Monday, January 16, 2017

so1um: solo RPG playtest


I have mulling a solo RPG method for a while now, it's been rumbling back there for about a year, and last night I finally had a spark of inspiration that resulted in a mostly finished product. You can download for yourself here.

Playtesting the madness
Before bed I decided to try out character generation, this took just a minute, so I decided to give it a playtest. I wrote it out in my journal as I went just to record how it went.

The Character:
George 
Body: 2        Hit Points: 2
Smarts: 2      Cliché: Brave Warrior
Will: 4            Goal: Plunder the tomb!

The Adventure
George starts at the entrance to a tomb, as he enters I ask "Does he encounter as he enters?" and rolled a 5 "Yes" and then a 6 "Monster" followed by a 2 "Neutral". I think a moment -  a goblin I decide. George decides that the goblin might help him for a few gold, so he tries to convince him to help. I rolled a Smarts contest (perhaps should have used Will, but oh well, it was 11:58 at this point) and roll a 1 and a 6, giving him a "Yes, and" result. Not only does the goblin agree to help, but he walks into the tomb and shows George...I roll a 2 "Trap". The goblin shows him the trap, George provides him the gold and a thank you, then they part ways. Studying the trap, George attempts to figure out a way to avoid it. I roll randomly to determine how complex a trap it is and roll a 3 "Easy". I use his Smarts and his "Brave Warrior" cliché, rolling 1, 4, and 6, easily avoiding the trap!

Having passed the trap I roll again to see if George finds anything interesting, getting a "Yes" and a "Unique feature, helpful". Thinking a moment I decide an underground river lies below. I add some stairs leading down to a lazily flowing river. Then because it was "helpful" I add a small boat that is moored to the small beach at the bottom of the stairs. George hops into the boat and starts to row downstream, hoping for more adventure.

I ask "Do I find anything before I find a place to disembark?" and get a "No, but" result. Rolling on the next table I get encounter a "Monster" and randomly determine how hard an encounter this will be, getting a 6 "Hard"! Drat!

A large Cave Sturgeon (ya, I misspelled it) leaps out of the water, snapping at George who tries to defend himself. I roll Body + cliché and get 3, 3, and 5, not enough to overcome the creature and it slips back into the dark water after lashing him hard in the chest. I subtract one HP and George catches his breath, hoping not to see the creature again. Suddenly it leaps out of the water and strikes at him again. I take a deep breath and roll the dice....2, 2, and 3! George takes another hit and is pulled beneath the dark water.

TPK. Oops.


NOTES:
After this combat, I reworked the system a little (it will be in the next release) so combat is a direct contest instead of a simple 'how difficult is this encounter" roll that resulted in my TPK. In the next version, monsters are built just like characters and results of combat are a head to head battle.

5 comments:

  1. This sounds awesome to me. I downloaded your current rules and will try them out myself and look forward to any updates.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Excellent, please let me know any thoughts, suggestions, etc you have.

      Delete
    2. I like it, I'll try some encounter of the 0.1 version :)

      Delete
    3. Excellent, please let me know any thoughts, suggestions, etc you have.

      Delete