The Ravens Nest

Solo Gaming May Not Be Perfect But It’s Still Fun

I can’t tell you how many times (pre-lockdown) I’d schedule a game with my small, but regular group and the entire thing would be cancelled either by one person or work. To give a bit of context to this, the one person was not part of the group but part of the household where I’d run the gaming table. My offers to host it out in the park or somewhere else were usually met with a “no” for whatever reason and I’d be hung out to dry. I would have been looking forward to it for a week or two only to have it all dashed the day before. Worse than that, it would be a few days before the game and I’d get called into the office with “Oh we messed up the schedule.” The last couple of times that happened, I told them it was their problem, not mine and walked out of the office. I still had to cancel, still had to work and I got my ass chewed for the final time when I told them if it ever happened again, they’d be rolling the dice on whether I showed up or not. As you can see, even before all this nonsense, scheduling, adulting, the real world and conflict were a never-ending source of headache and consternation for me as a gamer.

Most times I’d begrudgingly turn to video games and sometimes that helped fill the void but there was nothing like being at the table, rolling dice and picturing those images in your mind. There was something truly magical in those events. Also, there were no compatibility issues, legacy devices becoming unsupported and all of that stuff. I mean, it’s possible that Mr. Bub might be interested but tell me how he would roll dice and do math with his paws?

Online gaming gave some comfort and refuge but there are days when I come home from work and I do not want to touch my computer. Also, I did tabletop gaming in lieu of video gaming or even Second Life because of one simple factor. There’s respect at that table and, if there isn’t, the disrespectful jerk doesn’t last long in the game and they’re asked to pack their dice and leave. Online gaming over messenger sometimes has the same pitfalls and we’ve seen more than enough of that lately.

I’m almost certain every one of you reading this right now can relate to all of these things.

It was during the lockdowns, I managed to start finding a plethora of solo RPG supplements in Humble Bundles and various other places. I thought many of them were intriguing and there were even games you could play online like Long Time Listener, Last Time Caller which takes place at the end of all things and you play a radio host and your friends play callers that are calling into your radio show to report The End of The World from where they’re currently sitting, borrowing from improvisational theatre, old radio shows and even the Orson Welles’ production of War of The Worlds. Many of them were solo journaling games and they were alright but I wanted something more. My group wasn’t meeting up, couldn’t get a single person I knew in real life on Discord at the time and I was pretty much on my own.

If this was the “new normal” then I, for one, thought month six of the Two Weeks To Flatten The Curve was bullshit.

Channels like Artichoke Dip that covered solo RPGs came across my radar and I began to find recommendations that were getting better, more cost-effective and generally kept me from having to sit at a table, virtual or otherwise, where I was going to hear lectures similar to the ones I’ve recently covered. I learned about Mythic which was an RPG and Oracle book in and of itself. You could use it as it’s own thing or you could use it as just a GM Emulator for your favorite game. Hey, my group needed government approval to game, that doesn’t mean I did. I wasn’t about to settle for trying to run a game or take part in one with people who hated my guts because I have the live and let live attitude that has been there since I was too young to vote but old enough to know better. I was back in the game for sure.

After all of this lockdown nonsense was lifted, I was finally able to meet in person again…and experience many of the same frustrations as before. Now was a bit different though, I had a regular group that I met online to playtest Horde Wars and some were inviting me to play in other groups and games all over the place. I have a determination and drive to game. That’s it. If I get to do it with others, excellent. If not, well this gamer’s still gonna game.

Solo or solitaire gaming has been around since nearly the dawn of tabletop RPGs and has a variety of benefits, which is why I was puzzled when this came across my feed…

Well, first, if you’re seeing more and more of this, I can explain the benefits of it here and the best part is that none of you, my readers, have to go through all the sorting through wheat and chaff to do this yourself and, as long as you have a set of dice, you’ll be able to do it 100% free and you can use the same thing to introduce a group to your game.

I know I give Chaosium grief about their insistence on putting a pronoun spot in their character sheet for Call of Cthulhu but hear me out on this one. This part of Chaosium’s website has right at the top there, all the stuff you’ll need to check out CoC for free. Believe it or not, this is the first thing you’ll find in the starter set. You can play this absolutely free and I do recommend it. What you’ll get are the Quickstart Rules (so just the basic rules you need to know for the game,) the solo adventure called Alone Against The Flames and a character sheet that you can actually fill out yourself. You can even print it if you want. I recommend just pulling all three up on your screen.

What you do is start by reading the adventure. The adventure takes you step by step in filling out your character sheet and getting you familiarized with the rules, and this is key, as you play the game itself. In my own opinion, what a great way to learn a new system that you’ve never tried before! Take it from me, it’s easy and you’ll have a great time, especially if you’re a fan of Lovecraft’s work.

If you go back up to the picture, you won’t just see solo games, you’ll see full games but there are books like Old School Solo & Mythic. OSS is pretty self-explanatory, that one’s specific but Mythic GM Emulator can pair with any RPG to turn your favorite RPG into one you can play on your own. The Doom of Malakar is an adventure for Swords & Wizardry, the rest are complete sandbox games, one of which I ran on a live stream for a few friends once and you can watch that here, complete with my own audio issues. My Four Against Darkness game turned into a dungeon crawl campaign I called Cavern of The Chaos Lord that I turned into story form for you starting here so you can read for yourself. I intend to do the same with some other solo games I’ve played rather than just posting battle reports for you as soon as I have time to do it.

Just some of the benefits that you can see from trying it yourself or reading Cavern of The Chaos Lord are as follows:

1. If you have plans on gaming and your group can’t meet, you can still play.

2. If you can’t find another group or substitute players on short notice or otherwise, you can still play.

3. You can use it for prep or learning a new system, especially if you suffer deficits in attention span, have trouble with technical manuals or have trouble retaining information. Some people learn by reading, others by watching and some, like myself, by actually doing.

4. If you are just in need of writing prompts, it’s perfect for people who just want to write

5. You can even modify some games to accomodate into full role-playing games to include your friends

6. If you’re an avid reader of novels, this is a great way to make novels interactive, such as the way Fabled Lands tends to do and the best part, your story doesn’t have to end until you say it does. In short, you’re the author and protagonist.

7. Why not video games, instead? You won’t be having compatibility issues, for starters. They’re far more cost-effective and you can go back to that well each time for a far different experience.

I’m going to fully admit that these games aren’t perfect. Having that group that meets up, plays and everyone has fun in a collaborative sense is absolutely amazing when it can be done but, when it can’t, why deny yourself? You’ve been looking forward to it, get to gaming. It’s an option that’s out there.

Also keep in mind that the reason there is a demand and market for solo RPGs out there is because there are people that can’t seem to get others interested. Hey, this hobby, it’s not for everyone. Some will just not see the allure, others won’t be interested in character creation, the math, and the size of some rulebooks can be intimidating to the newcomer. I mean, you see an all-in-one book like Pathfinder or Dungeon Crawl Classics and the first thing that someone will think is “Oh crap I’m going to be expected to remember all of that.”

Mechanically, these games will have you making a lot of notes for your battle reports. In some ways it’s a hybrid of board game (though that part is optional) and journalling game. Your battle reports won’t be anything out of the ordinary but if you’re like me and you’re the forever GM, this will be nothing new. You can still use these solo games to attract others based on their selling points. In the Four Against games, all of my character sheets are literally just 4X6 index cards. Game Masters benefit greatly from these types of games

These solo games will not give you the entire experience, that’s one of the few cons of these games but that isn’t the point. For some, this can be the thing that brings people that are truly interested into gaming who can’t find a group. Keep in mind there are pockets out there, especially here in the US where The Satanic Panic is being revived and RPGs are still part of the huge taboos. In the opinion of the Twitter user pictured above, perhaps, if you fall into any of these categories, you just shouldn’t game at all.

My answer to that is this, after I just spent a week giving a cancel mob the finger over Combat Wheelchairs because it just stretches the shit out of my suspension of disbelief, same as Spelljammer’s big ships in space (We’re talking about sailboats and longboats here) and another person who took deep offense to my enjoyment of the comic book Isom #1 being told to go piss up a rope and don’t buy it if he didn’t like it, my singular opinion is what I’ve always stated; Your Table, Your Rules.

This is a hobby that can be completely bespoke on so many levels. It truly has options for everyone. Game your way, you don’t need anyone’s permission, not even mine.

This was an option with Basic D&D back during Holmes Basic. Classic Traveller made it part of their game play with their Life Path, making character creation a game in and of itself. It certainly wasn’t perfect then but it’s been getting better. Some of you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books and others remember the Fighting Fantasy Adventures. Believe one thing, solo gaming is going nowhere and, should another lockdown occur, I recommend trying one and seeing what all the fuss is about. These games are not the railroad-style of adventure and are truly sandboxes.

Ignore the puritans. Your fun’s not wrong here. Try one and I think you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.

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