As some of you may know, I am doing all of my gaming these days solo. In fact, I am using Zozer’s excellent supplement Solo with Cepheus Engine for my sci-fi ruleset. But what does that change for the story?
The Solo Way
When using most current solo roleplaying methods, the player uses an "oracle" or "GM emulator" to introduce surprise and randomness into the game. Dice are rolled against various tables, and keywords are generated that the player then interprets for the outcome of that scene. The main ruleset stays the same, and normal mechanics are not changed.
Solo, on the other hand, does things a little, well, different. For each stage of story, which can be a single scene or longer, the player comes up with "the plan" for what the party does. All of the mechanics for the outcome of that plan are boiled down to two dice rolls: the first roll determines success, based on an estimated riskiness of the plan and the second one determines how good or bad the results are ("the effect"). The player then has to explain how and why the outcome of the plan happened that way.
In the first case, the dice rolls take place at the end of the scene, after the player explains how he will do something. In Solo, the dice rolls take place in the middle, with the player explaining why things happened at the end. Solo calls this "fortune in the middle" as opposed to having the fortune–the dice rolls–take place at the end.
What this does is cut out a lot of the basic mechanics of Cepheus. Combat, most skill checks during action–all bypassed. They are rolled up into those two dice rolls. What is left are character generation and other rules about equipment, vehicles and travel… which is still a lot.
What This Does To Game Play
This may seem like it guts most of Cepheus (or really any game this supplement is used with), but it really does not. Yes, combat and a number of skill checks are bypassed, but the use of those skills for dice roll modifiers is still used for the two rolls.
What this does is make character generation even more important, as well as the storytelling by the player. The character generation rules are still followed, and are critical to what happens during the game. Skill checks are still there, but the DMs are used during the success and outcome rolls, not during the action itself.
The other thing it does is make the storytelling part come to the front. Not only is "the plan" critical to what happens–as always–but how the player explains the results is even more important. That explanation is really where the roleplaying takes place, not during the middle, before the dice rolls.
Other rules, such as travel, economics and worldbuilding are all still intact. Cepheus is still Cepheus, no matter how task mechanisms are resolved.
But Has the Story Changed?
Zozer does go big into saying that the "fortune" has moved to the middle of the roleplaying process, and the roleplaying has moved to the end, but has the story really changed? To me, that is the most important question–and the answer is no.
If you are really into the crunch of roleplaying, rolling dice and dealing with combat miniatures, then this way of playing really is not for you. But if you like the story part of the game, then this changes nothing. You may not be interpreting as many keywords or dealing with "scenes" like in a screenplay, but you are still telling a story.
And that is the heart of the game. I don’t think the story changes playing with Solo. In fact, I think the player has much more room for creativity in explaining the results. The player knows the general way things were supposed to go, and how they turned out. That allows a great deal of freedom in telling the story of how that happened.
That’s why I like Solo so much. Not only is it a great tool for solo roleplaying, but to me it is a genius way of cutting to the heart of why I like to roleplay. It lets me be creative in my play, but is even better at allowing me to be even more creative in how I tell my story while getting out of the way when I do that.
And ultimately, it really is my story, just like every actual play that a solo gamer makes is theirs. And that is kinda cool.
Marko ∞
(Originally published on farjewel.com, on 11/2/2018.)
