Games - Solo Roleplay Example - Pathfinder
I never intended to post an actual play but there are a lot of people looking into solo roleplaying and having a lot of difficulty at it. Sometimes it’s the starting and sometimes it’s the keeping going. Sometimes it’s just grokking the whole shebang.
Additionally, there are constant posts asking if 5eD&D or Pathfinder can be played solo. What follows is applicable to both games, as well as Palladium Fantasy, Warhammer Fantasy, any OSR retro-clone, as well as, I would imagine, any 5th edition-based games.
As I’ve might have mentioned elsewhere it's been a while since I was a member of an IRL RPG group. Despite being out of the action I maintained an avid interest and continued collecting games ever hoping to either put together or join a group.
After rediscovering the existence of solo roleplaying I thought, why not? Of all the games in the collection Pathfinder and its world Golarion intrigued me the most.
But where to start? An adventure path that would take a character group all the way from level one to twenty seemed like too much of a time investment. I’m a bit of a completist so leaving something like that incomplete would gnaw at me. And one reality of my life is not enough time for anything. This is getting written five minutes or less at a time.
No, I decided to try a one off and if it was enjoyable, then continue with the next. I’d already decided that I was going to play Pathfinder and do so in the default Paizo world. I wanted to start out simple. A short dungeon crawl and some overland travel.
“D0, Hollow’s Last Hope” is not a Pathfinder RPG module per se though. It’s a 3.5 OGL compatible module, part of the Game Mastery series by Paizo Publishing, set in the world of Golarion - the Pathfinder default setting. It’s available for free. Initially released for Free RPG Day, 2007, and clearly meant as an introduction to the world.
Honestly, the rule set doesn’t make much difference to me. Despite the peer distain for “basic” D&D in the 1980s there really wasn’t enough difference from AD&D that you couldn’t use one with the other. I freely mixed-and-matched whatever I cared to.
When 3rd edition came along it was different
enough it constituted a change. But with v3.5, and Pathfinder, it seemed like
the same much ado about nothing. Since then, the NAS in the wiring closet, my
local slow external HD backup, and my cloud storage have acquired rules,
modules, and sourcebooks for 1st edition, 2nd edition, 3rd
edition, a dozen OSR retro clones, and I remain agnostic about the rules
they’re supposed to be suited for.
The Setup – Player Choices
If you were playing with a game master and a group, online or in person, this is where you’d be talking with your fellow players, the GM included, about the kind of character you’d be playing. You would discuss any connections your character has to the other player characters, the communities, organization, and maybe plots that are part of the world.
The Fate RPG formalizes this as part of character creation and even makes the decisions part of the game mechanics. In the olden days it was always just part of how you got ready for a game and the GM might or might not use the details later. The game rules weren’t relevant to your character’s background. All that mattered was the story. In modern parlance, it was fiction first, before there was a fiction first.
As a solo roleplayer though you get to make the decisions yourself. Some of those decisions will depend on the world setting you’ve decided to use. I personally, generally, don’t directly connect my own player characters to any of the major NPCs or groups in an established world.
Since I’ve been more interested in anti-heroic stories lately, not anti-heroes but regular people struggling against powers, I decided to choose an adept class usually reserved for NPCs. Later I could decide to change classes. But I was just a regular human male since I didn’t want to stretch myself on the roleplay learning the rules. Besides I’d already intended to play other characters in other games.
Looking at the module I’m intending to run, I need to create a character that fits. They don’t have to be from the location, but they need to have a reason for being there.
Yes, that means reading the module or at least a good portion of it before you start. At the very least reading background about the community it’s set in. So, spoilers!
Two previous characters I’ve played were named Brad (a bard)
and Bran (a mercenary), so I name this guy Bram, no last name yet, and decide
he’s just passing through, didn’t manage to get out, then decided to stay a
while after he got work.
The Consequences of Choice
Now, we need to roleplay this a little bit because we don’t know everything we need to yet. What’s Bram going to be working at that he’s managed to provide for himself? Maybe it doesn’t matter but maybe it does. Okay so what then?
This is where we start filling in gaps with a solo engine, oracle, and what I like to call first principles, but I completely acknowledge are from the Mythic Game Master Emulator and Motif Story Engine. When I started this Pathfinder adventure I didn’t have either MGME or MSE but I was doing this anyway. Sometimes it really helps to have other authors/creators put something in words to help you understand what you’re already doing.
With every situation, scene, encounter, plot, thread, whatever, you are going to use Logic, Interpretation, and Improvisation to engage with the Obvious, the Understood, the Invented, and the Questioned. (Can we make an acronym from that? LIIOUIQ? ILIOQUI? Doesn’t make any more sense. And that’s a lot of vowels. It could be an absurd invented fantasy word. Don’t like it.)
What does this mean?
You’re going to imagine things. Make stuff up on the spot. Sometimes it will be entirely out of your imagination. Sometimes it will be from something that inspired you recently or long ago. At other times you’re going to reach for a random table in a book or maybe online.
The general rule I use for myself is, if what I made up doesn’t really matter, it’s okay. What I mean is, if it doesn’t give my character an unfair advantage, boon, or good fortune, then it’s okay. None of my characters will ever be a chosen one. None of them will be the heir to power or fortune even if they’ve already been disenfranchised of it. None of them automatically get a romantic partner, a powerful weapon, a famous connection, a superior resource, or more beyond what their starting equipment and character creation allows.
On the other hand, giving them a family somewhere is okay. If they’re close, they’ll probably be a complication and could be why the character is “adventuring”. In that case use whatever system your game has for determining the family’s social class.
I stumbled across CRGE (Conjectural Roleplaying GM Emulator) when I’d started looking for solo game resources.
CRGE includes an oracle the author calls the Loom of Fate. It is a percentile based table with three outcome columns for issues relating to knowledge, conflict, and endings. This was the first oracle I came across and it instantly got my wheels turning. Why? Because it implements the writer’s yes/no, but/and, furthermore tools. Go listen to the Writing Excuses podcast for more information on that. (I also use WCGW – What Could Go Wrong, and Try /Fail Cycles as a staple of my writing.) Although CRGE is pay what you want I am only including part of the Loom of Fate table to give you a taste of the author’s work.
|
Result |
To Knowledge |
|
Yes, and unexpectedly |
96-100 |
|
Yes, but |
86-95 |
|
Yes, and |
81-95 |
|
Yes |
51-80 |
|
No |
21-50 |
|
No, and |
16-20 |
|
No, but |
6-15 |
|
No, and unexpectedly |
1-5 |
Examining the character, I’d given Bram craft: carpentry as part of my thinking during character creation that he’s a capable Everyman with real skills. The module setting of Falcon’s Hollow is a lumber town so I would imagine, although they export lumber, there should be a fair amount of carpentry going on.
Rolling d% against the Loom of Fate with the question, does Falcon’s Hollow have a carpentry industry I got 73. (Roll #1) Yes, it does.
So, can Bram get a carpentry job? Roll again but I’m going to approach it differently. If it was a simple matter of doing something with his carpentry, I’d add his skill ranks and ability mod. That’s a total of +5 but this is a d% scale, and the +5 is from a d20 scale, so I multiply by five to get a +25%. If it was just about his carpentry skill. It’s not. It’s about getting a job. Which is charisma. And he had a 12 at first level.
Rolling again yields 91% (Roll #2) which indicates yes, but. So, he got the job but something else. Maybe he lost it? Straight roll, did he lose the job? 04% No, and unexpectedly. Did something good happen because of his skills? Now I roll applying that +25%. And I get 99%. Yes, and unexpectedly!
Okay. I’m at four oracle rolls so far. This could go on forever. Also, I’m starting to see that the oracle isn’t laid out how I’d think from a writer’s perspective. So, I hack the oracle thinking about next time.
|
d% |
Meaning |
|
1%-5% |
No, And Furthermore/Unexpectedly (Critically No!) |
|
6%-15% |
No, And |
|
16%-40% |
No, That’s it, just no. |
|
41%-50% |
No, But – In other words, mostly no, but also a little
yes. Something small is right, or it’s not entirely false. |
|
51%-60% |
Yes, But – In other words, mostly yes, but also a little
no. Something small is wrong, or it’s not entirely true. |
|
61%-85% |
Yes, That’s all, just yes. |
|
86%-95% |
Yes, And |
|
96%-100% |
Yes, And Furthermore/Unexpectedly (Critically Yes!) |
But I’m going to keep the rolls from before and see where it leads.
What am I going to do with the last roll? Bram got a carpentry job in a lumber town with a carpentry industry and then something good happened because of Bram’s carpentry. But look at Roll #2. The “yes, but” result should be a conditional success. He got the job but something else.
Looking over the CRGE table 2 for Unexpectedly didn’t leave me with much to go on. It seemed a dead end. But I wasn’t really dealing with a scene. This is mostly what a writer would have called exposition.
This is where I picked up Zathrum, a free d20 oriented oracle system. I just grabbed the first two tables, rolled two d20s, and came up with Base or Location and Leader.
Now, the solo player interprets the oracle result. What follows is pure imagination trying to apply the first principles fairly.
Well, Falcon’s Hollow is the base, and the leader is… oh, crap. My imagination immediately jumped to Bram’s handiwork catching the attention of Thuldrin Kreed, gavel of the lumber consortium that owns the town and essentially everyone in it. He’s either been “offered” a job working directly for Kreed and the consortium or had his hands hammered to a pulp.
That’s where we try to use those seven first principles. Logic, Interpretation, Improvisation, the Obvious, the Understood, the Invented, and the Questioned. (LIIQUOI?) Sometimes with an oracle, and sometimes without anything other then the information you have already at hand.
That’s where I’ll start the adventure. Everything that follows is pure story telling.
It’s all made up. No oracles. No die rolls until I specifically say so. I’m
just imagining the situation and the opening scene.
Falcon’s Hollow should have been quiet.
Far enough from trade routes not to attract bandits.
Far enough from the coast to prevent raiders.
Far enough from the frontiers and borders to not be the first invaded.
Far enough from a city to hide.
Even if the mayor-baron (official title was gavel for the lumber consortium, but he was effectively a mayor-baron) was a despicable ass he paid well enough if you weren’t a gambling, whoring, drunkard. And you didn’t have a family to support. Or a farm to work on all day and pay exorbitant taxes. And tithes. And protection fees. And had to buy your tools from him.
Bram only had to keep his head and eyes down, keep his workbench tidy, his woodwork square, and stay out of sight.
The boss owned the sawmill, the granary and miller, the boats, the docks, half of the land directly, the general goods store, the only hotel, all three “feast” halls, the open quarry and the deep mine as well. The judge was his as were the … well, Bram couldn’t exactly call them knights even if everyone else did. The men in armour on horses with big swords, stabby knives, and long spears they very seriously called their lances.
Almost everyone agreed the priests and priestesses were his too. Anyone else didn’t say anything.
About the only thing he didn’t own were the breweries. He only owned four of the seven.
The townsfolk fell into two
groups; his workers - who were either brutal toughs or brutalized cowards - and
the peasant folk who were also cowed into selling the combine everything they
grew, gathered, hunted, and fished.
But at least he paid
something.
It was nearly dark, and Bram thought he’d been lucky to escape the mercantile store where he was repairing the counter before the nightly private gambling started. If he’d still been present, they’d have strong armed him into losing several of his hard-earned coin before they’d let him be.
Trying to avoid being noticed lest he be coerced into more work, he had taken his wooden bowl of overcooked food, wood cup of boiled tea, some cheese and stale bread, and sat hunched at a trestle table in the inn.
That’s where a dark figure approached him.
Admittedly, that’s a lot of writing. You absolutely don’t have to do that. That’s just me but I’m imagining why this character is here, what he is doing, and what the first actual scene is. It could take you all of ten seconds to imagine it and you don’t have to write it down.
Since I already know I’m doing this adventure I just need to figure out how he gets involved. Especially since I’ve just setup a precarious situation for him in Falcons Hollow.
There are several ways to generate quest givers, but I went with randomly rolling on the core book and got female, half-elf. Looking up half-elves in Golarion then rolling for the possible variety the roll indicated half-drow. Okay. Kind of troperific but I figured I’d go with it. As it turned out, at first, the rest of the character was a trifle clichéd also. Later, the character would gain more depth.
But what about the rest?
That’s when I pulled in UNE (Universal NPC Emulator) from Conjectural
Games, a companion to CRGE. The various rolls gave me 36 (cheery), 21
(missionary, which I interpreted as an adept), 71 (comparable power level, so
level 1), motivations 78 + 50 (depress sensuality, which didn’t make sense at
first but after rolling the stats and getting an 18 Charisma, and the environment,
I guessed she was trying to play low key – no low/high cut clothes, chainmail
bikini, stripperific costumes – it still doesn’t make sense as motivation but
it certainly makes sense as a character’s strategy). I figure she’s neutral to
peaceful, probably peaceful as she’s looking for help, and roll 94% on the UNE
NPC Conversation Mood. So, she’s going
to be helpful trending to forthcoming.
“Bram Carpenter?” It’s a smoky,
smooth, somewhat lilting voice, but no one ever brought him good news. Not
here. Not back home. Home? No, he doesn’t have a home anymore.
Okay, that part is Bram thinking and it’s called emergent
narrative. I made it up as I put my mind into the thought space of the
character and role played his situation.
Lying could be more trouble than another… job. “Maybe,” he says. Carpenter isn’t his name, but he never gave anyone in Falcon’s Hollow any other. Maybe that was his name now. Well it’s as good as any other.
Bram stifled a sigh, turned his attention to the latest interruption, and nearly choked as slender hands pull the hood away from the close-cropped silver-white hair gleaming in the candlelight of the inn’s common room. She had to be a half-elf, not so remarkable itself, but the elven part was drow.
“Hi, I’m Zigaliamarnath Rivers,” she said then thrusting forth both her hands in peace. “Ziggy to my friends.”
He swallowed,
and replied, “Bram Carpenter.”
I didn’t give Bram much background but now questions come to
mind. Putting myself into the character’s shoes this is where my imagination
goes. This is now who the character is.
There were a few more rolls for appearance. I’ve rolled their heights on a table somewhere. Can’t remember where.
“Why?” he finally asks, and old habits of politeness taking over, gestures at the bench opposite where the figure lowers itself.
Bram silently recites a chant of personal strength at the darkling, dangerous, beauty before him. Hollowborn - a half-drow. Amber-golden eyes glitter and she smiles reaching across the table in archaic, solemn greeting.
Oh, gods, her hands are so
smooth, warm, perfect, beautiful, he thought as they touched palms. Is her skin
really grey? Not dead, corpse grey. Warm grey. Narrow and lithe, the woman
stood more than a head higher than he and her fingertips extended well beyond
his.
“I hope you don’t mind but it’s
been a long day and I’m just getting to my supper,” he admitted attempting to
hide his fascination. “You can join me if
you like.”
She knows him. How? I rolled something months ago but didn’t
write that down. This is what I wrote at the time though.
“I saw you arrive a few weeks
ago. At first, I thought you weren’t going to stay but then you fixed some of
the troughs. Then the boardwalk and stairs. I’m grateful that you fixed my bed.
I’ve been complaining to the innkeeper since I arrived.”
Does Bram know her? Rolling d% on my hacked oracle I got 94.
Yes, And.
For several weeks he had noticed the gorgeous woman moving through the town. Though he’d never seen more than a glimpse of her face he recognized the cloak, the enormous hat that obscured the beautiful face, and he imagined the figure he had watched gliding, sliding, gracefully but furtively, building to building, down the road. He hasn’t known that he’d fixed her bed. It would have been one of a dozen at the inn that he’d added slats to or shimmed some part that moved too much or squeaked loudly or entirely replaced a post or board.
“Just needed some coin so I could keep going.” The less he said the better.
“Of course. You weren’t intending to become Kreed’s thrall.”
Had anyone heard her? That kind of talk got fingers smashed, ears branded or cut off, just because the ears had heard it. He focused on the boiled water tasting slightly more of oak than tea leaf. Hopefully no one would miss the scrap pieces he’d used to turn his dishes.
He said nothing for a moment, then, quietly, “I don’t intend to be floating downstream either,” he said, nodding in the direction of the river. He looked the woman in the eyes, those amazing, liquid sunfire eyes, and immediately knew he shouldn’t have. He arched an eyebrow and kept his gaze not certain if he was doing it to prove something to himself, to her, or he was just fooling himself so he could look in those eyes.
“You’re a difficult person to find,” Ziggy told him.
“Good reasons for that,” he half-smiled. “But usually I can’t get away.”
“I’ve been trying to catch you for days.”
Did she come here looking for me?
He kept his face as neutral as he could and carefully sipped the watery barley
soup without tasting it. There were reasons someone might come looking for him.
None of them to his benefit. But she was here before he arrived. Wasn’t she? “I’m
always here in town. Nowhere else to go.”
That’s more invention. Didn’t intend for the character to be
on the run but this is where my imagination went. I didn't roll to see if anyone had heard her. But I should make a note that it might have happened.
“I’ve been to both the mercantile and the gaol. They always say you’re not there. When I come here where they say you’re staying, and this is the first time I’ve seen you.”
He snickered a little. “I’ve done work at both places but I guess someone doesn’t want me distracted from work.”
The beautiful, full lips twisted in a wry smirk. “Seems common here.”
“So, ah, do you want something to eat or drink?”
“No, I want to talk to you about something,” she said then leaned closer and whispered. “Just not where we can be overheard.”
Shit. She’s going to get me out of sight then kill me or collect me for a bounty. Nothing I’ve done is worth a bounty hunter though. Unless someone’s going to use me as a scapegoat. Or they decided to tie up loose ends. Or this place wants me dead. No they’d have me build a casket for myself first.
“Sounds, intriguing,” he smiled hoping it looked convincing.
“Either order, miss, or get your ass out of here,” Elise, the barmaid said quietly having appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
“We’re sharing,” Bram said quickly tearing off a chunk of crusty bread and holding it out to the woman. He suppressed a wince. Old habits.
Elise frowned. “It’s that way is it, Bram?”
Bram’s face blanched at the remark, and he made a strangled noise as the cute young woman turned and stalked off to the bar counter.
“I think she’s offended,” Ziggy remarked with a charming if devilish giggle then nibbled at the bread.
Bram made another noise of confusion and tried to deal with the soup and bread as quickly as possible. Elise had never shown a moment of interest before. He looked up at the bright white teeth and glittering golden-amber eyes in the slate-grey face. Oh.
He finished the soup and wrapped the bread and cheese up in his food satchel. “Let’s go before we attract any more attention.”
After they had walked several paces from the inn - toward the river he noticed - the half-drow began speaking.
“There are a lot of folks sick with the black cough,” she pointed out. “But you're not sick."
"Not yet."
“Why aren’t you sick?”
“I don’t drink the town’s well water.”
“Why not?”
“Towns like these, they’re very rarely safe.”
“So, you only drink alcohol?”
“No. There’s a spring over the hill.”
“You had soup,”
“Everything in there is boiled to death including the dishes,” he told her. He’d spent three weeks in the town experiencing the boiling hot wash tub he cleaned the inn’s dishes in before chancing onto carpentry work for the consortium. “I got lucky.”
“I’ve spent some time with Laurel, the apothecary,” Ziggy announced. “She tells me there might be a cure for black cough.”
She’s not here to collect me on a bounty then. Unless this is a ruse too, he thought.
Ziggy explained to the human man
what Laurel’s theory was.
I rolled here for Bram’s Pathfinder skills as well as on the
oracle above figuring the character was collecting stories, history, geography,
and such.
“I know where the witch's house and the dwarven settlement are,” he said.
“Laurel thought you might.”
“Really? Why?”
“She knows you’ve been asking for stories and hanging around anytime someone’s telling them.”
“I guess I have.”
“Laurel told me where the eldest tree is,” the woman announced, the excitement plain in her voice even to Bram who considered himself somewhat obtuse. “So, do you want to help me save the town?”
Yet again that evening Bram was
at a loss for words.
All the narrative here is a combination of using those seven principles, thinking about what Bram is like (a skillful character, with ranks in carpentry, geography, history, et al), and sometimes rolling on an oracle. I didn’t write it all out at first. Just a few notes. Didn’t record all the die rolls. Yes, I’m guilty of writing a novel.
At the end of this I knew my character a lot better. Bram, going by the name Carpenter but not his real name, came to an out of the way place to lie low before disappearing into the world. He’s an adept so probably from some sort of contemplative order, a monastery or something. But he doesn’t want to be found so maybe there was something nefarious going on at the order. There could be reasons for someone looking for him, but he doesn’t think it worthwhile. Still, he’s nervous.
Ziggy, is kind of bold, forthright, and seemingly interested in doing a public good. It wouldn’t be until much later, after implementing Bartle Type traits for characters, that I’d learn what motivated her. Still don’t have her backstory though.
This meeting scene between my player character avatar and the quest giver is entirely imagined as are the circumstances of his employ in Falcon’s Hollow.
Very little of this had anything to do with the actual Pathfinder rules. When it did it entailed combining a predetermined feature of a character with a solo oracle. But most of the oracle work was asking common sense questions and getting an answer that I didn't decide myself.
I hope that this demonstrates that you really are being the game master for yourself. Have a little confidence in the story telling. Roll with the ideas that come to mind. Don’t be afraid to seek out more oracles that suit the situations. There may be no perfect system already in existence, but you can probably figure out something good enough or even great.
In the next post I’ll deal with various set piece encounters
that are part of the D0 module as Bram and Ziggy set out to find the elements
of the cure. Specifically, how, as the GM, I’ll also outline how I create a hex
crawl, add surprises in the form of random encounters and discovered sites.