Solo Role-Playing Series Part 3: The Essential Toolbox

When we consider at the bare minimum what a human Game Master does, we can distill out what is essential to have mechanisms or systems for in our solo toolbox.

What, at the bear minimum, does a GM typically do?

• They answer our questions about the game world. 
• Do I recognize the figure in the trench coat? 
• Which political agents are at work in this town?
• They adjudicate the success of our actions. 
• I climb the side of the building, do I make it?
• I jump into the rough water and attempt to retrieve the sword from the bottom of the river. Do I succeed?
• They determine the reactions of others to our character. 
• I hold up my hands in a sign of peace, how do the orcs react?
• I apologize to the mafia boss for hitting on his wife. Does he accept my apology?
• They adjudicate conflict, ideally without bias towards a particular outcome. 
• I offer the merchant 1000 credits for the respirator, does he accept?
• I attack the guard with my sword. Do I hit or cause damage? 

What you should notice almost immediately is that many of these might be handled by your rules of choice.

This picture of Pumpkin has nothing to do with anything. I just felt like the wall of text needed a picture

Conflict is almost always handled explicitly in RPGs, similarly many systems have Skills or Abilities mechanisms that determine if an attempt to do something succeeds or fails. Reaction tables go back to early versions of D&D, and wargaming before that.

Regardless of how much fluff is included, what isn't so common in a rule book are mechanisms to handle questions about the game world.

Many of our questions about the world will be closed questions (yes or no), and while there are a variety of ways to generate the exact answer, most boil down to 50/50 one way or the other.

Open ended questions, such as “What’s in the room?” or “What does the guard say?” seem more complicated on the surface.

However, they are more easily tackled, if you invoke your role as the part-time GM.

You might:

• Decide by fiat - arguably the simplest method, but it does little in the way of surprise. However, even here, there are ways to shake things up. 
• Consult a randomizer (such as cards or dice) with assigned results to each value. Random dungeon generators and room stocking tables are common examples of this. 
• You can prepare these lists on the fly - using your role as GM to make them more logical and feel less random - or in advance. 
• Consult an oracle. Here I mean something that gives a non-literal result for you to interpret - be they pictures, random word lists, tarot cards, etc. 

Fiat and randomizers will in part at least, be touched on below, but oracles will merit their own post(s).


Mechanisms to answer our questions about the game world.

A mechanism to adjudicate questions about the game world can also serve to answer questions about the success of our actions, the reactions of others, and adjudicate conflict. 


Indeed, with just this one mechanism, and without a set of rules, you can play a solo role playing game. However, if you are using an RPG system, you will probably defer to those rules when the system already provides the means to answer your question.

Type 1: Natural Language to Percentage Chance

Mechanisms of this type have a form like the following:

Adjective	Yes	No
A Sure Thing	01 - 90	91 - 100
Very Likely	01 - 75	76 - 100
Somewhat Likely	01 - 60	61 - 100
50/50	01 - 50	51 - 100
Unlikely	01 - 40	41 - 100
Very Unlikely	01 - 25	26 - 100
Impossible	01 - 10	11 - 100

Now you might quibble about the percentages, but the concept is clear, I hope. You pose your yes/no question, decide which adjective best describes the possibility of the hoped for result, and roll using the appropriate row to interpret the results. 

More often than not, you won't know which adjective is the right one, and in that case, go with 50/50.

Mythic: Game Master Emulator, or Mythic : GME,is probably the most well-known example of this kind of Yes/No table. The Mythic results table has more adjectives, and is unusual in that it makes use of an additional attribute which shifts the likelihood of a yes or no result as things go well or badly for your character.

Mythic’s table also includes the possibility that either result might be an extreme example. That is to say, if you roll sufficiently poorly, your result becomes a “No, and” and conversely, rolling well can give you a "Yes, and". I highly recommend purchasing Mythic GME as it is a complete method of solo gaming that offers a number of ideas that I will not be covering.

Wargamers who own Too Fat Lardies Platoon, Forward! will find a similar system to Mythic, without the notion of “Yes, and” or “No, and.” Rather than the granular approach Mythic takes with the d100, Too Fat Lardies use a d10 for percentages.

A free product which I rather like, is a system known as IN-RADIC. It can be found here. The author makes use of 2d6 instead of percentile dice but the approach is the same. In addition, he provides an oracle and a set of pulp wargaming rules that can be used as a rules lite RPG as well.

Type 2: 50/50 Systems

These systems avoid the use of varying chances of yes/no and focus only on the 50/50 outcome. As this is probably the most common choice with the Natural Language to Percentage systems, you can be assured they work quite well.

The most obvious method of deciding a 50/50 question is to flip a coin. Perhaps more common among gamers is to roll 1d6, 1-3 = yes, and 4-6 = no, or perhaps, odds = yes, evens = no.

Either of these methods works perfectly well, but with little effort it’s possible to add interest to your game’s narrative.

Taking a hint from the various bits of advice given to GM’s to say “yes, and” or “yes, but”, we can use the dice to bring in additional details about the game world, our actions or the actions of NPCs.

Here are three such mechanisms, all based on the ubiquitous d6:

The first method essentially replicates the Mythic-type approach to using yes, no and extremes of both.

1 = “No, and “
2-3 = “No.”
4-5 = “Yes.”
6 = “Yes, and ”

Next, we can add the possibility of getting a Yes or No, but not quite exactly what we bargained for:

1 = “No, and “ (Not only no, but extraordinarily so)
2 = “No.”
3 = “No, but <something yes-like>”
4 = “Yes, but <something no-like>”
5 = “Yes.”
6 = “Yes, and “ (Not only yes, but extraordinarily so)

The problem with a straight "yes" or "no" is not unlike the problem with receiving that answer to a question in other day-to-day activities; sometimes it's acceptable, but it's harder to go someplace interesting from that.

So, finally, and my preferred, refinement: 

1 = “No, and “ (Not only no, but extraordinarily so)
2 -3 = “No, but <something yes-like>"
4-5 = “Yes, but <something no-like>”
6 = “Yes, and “ (Not only yes, but extraordinarily so)

An example might make all of this easier to follow.


The Scene:
Inside the tavern, Arnax’s eyes take a minute to adjust to the darkness that envelopes the interior despite the bright sun outside. He saddles up to the bar and the bartender says, “what’ll you have?”

Does he know where I can find the Old Man Who Gives Out Quests?

I roll 1d6. I get a 1, the result of “No and” on all three tables. I come up (i.e. made up, decided by GM fiat) with the following:

No, and he says, “If you value your life, you won’t ask again.”

Notice that the “extraordinarily so” doesn't have to be extreme, but if you want it to be, go for it:

“No, and he pulls a gun and shoots”

Or if surreal and dream-like is your preference:

“No, and he removes his head and punts it to the waitress who takes off running.”

What if I had rolled a 2?

The first and second approach would yield a simple “No”, which results in “No, he doesn't.” Helpful in some respects, but not for driving your game to interesting places.

The third approach could yield something like:

• No, but he says, “There’s a kid who comes in here everyday and claims to know him.” 
• Or No, but he says “For 50 gold crowns I might.” 
• Or No, but he says “if you drink enough, they say he comes to you in your dreams.” 

You can see the benefit of the last approach in that, despite the question being a close-ended question, the results drive the game in new directions.

If you prefer, declare exactly what each result will be prior to the rolling of the die, writing it down to keep yourself honest.

So, for example:

1 = No, and he says, “If you value your life, you won’t ask again.”
2-3 = “No, but there’s a kid who comes in here everyday and claims to know him.”
4-5 “Yes, but it’ll cost you.”
6 - “Yes and he nods to a lone figure bent over a table nursing his drink. ‘That’s him.’”

This approach leads into the next type. 

Type 3: Dicing Between Options aka Featherstone’s Matrix

This method is similar to the last example, although there are two variations that I want to demonstrate.

The first I call “The Featherstone” and it gets its name to from an idea Donald Featherstone presents for playing skirmish wargames solo. As it turns out, it works equally well with role-playing.

The second variation is what I am labeling the Matrix method, based not on the movie of that name but on Engle’s Matrix games. It simply takes the argument resolution method from the Matrix games and uses it for deciding which of several options is, in fact, the case.

The Featherstone:

The Featherstone involves deciding upon the likely outcomes and assigning percentages to each of them, so that totaled, the result is 100%.

A simple yes/no result can be treated as 01-50 and 51-100 ,but you could include the “buts” and “ands” as well.

Does the bartender know where I can find the Old Man Who Gives Out Quests?

01 - 10 = No, and he says, “If you value your life, you won’t ask again.”
11 - 50 = “No, but there’s a kid who comes in here everyday and claims to know him.”
51-89 = “Yes, but it’ll cost you.”
90 - 100 - “Yes and he nods to a lone figure bent over a table nursing his drink. ‘That’s him.’”

But you could take it further:

01-10 No and he threatens you
11-20 No but he tells you a kid comes in everyday who clamis to
21-30 No but for 50 gold crowns he might
31-50 No but the old man comes by from time to time
51-60 Yes but he’s dead.
61-70 Yes, but you’ll need a letter of introduction if you want to meet him
71-80 Yes, but it’ll cost you 50 gold crowns.
81-90 Yes, but he isn’t talking until you order a drink, this isn’t a church.
91-100 “Yes and he nods to a lone figure bent over a table nursing his drink. ‘That’s him.’"

That’s a little extreme, but I wanted to demonstrate the possibility that this method opens up. In actual play, 3 or 4 options are plenty, especially for a yes/no question.

Matrix:

The Matrix method is something of a cross between the Mythic method and the Featherstone. Declare your possible outcomes, decide how likely each one is (called the strength of the argument in Matrix terms) and roll. The exact method and table necessary is illustrated here.

You could use the full Matrix method but it is a bit more time consuming to setup, as it is intended for multiple players.

Conclusion:

Obviously, use whichever method most appeals to you, but if you are just starting out, I recommend using:


1= “No, and “ (Not only no, but extraordinarily so)
2 -3 = “No, but <something yes-like>”
4-5 = “Yes, but <something no like>”
6 = “Yes, and “ (Not only yes, but extraordinarily so)

At first, don’t worry about writing things down before you roll - once you find that you like solo gaming, you might not mind the few seconds that takes, but in the beginning, we want the game to move at a good pace to keep your enthusiasm high.

Why this method?

It uses the d6 which in all likelihood, everyone who owns a boardgame owns. It only provides four outputs, which are quickly and easily generated, and all of the results move the story and the game world forward.

So, roll the dice, go with your gut in terms of the result. Later, you can write things down before you roll, or tweak the results by combining them with oracles or random generators.

With our method for resolving questions about the game world, and incidentally, the other questions as well, if our rules of choice do not, we’re ready to play.