Solo Play
Would you look at that? Gunslinger managed to make new friends! Unless my eyes deceive me, however, one of them isn’t new to the comic. One can only hope that Orbert remains safe in the company of Handbook-World’s loneliest marksman. And by the same token, one can only wonder where Gunslinger acquired the googly eyes.
(Note to self: Googly Glass Eyes. This pair of comically oversize novelty eyeballs allow you to project your vision as per the find familiar spell. The may have one or both eyes active at once, surveilling up to two different locations at the same time. However, if you use both eyes in this way you become blind with regard to your own senses.)
OK. With the fires of invention safely doused, what do you say we get around to today’s actual topic? I am talking of course about solo RPGs. And this is some brand spanking new territory for yours truly.
I’ve recently backed my first Solo RPG on BackerKit. It’s a hot little number called Wreck This Deck, and I’ve been having a blast binding eldritch entities in playing cards. Of course, given my practice of bringing a journal to IRL players to sketch them, I’ve adapted the game somewhat to my own ends. Rather than catching demons, I’m applying a bit of homebrew to capture Philadelphia’s genius loci instead. For me it’s become a tool for exploring my new city. And that retheming led me to a realization.
In my benighted past, I’d heard of solo RPGs and thought, “Structured journaling? Why not just write a novel?” But in the practice lives the craft. In the same way that I’ve used places to inspire writing, these games use carefully engineered prompts to scaffold creativity.
One of my literary heroes once said, “My idea of hell is a blank sheet of paper. Or a blank screen. And me, staring at it, unable to think of a single thing worth saying, a single character that people could believe in, a single story that hasn’t been told before. Staring at a blank sheet of paper. Forever.” But when you’ve got a solid prompt to kickstart your imagination, you need not fear hell. You’re not going from literal-nothing to entire-new-universe. You’re taking a seed and watching it grow through your own weird, idiosyncratic, twisting pathways until it becomes into your very own Yggdrasill. (Or Realmbreaker if you’re a giant nerd.)
And best of all? Because you’re the one in charge of your own storytelling experience, you can bend rules or break them or make up your own. Nobody else gets a say. Surprising as it was, the freedom I felt reflavoring Wreck This Deck was revelatory.
That’s why, for today’s discussion, I’d like to try a writing exercise. I’ll ask you the same question I just asked my first crop of “Writing For Gaming” undergrad students. If you were to reflavor my favorite binding-demons-in-cards game, rebranding it as a binding-____-in-cards game, what goes in the blank? Impress us with your homebrew down in the comments! And add on your hot takes on solo gaming while you’re at it!
I wouldn’t bind for the game, but for the characters. Each deck would bind one sense at a particular moment to a card, once a day until all the cards were full (going from a standard 52 to a full tarot depending on the group). The decks would be bound to one person from the beginning and once the deck was full, they would be able to recall that moment for as long as the deck was complete. Everything from the smell of their mom cooking turkey to the sight of amazing sunset. Literal physical memories of those moments we always want to hang on too, but memory and time erase.
One of my students is using this premise! Dudes taking photography of friends and arting it into playing cards.
That is fabulous!
‘Binding nerds in cards’.
“YOU are a demon, eldritch abomination or similar entity.
After generations of nerds, geeks and wizards binding your kind in cards, it is finally time … FOR REVENGE!
The maze has been prepared, you’ve gathered your friends … enemies … whatever. And you’ve sealed some nerds and geeks in cards. Play your cards to beat the challenges of the ever-shifting maze, provide your unique incentive to the nerdlings in the form of pain, seduction, madness or lies, and watch them scamper. Only one can win this game, and it won’t be your friends … enemies … whatever.
And no matter what you tell the creatures in your cards, it probably won’t be them.
Welcome to ‘Revenge of the Summons’!(tm)”
“Play your Nerd cards, each with its own Geek-Out, weakness and resilience, and roll the direction and distance to send them scampering about.
Incentivize them to move where you want and solve puzzles, either by playing Environment cards to shape conditions in the labyrinth (cause torrential rainstorms, shift the architecture of the maze, or create rooms that look like the set of DokiDoki Joshikuosei University College), summoning minor servitors to bedevil and herd them, or using your special Incentive cards.
But watch out! A nerd pushed too far may rebel, and it gets worse if they start working together. Don’t wind up in a card yourself…!
And remember to Have Fun. Set your own goals: if you want your nerd to beat the labyrinth, you can! If you just want to kill off your nerds, well… you can do that as well.”
This would blow up on a Black Armada server. XD
I have no idea what that is.
Dudes that made wreck this deck have a discord server. There’s an in-character section where Deck Runners swap stories and ask for demon-binding advice.
Choices. If it’s true that every conscious choice creates a new universe, then you can go and play all the other choices that you did not make. And see if it would have been a better life, or a more fulfilling one. Or even a worse one, and empty.
Only you can find out what and how these choices changed.
Well there’s an interactive narrative and a half!
Have you watched / played Bandersnatch on Netflix? Similar theme.
I thought Orbert was a party balloon at first, then I realized it was the latest arcs McGuffin. I predict a dramatically comedic turn of events when Orbert has to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.
Surprised the pillow (Pillowbert? Pillowson? P’Low the Strangler?) wasn’t sourced from the Pillow Golem back in ‘Handicap’ though. They had some personality to them!
I wonder if Gunslinger could cure his loneliness/sanity slippage with an intelligent weapon, Black Blade style, one day. Or a familiar.
*P’Low the Smotherer, even
It is canon!
Also, the now-harmless pillow golem is still in there. It is only able to fluff itself though.
What if they’re wielded with violent intent?
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/practice
Improvised weapon rules apply. R
So its Cardcaptor Sakura?
Turn it into a monster creation thing. When you defeat a monster, you get one of its “traits” aka the cards that make up its form. When it comes time for battle, combine your traits together to make a more powerful monster. Add in some sort of mechanic by which cards are lost (maybe when that particular card is too damaged it escapes or 5 uses or whatever) and you have to strategize a bit. Your objective is to either capture everything or premade city guardians.
Ooh… Maybe you have to do some sort of Tarot spread to find out what kind of monster you get?
Hmm. That could work. Presuming the 22 major Arcana… you could potentially have a system to draw, say, 3 to determine your starting monster or set up. It would provide a lot of replay ability.
You could also try to do something with the reversed card, adding them as flaws or something.
The other option I see would be some sort of limit for the amount of monster parts you could add. Maybe the Tarot acts as a base for the cards with synergistic effects depending on the monster and the card type. Perhaps the ultimate aim of the game then is to conquer the 22 Arcana and you start with one chosen randomly.
Huh. You may have actually changed my opinion here. I always thought that a single-player TTRPG would be fundamentally missing something without the group storytelling aspect, but… the game you described sounds like Pokemon. And I do love me some Pokemon. Heck, I play single-player RPGs all the time! So why wouldn’t I enjoy a single-player RPG that happens to be about tabletop storytelling, another thing that I love? I may have to ponder this.
Give it a shot! The PDF is dirt cheap, and the creators are cool people. (They were kind enough to do a video interview for my class.)
https://blackarmada.com/product/wreck-this-deck/
I took a look! And… don’t get me wrong, it looks like it could be a ton of fun. But for me in particular, who in the past has struggled with delusions, demonomania and other things, doing such an intense ARG seems… unhealthy. Do you have any recommendations that are a bit lighter?
You could reach out to the Black Armada folks. They made this h have after all.
The only other ones I’ve personally been exposed to are in here:
https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Micro-RPG-Book-Tabletop-Games/dp/1507212860
That is a fabulous resource and highly recommended, btw.
I have got some fun with Lichdom and Thousand Years Old Vampire solo-RPGs. More with the first than the second but still with both 🙂
So what about Binding-Liches-In-Cards game? 😀
Me: Check this: Vecna, Koshchei, Acererak, Karthus and BBEG, necro-flush 😛
Also, please, press F for Realmbreaker 🙁
Sounds badass. You could expand it to other types of undead as well. Make it Necromancer themed
Cards from the grave
A solo-RPG of necromancy 😀
Shit man, I’d kickstart that.
Too bad, not available for the foreseeable millennium 😛
Through money is always good 🙁
“…your hot takes on solo gaming while you’re at it!”
It’s not for me… /as I yearn to play single player crpgs
Mostly what I mean is, as a wee spratling I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books, then moved up to the (much better IMO) Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf books (especially the Lone Wolf books, they were superb). But it’s not really for me any more, I’ve tried them, I just don’t have the patience for them when there is group tabletop, LARPs, Play-by-Post, and crpgs.
Right, sorry, to drag this back completely onto topic: I tried solo rpgs as a teen and found them to be not as good* as the Lone Wolf and Fighting Fantasy books, and of course I had steady tabletop rpgs to play with friends, so trying out a solo has never appealed to me since.
I’m just not in the target demographic for it. Single player crpgs fill that niche perfectly.
* it’s more than possible that like most rpgs adventures of the day they were just terrible, but and that ones made today might be way better, but… as most adventures published today are still just terrible, I have doubts. And of course, I’d rather run an adventure for a single Player than play a solo rpg for myself.
I’m a writer. I think the style of thing in describing is more a writing exercise than a CYOA, though I suppose both fall under single player rpg
And I’m “not a writer or a creator, I’m a GM”. So I don’t feel the impetus to build, plot, etc without a game to be doing it for, a group to be creating for.
It’s partially why my fantasy/post-apoc/hex crawl has been on the back burner the last decade+, I’ve been a Player most of that time. And the few times I’ve GMed has been to assist another GM or pick up their game when they’ve bailed.
What ‘potion’ are Gunslinger and his new BFFs drinking? Must be quite distinguished to not just be tea, booze, or prescription meds.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipmenT/goods-and-services/herbs-oils-other-substances/Tinctures/#Nimble_Nectar
Shooting first is important.
Speeds you up and makes you jittery… So basically coffee?
Those appear to be five hour cups of jitter-liquid.
Selfish request: Future appearances of the Googly Glass Eyes become animated.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2b/60/fa/2b60fa4d9740a0c26928603b7cd8a290.gif
MAYBE
I think I’d go with interesting scenery. One of my favorite part of collectible card games is the lovely art. So why not just go full in on that with fantastical, downright strange, or just “mundane” but breathtaking vistas?
I think the goal of the game would be to replace your opponents cards until they think they have….let’s say thirty cards they would prefer to have over any others left in play. Then they get to keep those cards.
(Yes, the goal is to permanently give away your cards to make your opponent happy and for them to hopefully like the experience enough to want to make others happy too. A ccg of competitive kindness. Because this amuses me.)
Ooh… Tokaido theme! Very cool.
https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/tokaido/
Card capture Emotions then use them as magic
when a player experiences an emotion of sufficient strength and purity a card attunes to it then they can call upon that specific emotion for psychic magic later. different emotions could be combined to create new spell effects, some of which may be more about how the spell is targeted instead of what it does.
i have not personally tried any solo ttrpg but some of the board games my hubby and i own do have solo play versions we havent tried yet. those games being: mice and mystics, wingspan, and everdell. i feel like maybe id rather try a board game to get a feel for solo play before trying a ttrpg, im not sure.
There’s solo and then there’s solo. I feel like the kind of journaling exercise I’m describing is a very different beast form solo Mice and Mystics. But then again, I’ve never tried that version either.
Hmm… so the question is, does the TorpOrb have to be in place to keep the l33t-vampires of Aqua Vitae in their perpetual slumber, or does it just have to be intact? If it’s the first, then we have a ticking clock. If not, then things are actually pretty good: who would look for an ancient artifact of power at a halfling tea party?
One can only presume that removing it was, in some small way, a VERY BAD IDEA.
Honestly, I was thinking of playing a solo game for the sole purpose of helping me write a novel. Rolling on random tables for obstacles would help remove decision paralysis and would help get me from point A to point B easier.
I’m thinking that “prompting” may be a fertile field for my academic explorations. I badly need to do some reading on this biz.
Using feats and class features is very handy to flesh out a character’s abilities for a story.