mrdabakkle
Posts: 75
Joined: Mon 01 Jun 2020, 18:15

Re: Strider Mode query

Sun 12 Jun 2022, 02:31

For me I don't really understand running through published material solo. Maybe to learn an adventure, but for me solo is more about rolling on random tables to learn what is coming and than having my character face those issues.
The One Ring and Adventure's in Middle-earth Discord Server: https://discord.me/theonering
The One Ring Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/oneringrpg/
 
Maff
Topic Author
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue 07 Jun 2022, 22:51

Re: Strider Mode query

Sun 12 Jun 2022, 07:20

A fair point and arguably its pure solo play - you vs the chance fate of the dice. That said, why deprive yourself of the chance to experience a published adventure; in D&D you would miss a lot if you didn’t even try “Against the Giants” or in RQ to defend Gringles Pawnshop.
 
Dunheved
Posts: 494
Joined: Wed 11 Mar 2020, 02:07
Location: UK

Re: Strider Mode query

Tue 14 Jun 2022, 09:04

I am trying Strider Mode to tell the story of the NPC Oderic, from the Tales from Wilderland supplement in 1e. I have had him exiled from the Beorning lands, and so he has crossed the mountains and arrived in Eriador. This will be my way of exploring Ruins of the Lost Realm sourcebook.

He is going south* to Tharbad: and of course I will soon have a hard copy map of the region to inform me of what Oderic will see. In reality, Oderic would not have a map himself and would "follow the geography" i.e. go along a river as a handrail if it goes broadly south. Random Travel events happen along that path. So, my pre-determined part is to "Go South To Tharbad". But the Tale of Oderic's Journey is unknown.

I liken this to Bilbo meeting the Trolls. In the Hobbit Chapter 2, Tolkien described the country as full of ominous castle ruins on the hill tops; and then the weather went bad and they lost their food. Why didn't Bilbo meet Barrow Wights at that point? Because he met Trolls. As it turns out, using either Trolls or Wights would permit Bilbo to discover a Hoard and to pick up Sting**. So using trolls was an author choice: and maybe Tolkien rolled dice inside his head before he wrote this chapter?

If The Hobbit were a published adventure in TOR style, we can narrate it with Wights instead of Trolls. We might meet the Storm Giants crossing the mountains instead of being ambushed by goblins. Either way, Mirkwood would still have to be crossed; the Dragon problem still solved.

Landmarks is exactly the mechanism that lets us solo play the details. We have complete freedom with how we connect the landmarks, and also what we find at each landmark.

So my thoughts here are to use any published material as a series of (likely) landmarks that my SPC (Solo Player Character) will come across.
Does that help?






*advised by Gandalf, but neither Oderic nor me know why Gandalf has suggested this - I might leave that to later dice luck to find out. One unknown/undecided point.
** a pre determined part of Tolkien's ORIGINAL plot. As it all turned out, the ORIGINAL role of Sting was not fulfilled - Sting was meant to be the dragons bane it seems.
 
User avatar
Jabberwock
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat 20 Nov 2021, 21:22

Re: Strider Mode query

Mon 27 Jun 2022, 19:33

The issue with Solo gaming without a true solitaire adventure (like the ones Flying Buffalo have been putting out for T&T for decades), is that when you use a pre-written adventure, you will know the answers simply because trying to run the module without reading it first will result in too little information to make informed decisions.

On the other hand, the dice rolling method of determining what happens next tends to take away any real agency, as the decision to turn left or right is (what we call in game design circles) a false choice: no matter how or why you come to make that decision, the result will always be independent of it. You are a Gumpian feather on the wind. Systems like Mythic include 'oracles' that tend to make it more of a creative story-telling exercise than just a random dungeon generator (like the first one found in the back of the AD&D 1E DMG), but you still are left with the possibility that all the clues you've investigated will result in an utterly false conclusion if that last die roll hits the extreme end of the probability curve.

As such, no matter how much the particular system gives you, mechanically, to help assuage these issues, it will eventually come down to you applying a commonsense application of what you believe should happen and will lead to the most interesting (and entertaining) conclusion to your session. In my investigation example above, you could just decide, whatever the actual rules, that once you have X number of clues in your investigation, the conclusion is settled, no matter how odd it seems or what the dice may tell you. Remember your Sherlock Holmes: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" (and I would highly recommend reading some AC Doyle for really good examples of how a procedural detective story should work for an RPG).

In short, a solo RPG session should be treated the same way we treated the full-scale version back in the day: rulings, not rules, are what make a fun game, so you should be just as willing to abandon the mechanics to tell a good story when running your solo game, as you are when you GM...

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests