Solo games, how do you do it?

[Norin]

Hey all.

Ive seen a few examples on threads here on the forum that asks for build advice and whatnot on so called "solo games".

No, i am not thinking 1 player and 1 DM - But 1 guy that is both dm and player for himself, alone.

I'm not making this thread to mock anyone, don't get me wrong here, but i really genuinely wonder how you manage to pull this off?

Do you sit at a desk or table and talk it out loud, like we normaly do when we play D&D? Or do you just read a premade module and roll dices to overcome the different encounters, traps, etc? And how do you not metagame it all? You know exactly what challenges you are up against as both DM and player.

"Oh a trap! Damn, i did not search for traps there!"

"Oh my! A hidden rogue that got a full round TWF sneak attack routine in on me! I had no idea he was hidden in that shadow over there!"

I do not get it. Anyone care to share some insight on this?

[lsfreak]

Well, I personally don't get playing entirely by yourself except as a numbers things - given these two characters, can A best B? Which makes perfect sense to me, testing how different things work and interact. There's just not much (or any) roleplaying or storytelling to be done. (I could see storytelling actually being done this way, I mean compare it to writing a story and trying to figure out how each character would act, it's just I'd rather write the story than take the hours needed to build encounters).

I've done it to test encounters before. Take my player's builds and throw them against an encounter when I'm not sure how well-balanced it is, see how well/poorly it goes and make further adjustments.

[Novawurmson]

As far as I know, whenever anyone asks for help with a "solo game," they're talking about 1 player and 1 DM.

If you want to play games by yourself, there's always video games.

- - - - - - - -

On further thought, I guess if you made a party of four PCs and tried to see how ridiculously you could burn through a module (or how poorly built, but still complete the module), it might work as an exercise in optimization/lack thereof.

[Norin]

Well, I personally don't get playing entirely by yourself except as a numbers things - given these two characters, can A best B? Which makes perfect sense to me, testing how different things work and interact. There's just not much (or any) roleplaying or storytelling to be done. (I could see storytelling actually being done this way, I mean compare it to writing a story and trying to figure out how each character would act, it's just I'd rather write the story than take the hours needed to build encounters).

I've done it to test encounters before. Take my player's builds and throw them against an encounter when I'm not sure how well-balanced it is, see how well/poorly it goes and make further adjustments.

Yeah, testing your build vs other builds or monsters, i can without trouble see how is done and also how useful it can be.

Probably fun to do as a past time too if you run out of internets or something.


As far as I know, whenever anyone asks for help with a "solo game," they're talking about 1 player and 1 DM.


No really, 1 person being both DM and playing his own character(s).

[limejuicepowder]

I've never actually done it, but I considered this at one point: write a fantasy story, but instead of describing the fights in the overly flowery and dramatic language of fantasy, roll it out.

Not terribly exciting, which is probably why I never bothered to start.

[Norin]

One example i came across recently. I have seen more people doing this.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=269733

This is the post where he says it's solo-solo:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14623644&postcount=21

[Laserlight]

I've solo'd Fantasy Hero, Savage Worlds, and G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. You can either write a scenario and run a character or small team through it--which is what I usually do--or you can make it up on the fly, using the Mythic GM Emulator or something of that sort.

In solo play, you don't usually get "the players surprise you with their brilliance", but you also don't get players who no-show you, or spend 25% of the session talking about irrelevant stuff, or wander around looking at everything except the clues you've laid out.

[Phelix-Mu]

I actually did this a lot back in 2e, often with a whole party. Nothing about 3e is really more complex, so you could still pull it off.

The key to not metagaming is to like your characters, and to know that they will need to be tested, challenged, and possibly killed in order to truly evolve into awesome characters. If you just softball them through encounters, where is the fun? I want to see some blood, have some good stories to tell, and as a role player, I want each character to be authentic and add something to the party dynamic.

Now for mechanics, some things need to be streamlined to make a whole party practical. In interaction scenes, one character should pretty much always lead, have a well-defined scout, and it's good if the characters in the party are established to at least cooperate well. Having a bunch of bickering pcs or a party of evil people would be VERY hard to model efficiently.

Combat, ofc, can take way longer, but if you are organized with the monster stats and character sheets this can be sped up considerably, as side-by-side comparison is much faster than by-mouth as it usually is around the gaming table with friends. I know what all of the characters are best capable of in a given round, since I designed them, so that speeds up the decision-making process a bit.

Really, it can be quite fun. As a DM, I am used to doing this kind of abstracted interaction between plot and a character via long-term npcs that pop up multiple times in a campaign, as I often have them do stuff while away from the party that may later factor into the plot (hopefully not die, though that can be good fodder too).

[ArcturusV]

I used to do Solo gaming like that for various reasons. The most common of which I can think of is Background Testing. I wanted my character's background to make sense in context of the game world and what was possible. Also making sure key events I want in the history of a world not to be impossible through the rules.

My ideal being that any bit of "Fluff" in setting background, current events, etc, needs to be able to make sense in context of the rules of the game as well. And that they don't have obvious plot holes like "Oh, one Necromancer who found a dead dragon skeleton can kick over an entire kingdom" or something. Depending on what's in question, I may run it several times, testing out options.

I often do something similar (If I have time), in campaigns where we are starting at moderate levels. If we're starting at level 5, I'm probably already a somewhat seasoned _____. I probably have a few events I can talk about in my past, exploits, etc. I want to make sure they work out in context, and if my character needed backup, that's accounted for in my backstory, etc.

So you see less things like the zero level commoner who's family got slaughtered in front of him picks up an axe and murders an entire camp of bandits, and after that point decides to start being a Ranger or the like.

[TuggyNE]

I did some of this for a while to test out builds and work out basic ideas and stuff. Haven't done so much lately.

Also, when I was younger, I'd play chess or sometimes other competitive games with myself; it requires a certain mindset, yes, but it's not fundamentally impossible. (The human mind is surprisingly, perhaps worryingly, good at compartmentalization.)

[Norin]

I understand the combat parts. Everything that requires game mechanics and dice rolls are easy to do solo. The dice decides the outcome.

Roll initiative and start the combat like any other game. No problemo.

But the part with the NPC interaction, storytelling, room and eviroment descriptions and so on i do not get.

Do you just sit there and imagine it all happening in your mind? Or do you speak out loud? Or maybe write out the dialogues? Or just skip it all and go straight to the fights?

[TuggyNE]

I understand the combat parts. Everything that requires game mechanics and dice rolls are easy to do solo. The dice decides the outcome.

Roll initiative and start the combat like any other game. No problemo.

But the part with the NPC interaction, storytelling, room and eviroment descriptions and so on i do not get.

Do you just sit there and imagine it all happening in your mind? Or do you speak out loud? Or maybe write out the dialogues? Or just skip it all and go straight to the fights?

I would guess the last, but I could be surprised here. If not that, it's probably just imagining it all. :smallwink:

[ArcturusV]

It's usually a matter of me either testing something for future players, so I go through interactions pretending to be my players and what I know of them to try and cover all my bases. Or I'm crafting my character's backstory so it's less a question of RPing it out in particular so much as knowing the general bend of how I want things to go and if it's roughly believable in a "This could have happened if it was an adventure" sort of way.

[Darius Kane]

Schizophrenia helps.

[Norin]

Schizophrenia helps.

Is that personal experience talking?

:smallwink:

I really think i would have a hard time playing a RPG solo like that though. I really do not understand how it's done and the appeal of it. What is the fun in a challenge you already know every little detail of?

I invite anyone who has personal experience in this to tell me more about it. I'm quite intrigued.

[Clistenes]

Why not just playing RPG-based video games? You have Baldur's Gate I & II, Icewind Dale I & II, Planescape, Neverwinter Nights I & II (and each has several expansions)...etc.

[GnomeGninjas]

Disclaimer: I never have done a game with myself do to living so close to another gamer.

It doesn't seem that strange to me. I imagine that the player would come up with some sort of story and hero(es) to complete it. They wouldn't think of the hero(es) as themselves but rather as the protagonists. It wouldn't be like a normal dnd game where the player has there own personal character going around killing monsters, it would be more like dice-guided story telling.

[Darius Kane]

It's like writing a book. But with dice.