We've all met this DM
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Hideo Kojima: “I want to make a game that’s nothing but cutscenes.”
Hideo Kojima: “I’ve been informed that that’s called making a movie.”
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There’s a concept called ‘solo journaling RPGs’ - the idea is that it’s essentially a very lite set of rules that you use to generate writing prompts for yourself. The game gives you some loose guidelines for what to write about, and then you write journal entries as if you had experienced that thing, with the details being very largely open to your own imagination and interpretation.
Edit: In fact, if this concept is interesting to you, itch.io is currently offering a bundle to raise money for the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, which includes a lot of solo journaling RPGs, in addition to some other things.
It seems like it would be pretty easy with different sets of cards to randomly generate dungeons and towns and enemies and NPCs and quests… I would imagine this has already been done.
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Hideo Kojima: “I want to make a game that’s nothing but cutscenes.”
Hideo Kojima: “I’ve been informed that that’s called making a movie.”
Now I’m thinking about the cancelled MGS fan movie and I’m sad.
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Potentially also solo-deving an rpg video game.
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It’s writing a book
with dice :3I used to run down d&d encounters by myself when planning to DM sometimes, just to make sure im not making them too easy/difficult. It can actually be decently fun
This made me think of like, an old school choose your adventure type book, but it tells you to roll whatever kinds of checks, in addition to actually just making decisions.
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…funny how many DMs take profound offense when i note that without player agency, they may as well just write a book…
“you sound like a terrible player; i would never want you in my campaign!” …yeah, the feeling’s mutual…
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Also, let’s not forget gamebooks.
my brother got into the choose your own adventure books. i got to read one of them when he was done, and it was fun, but y’know.
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…funny how many DMs take profound offense when i note that without player agency, they may as well just write a book…
“you sound like a terrible player; i would never want you in my campaign!” …yeah, the feeling’s mutual…
Yeah, a DM shouldn’t write a story. The story gets written at the table.
A DM should write a scenario, the concept of a story. With many different NPC, locations, and lore. That can all be moved freely around and only get locked into existence when told during a game.
I call them information blocks. And even though you prepared an NPC block to be at a specific location block. The NPC can be moved to where the players are if the story calls for it. Same with lore blocks, especially if it is something important the players need to know in order to progress. The same lore can be said by any NPC, even if you prepared it to be told by a specific one. Having individual information blocks that switch around gives the players more agency and makes the story more fluently.
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There are a lot of solo games. Its kind of funny that there seems to be a market for “group games minus the group.”
There is probably some psychological angles here, like people are too introverted or whatever to find and join or just create a local group fornthese sorts of games.
Despite the funny meme, a lot are intended to be game like, with dice rolls and such to create some unintended spontaneous events and results.
Many however also are basically just a writing prompt. Or a writing prompt where the prompt has a dice roll at the start.
I didn’t really play any but Instarted collecting up solo games a few years ago.
Personally, one of the reasons I mostly play solo video games is so that if I feel like taking a break, I can do so without affecting anyone else or needing to wait until everyone is ready for a break. Sometimes I think I want to play a game and then am just not feeling it a few mins in. Or I’ll be really into a game for months and then just drop it when that obsession passes.
Playing together is a big commitment!
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I wish I had the attention span to write a book.
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To add, aside from solo journaling games, there are also proper solo ttrpgs with a lot of rules and tables so that the dice have a lot more say. Ironsworn and its off-shoots (Starforged and Sundered Isles) are a great example.
EDIT: Some cool solo journaling examples include “1000 Year Vampire”, which can really push you to write things you might not be comfortable with, and Star Trek: Captains Log if you are into Star Trek. Journaling games really exercise the imagination and can really help your roleplaying in your regular games.
Yep, this is the post I was looking for.
Writing a book means planning out plot and character arcs and going back to edit and such. Solo RPGs are an entirely different beast. They can inspire books, but they are not an authorial exercise.
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or playing ironsworn.
