem with creating a solo Narrativist game is a classic one. That is, it's been observed that one of the sources of excitement in Narrativist games is being able to address the conflicts that are provided by an outside source, and in doing so, address them in an interesting fashion. What we actually have is three elements. Conflict, Resonse, and Result (sorta IIEE cognates). The actual observation is that when all three are provided by the same player, that, well then, you might as well be writing a novel.

So you have to pull out one or more of these, and give them to another entity to handle. Typically, the response stays in the hands of the player. And using FitM, you could even leave the result to the player. But usually, the item that is given to the GM to affect is the Conflict itself. The GM provides the opposition.

Now, this can be given to an outomated system. But as Walt Frietag notes in the other thread, doing so is problematic. Because, no automated system yet devised allows for the player to both choose his own rout, and yet to achieve anything storylike. That is, you can't trust an automated system to give you Conflicts that are always such that the player can address them in a thematicc way. Or, for those that are, the player has to be railroaded to that point. You just can't have both by any known technology. Requires a human brain, and thus another participant.

Meaning no solo narrativist play. Sorry.

OTOH, I could see a weird sort of play where the player chose the conflicts, and the system chose the responses for the character (very much an anti-RPG). This would be very much like the Sim's, I'd think, but you could more likely be able to get something liek "Narrativism" from it, because, you could always choose conflicts that has outcomes that, while randomly selected, would all be thematic. Or rather, you'd always get a "Literary Story". The problem is that this is very much like writing a book, and just rolling to see what the character does at important junctions. I'm not sure it's interesting.

Can anyone else envision that?

Mike

I guess I'm not married to the concept of "narrativist play" being the
Thing to Do as opposed to simulationist or gamist, or something else
entirely, so it doesn't terribly matter to me if a solo RPG I found
interesting was pronounced "narrativist" or not by someone.

But I still don't buy the "if the same person both sets up and responds
to a conflict, you might as well be writing a novel" line.

A group of roleplayers "might as well be writing a collaborative novel,"
but the fact remains that they aren't doing that, they are playing a
role-playing game. Who cares what they "might as well be doing"? Why
is that a problem?

You're doing what you're doing, regardless of what you "might as well be
doing."

The "you might as well be..." thinking exactly the kind of thinking that
a lot of traditional roleplaying gamers would use to write off cutting
edge Narrativist stuff in general: "No hit points? No armor class? It's
all about telling stories? Screw that, you might as well be writing a
novel." That's the way people talk about systemless or system-light or
narrativist-system gaming all the time.

I'm curious as to what interesting things might be done in terms of solo
RPGs. I don't have a clear idea of what kind of steps could be taken to
do interesting new things with solos in the way that some of the games
featured on the Forge have done interesting new things with non-solo
RPGs. But I don't really like to see the whole idea written off as
impossible so quickly, and on what does not seem to me to be a very
logical basis. Maybe it's impossible to have a "narrativist solo game"
(though it doesn't seem to me that by Ron's definitions it should be --
after all, Ron's definition of "narrativist" strictly speaking applies
to choices made in a game, not to games themelves). Maybe it's even
impossible to have a solo game that deserves to be called a roleplaying
game. But I haven't yet seen a convincing argument to that effect. And
I wonder why one would *want* to rule out certain types of gaming as
"impossible" or as "not real roleplaying games."

Mike Holmes wrote: Can anyone else envision that?

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you Jack, M.J. et al. Let's see, good discussion going on...Thank you for continuing the conversation, Jack, here are my responses to your initial post:

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:
Now, the thing is about narrativist solo is that you could simply write fiction and get the same or a similar effect.
[example snipped]
What I mean here is, why do you need a game to do this? I dunno. Maybe a game system would help, but I think that the game system is more necessary in a group effort than a solo effort.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: .. story idea seized me in the wee hours of the morning and I *had to* get up and write it.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: Now, about your web on-the-fly thing, I can take a page from some kind of zen philosophy somewhere in southern CA and state: "Everything is something to everything else." So, we need some kind of system for figuring out what something is to our solo character, and then going from there.

Personally, I don't see how an on-the-fly system would work, but I keep imagining a game book/variable plot novel. Maybe you could describe what you see a little more.

Mike Holmes wrote: Meaning no solo narrativist play. Sorry.

I've not been clear here.

First, ejh, yes indeed, who cares? It's just that it's the subject of the thread. Once can certainly play other types of games; that's not in dispute. The only question is whether or not one can play Narrativist Solo.

And I am not contending that one cannot use a system and play with oneself in a Narrativist fashion, either. Once certainly can. I overstated the case to make a point.

What I am talking about is the realization that some designers had a while back that something "essential" to RPGs was lost in designs such as "Chalk Outlines". That is, if you author both sides of a conflict, there is a loss of tension. See this thread for a detailed explanantion:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1167

And it makes sense when you think about it. When someone "objects" to just writing a novel, they aren't saying it's a bad or useless activity. Far from it. It's just that it's an activity that has lost an one of the very cool things that are provided by the RPG format. That sorta "contested" collaboration.

This became very important to Ralph and I in the writing of Universalis. We realized that with no GM we needed a way to ensure that this sort of "Contested" authoring could occur. Hence our Complication mechanics, and the requirement that there be two players each as opposing advocates for some in-game component. Otherwise, it's pointless. I'm just rolling against myself. Wheras, I might just as well buy the results from the system straight.

The same would be true for this theoretical Narrativist Solo System.

Anyhow, it may be for a given individual that this is more or less important.

The other part of my point was just to say that automating the "opposition" (collaborator?) as it were is not, currently, a viable way past this.

Mike

I haven't read "Chalk Outlines" (got a URL? What is it?) but I guess I'll have to agree with you that there are good things in group play that are necessarily lost in solo play, but differ with you on being convinced that those things are "essential" to RPGs.

IMHO, "essential" is in the eye of the beholder -- what's essential in one context or to one person may be inessential in another context or to another person.

As you say:

"Anyhow, it may be for a given individual that this is more or less important. "

I agree with your second point basically:

"The other part of my point was just to say that automating the "opposition" (collaborator?) as it were is not, currently, a viable way past this. "

That certainly seems to be true on the face of it.

Guess that's my cue.

Chalk Outlines waiting to happen

-Vincent

Just for historical context, Vincent, has this version been updated since Paul's playtest way back? If so, then the problem may not be visible.

To recap, the problem was that in the version played, a single player would fame a scene, initiate a conflict, and resolve it, all by themselves.

Anyhow, ejh, my point was merely that the lack of different participants making the different sides of he conflicts in these activities makes them seem to me to become more like writing than RPGs. They become similar enough that I would say that if you preferred to write, then I would suggest a game without the opposing element, but that If you prefered traditional RPGs to writing that you'd be dissapointed by an RPG with nothing effectively creating the other side of the characters' conflicts.

Is that more palatable?

Mike

Nope, no updates. That's the same ol' game.

-Vincent

Hi there,

The relevant Actual Play thread is How we played Chalk Outlines.

Best,
Ron

Mike,

Your mention of "just rolling against myself" reminded me of some mechanics I've been working on of late. I refer to them as "Oppositional Mechanics" and they primarilly consist of making all rolls opposed, (or what resolution system you prefer). I've submitted an article on the subject, but it hasn't been posted yet (not here, at actionroll.com).

The interesting thing about this, is that I've been messing around with a particular group of oppositional mechanics, where your primary opposition in any given roll is your own faults. This is intended to work in a 'rise to mastery' or a 'fall of the master' style game, but oddly enough seems to work very well in the context of a solo narrative game, as it is perfectly reasonable for players to narrate how their faults lead to failure.

So submitted for approval a design sketch:

All characters roll a d20 when they take an action. This is the actor die.

They also roll three other dice, each of these represents a fault, which should be named before the game begins. These also start as d20's. These are the fault dice.

Characters should also have a primary drive, which may change at anytime.

result of rolls:

Actor die > all fault dice - action succeeds, degree suggested, but not required by the value rolled on the actor die.

Actor die < one or two fault dice - action fails, due to the fault in question. Describe result accordingly. If two fault dice higher, then use the highest, or describe the result as a mixture of faults leading to failure.

Actor die < all three fault dice - severe failure, likely to lead to some significant sacrefice to the character, character loses a "life"

Actor die = highest fault die - reduce the fault die by one level, action fails, but a lesson / realization occurs.

Also:

Characters start with a number of "lives" when all are lost the character, well, dies. Choose the number of lives based on how risky you want it to be.

If there is no action: roll all dice, if a fault is highest then something happens which takes advantage / tempts this fault, if actor highest then something happens to further the drive, if there is a tie for highest, something unrelated happens adding another element to the story.

I hope that is food for thought,

-Mendel S.

Cool mechanics, Mendel. Thank you for sharing.

All a player really needs is something to interpret meaningfully for conflict-resolution to be satisfying. That generally comes from an external source, but can just as easily come from a self-narrated source or from the modifications to self-narrated actions by a system.

Mendel's mechanics put the response into the hands of the system. Conflict and Resolution are narrated by player. Seems like that would be the easiest part to allow the system to automate. That avoids having to pre-plan every type of encounter in the system: leave it up to the player to create it, and make the system support their efforts.

Also, if you were actually playing a narrative solo rpg, you would be likely to spend a certain amount of time "writing". We all do, in all rpg, it's just called "narrating" because we don't actually write anything. Perhaps, solo rpg can be seen as writing with use of a system, or writing can be seen as rpg without the use of a system.

--Emily Care

ps Mendel, have you seen the "let's make a game" and "Enlightenment Group Game Design" threads? Your mechanic or something like that might be well suited to the game that's being worked on.

Mendel's mechanics are also nearly identical to the rules for Shadows, with the exception that, in that game, you only ever roll against your shadow (the source of the opposition die never changes).

I suppose this could be the exception.

This would be the player choosing the conflict, and two responses, and the system choosing the result from the two responses. I was wondering if there could be a split there, and I think maybe there is.

This would be somewhere in between what I described above, and just deciding eveything else. Good call Mendel. I bet Zak didn't realize he had designed what may be the only viable mechanic for a Narrativist Solo game. :-)

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Mendel's mechanics are also nearly identical to the rules for Shadows, with the exception that, in that game, you only ever roll against your shadow (the source of the opposition die never changes).

I suppose this could be the exception.

Hmm, with further consideration it seems the most imporant element of a solo game is the lack of external input in rolls, I think I could fairly easily adapt my Mythic Strains RPG to solo play. With the added advantage of tarot based mechanics being just plain interesting for solo play.

52pickup.actionroll.com/MythicStrains/MythicStrains.html

Another option seems to be making the difficulty consistently increase, as the character recieves impetus to change.

By the end the character has no choice but to fail (and likely die), or accept change.

I think given the short duration of most solo games an upward or downward spiral is helpful, it provides a scale of action, which paces the story, letting the player add to it as it builds.

Alas, so many games. So little time.

-Mendel S.

Hey.

Seems to me that using tarot to do past life regressions would be a real live preexisting example of solo narrativist roleplaying. You got your game mechanics, you got your identification with a fictional character, you got your using that character to thematically address some issue you're personally interested in.

I guess that the source of conflict there is in the super-complex and nuanced mechanics?

-Vincent