Some Misconceptions We Need to Clear Up
Solo Role-Playing: The Essential Toolbox
Now that we have the baseline understanding that solo role-play is NOT trying to replace traditional group play, the essential elements to play a rpg solo are:
- An Oracle
- Random prompts
- Understanding of your roles
- Story structure that provides focus
That’s it! Manifesto over! OK maybe not but if you washed up on a desert island you could make a simple oracle, a random idea generator out of nature’s refuse, and be able to engage in a coherent solo rpg adventure until the rescue boats showed up. :)
“That list seems a bit short”, some might say. "And you haven’t even mentioned the “E” word yet". Well that’s because you don’t actually need a "GM Emulator" to play a role playing game solo.
The “Emulator” nomenclature has been irreparably attached to the solo role-playing hobby despite it being a misleading title for what are essentially just tool-kits to assist with the solo-player's GM role. Simply put, you can not replace a human (Game Master) with a set of mechanics and inputs.
A solo role-player is both the Game Master and the Player at the same time.
I emphasis the duality of the solo role-player's responsibilities because for some odd reason the loudest voices in the solo role playing community fail to acknowledge or emphasis that fact to new solo role-players and I think that is a disservice. Resistance to solo-roleplaying's dual nature is rooted in a stigma from group play: not staying within strictly defined role boundaries. But we've already established that solo role-play is not a replacement for group play haven't we?
So in the end all "emulators"/engines are just tools to help us do things quicker, like a saw, a pot, a calculator, etc. They are nice to have but not essential.
I emphasis the duality of the solo role-player's responsibilities because for some odd reason the loudest voices in the solo role playing community fail to acknowledge or emphasis that fact to new solo role-players and I think that is a disservice. Resistance to solo-roleplaying's dual nature is rooted in a stigma from group play: not staying within strictly defined role boundaries. But we've already established that solo role-play is not a replacement for group play haven't we?
So in the end all "emulators"/engines are just tools to help us do things quicker, like a saw, a pot, a calculator, etc. They are nice to have but not essential.
Understanding of your roles
The solo roleplayer sits on a spectrum:
Player <<<<<<<<<< Solo RP >>>>>>>>>> Game Master
On one side resides purely Player duties and concerns and on the other side are purely GM duties and concerns. Individual preference can lead to more involvement/enjoyment of one end of the spectrum over the other but complete delegation of either is impossible. Embracing and crafting one's GM skills can only lead to more robust solo sessions even if that is not the preferred role.
Maintaining the element of surprise
The main push back from most solo role-players that can't accept dual roles is the desire to experience the surprise and wonder that comes from discovering incomplete information; something they are used to experiencing in the GM/Player relationship of traditional group play. So how can you be surprised when you are both the GM and the Player?
- Random prompts (Glyphs, verb+noun pairs, random tables, etc)
- Yes/No Oracles
- Scene twists
- Task resolution mechanics (This is were the use of a "system" come into play. This seems to be taken for granted but provides a key differentiator between just writing a story and playing a "game")
Story structure that provides focus
The fact that the story in role-playing games is emergent and not predefined does not make it less related to traditional storytelling. The structures for storytelling have been thoroughly mapped out and relatively consistent since before the times of ancient Greece; those structures have been successfully applied to various mediums: plays, books, television, movies, and yes, role-playing games.
There are many ways to look at story structure, from the simplistic Three-act story or Plot structure to the Hero’s Journey. It doesn’t matter which one you pick, what is important thing is to pick something that breaks up play into clearly defined start and end points. These discrete units of play make it less likely you will abandon a solo game early because it becomes too random, nonsensical, or aimless.
Some role-playing systems like Dungeon World, Index Card RPG, Blades in the Dark, already contain loosely defined story structures.
The solo roleplayer sits on a spectrum:
Player <<<<<<<<<< Solo RP >>>>>>>>>> Game Master
On one side resides purely Player duties and concerns and on the other side are purely GM duties and concerns. Individual preference can lead to more involvement/enjoyment of one end of the spectrum over the other but complete delegation of either is impossible. Embracing and crafting one's GM skills can only lead to more robust solo sessions even if that is not the preferred role.
Maintaining the element of surprise
The main push back from most solo role-players that can't accept dual roles is the desire to experience the surprise and wonder that comes from discovering incomplete information; something they are used to experiencing in the GM/Player relationship of traditional group play. So how can you be surprised when you are both the GM and the Player?
- Random prompts (Glyphs, verb+noun pairs, random tables, etc)
- Yes/No Oracles
- Scene twists
- Task resolution mechanics (This is were the use of a "system" come into play. This seems to be taken for granted but provides a key differentiator between just writing a story and playing a "game")
Story structure that provides focus
The fact that the story in role-playing games is emergent and not predefined does not make it less related to traditional storytelling. The structures for storytelling have been thoroughly mapped out and relatively consistent since before the times of ancient Greece; those structures have been successfully applied to various mediums: plays, books, television, movies, and yes, role-playing games.
There are many ways to look at story structure, from the simplistic Three-act story or Plot structure to the Hero’s Journey. It doesn’t matter which one you pick, what is important thing is to pick something that breaks up play into clearly defined start and end points. These discrete units of play make it less likely you will abandon a solo game early because it becomes too random, nonsensical, or aimless.
Some role-playing systems like Dungeon World, Index Card RPG, Blades in the Dark, already contain loosely defined story structures.
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