Latest / Tale of The Manticore, a Dark Fantasy Dungeons & Dragons Audiodrama / Season 3 Solo Podsters Roundtable 1 (Bonus Episode)

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Season 3 Solo Podsters Roundtable 1 (Bonus Episode) · Tale of The Manticore, a Dark Fantasy Dungeons & Dragons Audiodrama

0:17
Speaker 1: Hi there, folks.
0:18
Speaker 2: I am very excited to share with you this bonus episode.
0:21
Speaker 2: It's a panel discussion with some of the best players
0:24
Speaker 2: in solo RPG podcasts. It turns out that there are
0:27
Speaker 2: so many talented and creative minds out there that I
0:29
Speaker 2: couldn't fit them all into one show, so I intend
0:32
Speaker 2: to run this as a two or maybe even three
0:34
Speaker 2: part series. To kick us off, I've invited four fellow
0:38
Speaker 2: podstrs here today. All of them have excellent shows and
0:41
Speaker 2: do solo in their own way. I highly recommend that
0:44
Speaker 2: you check them all out now. Before we get on
0:46
Speaker 2: with this show, A quick note to say that the
0:49
Speaker 2: timing of the release is deliberate. If you stick around
0:52
Speaker 2: till the end, you'll hear me talk about an exciting
0:54
Speaker 2: new collaborative project that I think you'll really like. All right,
0:58
Speaker 2: let's meet our guests and get this thing started. Steve,
1:02
Speaker 2: want to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit
1:04
Speaker 2: about your show.
1:05
Speaker 3: Absolutely thanks for having me on here, John So. I
1:08
Speaker 3: am Steve Morrison of the Errant Adventures podcast. It is
1:13
Speaker 3: a solo actual play where stories are told at the
1:17
Speaker 3: speed of dice, and essentially I love to create narratives
1:24
Speaker 3: of exciting action, adventure and deep characters, and most of
1:31
Speaker 3: my stories take place in a sci fi milieu, although
1:35
Speaker 3: I do have some fantasy as well. But I'm currently
1:39
Speaker 3: running a long running traveler campaign of about thirty episodes
1:44
Speaker 3: in and just getting started.
1:47
Speaker 2: Thank you, Steve. How about you, Brian?
1:50
Speaker 4: I'm Brian right out. I run the podcast Swords Against Madness,
1:54
Speaker 4: where I'm trying to capture the spirit of the very
1:57
Speaker 4: early D and D with all of this weird psychedelic elements.
2:01
Speaker 4: There's robots and crash spaceships right alongside your ogre may
2:05
Speaker 4: Gui and your cobolds. You know, I really like lean
2:08
Speaker 4: into the pulpy, strange elements. I want my chainmail bikinis
2:12
Speaker 4: and my flying wizard vans and my three bladed swords
2:15
Speaker 4: in there.
2:16
Speaker 2: Fantastic ty tell us about your show.
2:18
Speaker 5: Hello. I am Dungeon, mister tie on the socials, the
2:22
Speaker 5: owner of Adventure Slang Productions, the creator of the new
2:25
Speaker 5: of Arden TTRPG and Fortunes dfour system. I also have
2:30
Speaker 5: two podcasts. The first podcast is called the Adventure Sling Podcast,
2:35
Speaker 5: where we speak to all kinds of cool people doing
2:37
Speaker 5: neat stuff in the industry and industry adjacent, and I
2:40
Speaker 5: also have the Chronicles of Nephis, which is my solo
2:44
Speaker 5: actual play podcast set in New of Arden. Both those
2:47
Speaker 5: are on the website adventure sling dot com, where you
2:49
Speaker 5: can also find the soft launch digital file for New
2:53
Speaker 5: of Arden with rent files to come.
2:55
Speaker 2: Alrighty, last, but not least, Nephalos.
2:58
Speaker 6: This is Nefhalo's sh I'm the creator of Reflections in
3:01
Speaker 6: the Dark Some Mirror and that is kind of a
3:05
Speaker 6: vessel for my TTRPG called darks Mirror, And then eventually
3:09
Speaker 6: there will be a novel as well that follows the
3:12
Speaker 6: story of the podcast. The podcast itself is, like many
3:16
Speaker 6: of the others in this space, a dark fantasy.
3:19
Speaker 1: I think mine has.
3:21
Speaker 6: A bit more of an emphasis on slow kind of
3:26
Speaker 6: brushstroke painting, long form prose, flowery prose as I've heard
3:31
Speaker 6: some people say, and very defined characters with distinct motivations
3:37
Speaker 6: and a deep lived in world. And the story follows
3:42
Speaker 6: the character Shinareth, born of two heroes, on her journey through.
3:47
Speaker 1: The world of Volgraph.
3:48
Speaker 2: It's a super diverse group and I can't wait to
3:51
Speaker 2: pick your brains. So let's jump in with our first question,
3:54
Speaker 2: and that is going to be how would we actually
3:57
Speaker 2: start a brand new game from scratch? So do we
4:01
Speaker 2: start with characters? Do we start with system? What do
4:04
Speaker 2: the opening moves look like? And why don't we start
4:08
Speaker 2: with Steve? You're going to start a brand new game,
4:11
Speaker 2: what does it actually look like at the table?
4:14
Speaker 3: Well, it kind of depends. There are a couple of
4:19
Speaker 3: different ways that I like to get into starting a
4:22
Speaker 3: new game. Sometimes I have a character that I'm really
4:24
Speaker 3: excited to play, and that's the driving force to get started.
4:29
Speaker 3: Sometimes I've got a story idea. Sometimes I've got a
4:33
Speaker 3: world that I want to play in. I would say
4:36
Speaker 3: less frequently do I have a game system or you
4:40
Speaker 3: know something like that that is the kind of driving force.
4:43
Speaker 3: It kind of always starts with story or character or
4:46
Speaker 3: world for me. But it's just kind of figuring out
4:50
Speaker 3: what that thing is that I'm most excited to explore,
4:54
Speaker 3: and then building on top of it. So if it's
4:57
Speaker 3: a character, kind of figuring out what the bra strokes
5:00
Speaker 3: of that character are, and then you know, deciding what
5:04
Speaker 3: kind of system I want to play in, deciding what
5:05
Speaker 3: kind of world it was going to be, and all
5:07
Speaker 3: that stuff adds on top.
5:09
Speaker 2: That's really interesting. If you're going to start off with
5:12
Speaker 2: a character and you're going to put them into conflict.
5:15
Speaker 2: Are you going to make that up? Or are you
5:16
Speaker 2: going to roll on a table?
5:17
Speaker 3: Typically, I would say, because I have a background in
5:23
Speaker 3: writing fiction, I oftentimes am coming to the table with
5:28
Speaker 3: a starting idea like this is the starting conflict, and
5:32
Speaker 3: then I usually have an idea of what the ending
5:36
Speaker 3: is going to be, and that is the thing that
5:39
Speaker 3: I'm shooting towards that I'm trying to move towards. And
5:43
Speaker 3: in pretty much every story I've ever written, I have
5:46
Speaker 3: never actually ended the story at that point because I'm
5:50
Speaker 3: a discovery writer. So I'm similarly with RBGS, and that's
5:54
Speaker 3: why they kind of work well together, is that I'm
5:57
Speaker 3: discovering the story as I go, and I usually find
5:59
Speaker 3: a better ending than what my original kind of anticipated
6:04
Speaker 3: ending is. But it's good to have something to shoot
6:06
Speaker 3: for so that it keeps that momentum moving forward.
6:10
Speaker 2: A very good point, isn't that the truth? Let's hand
6:14
Speaker 2: it off to Brian. Brian, how do you start off?
6:16
Speaker 2: And why not let's build on what Steve was talking about.
6:19
Speaker 2: Do you have an ending, even like a possible ending
6:23
Speaker 2: in mind?
6:23
Speaker 4: When you do, I'm pretty much the opposite of what
6:26
Speaker 4: Steve was describing, in that I don't like to know
6:29
Speaker 4: what I'm getting into to begin with. I'll roll up
6:32
Speaker 4: a couple of characters, and I pick the system based
6:34
Speaker 4: on what kind of feel I want or what I'm
6:36
Speaker 4: play testing at the time for a blog entry or whatever.
6:39
Speaker 4: So one day I might feel like a kind of
6:42
Speaker 4: tragedy field adventure. I might grab Dungeon World, or I
6:45
Speaker 4: might want a really old school D and D games.
6:47
Speaker 4: I'll grab Swords and Wizardry, and I will start my
6:51
Speaker 4: characters someplace where they're completely faced with a totally alien
6:55
Speaker 4: environment like crashed spaceship or shipwrecked or teleported to someplace new,
7:01
Speaker 4: or being sent out into the wilds where they don't
7:03
Speaker 4: know what's there. And then I rely a lot on
7:06
Speaker 4: things like random generation and tools like random hex map
7:11
Speaker 4: generators to start to just put a world in front
7:13
Speaker 4: of me and figure out what's going on, and using
7:15
Speaker 4: tools like mythic right.
7:17
Speaker 2: On, Now, do you believe in that whole? Like starting
7:19
Speaker 2: in Media's Reds, do you kind of like, let's start
7:21
Speaker 2: with action.
7:23
Speaker 4: I prefer it that way. I find that, especially with
7:26
Speaker 4: a solo game, you're spending a lot of time talking
7:29
Speaker 4: to yourself. If you're trying to get the player characters
7:31
Speaker 4: to meet at a tavern and figure out what they
7:33
Speaker 4: like about each other, so why not put them into
7:36
Speaker 4: a harsh situation. You get to know the characters based
7:39
Speaker 4: on how you have how they react to those first
7:41
Speaker 4: few moments of the adventure.
7:43
Speaker 2: So true, so true, Ty, We're going to head it
7:46
Speaker 2: off to you next. For people that want to get
7:49
Speaker 2: into solo gaming but don't really know how to start,
7:52
Speaker 2: how do you do it?
7:53
Speaker 5: I think the first place to start with solo play
7:56
Speaker 5: is having a system. You know which system do you
7:58
Speaker 5: want to use? The and the dice system, and the
8:01
Speaker 5: things that are enjoyable for you as a player are
8:05
Speaker 5: going to be the things you're going to want to use, because,
8:07
Speaker 5: for one thing, you'll know them and you need a
8:09
Speaker 5: system to help guide and create that randomness that is
8:13
Speaker 5: part of role playing games. So once you have your system,
8:17
Speaker 5: hopefully or preferably choose one with encounter tables, where now
8:20
Speaker 5: we could create our own encountertables as well, but if
8:23
Speaker 5: they're already built into the system, then it's just a
8:27
Speaker 5: matter of using what's there and not have to do
8:28
Speaker 5: all that extra setup work. The next thing to do
8:32
Speaker 5: is make your character or two, depending on how you
8:34
Speaker 5: want to run it. If you want to have two
8:35
Speaker 5: characters for survivability purposes, that's never a bad idea, although
8:41
Speaker 5: starting out it may be a good idea just to
8:42
Speaker 5: have one and say how it goes. The next and
8:45
Speaker 5: final thing, perhaps is just give them, give your character
8:49
Speaker 5: or characters a quest and go, and then you probably
8:52
Speaker 5: want to have some sort of larger over our ching goal.
8:56
Speaker 5: I like to build my plot lines from I'm a
9:00
Speaker 5: big encounter, if not the final encounter, at least like
9:03
Speaker 5: the end of our encounter, and then work backwards a
9:07
Speaker 5: little bit to you know how that encounter arrives or
9:10
Speaker 5: how the character, excuse me, how the character arrives at
9:13
Speaker 5: the encounter. So when you know what the end result is,
9:17
Speaker 5: at least for a phase of the adventure, then the
9:22
Speaker 5: characters are heading towards that final encounter. They don't necessarily
9:25
Speaker 5: know it, But then you build in your other encounters
9:27
Speaker 5: along the way, and they get stronger, and the whole
9:30
Speaker 5: game is happening then at that point, and then you
9:33
Speaker 5: see you know how they get to where they're going,
9:35
Speaker 5: where they arrive depending on how you want to do.
9:37
Speaker 2: It fantastic and Lasbian, not at least Nephilos. How do
9:41
Speaker 2: you start a solo game?
9:43
Speaker 6: Yeah, so I think those of you familiar with writing
9:47
Speaker 6: might be familiar with the comparison between the architect and
9:51
Speaker 6: the gardener. And I'm more of an architect myself, So
9:56
Speaker 6: I think the system is actually the least important choice
10:00
Speaker 6: in my opinion. It can certainly lend flavor, but to
10:04
Speaker 6: a certain extent, you can adapt a system to almost
10:08
Speaker 6: any story that you want to tell. Obviously there are
10:11
Speaker 6: some exceptions to that, but most systems are fairly open
10:15
Speaker 6: to interpretation and kind of house rules and warping flavor
10:20
Speaker 6: or whatever. So I'll start with, you know, basically an
10:23
Speaker 6: an out line and a setting, and I like to
10:26
Speaker 6: get pretty defined. So in Darks and Mirror, I have
10:30
Speaker 6: defined factions, countries, map characters, world. So I'll set the
10:36
Speaker 6: table in a pretty detailed fashion, and then I'll kind
10:40
Speaker 6: of think about which characters and factions are motivated by
10:44
Speaker 6: what and where.
10:46
Speaker 1: It's a good.
10:46
Speaker 6: Place to start from an action filled perspective, So I'll
10:49
Speaker 6: take my perspective character and say, hey, what could happen here?
10:52
Speaker 6: And then at that point that's when I'll start, you know,
10:55
Speaker 6: making some custom tables and rolling on the dice to
10:57
Speaker 6: determine like, Okay, this faction wants to do this, and
11:00
Speaker 6: this influence is the main character this way, and you know,
11:04
Speaker 6: so if someone is struggling, I would say, try to
11:08
Speaker 6: define all the motivated parties and influential parties in your
11:14
Speaker 6: setting and then.
11:15
Speaker 1: You know, kind of make tables and roll from there.
11:19
Speaker 2: Really cool. Okay, So here's another question, and for this
11:21
Speaker 2: one we'll start off with Brian. This question is how
11:26
Speaker 2: do you handle open ended questions in a way that
11:29
Speaker 2: is organic and can surprise you as the player.
11:33
Speaker 4: I find that there's two things that are really helpful
11:35
Speaker 4: for that, and the first one is just because I
11:38
Speaker 4: don't know where anything except where I'm starting, I leave
11:42
Speaker 4: myself open to a lot of surprises, using a lot
11:44
Speaker 4: of random tables, and I use older systems that have
11:47
Speaker 4: roles for things like the attitude of the NPCs, what
11:51
Speaker 4: the monsters are doing when you encounter them, that sort
11:53
Speaker 4: of thing, And that way, I don't have to worry
11:56
Speaker 4: too much about the open ended questions, but when they come,
12:00
Speaker 4: I take a moment and I daydream and see if
12:02
Speaker 4: something cool comes up. In my head. And if that
12:05
Speaker 4: doesn't work, I've got a bag of ruins and a
12:07
Speaker 4: deck of Tarot cards, and so I just will grab
12:10
Speaker 4: whatever strikes my fancy. And the one thing I don't
12:13
Speaker 4: let myself do is sit and wait for too long.
12:16
Speaker 4: A good enough answer is way better than a perfect
12:19
Speaker 4: answer three days later.
12:21
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Let's not bury the lead. You've got a
12:23
Speaker 2: bag of runes. Tell me about that.
12:29
Speaker 4: I've been a practicing neo pagan since I was fourteen
12:32
Speaker 4: years old. I used to actually make a living as
12:35
Speaker 4: a psychic. I used to read tarot cards and tea
12:38
Speaker 4: leaves at a cafe when I was just out of college.
12:41
Speaker 2: Wow, not what I was expecting to dig up so
12:44
Speaker 2: early in this roundtable. This is podcasting gold.
12:48
Speaker 1: Very cool.
12:49
Speaker 2: All right, thanks Brian. Let's head over to Tye next.
12:52
Speaker 2: Ty how do you how do you answer open ended
12:55
Speaker 2: questions when you're solo playing?
12:57
Speaker 5: So I started off as a forever when I first
13:01
Speaker 5: started playing role playing games, and so I had to
13:03
Speaker 5: learn improvisation and responsiveness to other people's decisions that I
13:08
Speaker 5: didn't see coming from the beginning. So in solo play,
13:12
Speaker 5: it's just a matter of following that same sort of practice.
13:15
Speaker 5: When an uncertainty arises, just follow the get how would
13:21
Speaker 5: you respond to it if it were presented to you
13:23
Speaker 5: by a group. The narrative is providing the same sort
13:26
Speaker 5: of challenge, so you just address it intuitively and through improvisation.
13:31
Speaker 5: The other thing to do, though, and this may be
13:34
Speaker 5: even more effective, and it should be maybe in combination
13:37
Speaker 5: with the intuitive response, and that's still let the dice decide.
13:42
Speaker 5: When I created the Fortunes Defour system, I wanted a
13:45
Speaker 5: system that took the I don't know that the judgment
13:50
Speaker 5: or the arbitration, the judgment out of the arbitration for
13:52
Speaker 5: the game master, because the dice would ultimately determine it.
13:56
Speaker 5: So when I'm playing, when I'm running a game one
13:59
Speaker 5: of my ten, it's just to say, you try to
14:01
Speaker 5: say yes to the what the character wants to do,
14:04
Speaker 5: and then the dice will decide whether that works out
14:05
Speaker 5: or not. And so the same thing can happen with
14:07
Speaker 5: the solo play where you roll the dice and say
14:10
Speaker 5: an odd number on the die is no, and a
14:13
Speaker 5: even number on the die is a yes, or some
14:16
Speaker 5: sort of combination like that that gives you a direction
14:18
Speaker 5: to go one way or the other without having to
14:19
Speaker 5: make the decision. Force the decision, if you will. She
14:22
Speaker 5: horned it into the outcome.
14:24
Speaker 2: Right on, nephlos, you are odd. Next, how do you
14:28
Speaker 2: answer open ended questions tips and tricks?
14:31
Speaker 1: I would say it.
14:32
Speaker 6: Comes back to the architect and the gardener thing again.
14:36
Speaker 6: Just once you have a set of characters and factions
14:40
Speaker 6: defined and you know what the possible outcomes could be,
14:45
Speaker 6: then you know you have to define a range of
14:48
Speaker 6: possible outcomes, you know, within that spectrum.
14:51
Speaker 1: So for most.
14:53
Speaker 6: Scenarios you're not going to want to go to wacky,
14:56
Speaker 6: But in certain scenarios maybe you do add like a
15:00
Speaker 6: chaos factor to your oracle role for example. And I
15:06
Speaker 6: like to stick pretty close to the roll of the
15:08
Speaker 6: dice for that reason, since my system has metacurrency and
15:11
Speaker 6: other systems you may have metacurrency, but I can see
15:13
Speaker 6: where you know if you didn't, and you could, you know,
15:19
Speaker 6: throw in a little dmf ot in there, of course,
15:22
Speaker 6: if it makes the story better. I don't see why not.
15:25
Speaker 6: It's obviously open to interpretation. But yeah, just like find
15:30
Speaker 6: out where things can go, and then if if it
15:33
Speaker 6: warrants it be open to new and strange ideas based
15:38
Speaker 6: on the roll of.
15:38
Speaker 2: Dice in the system that you're using, Well, it's it's
15:41
Speaker 2: your own system. Do you use like any kind of oracle,
15:45
Speaker 2: like a yes and yes yes, but that kind of thing.
15:51
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm glad you asked so dark So mirror has
15:53
Speaker 6: a two D ten yes no, and then chaos normality
15:57
Speaker 6: oracle it's on my blow and more dev But essentially
16:01
Speaker 6: it's two D ten and the first D ten is
16:04
Speaker 6: yes no kind of with degrees, so you know, all
16:06
Speaker 6: the way from yes and all the way to no,
16:09
Speaker 6: but depending on where it lands. And then the second
16:12
Speaker 6: dice is kind of how influenced by chaos and randomness
16:18
Speaker 6: or weirdness?
16:19
Speaker 1: Is that answer the previous dice, So all the way.
16:22
Speaker 6: From totally mundane to wild and wacky supernatural arcane influence.
16:29
Speaker 2: Just for listeners that aren't familiar with metacurrency, what is that?
16:33
Speaker 6: Yeah, So, medicurrency is a feature in a lot of TTRPGs,
16:38
Speaker 6: especially modern ones. I think it's more of a recent
16:41
Speaker 6: trend than it's definitely not an old school thing as
16:44
Speaker 6: far as I'm aware. But it just means essentially that
16:46
Speaker 6: you have some degree of reroll allowed. So some systems
16:50
Speaker 6: have metacurrency where you can redo an entire role or
16:53
Speaker 6: some allow like a modified reroll of some sort. But
16:56
Speaker 6: essentially it boils down to giving a character a second
17:00
Speaker 6: chance at something in some scenario.
17:03
Speaker 2: So Steve, we're gonna have you answer this one last.
17:06
Speaker 2: And nobody's talked about any kind of like event meaning
17:09
Speaker 2: tables yet. Did I know you use them?
17:11
Speaker 5: Ah?
17:12
Speaker 3: Yes, Could you talk.
17:13
Speaker 2: About that a little bit, how you use them, when
17:15
Speaker 2: you would use them, and even what is that and also,
17:18
Speaker 2: of course anything else that you want to add in
17:19
Speaker 2: terms of open ended questions?
17:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Well I first of all agree with everybody
17:25
Speaker 3: else on their takes of approaching open ended questions curiously,
17:31
Speaker 3: but like not holding on to trying to find the
17:35
Speaker 3: right answer and just picking something and going with it,
17:39
Speaker 3: because I think it is especially when you're playing solo,
17:42
Speaker 3: like there is no one else at the table who
17:46
Speaker 3: is going to be bothered a if you choose something
17:50
Speaker 3: and then twenty minutes later you go actually that took
17:53
Speaker 3: me down an avenue that I don't really want to
17:56
Speaker 3: go down, So I'm going to go back and choose
17:58
Speaker 3: something else, or you know, ultimately, like you just have
18:01
Speaker 3: to pick the thing that is the most fun and
18:04
Speaker 3: interesting for you because you're the only player at the table.
18:08
Speaker 3: And I think that's that's super important to remember because
18:11
Speaker 3: it is really easy when playing solo to put your
18:15
Speaker 3: characters through so much more turmoil than they need to
18:21
Speaker 3: because I feel like, as you know, you have this
18:24
Speaker 3: sense of like, well, they have to suffer because I'm
18:28
Speaker 3: the you know, it would be cheating if I if
18:30
Speaker 3: they let them off easy this time. So I think
18:33
Speaker 3: that's that's important. But yes, I absolutely love random tables
18:38
Speaker 3: and I use Iron Sworn a lot. Iron Sworn Star
18:43
Speaker 3: Forged is the game that I started with when I
18:46
Speaker 3: started on my solo podcasting journey, and I think I
18:51
Speaker 3: pretty much always have Iron Sworn the Iron Sworn Yes,
18:56
Speaker 3: no Oracle in the back of my head when I'm
18:58
Speaker 3: running basically any game, but especially the action and theme tables.
19:04
Speaker 3: These are tables for anybody who's not familiar with that,
19:08
Speaker 3: that are essentially just a list of words, and you
19:12
Speaker 3: might have like a list of one hundred nouns and
19:15
Speaker 3: then one hundred adjectives, and you roll your D one hundred,
19:19
Speaker 3: you pick a noun, you roll D one hundred again,
19:22
Speaker 3: you pick an adjective. You put those two together, and
19:25
Speaker 3: then that helps to prompt you, and I think that's
19:28
Speaker 3: something that's important as a solo player. When we're playing
19:32
Speaker 3: at the table with other people, our imagination is fueled
19:38
Speaker 3: by each other. But when you're just sitting at the
19:40
Speaker 3: table by yourself, like, you don't have anything to kind
19:44
Speaker 3: of feed off of. And that's where those tables are
19:49
Speaker 3: really helpful, because oftentimes, if I come up against an
19:53
Speaker 3: open ended question and I don't immediately have an answer,
19:57
Speaker 3: my first instinct is to pick up the dice roll
20:02
Speaker 3: on those tables and see if those words trigger some
20:06
Speaker 3: sort of path forward or some sort of brainstorm idea
20:11
Speaker 3: that is going to take the story in a new
20:15
Speaker 3: and an interesting and a dramatic direction.
20:18
Speaker 2: Those tables are magic, yeah, And strictly speaking, you don't
20:21
Speaker 2: need them to play, but boy, I do think that
20:23
Speaker 2: they're so fun. I want to say that Tanna Pigeons
20:27
Speaker 2: Mythic is where those were first introduced into gaming. I
20:31
Speaker 2: know that they come from Tarot Carts. Actually, I just
20:35
Speaker 2: learned that fairly recently, I think from Pj's show Does
20:38
Speaker 2: anybody know? Was there anybody doing it before? Mythic? I
20:43
Speaker 2: feel like I should give credit where it's due, like
20:45
Speaker 2: Tana introduced that mechanic.
20:48
Speaker 3: Does anybody know I don't know specifically, but I would
20:51
Speaker 3: say if it did exist before mythic mythic is what
20:56
Speaker 3: made it viable?
20:58
Speaker 2: Is she codified it?
20:59
Speaker 1: Yeah?
21:00
Speaker 2: When I first learned about that, it really my brain
21:02
Speaker 2: exploded and I thought, oh my god, somebody's actually like
21:06
Speaker 2: revolutionized gaming with this one idea. Okay, let's move on
21:11
Speaker 2: to another one. Ty, You're going to start us off
21:14
Speaker 2: on this one. And this next question is when dealing
21:17
Speaker 2: with NPCs and when dealing with dialogue, do you introduce
21:21
Speaker 2: that into your games, especially when you're not making content specifically,
21:27
Speaker 2: if you're playing a game just for yourself, are you
21:29
Speaker 2: doing the dialogue? How are you going to flesh out
21:33
Speaker 2: your NPCs? Any wisdom that you want to share about
21:36
Speaker 2: those topics.
21:37
Speaker 5: So, when I'm thinking about NPCs, I like to follow
21:40
Speaker 5: the details that first come to mind, sort of like
21:41
Speaker 5: I do with following my gut on the yes no
21:45
Speaker 5: or the open ended question and go or elead. So
21:50
Speaker 5: figure approaches. What do I see first thing in my mind?
21:53
Speaker 5: What's the length of their hair, what is their general build?
21:56
Speaker 5: What kind of clothing are they wearing? Are they male
21:58
Speaker 5: or female? You could roll a die for male, female,
22:02
Speaker 5: non binary, whatever you wish to do, like a D
22:04
Speaker 5: six can give you three options or something like that,
22:08
Speaker 5: and then you just sort of go with what kind
22:11
Speaker 5: of accent might they have? What is their race or species?
22:14
Speaker 5: And again this can all be done on tables, right,
22:16
Speaker 5: so you can have a table to determine randomly what
22:20
Speaker 5: the characteristics are and then just intuitively build the personality.
22:25
Speaker 5: And then as you build that personality and you start
22:27
Speaker 5: to get some of those details and familiarity, then let
22:30
Speaker 5: the details build on each other and you continue to
22:32
Speaker 5: flesh out of character. And it depends on how important
22:34
Speaker 5: the NPC is as well, because not every encounter is
22:38
Speaker 5: going to be a return encounter when it comes to
22:39
Speaker 5: non player characters, and when it comes to dialogue, if
22:43
Speaker 5: it's if you're a private solo playee, dialogue may not
22:46
Speaker 5: really come up unless you enjoy speaking out the back
22:50
Speaker 5: and forth encounter, which is a preference in production. Of course,
22:55
Speaker 5: that's a little bit different a factor because you have
22:57
Speaker 5: to have all your characters speaking to each other to
23:00
Speaker 5: create the immersive story. So a play, if you're journaling,
23:04
Speaker 5: it may be fun to write the dialogue out in
23:05
Speaker 5: the journal and that may be sufficient. Whether it's verbal
23:09
Speaker 5: or not is another thing. And then as far as
23:11
Speaker 5: writing dialogue, that's a whole other aspect of like fiction writing,
23:15
Speaker 5: but with a little bit of practice and making it
23:18
Speaker 5: sound natural. That just takes practice and reading and things
23:22
Speaker 5: like that. So that's a little bit of a different
23:24
Speaker 5: issue than solo play, but I think probably it works
23:29
Speaker 5: most effective to me in journaling kinds of solo play games.
23:33
Speaker 2: Now, I know that, like me, you produced for content.
23:36
Speaker 2: So it's a hard answer, hard question to answer when
23:38
Speaker 2: I when I frame it that way, let's hand it
23:40
Speaker 2: off to Nephilos. How do you handle NPCs and or
23:44
Speaker 2: dialogue in your games?
23:46
Speaker 1: Well, this might be a little different than.
23:50
Speaker 6: Others who are kind of going at this since I'm
23:53
Speaker 6: essentially writing a book, But I have a table for
23:57
Speaker 6: character creation that can apply to and as well. So
24:02
Speaker 6: I will if the character is more important than like,
24:06
Speaker 6: you know, random tabern inkeeper that has one line, then
24:09
Speaker 6: I'll roll on the table and generate.
24:11
Speaker 1: A fully fleshed out character.
24:13
Speaker 6: But I will probably exclude some results on that table
24:16
Speaker 6: if they're like to wacko, you know, so, because the
24:21
Speaker 6: character creation table has like every single option that's possible
24:24
Speaker 6: in the system, and sometimes you just don't want the
24:28
Speaker 6: random peasant in the field to be a sorcerer that
24:31
Speaker 6: has a pet demon or something, right.
24:34
Speaker 1: So you know, if they are going to be at all.
24:38
Speaker 6: Have any screen time at all, then I'll definitely influence
24:42
Speaker 6: their outcome by rolling on that table first and then
24:45
Speaker 6: kind of seeing where it goes from there and seeing
24:48
Speaker 6: what makes sense for their motivations and the place.
24:52
Speaker 1: They find themselves in.
24:54
Speaker 2: Okay, interesting, Steve, how about you?
24:57
Speaker 3: I similar I think to Tie, I just grab a
25:01
Speaker 3: couple of character traits and just kind of go with
25:06
Speaker 3: what feels right with the vibe of that character and
25:10
Speaker 3: the situation that that NPC is coming up in, and
25:16
Speaker 3: just kind of see where it goes. And I feel
25:20
Speaker 3: like my answer to all of these questions is basically
25:22
Speaker 3: like I don't know, I'm just going to see where
25:24
Speaker 3: it goes. Because it's similar with dialogue, where I, first
25:29
Speaker 3: of all, I love writing dialogue, and so as somebody
25:33
Speaker 3: who also is producing a show, and I have done
25:38
Speaker 3: it both ways, where I have just extemporaneously created dialogue
25:43
Speaker 3: and then I've written dialogue when I play solo without
25:50
Speaker 3: creating something for a show. Which is rare. I'll admit
25:54
Speaker 3: I'm in that camp as well, where most of my
25:56
Speaker 3: solo play is creating my show, but when I do,
26:02
Speaker 3: I tend to lean more towards the writing journaling side
26:06
Speaker 3: of things, in which case I do kind of slow
26:09
Speaker 3: down and spend time creating dialogue for the characters, because
26:15
Speaker 3: essentially I'm just sitting at my computer writing, and every
26:19
Speaker 3: once in a while when conflict happens, I just go
26:23
Speaker 3: ahead and engage with the mechanics in order to see
26:29
Speaker 3: what happens. So I think like, if I were just
26:33
Speaker 3: going to play solo by myself, I would still write
26:36
Speaker 3: dialogue because I enjoy the act of writing dialogue. But
26:41
Speaker 3: if I was somebody who wasn't necessarily writing down their
26:45
Speaker 3: solo play, I don't know that I would kind of
26:49
Speaker 3: create dialogue in the same way. And so in the
26:53
Speaker 3: instances where I've played like something like five par Sex
26:56
Speaker 3: from Home, where it's more of a tabletop war game,
26:59
Speaker 3: but still playing it solo, I don't really come up
27:03
Speaker 3: with dialogue for the different characters. Maybe occasionally they'll like
27:08
Speaker 3: shot a one liner back and forth, but for the
27:10
Speaker 3: most part, I'm just kind of writing some notes to
27:12
Speaker 3: myself and then rolling the dice to decide what happens
27:16
Speaker 3: in the tabletop battle.
27:18
Speaker 2: Thanks Steve Brian. How about you when dealing with NPCs
27:23
Speaker 2: and dialogue, what's your approach?
27:26
Speaker 4: Well, when it comes to dialogue, you know, solo gaming
27:29
Speaker 4: is an opportunity to have a slightly structured version of
27:32
Speaker 4: make believe. So I'm not playing it very different than
27:35
Speaker 4: I did when I was five. Right, I will sit
27:37
Speaker 4: there and I will do an evil villain monologue, or
27:40
Speaker 4: I will do back and forth different character voices with
27:43
Speaker 4: characters when I feel like it. Sometimes you know you're
27:47
Speaker 4: doing something like hashing out a long bargain with someone
27:50
Speaker 4: and it isn't all that interesting. But I mean, this
27:53
Speaker 4: is make believe and you don't have an audience. There's
27:55
Speaker 4: no one to feel self conscious about, and I'm alone
27:58
Speaker 4: in my apartm until a lot of the time I
28:01
Speaker 4: can just sit and have a conversation with myself in
28:03
Speaker 4: funny voices as much as I like. As for NPCs,
28:07
Speaker 4: I mean, I will definitely agree with just about everything
28:10
Speaker 4: I've heard so far. It's great to know a trait
28:12
Speaker 4: and it's great to have just some description and maybe
28:15
Speaker 4: a voice for a character to play with. But one
28:18
Speaker 4: thing I like to do when I'm creating characters, ask
28:21
Speaker 4: the question what's their damage? What's the thing that's bothering
28:25
Speaker 4: this character is what is the reason that they are
28:28
Speaker 4: unpleasant with other people? I spent years as a life
28:31
Speaker 4: coach fixing up broken marriages, and one of the most
28:35
Speaker 4: useful books in the world is a book called Games
28:38
Speaker 4: People Play by Eric Berney, which introduced psychological a psychological
28:42
Speaker 4: tool called transactional analysis. Basically, it talks about how people
28:46
Speaker 4: just replay the one thing that's bothering them in their
28:49
Speaker 4: life over and over again. If they had a mean
28:51
Speaker 4: parent that talked down to them and you know, puffed
28:54
Speaker 4: up and browwheat them, that's what they're going to do
28:57
Speaker 4: to other people. Or they're going to play a victim
28:59
Speaker 4: to get other people the browbeat them just to get
29:01
Speaker 4: their kicks. And so if you just figure out what
29:05
Speaker 4: problem a person has, and you can often figure that
29:07
Speaker 4: out by the situation they're in in the role playing game,
29:10
Speaker 4: then you can figure out how they're going to bring
29:12
Speaker 4: terrible drama into the story.
29:15
Speaker 2: That's really cool. I've heard a lot of people talk
29:17
Speaker 2: about like what's the character's motivation, Like what are they want?
29:21
Speaker 2: What do they fear? That kind of thing, But your
29:23
Speaker 2: approach is slightly different. I love it really cool. Let's see,
29:26
Speaker 2: let's do one more question, and we'll start with Nephilos
29:30
Speaker 2: for this one. Okay, what is one best practice tip
29:34
Speaker 2: or trick or thing that blew your mind, some mechanic
29:38
Speaker 2: that you discovered, anything that you would want to share
29:42
Speaker 2: with other solo gamers that they might not be aware of. Nephilos,
29:47
Speaker 2: how about you.
29:48
Speaker 6: I think the closest thing I can get to a
29:51
Speaker 6: tip that really shakes things up or blows your mind,
29:54
Speaker 6: so to speak, is going to be using something like
29:57
Speaker 6: the event meaning table or as is previously mentioned, tarot cards,
30:03
Speaker 6: or using tarot to provide kind of an element of
30:09
Speaker 6: specific but very diverse randomness into the game. That's probably
30:16
Speaker 6: as close as I can get to that question.
30:19
Speaker 2: Fair enough, fair enough, Let's see if we like this
30:22
Speaker 2: question as we pass it off to Steve, any kind
30:24
Speaker 2: of interesting thing, little trick that you love to use.
30:30
Speaker 3: Well, I said it earlier, but I absolutely love the
30:34
Speaker 3: iron sworn oracles, And in my current game, I'm playing
30:38
Speaker 3: a long running campaign of Traveler, but I still use
30:44
Speaker 3: the iron sworn oracles both the yes no oracles, mostly
30:48
Speaker 3: because I have those memorized to a point where I
30:51
Speaker 3: don't really have to think about it, but even just
30:53
Speaker 3: the like the action and theme oracles, and then there's
30:56
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of oracles in there for you know
30:59
Speaker 3: problem in a settlement. You know you've come across a
31:04
Speaker 3: derylic starship, and you can kind of define the ship
31:08
Speaker 3: as you explore through it. So there are all sorts
31:10
Speaker 3: of great tables that are I think really useful for
31:15
Speaker 3: helping to generate and flesh out a situation, a character,
31:21
Speaker 3: any of that stuff. So I would say that's from
31:24
Speaker 3: a mechanical standpoint, picking up the dice and rolling on
31:27
Speaker 3: the oracles I think is great. From a like playing standpoint,
31:32
Speaker 3: I would say two things real quick. One, I think
31:35
Speaker 3: that getting started is the hardest thing that you can do,
31:41
Speaker 3: and it can be very tempting to over prepare. And
31:47
Speaker 3: this is going to look different for everybody. I feel
31:50
Speaker 3: like Nephelos and I are probably on opposite ends of
31:53
Speaker 3: the spectrum as far as how much we like to
31:56
Speaker 3: prepare before we start a game. So this is this
31:59
Speaker 3: is not me saying that like, well, don't prepare anything,
32:03
Speaker 3: or or you know, you can over prepare too much.
32:06
Speaker 3: But for me, what it comes down to is trying
32:10
Speaker 3: to create the bare minimum that you personally need to
32:15
Speaker 3: get started. So if that means you need to really
32:20
Speaker 3: flesh out a world before you get started, that's great,
32:24
Speaker 3: go do it. But don't feel like you have to
32:26
Speaker 3: flesh out a world and then you have to flesh
32:28
Speaker 3: out all these other things as well, Like, just do
32:32
Speaker 3: the bare minimum, and that's going to look different for
32:34
Speaker 3: everybody to get started. So that's the first thing. And
32:37
Speaker 3: the second thing is when I stop a session, I
32:41
Speaker 3: try as much as possible.
32:43
Speaker 1: And this is.
32:44
Speaker 3: True when I'm writing as well, not just when I'm
32:46
Speaker 3: playing solo, but I try to stop in the middle
32:49
Speaker 3: of the action, or I try to stop in the
32:52
Speaker 3: middle of a sentence, even because when I come back
32:55
Speaker 3: to it, I already have some built in momentum because
32:59
Speaker 3: I know how that sentence is going to end. And
33:02
Speaker 3: that way, I'm not looking at a blank start of
33:04
Speaker 3: a new chapter trying to figure out how I'm going
33:07
Speaker 3: to get going and figure out what happens next.
33:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, that idea of leaving with something unresolved is one
33:13
Speaker 2: hell of aseel trick. I love that over to you, Brian.
33:16
Speaker 2: Any other tricks or tips that you'd like to share.
33:19
Speaker 4: Well, I think the most important one for me that
33:21
Speaker 4: really set me free while I was starting the solo
33:24
Speaker 4: journey was to remember that the only rules lawyer in
33:27
Speaker 4: the room is yourself. Right, nobody else is going to
33:30
Speaker 4: fault you if you get the rule wrong, or you
33:32
Speaker 4: decide you're just going to start playing something different, Change
33:36
Speaker 4: the system, change the rule however you like to get
33:38
Speaker 4: the satisfaction you want out of the story. I'm willing
33:41
Speaker 4: to bet that just about everyone here and probably anyone
33:44
Speaker 4: listening who wants to start solo role playing has a
33:46
Speaker 4: bunch of books on the shelf. You're allowed to pull
33:48
Speaker 4: them all out and get what you want out of them.
33:51
Speaker 4: Most of my systems are pretty cluegye right. I'm probably
33:53
Speaker 4: running with a base of swords and wizardry, with the
33:56
Speaker 4: skill system from Death Trap, Light and Monsters dragged out
33:59
Speaker 4: of the AD and D second edition book, and maybe
34:02
Speaker 4: some mechanics stolen from Dungeon World when I feel like it.
34:06
Speaker 4: If I need a space battle Travelers right there, you
34:09
Speaker 4: can play with the whole bookshelf, why not, you know,
34:12
Speaker 4: and mix and match to your heart's content. Don't let
34:14
Speaker 4: yourself be bound by any set of the rules.
34:17
Speaker 2: Amen to that, Brian, and we are going to end
34:20
Speaker 2: off with tie any other tricks or tips that you'd
34:23
Speaker 2: like to share.
34:25
Speaker 5: So probably my biggest point of advice, especially when I
34:29
Speaker 5: go back to the randomized tables or using encounter tables,
34:33
Speaker 5: is use them to generate the initial idea of the
34:36
Speaker 5: encounter and then work to find a way to make
34:39
Speaker 5: them fit into the theme or plot. You know, you
34:42
Speaker 5: don't want to just say, well, I rolled a meteor.
34:46
Speaker 5: I don't know what your tables are like, but I
34:47
Speaker 5: roll a meteor that crashes into the ground and you know,
34:50
Speaker 5: destroys five square kilometers. That might not fit what you're
34:54
Speaker 5: trying to do, and it probably wouldn't fit for most scenarios,
34:57
Speaker 5: but the point being that you don't want something that
34:59
Speaker 5: just apps does not track with the narrative that you've
35:02
Speaker 5: got going on. And I have an example some years ago,
35:05
Speaker 5: I was using encountertables while a party was doing their
35:10
Speaker 5: camp over and I rolled a wear boar. Now I
35:14
Speaker 5: didn't have like anthropes as part of the world necessarily
35:17
Speaker 5: or not that they weren't part of the world, but
35:18
Speaker 5: they weren't part of the written script of the plot,
35:22
Speaker 5: if you will. But what happened was this were boar
35:25
Speaker 5: in bar form was rooting around in the camp when
35:28
Speaker 5: the century the person on guard noticed it and encountered it,
35:32
Speaker 5: and I believe there's a little bit of a skirmish.
35:34
Speaker 5: The boar ran off, and that was it. The party
35:38
Speaker 5: didn't think too much about it. The next day, though,
35:40
Speaker 5: they finished their trip and they went into a city
35:43
Speaker 5: to meet with a contact that they had to establish
35:46
Speaker 5: connection with. And when they met the person, they had
35:49
Speaker 5: a distinctive bodyguard in attendance, a stout person with a
35:57
Speaker 5: kind of pigle like features and rough hair and things
36:02
Speaker 5: like that. And I believe there was another telling trait
36:07
Speaker 5: I can't remember exactly, as a scar or something like that.
36:09
Speaker 5: But what I did essentially was randomly rolled a wearbor
36:12
Speaker 5: encounter and then turned that encounter into an NPC that
36:19
Speaker 5: was a tag along to another central NPC in the storyline,
36:22
Speaker 5: and that NPC had acted as a spy slash scout
36:27
Speaker 5: for the primary NPC, who ultimately was not allied with
36:33
Speaker 5: the party, so they weren't It wasn't a good disposition.
36:35
Speaker 5: The party didn't know it at the time, but they
36:37
Speaker 5: were being evaluated by an observer with more sinister means,
36:41
Speaker 5: and they used their wearbore scout to gather some information
36:45
Speaker 5: prior to meeting the party. So it all worked into
36:48
Speaker 5: the plot carried on for you know, from there into
36:51
Speaker 5: the storyline to various degrees of revelation.
36:56
Speaker 2: It's a bit of an art form, isn't it too
36:58
Speaker 2: to make your random encounters become a part of the
37:01
Speaker 2: fabric of the plot. But it's super satisfying when you
37:04
Speaker 2: can make it happen. Sometimes it can be hard, at
37:06
Speaker 2: least I find that sometimes it does feel like a
37:09
Speaker 2: square peg round hole. But boy, when you can make
37:12
Speaker 2: it fit, it's very enriching to the story. And I
37:15
Speaker 2: guess one of the nice things about solo gaming is
37:18
Speaker 2: you can take the time to think it over. You
37:20
Speaker 2: don't have to improvise how it fits into the story
37:23
Speaker 2: right away. Maybe it dawns on you a few days
37:26
Speaker 2: later when you're taking the bus to work or something.
37:29
Speaker 2: All right, guys, I want to say thank you so
37:31
Speaker 2: much for joining me in this round table. And I
37:34
Speaker 2: think we've got a very kind of eclectic bunch here,
37:36
Speaker 2: which is really cool and a lot of different perspectives
37:38
Speaker 2: on how solo gaming can work. As always, I continue
37:42
Speaker 2: to enjoy all of your shows, and I would recommend
37:46
Speaker 2: for anybody listening to this to check out all of
37:49
Speaker 2: these creators excellent shows, and I'll put links in the
37:53
Speaker 2: show notes. Thanks so much for listening to this first
37:58
Speaker 2: of three roundtable discussion about solo gaming with some of
38:01
Speaker 2: the most interesting podcasters in the hobby. Now I mentioned
38:05
Speaker 2: in the introduction that I had some news to share
38:07
Speaker 2: about a new collaborative project. We have just launched Solo
38:11
Speaker 2: Roleplayers Network dot com and the site is live. I
38:15
Speaker 2: would love to invite you to go there and see
38:17
Speaker 2: what we've got going on. Our goal is to have
38:19
Speaker 2: a one stop place for fans of the genre to
38:22
Speaker 2: find new shows and new inspirations. The term solo network
38:26
Speaker 2: might be an oxymoron, but here it is all the same.
38:29
Speaker 2: I know I speak for all the network members when
38:32
Speaker 2: I say that we hope it's something you'll find actually useful.
38:35
Speaker 2: We intend to make it a hub and center for
38:37
Speaker 2: all kinds of future activities and initiatives too. Once again,
38:41
Speaker 2: that url is www dot Solo role Players Network dot com.
38:46
Speaker 2: We'll see you there.