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Season 3 Solo Podsters Roundtable 2 (Bonus Episode) · Tale of The Manticore, a Dark Fantasy Dungeons & Dragons Audiodrama

0:17
Speaker 1: Today we are back with another in this series of
0:20
Speaker 1: special bonus episodes where we hold a roundtable discussion with
0:23
Speaker 1: some of the best players in solo RPG podcasts. Today,
0:27
Speaker 1: I've got three more of my fellow podsters here to
0:29
Speaker 1: discuss solo RPGs. They all have different approaches and styles,
0:33
Speaker 1: so it's sure to be a good talk with me.
0:36
Speaker 1: Are Carl, Robin and PJ. But I'll let them introduce themselves.
0:40
Speaker 1: Let's dive in. Okay, we have our round table number
0:45
Speaker 1: two in progress right now, and let's meet the people
0:49
Speaker 1: at the table. Carl, want to tell us about yourself
0:52
Speaker 1: and your show?
0:52
Speaker 2: Sure? Hi John, Hi folks, my name's Carl White. I
0:56
Speaker 2: record a podcast sono podcast called The Lone Adventurer. I'm
1:01
Speaker 2: doing that for just over sixty episodes now, kind of
1:05
Speaker 2: on the narrative audiobook style for half of it, and
1:09
Speaker 2: then the other half is an explanation of how those
1:12
Speaker 2: events came about by going through the rules and the
1:16
Speaker 2: sort of solo RPG mechanisms.
1:18
Speaker 1: All right, thank you, Carol, PG over to you.
1:20
Speaker 3: Hello.
1:20
Speaker 4: I'm PJ. I'm an Ozzie stuck in Germany and I
1:25
Speaker 4: do the Wasteland Story podcast and the Solo role Players podcast,
1:30
Speaker 4: the former of which is also a narrative based thing
1:32
Speaker 4: with some behind the scenes play of how I actually
1:35
Speaker 4: get to the story. And the Solo role Players podcast,
1:38
Speaker 4: I interview people in the community. A lot of people
1:41
Speaker 4: who are on this call right now have been on
1:42
Speaker 4: my show, and all of the others will be one
1:44
Speaker 4: day soon. And I get books off my shelf and
1:47
Speaker 4: play them without knowing the rules. Is kind of the
1:50
Speaker 4: gimmick for that one.
1:52
Speaker 1: Fantastic And finally, Robin, tell us about yourself and your show.
1:57
Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Robin. I'm also from the UK. My show
2:00
Speaker 3: is called Stories from the First Watch. It's a pretty
2:03
Speaker 3: traditional sword and saucery type old score revival audio drama
2:09
Speaker 3: with game elements, so much familiar to people who have
2:13
Speaker 3: listened to your own podcast and Legend of the Bones
2:17
Speaker 3: as well. Again, a mixture of kind of creative writing,
2:20
Speaker 3: audio storytelling and game mechanics kind of underpinning that as well,
2:24
Speaker 3: so familiar to people who enjoy your own podcast.
2:27
Speaker 1: Jump awesome, So let's move on. I'm going to start
2:30
Speaker 1: with one of the same questions from round table one,
2:34
Speaker 1: which is the question that I see most on solo
2:37
Speaker 1: player Reddit, and that is how do you actually start?
2:41
Speaker 1: Let's maybe take it from a perspective less of making
2:45
Speaker 1: a show and rather playing a game. It's going to
2:48
Speaker 1: be easier for some of us than others, maybe, but
2:50
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would like to know
2:52
Speaker 1: how do you actually start a game? You know, if
2:55
Speaker 1: you're not going to make content, fine, but how do
2:57
Speaker 1: I actually start? So let's begin with PGA maybe for
3:01
Speaker 1: this one, PGA, what does it look like when you're
3:03
Speaker 1: just going to start a game for your own pleasure,
3:07
Speaker 1: not necessarily to record.
3:08
Speaker 4: So for me, I think I've sort of refined a
3:11
Speaker 4: bit of a technique over the last little while, purely
3:14
Speaker 4: because I'm getting so many games off my shelves and
3:16
Speaker 4: playing new games all the time, which is really exciting.
3:18
Speaker 4: It's also a challenge obviously you're sort of learning new
3:21
Speaker 4: rules and getting things mixed up. But for me, something
3:23
Speaker 4: I found that really really helps is to pick up
3:26
Speaker 4: the book maybe do so whatever the system is. For example,
3:30
Speaker 4: the last thing I did was Shadow Dark. Have enough
3:32
Speaker 4: of a go over the rules so you know the
3:34
Speaker 4: kind of field you're working in, right, But then what
3:37
Speaker 4: I want to do before I even create a character?
3:38
Speaker 4: And a lot of this was heavily influenced slash stolen
3:42
Speaker 4: from Debora, from Geek Gamers, and from her fantastic book
3:45
Speaker 4: Solo game Master's Guide. And I will just flick through,
3:49
Speaker 4: and I will just stop at pages that looks like
3:51
Speaker 4: there's something interesting there, so whether that's some cool item
3:55
Speaker 4: or weapon, or whether that's some god or some area,
3:59
Speaker 4: some city like that, and then anything that catches my eye,
4:02
Speaker 4: I will stop and I'll read a little bit about
4:04
Speaker 4: that and let these sort of the image of that
4:06
Speaker 4: whatever it is, form in my head, and then keep
4:09
Speaker 4: sort of flicking until I have an idea for a
4:12
Speaker 4: character type that fits in that world that I'm building
4:16
Speaker 4: in my head, and a little loose setup of what
4:19
Speaker 4: an opening scene or opening story might be. Now, often
4:22
Speaker 4: that goes off the rails then and we end up
4:24
Speaker 4: doing something completely different. But I feel like doing it
4:27
Speaker 4: that way really grounds me, feeling like I'm already in
4:30
Speaker 4: the world that makes sense and my character makes sense
4:33
Speaker 4: in that world, rather than creating a character, which a
4:36
Speaker 4: lot of people I think, I mean, that's the natural
4:39
Speaker 4: way to do it, especially the way IRPG books are
4:41
Speaker 4: laid out.
4:42
Speaker 1: The character creation.
4:43
Speaker 4: Is there, and then you can create a character and
4:45
Speaker 4: not have that make sense in the world, you know,
4:47
Speaker 4: So for me that's it seems counterintuitive, but that has
4:50
Speaker 4: been a really fantastic method that I use slash stole,
4:54
Speaker 4: and I really recommend that you try it.
4:57
Speaker 1: Really good advice.
4:57
Speaker 2: PG.
4:58
Speaker 1: We're going to go to Robyn next Robin. If you're
5:01
Speaker 1: starting a game, where do you begin?
5:03
Speaker 3: So in my case, I came into this kind of
5:08
Speaker 3: aspect of the hobby from the kind of Choose your
5:12
Speaker 3: Own adventurer books which were really popular in the early
5:16
Speaker 3: eighties onwards. So I had that was kind of my
5:18
Speaker 3: only real experience of sort of solo roleplays, as it were.
5:24
Speaker 3: So my own game came around sort of as a
5:27
Speaker 3: development from that. In the during the pandemic, I started
5:30
Speaker 3: to write to Choose your Own Adventure and eventually got
5:33
Speaker 3: myself into such a model with plot lines and so
5:35
Speaker 3: on that I've kind of temporarily put it on ice.
5:38
Speaker 3: But what I did do was take a lot of
5:39
Speaker 3: the elements I created from that as starting points for
5:43
Speaker 3: locations and potential starting plot lines, and when I came
5:49
Speaker 3: to deciding to record the show, I had these kind
5:53
Speaker 3: of this this bank of kind of information like of
5:56
Speaker 3: that I'd already kind of created, which gave me a
5:58
Speaker 3: nice resource to begin with. I found mythic GM emulator
6:02
Speaker 3: really helpful once I'd created the characters in a standard way.
6:06
Speaker 3: So I would create the characters by the usual method
6:10
Speaker 3: of rolling the stats and then working out which race
6:13
Speaker 3: and class they would most fit into, and then I
6:16
Speaker 3: would have to work out, you know, what, what are
6:18
Speaker 3: these characters' motives? Why are they in this world? And
6:21
Speaker 3: that's where the event meaning elements of mythic would come in,
6:25
Speaker 3: sort of giving me a sort of starting motivation, and
6:28
Speaker 3: that was really helpful in creating backstories for them and
6:31
Speaker 3: also sort of feeding the subsequent storylines as they went along.
6:36
Speaker 3: I would also say that, you know, with this kind
6:40
Speaker 3: of bank of information I'd already got in mind, that
6:44
Speaker 3: kind of gives me us something to aim for within
6:46
Speaker 3: the general thread of the stories, so I don't feel
6:49
Speaker 3: like I'm completely wandering in the dark. I feel like
6:51
Speaker 3: there's something I want my characters to ultimately get to.
6:55
Speaker 3: But the obviously the journey on the way is the
6:57
Speaker 3: bit where the fun is, where their actions of the
7:00
Speaker 3: GM or myself in this case, can can sort of
7:03
Speaker 3: throw curve balls in and make new quests, admissions, and
7:06
Speaker 3: so on. So I think it's a combination really of
7:10
Speaker 3: that kind of existing creative writing that I've been working
7:13
Speaker 3: on and the gameplay elements.
7:15
Speaker 1: Really thanks Rowan Carl. Finally, how do you start a
7:20
Speaker 1: solo game?
7:21
Speaker 2: It's one of two options, right, it's character first or
7:24
Speaker 2: it's setting first. You know, just like PG mentioned, that
7:26
Speaker 2: whole setting first approach can be really effective if you're
7:30
Speaker 2: not quite sure what you're going to play, just pulling
7:32
Speaker 2: down a setting book. I listened to a podcast episode
7:36
Speaker 2: that PG you recorded with Tana Pigeon, a creator of
7:39
Speaker 2: Mythic recently the Mythic magazine fifty, which was wonderful for this. Basically,
7:44
Speaker 2: you take an existing adventure, you roll an adventure seat,
7:48
Speaker 2: you roll a page in that book, you ort a
7:50
Speaker 2: location on that page, You take that little snippet, and
7:53
Speaker 2: then you do it again, maybe do it a third time.
7:55
Speaker 2: Combine those things together. That gives you your starting set
7:58
Speaker 2: up for the adventure, and then you build your characters
8:01
Speaker 2: to fit whatever you've rolled. Really nice way of doing it,
8:03
Speaker 2: and a really effective method I've found across many games
8:08
Speaker 2: is start where the action is. Don't start having people
8:11
Speaker 2: with people having a chat in a tavern. Make sure
8:13
Speaker 2: that you're in the middle of a combat. You've got
8:16
Speaker 2: a protagonist and antagonist that's going to throw up ideas
8:20
Speaker 2: for you that you can hook into as you play.
8:23
Speaker 2: So it's a really good idea to start in media
8:25
Speaker 2: ass However, I have played character first as well, where
8:29
Speaker 2: I've come to a game where I've got a really
8:31
Speaker 2: clear idea of somebody that i want to play rather
8:34
Speaker 2: than the setting, and that can equally work. You can
8:36
Speaker 2: use tools like the Tome of Adventure Design. There's a
8:41
Speaker 2: bunch of these sorts of tools. There's stuff in the
8:44
Speaker 2: back of some of the the D and D books.
8:46
Speaker 2: There's plenty of tools that you can use to roll
8:49
Speaker 2: up sort of random encounters and again, you take that
8:51
Speaker 2: current you've created, you roll up at some sort of combat,
8:55
Speaker 2: some sort of location, throw them into it, and a
8:57
Speaker 2: where you go.
8:58
Speaker 1: I love that starting on action, I think is fantastic advice. Okay,
9:01
Speaker 1: let's get to some of the questions that are going
9:04
Speaker 1: to be new for this roundtable. And I should say
9:08
Speaker 1: that the questions are supplied by PJ from conversations you've
9:12
Speaker 1: had on Reddit. Is that correct?
9:13
Speaker 2: Yeah?
9:14
Speaker 4: So I put out a call just out on Reddit
9:16
Speaker 4: to say if people had questions, because I'm constantly getting
9:18
Speaker 4: emails with questions, and so I put out a call
9:20
Speaker 4: on Reddit, thinking that one day we could do a
9:22
Speaker 4: podcast about it and answer these questions. I got a
9:25
Speaker 4: bunch of responses, and also a few from the patrons
9:28
Speaker 4: as well.
9:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you for collecting
9:31
Speaker 1: These are really good questions. Let's get into them. And
9:33
Speaker 1: I'm going to start this round of questions with Robin,
9:37
Speaker 1: and the question will be when you're playing solo, do
9:41
Speaker 1: you record yourself with pen, paper, voice recorder, word processor?
9:46
Speaker 1: And is that even important? Robin, any thoughts on this?
9:50
Speaker 3: I think it is important. So how I go about
9:54
Speaker 3: it is I generally start my first draft the game
9:57
Speaker 3: itself in a a for gridded notebook which I can
10:03
Speaker 3: use to make sketches of locations. I use it to
10:07
Speaker 3: bullet point events. I use it for dice roll so
10:11
Speaker 3: I have my own kind of personal system of kind
10:14
Speaker 3: of symbols for the dice rolls or for actions, that
10:16
Speaker 3: kind of thing. I tend to write out my gaming
10:19
Speaker 3: sessions by hand and play along as I go, making
10:23
Speaker 3: notes in the margins and so on. Once it gets
10:26
Speaker 3: to the second draft, which is kind of writing the
10:29
Speaker 3: more of the script element I tied it up. I
10:31
Speaker 3: tend to have to do that quite quickly because my
10:33
Speaker 3: handwriting is really bad, so I have to try and
10:35
Speaker 3: do it before my memory goes. So that's when I
10:38
Speaker 3: will sort of write out a flesh out of the
10:41
Speaker 3: story and then realize, all there's gaps here, or maybe
10:43
Speaker 3: that could have been done a bit differently. Well about
10:45
Speaker 3: if I tried that instead, So I would then perhaps
10:47
Speaker 3: redo a couple of things and see where that takes me.
10:50
Speaker 3: So my setup would be the notebook. I'd have my
10:53
Speaker 3: laptop as well. I'd have my dice. Unfortunately, I don't
10:57
Speaker 3: have miniatures at the moment, so I have to use
10:58
Speaker 3: various coins, which can be irritating. But I yeah, I
11:02
Speaker 3: have my various resources, so I use physical copies of
11:05
Speaker 3: my books just so I don't have to, you know,
11:08
Speaker 3: faff around with various pds and so on. So I
11:11
Speaker 3: have my GM emulator, which is why I use quite frequently.
11:13
Speaker 3: I have some various kind of generation kind of books,
11:18
Speaker 3: so things like Roll and Play, which is a really
11:20
Speaker 3: good resource, and obviously I have that I use. My
11:23
Speaker 3: system is basic fantasy role playing, so I use that
11:26
Speaker 3: book as well, so that's what my gaming session looks like.
11:29
Speaker 3: And then obviously once that's recorded, I will then take
11:32
Speaker 3: that jumple of notes and start writing the script element.
11:35
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about role and play, because
11:37
Speaker 1: that's one that I haven't heard of.
11:39
Speaker 3: So it's a fairly abstract one. So it has lovely
11:43
Speaker 3: kind of it's basically a book of kind of random tables,
11:46
Speaker 3: but it goes into huge granular detail so you can
11:49
Speaker 3: sort of it has random tables for particular terrain, so
11:53
Speaker 3: you've got things like swamping counters, jungle encounters, desert encounters,
11:56
Speaker 3: et cetera. It has PC name generators and motivation generators.
12:05
Speaker 3: It has random events that you can kind of roll up.
12:08
Speaker 3: Some of them are quite kind of I would say,
12:10
Speaker 3: a little bit twee and aimed at more of a
12:12
Speaker 3: fivey crowd perhaps, but I can use them and sort
12:17
Speaker 3: of adjust them to my needs if necessary, and I
12:20
Speaker 3: find that's really useful. Rather than sometimes having quite a
12:23
Speaker 3: dry list of random encounters whatever in some of the
12:26
Speaker 3: rule books, it's quite nice to have these kind of
12:28
Speaker 3: sight more thought out encounters to look through.
12:32
Speaker 1: Very cool. Yea, I haven't heard of that one, I
12:34
Speaker 1: think we will ask Carl that same question, what do
12:37
Speaker 1: you use, if anything, to record your sessions? And let's
12:41
Speaker 1: add that secondary part of are there any materials that
12:44
Speaker 1: you would particularly like to highlight that maybe people haven't
12:48
Speaker 1: heard of?
12:48
Speaker 2: Sure, so I'm perhaps a bit of an outlier with this.
12:52
Speaker 2: Everything I do is digital. So from the moment I
12:56
Speaker 2: start to well, when I start a game session, I've
12:58
Speaker 2: got a batch file on my desktop which I hit
13:01
Speaker 2: and that launches I think eight chrome tabs. It opens
13:04
Speaker 2: my characters in notion, it opens my rule book PDFs,
13:09
Speaker 2: everything just sort of opens up. I spread them across
13:11
Speaker 2: three screens, and I work almost exclusively from that. Obviously
13:16
Speaker 2: I use physical dice. I'm not a complete sociopath. But
13:20
Speaker 2: everything else is digital.
13:23
Speaker 1: I was gonna say anything.
13:27
Speaker 2: So I tend to launch everything, start with the mechanics,
13:32
Speaker 2: do a scene with mythic, do all the roles, and
13:35
Speaker 2: once I've done the gaming version of a single scene,
13:38
Speaker 2: I'll go and write that up long form about you
13:40
Speaker 2: know how long it is, maybe a page, page and
13:42
Speaker 2: a half of text, and then go back to the
13:44
Speaker 2: next scene, back and forth until I've done about four
13:46
Speaker 2: four and a half thousand words, And that's an episode
13:48
Speaker 2: and the whole thing. I tend to try and have,
13:50
Speaker 2: you know, some sort of cliffhanger, and you know, I'll
13:52
Speaker 2: balance it a little bit, but that's generally how it works.
13:54
Speaker 2: I'll just follow the play over the course for several scenes,
13:57
Speaker 2: back and forth, interspersing it with description of how those
14:00
Speaker 2: scenes came about from there. Once I've got my four
14:03
Speaker 2: and a half thousand words, I go away. I record
14:06
Speaker 2: everything in audacity, and then I come back and master.
14:09
Speaker 1: It and all that kind of stuff.
14:11
Speaker 2: Pup music on. With regard to some of the tools
14:13
Speaker 2: I use that maybe others don't, I'm a real fan
14:17
Speaker 2: of a website called Perchance, which is a random generator generator.
14:22
Speaker 2: And what you do is you create very very simple
14:25
Speaker 2: scripts that will allow you to get a random random encountertable,
14:31
Speaker 2: for example, gives pusher generate button. It will say, right,
14:34
Speaker 2: this is what happens. But you can get it much
14:36
Speaker 2: more complex. You can layer in all sorts of stuff.
14:39
Speaker 2: I've basically built the whole of Mythic second Edition into
14:42
Speaker 2: a Perchance generator with all of the different sort of
14:45
Speaker 2: buttons and tools. Not my own work, I've pinched loads
14:49
Speaker 2: of other people's really good work to do it, but
14:50
Speaker 2: I've sort of customized it for my need, so I've
14:52
Speaker 2: got multiple different generators that I use. Perchance is really
14:56
Speaker 2: worth checking out.
14:57
Speaker 1: I will absolutely Let's move on to PG. Tell us
15:02
Speaker 1: about how you record your sessions and any tools that
15:06
Speaker 1: you might like to share with everybody.
15:08
Speaker 4: So I think I knew when starting out, I always
15:11
Speaker 4: I always wanted it to be an entirely analog experience,
15:14
Speaker 4: sort of based around the time that I was doing it.
15:17
Speaker 4: I wanted to be getting away from screens, and I really,
15:19
Speaker 4: I really love the tactile nature of things, and so
15:22
Speaker 4: I knew I wanted it to be analogue. I suffer
15:25
Speaker 4: the same problem as Robin with terrible handwriting, however, and
15:29
Speaker 4: I still want something that I am proud to look at,
15:32
Speaker 4: or at least don't hate looking at at the end.
15:34
Speaker 3: Of the day.
15:35
Speaker 4: So that's actually why I started making a podcast, because
15:38
Speaker 4: I didn't want to write long form. I found that
15:40
Speaker 4: it was breaking my game play too much, and so
15:45
Speaker 4: I just started playing and just recording everything and purely
15:48
Speaker 4: just playing, not thinking about the content necessarily just playing,
15:52
Speaker 4: just hitting record and then coming back and filling in
15:54
Speaker 4: all that writing stuff later. And so for me, that
15:57
Speaker 4: really helped me split up the different experience and getting
16:01
Speaker 4: what I wanted out out of each of them. I
16:03
Speaker 4: really enjoy the writing part of it. I love the
16:05
Speaker 4: playing part of it, and then when it comes time
16:07
Speaker 4: to voice and mix it, I really enjoy that for
16:09
Speaker 4: separate reasons as well. And so for me keeping those
16:11
Speaker 4: three things separate it was just a sort of an
16:14
Speaker 4: accidental but looking back on it natural solution for me.
16:19
Speaker 4: So I do everything physically. I have a notebook. Generally,
16:23
Speaker 4: I love to have other elements that go with the
16:26
Speaker 4: game for me that are also tactile depending on the game,
16:29
Speaker 4: which also ties into the tools that I use. I'll
16:31
Speaker 4: try and use tools that come with a game or
16:34
Speaker 4: that are related to a game. So for example, for
16:36
Speaker 4: Dragon Bain, I try to use only the Dragon Baane stuff.
16:39
Speaker 4: For Shadow Dark, I've been using pretty much only the
16:42
Speaker 4: Shadow Dark stuff. For another game, I might use a
16:45
Speaker 4: separate tool if it needs it. But then I'll almost
16:47
Speaker 4: pair those two together and sort of only play them together.
16:50
Speaker 4: Then I sort of feel like they have their own
16:52
Speaker 4: home and feel. And you know, when I play games
16:55
Speaker 4: like that that started with a Wasteland story, the more
16:58
Speaker 4: narrative show. When I started the other show. Then I
17:01
Speaker 4: knew I wanted to play other stuff. I knew I
17:03
Speaker 4: wanted to do it analog, but I didn't have the
17:05
Speaker 4: time or the bandwidth to write these massive narratives like
17:09
Speaker 4: I was doing for that, and so I thought, I'm
17:11
Speaker 4: going to change the way I play and just record
17:14
Speaker 4: my off the cuff thoughts as I play, but to
17:16
Speaker 4: a quality and a performance that I would be happy
17:19
Speaker 4: with it as a podcast.
17:21
Speaker 1: So that's quite a.
17:21
Speaker 4: Different experience for me when I do the two different shows.
17:24
Speaker 4: Then then I'm actually still thinking about how is my pacing,
17:28
Speaker 4: how is my performance, my tone of voice, all those
17:31
Speaker 4: kinds of things when I do it that way. And
17:34
Speaker 4: funnily enough, I realized when I go back much later
17:37
Speaker 4: to edit it, I'm almost listening to it for the
17:39
Speaker 4: first time because my brain is in performance space and
17:41
Speaker 4: not in gameplay space as much then, And so I
17:44
Speaker 4: have a lot of fun when I go back and
17:46
Speaker 4: edit old recordings and some of the months old, and
17:48
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, wow, that's cool that I do that
17:50
Speaker 4: and sort of relive the stories as I go again.
17:53
Speaker 4: So I think I've accidentally crafted a way where I
17:57
Speaker 4: get enjoyment out of each of the different elements of
18:00
Speaker 4: the process by keeping them sort of separate.
18:02
Speaker 1: Awesome, that's great. This wasn't part of the original question,
18:06
Speaker 1: but listening to all of your responses, I am now curious.
18:09
Speaker 1: Does anybody use AI for any part of their gaming experience?
18:13
Speaker 2: A little, A little, yeah, I.
18:15
Speaker 1: Was fully expecting crickets on that one.
18:18
Speaker 2: No, I've used it a little bit. Name generation sometimes
18:23
Speaker 2: sometimes actually I will create a prompt from mythic so
18:28
Speaker 2: the two words prompt, and I'll sit there, I'll stare
18:30
Speaker 2: at it for a bit, and then I'll turn to
18:33
Speaker 2: gmmemulator if sorry, to the chat GPT or something similar
18:37
Speaker 2: if I can't come up with a solution, and say,
18:39
Speaker 2: in this context, with these two words, what have you got?
18:42
Speaker 2: And that's actually sometimes worked out really really, you know,
18:45
Speaker 2: some really interesting responses. The other one that I did
18:47
Speaker 2: a while back, which was great, was an NPC was
18:52
Speaker 2: giving a mission to my PCs, and so I gave
18:56
Speaker 2: chat GIP the prompt come up with a mission profile
19:00
Speaker 2: to recover mcguffin provides some interesting detail along the way.
19:04
Speaker 2: Where it is it? Where is it?
19:05
Speaker 3: What are the.
19:05
Speaker 2: Obstacles to overcome? What are the parameters? And it came
19:08
Speaker 2: back with a fantastic, really really fun setting for me
19:12
Speaker 2: to play in. I try to limit the use for
19:15
Speaker 2: a couple of reasons. One, I kind of question the
19:19
Speaker 2: ethics of AI. I think that's a bit of a problem.
19:24
Speaker 2: The second one is I think it a roads skill
19:26
Speaker 2: set that if you rely on it too much, you
19:29
Speaker 2: will continue to rely and you will increasingly rely on it,
19:32
Speaker 2: and you will erode those skills that you build up
19:34
Speaker 2: as a solo RPG player. But against that, we always
19:38
Speaker 2: use tools in this hobby as role playing games. As
19:42
Speaker 2: solo RPG players. You know, all of the stuff that
19:46
Speaker 2: we're using, the rule books, the source books, the tone
19:50
Speaker 2: of adventure, design, a book of names, all of those
19:53
Speaker 2: things or analog versions of what an AI is giving us.
19:56
Speaker 2: So I think using the right tool for the right thing,
19:59
Speaker 2: as a long as it's not overlied upon, is a
20:01
Speaker 2: good plan.
20:02
Speaker 1: Really interesting. I'm going to stay with you, Carl as
20:04
Speaker 1: we move on to our next question. All of us
20:07
Speaker 1: are doing solo gaming in a slightly different way. What
20:11
Speaker 1: is something that you think sets your particular style apart
20:16
Speaker 1: from the rest, Carl, do want to take that first,
20:18
Speaker 1: and then we'll go to PG and then RATA.
20:20
Speaker 2: Sure? So, I think the difference with mine is primarily
20:26
Speaker 2: in that split between the gaming bit and I kind
20:29
Speaker 2: of originally intended it to be an audio drama on
20:33
Speaker 2: the one hand and a tutorial on how to solo
20:36
Speaker 2: roleplay on the other, And it was always meant to
20:38
Speaker 2: be that balance between the two things, and I think
20:41
Speaker 2: as a result, it kind of drifts into that ASMR
20:45
Speaker 2: type of vibe for people. The people that care less
20:48
Speaker 2: about one can kind of tune out but just listen
20:50
Speaker 2: to the nice, sort of mellow tones hopefully on the
20:54
Speaker 2: bit they're less interested in, and then plug back in
20:56
Speaker 2: again and vice versa.
20:57
Speaker 1: That's great. Next tip is going to be PG.
21:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:01
Speaker 4: So I said this to you the other day, Carl,
21:04
Speaker 4: when we met in London the pub. That was fun.
21:06
Speaker 4: So I'm glad I hadn't heard your podcast before I
21:10
Speaker 4: started mine, Carl, and I'm a huge fan of your podcast.
21:12
Speaker 4: But one of the reasons I started mine was that
21:15
Speaker 4: I wanted to hear a bit of how the sausage
21:17
Speaker 4: was made. I was loving the narrative stories that were
21:20
Speaker 4: coming out from some of these podcasts that I was
21:22
Speaker 4: listening to, but it didn't tell me what the thought
21:24
Speaker 4: processes were behind the players, and that's what I was
21:27
Speaker 4: really really hungry for. That's what I wanted to learn
21:30
Speaker 4: myself and try out myself. And so having not heard
21:33
Speaker 4: that anywhere, that's exactly what I tried to do as well,
21:36
Speaker 4: and that's why I split it between that purely play
21:39
Speaker 4: thing and then coming back into the narrative to try
21:41
Speaker 4: and provide both of those aspects. But happily, the happy accident,
21:46
Speaker 4: one of the many that came out of that is
21:48
Speaker 4: that I found it was the thing that helped me
21:51
Speaker 4: actually start to write, because before that iways liked writing,
21:55
Speaker 4: but I wouldn't commit to it. I was overwhelmed by
21:58
Speaker 4: a big empty page or round out of ideas or
22:01
Speaker 4: something like that. And I found in this process the
22:04
Speaker 4: way that I'm doing it, I'm writing the script as
22:06
Speaker 4: I listened back to the audio, and when a small
22:08
Speaker 4: scene has happened, I'll stop it and then I'll write
22:10
Speaker 4: something else, and then I'll play it back again and
22:12
Speaker 4: then I'll write something else. And so for me, it
22:14
Speaker 4: accidentally turned out to be a collaboration with my past
22:18
Speaker 4: self in this writing exercise, which was completely accidental. And
22:23
Speaker 4: I think the reason that I am able to do
22:25
Speaker 4: this and write so much when I have always failed
22:28
Speaker 4: to do so in the past.
22:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, listen, that is fascinating and I'm not sure if
22:32
Speaker 1: that answers the question. No, it totally does, and what
22:36
Speaker 1: you're doing absolutely works, and it's a very addictive kind
22:40
Speaker 1: of format to listen to as well. Let's move on
22:43
Speaker 1: to Robin, what are you doing in this creative space?
22:46
Speaker 1: That is kind of setting your show apart?
22:49
Speaker 3: I would say my show is based on what I've
22:53
Speaker 3: heard from everyone else's. It's relatively lo fi in terms
22:57
Speaker 3: of production. I'm I don't have a huge amount of
23:01
Speaker 3: experience in audio production, which I think does is evident
23:05
Speaker 3: when I listen back to the recordings. I do think
23:07
Speaker 3: I have improved considerably over the couple of years in
23:10
Speaker 3: which I've worked on it. I guess I quite like
23:15
Speaker 3: the interaction between the narration and working out where to
23:19
Speaker 3: fit in these external character voices. So I really like
23:24
Speaker 3: dragging in people from outside who generally I feel provide
23:28
Speaker 3: a much needed kind of variety and kind of the
23:33
Speaker 3: kind of storytelling. I find that I'm much more comfortable
23:37
Speaker 3: with the writing element. I've always been a sort of
23:40
Speaker 3: creative writer, and so I can sort of knock off
23:43
Speaker 3: a sort of for in a half thousand word episode
23:45
Speaker 3: relatively quickly over a week or so. Having then reading
23:49
Speaker 3: it out loud, you kind of stumble over certain sentences
23:52
Speaker 3: and phrases, which means I go back and correct it
23:55
Speaker 3: as I record, So I find the storytelling element a
24:00
Speaker 3: bit more natural to me than their recording and the
24:03
Speaker 3: mixing and so on. Having said that, I do enjoy
24:06
Speaker 3: bringing in a variety of special effects and music from
24:09
Speaker 3: various sources. I've had people play guitar for me. I've
24:12
Speaker 3: played guitar or myself my own podcast, which I find
24:16
Speaker 3: is quite cool with bringing all my kind of hobbies together.
24:19
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's all quite amateurish, but you know, I
24:22
Speaker 3: quite enjoy that.
24:24
Speaker 1: Robin. When you're writing at a curiosity, how long is
24:27
Speaker 1: a writing session for you? Do you go for hours
24:30
Speaker 1: or are you doing kind of fifteen minutes here, twenty
24:33
Speaker 1: minutes there.
24:34
Speaker 3: Generally it's fairly short, so I have on a few
24:38
Speaker 3: days a week, I have quite a long train commute,
24:40
Speaker 3: so I can probably knock out two hundred and fifty
24:42
Speaker 3: to four hundred words on the train. Once I've kind
24:45
Speaker 3: of stitched it together to sort of a free to
24:47
Speaker 3: three and a half thousand word episode. I will then
24:49
Speaker 3: go and do a sort of fairly hefty edit in
24:51
Speaker 3: the space of like three or four hours at home
24:53
Speaker 3: or something. So yeah, that's kind of it's kind of
24:57
Speaker 3: pieced me or really, I don't try and write a
24:59
Speaker 3: thing all at once.
25:00
Speaker 1: I was curious because I tend to do like maybe
25:03
Speaker 1: a scene at a time is typically how I go,
25:05
Speaker 1: and I was wondering if if we were approaching it
25:08
Speaker 1: the same way, it looks looks like we are. Okay,
25:10
Speaker 1: this next question is I love this question. I must
25:14
Speaker 1: know how do you approach the ending to a solo game?
25:18
Speaker 1: And if you would like to expand and talk about
25:21
Speaker 1: what is the ideal length of a game? That might
25:24
Speaker 1: be a session or it might be the story, you
25:27
Speaker 1: could talk about that as well. So PJ, We're going
25:30
Speaker 1: to start with you. How do you approach the end
25:32
Speaker 1: of a game? And if you want to talk about it,
25:36
Speaker 1: do you have an idea of how long a story
25:39
Speaker 1: should last?
25:40
Speaker 4: In my head, I have endings to my games and
25:43
Speaker 4: my campaign. I've never got to one yet, so I'm
25:49
Speaker 4: not sure if I'm the best person to ask about that.
25:51
Speaker 4: For me, I have a goal in mind and when
25:53
Speaker 4: I start out doing that method that I thought I saw.
25:55
Speaker 1: I start with the world whatever.
25:57
Speaker 4: This is kind of the loose arc sort of if
25:58
Speaker 4: you know, or if the list familiar with the Iron
26:01
Speaker 4: SWAWNA star Forde system, you sort of have this arc.
26:04
Speaker 4: You will get there eventually, and whatever you do make
26:06
Speaker 4: progress towards that. Right, That's sort of what happens in
26:09
Speaker 4: my head, and I think, Okay, my characters they're going
26:11
Speaker 4: to get to the magical forest and get their magic back,
26:13
Speaker 4: and then that's fine. Then mythic or whatever I'm using
26:16
Speaker 4: throws up all sorts of things on the way. And
26:19
Speaker 4: very quickly I became at peace with the stories not
26:23
Speaker 4: necessarily having an end. They may have an end one day,
26:27
Speaker 4: and I keep that in my head and that's great.
26:29
Speaker 4: But just having all those worlds, and by nature of
26:32
Speaker 4: playing multiple games at once, having all those worlds and
26:35
Speaker 4: stories running concurrently in my head all the time and
26:38
Speaker 4: open ended is one of the really enjoyable parts of
26:42
Speaker 4: the hobby for me. Actually, I will have to start
26:45
Speaker 4: finishing something soon for Wasteland story, particularly that that does
26:50
Speaker 4: have a set arc, And for that one, I would
26:53
Speaker 4: say it did get there through that natural progression that
26:56
Speaker 4: I had imagined I had sort of an endpoint in mind.
27:00
Speaker 4: I haven't quite got there yet, but I'm very nearly there,
27:02
Speaker 4: and I found having that endpoint in mind did always
27:06
Speaker 4: keep the overarching goal in play as I worked out
27:11
Speaker 4: the narrative and as I went along, and so in
27:13
Speaker 4: doing that, things have naturally funneled themselves towards this crucial point.
27:18
Speaker 4: I think Mythic is a big part of that because
27:21
Speaker 4: for that playthrough, IM specifically using Mythic, and I think
27:24
Speaker 4: that is a huge factor in it because of the
27:25
Speaker 4: way that it throws back elements of your story at
27:29
Speaker 4: you with increasing probability based on how often you have
27:32
Speaker 4: encountered them, and by the nature of that, the story
27:35
Speaker 4: and the narrative can't help but amp up and focus
27:39
Speaker 4: on those story elements, and at a certain point you
27:42
Speaker 4: do feel the momentum go over and bring you to
27:45
Speaker 4: a point. So, without ever actually having ended a solo
27:50
Speaker 4: OUTPG campaign, that is my best guess about how I end.
27:55
Speaker 1: That's great, Thanks very much, Robin. What do you think
27:58
Speaker 1: about ending a story or do you even have one
28:02
Speaker 1: in mind?
28:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, again, with regards to my podcast, I don't really
28:06
Speaker 3: know because this is my first season and I feel
28:10
Speaker 3: like there's still quite a lot of way to go yet.
28:14
Speaker 3: I have a feeling that once I get to a
28:15
Speaker 3: certain number of episodes, I might start to see if
28:18
Speaker 3: the threads plot falls will start to wind down and
28:20
Speaker 3: tie up naturally, and then sort of give myself a
28:23
Speaker 3: deadline of another five or six episodes to get to
28:25
Speaker 3: the endpoint. In terms of my data, we'll not day
28:29
Speaker 3: to day role playing. But if I'm learning a game,
28:32
Speaker 3: for example, what I've set out to do is have
28:34
Speaker 3: my own single setting, So like I have a sort
28:38
Speaker 3: of a particular city, and if I'm learning a new game,
28:41
Speaker 3: whatever rule set it is, I have I sort of
28:43
Speaker 3: do a mini campaign in this city just to sort
28:46
Speaker 3: of get a sense of around the combat mechanisms and
28:48
Speaker 3: so on. And then I'll have, you know, a party
28:51
Speaker 3: or a single character for a particular game, and I
28:55
Speaker 3: will maybe play through two or three scenarios and see
29:00
Speaker 3: where that naturally comes to a conclusion. So I kind
29:02
Speaker 3: of creating a multiple sort of level of stories from
29:07
Speaker 3: these different rule sets, if that makes sense. I think
29:10
Speaker 3: Russ from Young DM does something similar with his campaigns.
29:13
Speaker 3: But I like the idea of having one place where
29:16
Speaker 3: you can test out these different rule sets and have
29:18
Speaker 3: different characters playing different rules.
29:21
Speaker 1: Really interesting, Carl, same question for you. Any idea how
29:24
Speaker 1: to approach an ending to a game or a story,
29:27
Speaker 1: and any opinions about the length of a story.
29:31
Speaker 2: So I definitely think that of beginnings, middles, and ends,
29:36
Speaker 2: ends in solo RPGs are by far the hardest to
29:39
Speaker 2: pull off. We are working often with tool sets that
29:43
Speaker 2: mean that by its nature we have no idea where
29:46
Speaker 2: the game is going. Mythic can take us offt course
29:48
Speaker 2: or what we thought was going to happen at any point.
29:51
Speaker 2: Other tools do similar things. I found it depends a
29:54
Speaker 2: little bit on the type of game you're playing. I
29:57
Speaker 2: did a very short, three part dark set of episodes
30:02
Speaker 2: where I knew that I was only going to do
30:03
Speaker 2: three episodes, and I conveniently tpkid my Party, and that
30:08
Speaker 2: was a perfect ending. They all died brilliant, nicely rounded
30:12
Speaker 2: things up for a really big, meaty campaign. Though you
30:16
Speaker 2: all bets are off because you're usually going to get
30:18
Speaker 2: to some point in your story where things are much
30:21
Speaker 2: bigger than you originally imagined, and you've got all sorts
30:24
Speaker 2: of really far ranging quests, difficult things to achieve in
30:28
Speaker 2: exactly the same way as PGA. You mentioned Iron Sworn,
30:31
Speaker 2: and those sorts of games give you this sort of
30:34
Speaker 2: long term quest. These those kind of emerge from other
30:38
Speaker 2: types of games as well. I really like what Mike
30:42
Speaker 2: Shay aka the Lazy Dungeon Master says about this. He's
30:47
Speaker 2: got this concept for group games of yam shaped game
30:50
Speaker 2: design or adventure design, so that as the GM, all
30:54
Speaker 2: you're doing is staying one move ahead of the players.
30:57
Speaker 2: And in fact, in solo RPG's we're not even doing that,
30:59
Speaker 2: we are at zero moves ahead. But the GM in
31:04
Speaker 2: Mike Shay in his games, he will happily stay one
31:07
Speaker 2: move ahead until he feels that the natural shape of
31:09
Speaker 2: the story has reached its apex, and having expanded out,
31:15
Speaker 2: you then start to narrow the game back in again.
31:17
Speaker 2: You offer fewer choices, you reduce the possible routs, and
31:22
Speaker 2: you narrow things to a final end point. And you
31:24
Speaker 2: can do a very similar thing using the threads in mythic.
31:31
Speaker 2: You just start to chop off extraneous ones. It starts
31:35
Speaker 2: to emphasize the ones that have been used a lot
31:37
Speaker 2: of as PJ said, and you can bring your story
31:42
Speaker 2: to a natural conclusion by just trimming out routes that
31:45
Speaker 2: it might go. There's a temptation when using solo RPG
31:50
Speaker 2: tools to do everything that they tell you so, to
31:54
Speaker 2: take any given prompt, to accept any given interrupt to
31:58
Speaker 2: a scene, and actually the so you get if you're
32:01
Speaker 2: trying to push your story towards an ending, you entirely
32:04
Speaker 2: at liberty to ignore some of those prompts and to
32:06
Speaker 2: take it further in that direction, leaving enough uncertainty for
32:10
Speaker 2: it to be enjoyable, but trimming out some of the
32:13
Speaker 2: stuff that's attempting to widen the story space.
32:16
Speaker 1: Again, really interesting answers from everybody, Thanks so much. So
32:21
Speaker 1: I do have one more quick fire question. What are
32:24
Speaker 1: your best tips, tricks, hacks, and or advice for solo games.
32:30
Speaker 1: Let's start with Robin.
32:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say don't just rely on one raw
32:37
Speaker 3: book or monster list or spell list or anything like that.
32:40
Speaker 3: You can pick and mix between all the various supplements
32:43
Speaker 3: and different things going on. As it's a solo game,
32:46
Speaker 3: you can basically introduce whatever elements you want into it.
32:49
Speaker 3: I think, and as I said, some of these ones
32:52
Speaker 3: you find in the raw books, these random table are
32:54
Speaker 3: quite dry. You can then you know choose, choose some
32:57
Speaker 3: other places. There's lots of stuff on the internet, well,
33:01
Speaker 3: even stuff like reading TV, other games, visiting historical sites
33:08
Speaker 3: or something that has given me a lot of you
33:10
Speaker 3: know stuff. I've created whole dungeons based on visiting you know,
33:13
Speaker 3: a ruin on a holiday, for example, and be prepared
33:17
Speaker 3: to make lots of rulings for events that the rules
33:19
Speaker 3: themselves don't cover.
33:21
Speaker 4: Just one one thing I'd like to add you just
33:23
Speaker 4: made me think of, Carl is if you set up
33:27
Speaker 4: your character to have a personal long term goal, you know,
33:31
Speaker 4: and you have that in the back of your mind.
33:33
Speaker 4: Do they want to retire? Do they want to escape
33:37
Speaker 4: the place? Whatever it is? And if you just you
33:39
Speaker 4: don't have to play the game to that goal all
33:41
Speaker 4: the time like in real life. You know, you just
33:44
Speaker 4: go on doing the stuff you're going to do. But
33:46
Speaker 4: if you establish that natural end point for your character
33:50
Speaker 4: or what they want to achieve in their lives, that
33:53
Speaker 4: may also help lead that story uc to a natural end.
33:56
Speaker 1: That's awesome. And as a side note, yes, that was fascinating.
34:00
Speaker 1: Let's move it up to curl any advice, tricks or tips.
34:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it took me a while to figure
34:08
Speaker 2: this out. But with a solo RPG, unlike in a
34:11
Speaker 2: group game, your social contract is only with you, and
34:14
Speaker 2: that means the potential to expand your design space in
34:18
Speaker 2: a game is significantly larger than it might be in
34:20
Speaker 2: a group game. It means that you can do all
34:23
Speaker 2: sorts of weird things with your game. You can swap
34:26
Speaker 2: out your characters, your protagonists, and jump from point of
34:29
Speaker 2: view to point of view. You can swap locations, you
34:33
Speaker 2: can move around in time in a way that's much
34:37
Speaker 2: more jarring in a group game, but in a solo
34:39
Speaker 2: game it's really easy to do. You're just exploring different
34:41
Speaker 2: parts of your world. Just as Robin said, having different
34:44
Speaker 2: characters play in the same basic sampit is really fun
34:48
Speaker 2: to do. The other one that I've been experimenting with
34:52
Speaker 2: recently is switching between game systems. You don't have to
34:55
Speaker 2: stick to the same game system, and you can continue
34:57
Speaker 2: your same story, but maybe as you change characters or
35:00
Speaker 2: change the theme of a particular section, you might want
35:04
Speaker 2: to know. I've switched from D and D to Blaze
35:06
Speaker 2: in the Dark to staff Forge to Powered by the
35:09
Speaker 2: Apocalypse of you know, you can jump back and forth
35:11
Speaker 2: depending on what you want from the story, what feels
35:14
Speaker 2: like fun and what fits the point of the story
35:17
Speaker 2: that you're at.
35:18
Speaker 1: Very good, and we're going to end off with PJ
35:22
Speaker 1: any tips, tricks, hacks or advice to share.
35:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, especially for people starting out. I've thought about this
35:28
Speaker 4: a lot. The main thing is, well, one of the
35:30
Speaker 4: main things is that I would say, don't hold yourself
35:33
Speaker 4: back by wanting everything to be perfect and just right.
35:37
Speaker 4: Treat everything you're doing, whether that is methods of playing,
35:41
Speaker 4: whether that's writing down, whether it's drawing, whether it's recording audio,
35:44
Speaker 4: whether it's using different games, treat it all as a
35:47
Speaker 4: learning experience to learn the way that you enjoy to
35:50
Speaker 4: play the most. Because it ultimately, to me, that is
35:52
Speaker 4: one of the most special things about this hobby is
35:55
Speaker 4: that you can tailor it exactly to the experience that
35:59
Speaker 4: you want most. That's something you don't get in a
36:01
Speaker 4: group game. You know, that is one of the key
36:03
Speaker 4: strengths of it. But in order to get there, you
36:06
Speaker 4: need to be open to trying stuff that maybe doesn't
36:09
Speaker 4: work for you. And rather than thinking of that as
36:11
Speaker 4: a failure, think of that as a progression in your story.
36:16
Speaker 4: As a solo RPG, think of it as a progression
36:19
Speaker 4: getting towards that place where you really find what works
36:22
Speaker 4: for you. And there might be multiple places that work
36:25
Speaker 4: for you in different circumstances or environments, but you can't
36:27
Speaker 4: get there unless you just don't worry about being perfect.
36:30
Speaker 1: Just try it. Just get out there and experiment and
36:33
Speaker 1: treat it as a learning experience. Yeah, definitely give yourself
36:35
Speaker 1: permission to make mistakes and try something and maybe it
36:38
Speaker 1: works and maybe it doesn't. But it's all play in
36:41
Speaker 1: the end, isn't it. And speaking of fun, this has
36:43
Speaker 1: been a lot of fun for me. Thank you guys
36:46
Speaker 1: for all agreeing to get together at this roundtable. Appreciate
36:49
Speaker 1: your time. Really love your shows. I'll put show notes
36:52
Speaker 1: links in the show notes to all of your shows
36:55
Speaker 1: as well, and definitely recommend everyone listening to check them out.
36:59
Speaker 1: They're all fantastic stick and they're all different. And that's it. Guys,
37:02
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
37:03
Speaker 3: Grays Seth, thank you, thanks so much.
37:08
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to this second of three
37:10
Speaker 1: bonus roundtable episodes with some of the coolest folks in
37:14
Speaker 1: the hobby. Today we spoke with Carl White of the
37:17
Speaker 1: Lone Adventurer podcast PJ from a waste Land story and
37:21
Speaker 1: the Solo role Players Podcast, and finally Robin of stories
37:25
Speaker 1: from the first watch. If you'd like to find out
37:28
Speaker 1: more about these great creators, check out the show notes
37:30
Speaker 1: or my blog for links, and for even more great
37:33
Speaker 1: solo podcast variety, try our new website, Solo Roleplayers Network
37:38
Speaker 1: dot com. The next real episode of Tales of the
37:40
Speaker 1: Manticore is just around the corner, so I'll see you soon.
37:43
Speaker 1: Until then, let chaos roll.