Solo Role Playing Series Bonus Feature: Borrowing from Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering

We interrupt the intended sequence of posts to bring you another alternative for answering questions about the game world that propel your adventure forward.

This option relies on you in your role as part-time GM but also provides some direction for each possible result. As the subject of the post states, it comes from Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering by Robin Law. 

In the section on improvising,he suggests:

• Imagine the most obvious result 
• Imagine the most challenging result
• imagine the most surprising result
• Imagine the result most pleasing to the player.

(Laws, 2002, p. 30)

You then dice between them:

1-2	Obvious
3	Challenging
4	Surprising
5-6	Pleasing

You might quibble the odds assigned to each option, so tweak away.

This method allows for surprise, but, like the method I recommended, or the Featherstone and Matrix methods, it follows logically from the game world and so doesn't leave us scratching our heads.

So, for example, in my example where I am seeking the old man who gives out quests, I ask, "does the bartender know where i can find said old man?"

1-2 : Yes he does, but I need to buy a drink before he'll tell me.
3 : He doesn't but the mad monk knows and he can be found at the temple. Good luck getting in dressed like that.
4 : He replies, "Old man? Is that what they are calling me?"
5-6 : "You're sitting right next to him."