Part Time Grue

Foreword A large part of roleplaying games is the surprise inherent in discovery. Venturing into the unknown, at the mercy of fate, the dice, and the whims of the game master. But a lot of that could be lost as a solo roleplayer. After all, you are your own game master. How can you surprise yourself? Fortunately, there are ways to remediate that loss, and that is what I hope to demonstrate in today's post. Spoiler Warning This post discusses in detail, several elements of the Paizo Game Mastery Module D0 Hollow’s Last Hope . The point is to explain solo roleplaying with the Pathfinder RPG using a free resource. However, it shouldn’t be a problem for the solo roleplayer as unfortunately you will have to familiarize yourself with the module to some degree before playing it. It will absolutely destroy any group play excitement – unless your game master deviates significantly from the module as designed. Something I strongly advocate for since there are always some players who delight ...

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 5 th 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 char...

In “Guide to Playing Alone” Kenny Norris  (free, link to DriveThruRPG) asks the solo role player to ask themselves, “So, who are you: Heart, Club, Diamond, or Spade?” The suggestion has been made that a solo role player can also use Bartle types as part of a player emulator. I’m going to ask you something different. Who are your NPCs? I believe that more immersion in solo roleplay is a desirable outcome and that it is achieved by assigning Bartle types not to a player object but directly to the character.  Bartle Types  are four classifications of preferred play styles and player motivations in games.  I also see it as a way of classifying participation in any activity.  Sports, professions, social interaction.  They do not have to be exclusive.  In fact, it could be far more interesting to give every character a score in each of the four suits. In a way this is going to act like the player emulator some solo role players are looking for.  But to ...

DM Yourself, by Tom Scutt First, credit to Tom Scutt's "DM Yourself"  (link to DriveThruRPG) as well as Ken Wai Lau's defunct website, "The Lone Crusader"  (link to archive.org) which the previous author credits. I'm throwing this out hoping it can help one fellow solo player deal with the gut churning conundrum of "I know too much. What do I do now?" In the 80s & 90s I called the mechanic default actions to curb my players’ penchant for saying things like “but I always have my great sword/minigun/velociraptor readied,” and “the ship is always running silent/cloaked with gunners at their posts.” In the 21st century I find it’s a good way to keep myself honest too. Read a little too far? Tempted to just 'guess' the book is cursed? There's a check for that. And a way to keep it in check as well. For each character, the player may list a number of simple default behaviours equal to their INT and WIS bonus plus one per level. Each ...

It's been more than twenty years since I was a member of an RPG crew. Since then I've played a bit of Skyrim, Fallout 3/NV/4. I tried Elder Scrolls Online but like all other attempts to get involved in online games I wasn't able to stir up enough interest. Just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic I was considering looking for either a local or online group. Then I stumbled upon solo roleplaying and remembered that I had attempted it long, long ago.  As I started out I found, and recalled from years prior, that trying to fairly determine what any non-player character would do in any given situation that wasn’t straight up combat or a skill test to be the most difficult problem. It's one thing to be a game master, as I almost always was, and making all the decisions for the NPCs so your players have a fun, exciting, interesting, and sometimes deadly, time.  It's quite another to be directing your ersatz avatar in imaginary fantasy land while at the same time portraying all...