 You’re the Hero Player, Mythic is the World Player, and the results are pretty incredible! I. Prepare the World Description by creating your own as per standard rules, importing a published world, or randomly generating a World Description (see below). II. Create your Hero Profile(s) following the standard rules. III. Design an Adventure Premise with as much potential for surprise as possible. Solo play works best when the player’s expectations can be confounded as often as possible. So, start confounding yourself right away by designing an Adventure Premise around one of the following strategies:
IV.
For the 3-5 Adventure Locations, use one or more Recurring Locations
and one or more Spontaneous Locations. Ideally, start the game at a
Recurring Location that suits the Adventure Premise, and then let the
story evolve into Spontaneous Locations as Mythic and the Tableau twist the plot. V. The Game Deck set-up remains unchanged. VI. When you start each round, establish the Adventure Location as you would in a standard two-player game. If the next location is a Spontaneous Location, use the World Description and the context of the most recent plot developments to create the location at that moment. If you need a bit more inspiration, ask Mythic a Complex Question. VII. On your (Hero Player) turn during a round, make your Action Scene as per standard rules. VIII. On Mythic’s (World Player) turn, randomly choose which card will be accessed by rolling 1d10 and counting out the next available card in the Tableau. If a matching card can be used to increase the impact value of the conflict, Mythic will always do so. Consult the current Conflict List:
 Understanding the Conflict Focus Table
IX. All other game rules remain the same. RANDOM WORLD GENERATION I. Determine the genre of the world by using lists like the ones below. Roll a d10 for each column and combine the results.  II. Determine the size of the world by rolling an abstract size value on a d10. A higher result means a “bigger” world. Let the genre serve as your guide for interpretation; for example, in a fantasy world, a 1 could be a small village, a 5 could be a kingdom, and a 10 could be an entire continent.  IV. Generate 3-5 hero types, races, and affiliations to be used in your new world. Create hero types via Complex Questions by asking "What is a possible hero type?" and using the genre, size, and World Description for context. If the world warrants it, use The Creature Crafter to develop 3-5 hero races. Humans become the baseline, unless the world generated has suggested otherwise. To use The Creature Crafter in this way,
If desired, generate 3-5 hero affiliations using the steps for generating hero types. SAMPLE RANDOM WORLD: GENRE: [Rolled 6, 5, 10] – Alternate History Swashbuckling Farce SIZE: [Rolled 6] – Caribbean archipelago of six small islands DESCRIPTION: Theme [Trick/The physical] – The laws of physics are being defied in wild ways in this hard-to-find chain of islands in the center of the Caribbean Sea. Background [Number of Backstory Events: 4] #1 [World positive/Harm/Expectations] – People are not injured in the usual ways in the archipelago due to its extraordinary properties. #2 [New world thread/Inquire/Power] – The ultimate goal of everyone in the archipelago is to exploit the source of its strange properties. #3 [New world thread/Travel/The mundane] – Companies of the major nations are desperate to be the first to establish a reliable trade route to the archipelago. #4 [New world character/Delay/Inside] – An indigenous species [Creature Crafter: Large/Elemental/Fire-based, Water-based/Immunity] would like to stop outside entry into the archipelago. HERO TYPES: [Rolled 4] [Usurp/Misfortune] – Buccaneer; [Disrupt/Pleasures] – Missionary; [Struggle/A path] – Explorer; [Imprison/War] – Soldier HERO RACES: By nation – Spanish, English, and French. HERO AFFILIATIONS: [Rolled 5] [Open/Leadership] – Navy [Change/Power] – Archipelago Pirates [Break/Opulence] – The Church [Abuse/Nature] – Trade Company [Disrupt/Technology] – Archipelago Colonists PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: AMBROSIO’S ARCHIPELAGO Genre: Alternate History Swashbuckling Farce Size: Caribbean archipelago of six small islands Terribly clever? Hopelessly insane? Then, you’ll love Ambrosio’s Archipelago, the most amazing islands in the Caribbean! It’s 1720, and piracy has lost all of its appeal thanks to the navies of England, Spain, and France, but the discovery of a place where weapons don’t work, imagination becomes reality, and outrageous treasures await have breathed new life into the fine art of taking stuff! Where else can you hold a banana like a gun, say “bang,” and make your target slip? Or fly from island to island by flapping your arms and cawing? But watch out! Navies are still hunting pirates, trade companies want a piece of the reality-warping action, and the Church isn’t too fond of all of this magical balderdash! More than that, Europe’s major powers are desperate for anything that will give them colonial dominion! And there’s talk of a native tribe of water and fire monsters that want all humans out, but that’s probably just a myth. So, if you’re drunk or crazy enough, you might find Ambrosio’s Archipelago, and the adventure of a lifetime! Hero Types Buccaneer – Rogue; living by wit or force for profit and freedom Naval Officer – Soldier; trained by his or her nation’s military Explorer – Scientist; seeking the secrets of the unknown Missionary – Cleric; championing faith in new lands Hero Races English, Spanish, French – improved impact with Conflict List entries of the same nationality Hero Affiliations Navy – may call upon fellow nation officers for aid Pirate Ship – may utilize dirty tricks The Church – may tap into scripture for reality-warping effects Trading Company – may conduct business deals with anyone Archipelago Colonist – may access more potent reality-warping, but is less sane USING PUBLISHED MODULES IN SOLO PLAY Uphold genuine surprise The difference between a solo game and a solo gaming exercise
is not the degree to which the characters are surprised, but the degree
to which the solo player is surprised. When controlling the heroes in a
solo storytelling game or the PCs in a solo RPG, if the solo player
makes his or her characters behave in a manner that assumes they are
ignorant of the information that the player actually already knows, that’s practicing or play-testing a game.
The heroes should know everything that the player knows because, just
like in a multiplayer game, the solo player needs to be the target of
the surprise, and the heroes should be the instruments of the solo
player’s reaction to those surprises. The joy of gaming comes from responding to unexpected obstacles and discovering emergent strategies along the way, and this is just as true for the solo player. In a solo game, discovery and the unexpected are critical to the vitality and energy of the solo experience. Without them, the solo player will trudge along a laborious path of procedure and practice. So, upholding genuine surprise – not the artificial kind wherein the solo player knows all but the heroes do not – is the solo player’s essential priority. This may seem utterly impossible when playing with a published module, but it does not have to be that way. Read the entire adventure module That’s
right – drink in every word. That may seem counter intuitive to the
previous guideline, but, as you’ll see below, it’ll serve the solo
player and the heroes well to know every bit of the adventure in advance
because even after reading all of the module, they still won’t know
everything! So, jump right into it and enjoy every page! Ignore or embrace the storyline Pre-made
adventures are often attractive because they provide a story for the
players to follow. When using the module for solo gaming, the solo
player is not obligated to follow that story at all. In fact, a solo
player could simply extract location-specific information from the
module, fashion a few Recurring Location Conflict Lists from the
material, and then create a totally original Adventure Premise to play
out in the locations taken from the module. Ignoring the story, though, seems to me to be a waste of good inspirational material. Absorbing as much of the storyline into a solo game while upholding one’s commitment to continual surprises is an ambitious and rewarding endeavor for a solo player, and anyone interested in using modules in this manner should not be afraid to layer as many plot points from the module and into the storytelling game experience as possible. So, how can the solo player use the story, but develop surprises? Add an extra mystery to the module’s storyline The
rules for creating an Adventure Premise (page 20-21) make it clear –
“the Adventure Premise should be one filled with enormous promise, not
one confined to a predetermined conclusion.” Most published adventure
modules feature a predetermined conclusion or at least a climactic
encounter that is intended to produce a conclusion to the adventure.
That climax is supposed to be kept a secret from the players by the GM,
but once a solo player has read the entire module, all secrets are
revealed. That’s why the solo player must suggest to himself or herself
that something deeper lies beneath the surface of the plot of the
module. The easiest way to do that is to write an Adventure Premise that
sums up the entire module but suggests that there is something much
more sinister happening at the locations. Once implied, that suggestion can emerge slowly and more concretely during the course of the game. The heroes know everything about the places that they are about to visit, but that’s only in terms of the material that is pulled out of the module and placed into a WvH Adventure Location’s Conflict List. When Conflict Lists are drawn up following the Recurring Location rules (which essentially leave four entries on the list undefined), there are opportunities for spontaneous generation of narrative elements via the Mythic GME and the WvH solo rules that the solo player (and, thus, the heroes) could never have known in advance. These are the moments when the solo player must drive the narrative toward that extra mystery hinted at in the Adventure Premise even while engaged in elements of the module’s published material. Convert encounters into Conflict Lists using the Recurring Conflict structure As
mentioned above, turn module encounter locations into Recurring
Location Conflict Lists to invite uncertainty into the storytelling
experience. Just how a solo player divides the adventure module into
three to five Adventure Locations will depend on the nature of the
module itself. For example, a dungeon-centric adventure might call for different levels of the dungeon to be crafted as separate Conflict Lists. Alternatively, if the heroes must travel through dangerous territory to reach the dungeon in the first place, the areas through which they journey might each be an individual Conflict List with the dungeon being the final Adventure Location. If the trip to the dungeon is truly epic – as is the dungeon itself – then perhaps the adventure module shouldn’t simply be divided into conflicts; perhaps it should be divided into different games! Eight rounds of one game could be devoted to the story of the heroes’ epic voyage to the dungeon. The eight rounds of the second game would tell the tale of the expedition into the epic dungeon. If investigation is part of the module’s original storyline, consider the module information that was meant to be discovered to already be known by the heroes at the start of the game. Have the heroes investigate the “clues” that are emerging from the Mythic-generated development of the narrative. Synthesize new Mythic contributions with module information to discover new ways to interpret the original material. Utilize key NPCs liberally as adversaries and allies Published
adventure modules feature some excellent antagonists and allies, and
the solo player should take advantage of them whenever possible. If one of these characters is an entry on a Conflict List, follow the WvH solo rules and let Mythic determine that character’s behavior, combining module information, Mythic rolls, and Fate Chart questions. In this way, the character will surprise the solo player, behaving differently than anticipated by the module and helping to drive the narrative in unexpected directions. Apply the Ally rule (pages 33-34) whenever possible, referencing the module for ideas for new characters. In the case of those empty spaces on the Conflict Lists, whenever there is a suggestion from Mythic that a new adversary has entered the fray, embrace the character; this could be the one that reveals what the new layer of mystery added to the module is all about. To increase the moments of surprises, use Tom Pigeon’s Creature Crafter to determine what that new adversary could be. Avoid a “kitchen sink” mentality Don’t try to force everything from
the module into a solo game. Keep the module handy during game play so
that, should inspiration or an extra flourish of detail be necessary, it
can be referenced and dropped in immediately. End the adventure in a way that differs from the module’s proposed endings Contrived?
Not at all! If the solo player has embraced the first guideline –
“Uphold genuine surprise” – the adventure will end differently than the
module had intended because of the combination of the implied mystery,
the additional Mythic-inspired narrative elements, the random Tableaus, and a stimulated imagination! |