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solo_knightThis is a video about a solo gameplay loop that does not rely on any specific system.
I haven’t tried this yet. I have, for the moment, arrived at a point that feels fairly similar.
I think there’s a danger here for me to think that other people have ‘the answer’ to ‘how do I play’
If there’s one thing I’m learning it’s that there is not right/wrong and not even an optimal way of playing; what works for me depends very much on the story I want to tell and the mood I'm in.
One of my goals is to rediscover the ability to immerse myself in stories, just me and my brain and seeing where it takes me. In the interest of finding (and following) my bliss, I am keeping this in hand in case I get stuck and need to unstick myself.
There may be a time when I’ll go back to this loop deliberately, but for now, my 12 months ahead list is filled out until the end of 2027, so… not any time soon.
Below are my notes, rather than a mere transcription, because I can haz thoughts.
(there is a summary in the comment section with time stamps)
Scene/Situation/Setting
While 'Scene' is a common term for a story unit, I'm struggling with this, because all too often 'scene' is treated as 'unit of space and time' and while that's a necessity in theatre, where scene changes are expensive, writers can make up new settings and skip time and place with great abandon. (Film is somewhere inbetween).
What I'm looking for here is grounding. Where am I, what do I notice, who or what else is here.
So far, this has been a wild mix for me. I've used a grid drawn on a map to roll where my character started their adventure, and then rolled a direction and a distance from that starting point to the location where he actually finds himself. (A whole different island. That's gonna be fun when he learns his new location, and it's much more puzzling: how the fuck did he get THERE?)
I've rolled for the terrain and the weather, and I'm rolling for things like 'how long will it take him to find a friendly face'. And when I find that person, I'll be rolling for their attitude towards my character.
Task/Trial
Why am I here, aka the scene goal. A character must want something, but sometimes an author wants something. My protagonist wants to get out of the weather, so this doesn't have to be a grand overarching or dramatic goal. This depend on your focus: if you're telling a Big Story that spans years or centuries 'character wants a bed for the night' might be too trivial.
Turk includes 'deciding what to roll' in his listing, and I am still pondering that. This certainly feels somewhat different from planning a scene for a novel.
This may be more about investigation checks, or lore checks, or perception checks, an in-depth evalutation of the locality and the people in it while you're not in crisis mode.
Action
What do I do?
This is where you roll for action, and you can either use a yes/no system ('do I succeed in doing x') or your favourite combat rules ('I roll x to hit and do y damage') with the opponent getting a chance to hit and as many extra actions as your system will allow (dodging, swinging from the chandelier, whatever)
Resolution
What's the outcome: did I find the thing/beat the thing?
This can be fine-grained or not, 'I roll good and beat the monster' vs 'after thirteen losing rounds I finally manage to beat the monster and escape with three lousy hitpoints'.
Transition
You move to the next scene. Both Success and Failure should move the story forward, so no 'I try again and again and again until I open the chest'.
I think I can now put the finger on the problem a little bit better. This is a framework distilled from how one person actually plays, which means it's a good average for that person, and not the worst average for other people, but the moment you stop thinking 'what will be best for my story' (where best != great outcome for the character, but an interesting story) and instead go 'ok, so the next step on the flowchart is' you don't exactly stop playing, but you're shifting into a more formalised form of play.
It's not 'bad' play. There are so many ways of playing and some of them DO have very strict rules, but the beauty of solo RPG is that you can be incredibly flexible. Limiting yourself as part of play (the character has limited hitpoints, they lose HP when hit and can die, they have limited resources/skills, not everyone in the world is friendly) is part of what creates the fun, otherwise you have a walking simulator rather than a game. (That can be fun, too). Limiting yourself arbitrarily about what kind of moves you make *can* be part of gameplay (when you're playing a specific game with those rules) of if you tend to meander and roll on 'do I step on an ant', but right now, observing where I would make a decision _as a writer_ and exploring what I *could* roll on are a big part of the fun for me.
I haven’t tried this yet. I have, for the moment, arrived at a point that feels fairly similar.
I think there’s a danger here for me to think that other people have ‘the answer’ to ‘how do I play’
If there’s one thing I’m learning it’s that there is not right/wrong and not even an optimal way of playing; what works for me depends very much on the story I want to tell and the mood I'm in.
One of my goals is to rediscover the ability to immerse myself in stories, just me and my brain and seeing where it takes me. In the interest of finding (and following) my bliss, I am keeping this in hand in case I get stuck and need to unstick myself.
There may be a time when I’ll go back to this loop deliberately, but for now, my 12 months ahead list is filled out until the end of 2027, so… not any time soon.
Below are my notes, rather than a mere transcription, because I can haz thoughts.
(there is a summary in the comment section with time stamps)
Scene/Situation/Setting
While 'Scene' is a common term for a story unit, I'm struggling with this, because all too often 'scene' is treated as 'unit of space and time' and while that's a necessity in theatre, where scene changes are expensive, writers can make up new settings and skip time and place with great abandon. (Film is somewhere inbetween).
What I'm looking for here is grounding. Where am I, what do I notice, who or what else is here.
So far, this has been a wild mix for me. I've used a grid drawn on a map to roll where my character started their adventure, and then rolled a direction and a distance from that starting point to the location where he actually finds himself. (A whole different island. That's gonna be fun when he learns his new location, and it's much more puzzling: how the fuck did he get THERE?)
I've rolled for the terrain and the weather, and I'm rolling for things like 'how long will it take him to find a friendly face'. And when I find that person, I'll be rolling for their attitude towards my character.
Task/Trial
Why am I here, aka the scene goal. A character must want something, but sometimes an author wants something. My protagonist wants to get out of the weather, so this doesn't have to be a grand overarching or dramatic goal. This depend on your focus: if you're telling a Big Story that spans years or centuries 'character wants a bed for the night' might be too trivial.
Turk includes 'deciding what to roll' in his listing, and I am still pondering that. This certainly feels somewhat different from planning a scene for a novel.
This may be more about investigation checks, or lore checks, or perception checks, an in-depth evalutation of the locality and the people in it while you're not in crisis mode.
Action
What do I do?
This is where you roll for action, and you can either use a yes/no system ('do I succeed in doing x') or your favourite combat rules ('I roll x to hit and do y damage') with the opponent getting a chance to hit and as many extra actions as your system will allow (dodging, swinging from the chandelier, whatever)
Resolution
What's the outcome: did I find the thing/beat the thing?
This can be fine-grained or not, 'I roll good and beat the monster' vs 'after thirteen losing rounds I finally manage to beat the monster and escape with three lousy hitpoints'.
Transition
You move to the next scene. Both Success and Failure should move the story forward, so no 'I try again and again and again until I open the chest'.
I think I can now put the finger on the problem a little bit better. This is a framework distilled from how one person actually plays, which means it's a good average for that person, and not the worst average for other people, but the moment you stop thinking 'what will be best for my story' (where best != great outcome for the character, but an interesting story) and instead go 'ok, so the next step on the flowchart is' you don't exactly stop playing, but you're shifting into a more formalised form of play.
It's not 'bad' play. There are so many ways of playing and some of them DO have very strict rules, but the beauty of solo RPG is that you can be incredibly flexible. Limiting yourself as part of play (the character has limited hitpoints, they lose HP when hit and can die, they have limited resources/skills, not everyone in the world is friendly) is part of what creates the fun, otherwise you have a walking simulator rather than a game. (That can be fun, too). Limiting yourself arbitrarily about what kind of moves you make *can* be part of gameplay (when you're playing a specific game with those rules) of if you tend to meander and roll on 'do I step on an ant', but right now, observing where I would make a decision _as a writer_ and exploring what I *could* roll on are a big part of the fun for me.
