All Things Solo

In Mechanics of Game Story, I briefly mentioned which elements of game story you can use to create an exciting flow for your scenes. Now, let's expand on it.

# WHY

"It all starts with a desire. A desire to have..."

Your PC's goals are your goals as the sole player in the solo game world. But just a PC trying to achieve a goal does not CREATE enough material for a STORY. When you add NPC goals that intermingle with PC's goals, you can create more INTERACTION. This way, you'll have more forces working for their own schemes, having Expectations & Reactions to keep the game world alive in the story. But it's still not enough.

An adventure story is a collection of all the actions that PCs, NPCs, and Monsters do in a setting. Of course there are more parts of a story, such as themes & motifs, perspective, synchronicities and symbols... But they are not our focus right now. What's important for Solo Play is to know how to seamlessly chain PC's actions with NPCs' or Monsters' Reactions to keep the game FLOWING.

"Nothing is given to man on earth - struggle is built into the nature of life, and conflict is possible - the hero is the man or a woman who lets no obstacle prevent him or her from pursuing the values he or she has chosen." by Andrew Bernstein.

These are ways to simply create FEELINGS for your game session. This is the most important part that determines whether or not you'll like your session and keep your retention. If you don't count feeling of Surprise, CONFLICT is the most important part of these feelings, since it does the biggest impact to our hearts. It DOESN'T always mean combat; think of Gollum & Bilbo (Riddles in the Dark) scene in LOTR. This is how you create a meaningful adventure that is more than Explore -> Kill -> Loot. Just like the CONSEQUENCES of Bilbo's actions later came back to haunt him, remember and incorporate the consequences of your PCs, NPCs, Monsters actions in an ACTION-REACTION CHAIN to evoke emotions.

Why?

* To Create a Surprising Story * That has Character Interaction * With an Action-Reaction Chain for Flow * Which has Consequences for later * To evoke Emotions for FUN.

# HOW

Remember the times when we were kids, and all we cared about was our toys to play? Action figures that we fought against each other, sticks that we imagined as swords, cartoon heroes and heroines that we roleplayed as? The "how" part is done by returning to those moments BUT with modern tools.

1. Know your PC's biggest desire: their Main Goal,
2. Set them lose in the world to achieve that goal.
3. But when you play NPCs & monsters, Suspend Your PC Bias by switching sides! The GM's side.
4. Consider each character's nature - whether it's your PC or a monster - while playing them.
5. Use random generators to determine an NPC's emotion or disposition towards your PC.
6. And ROLEPLAY each actor accordingly. This will teach you many things in games and in life, both.
7. Don't just think about your PC's actions but also consider those actions' CONSEQUENCES. Especially in the context of the PC's surroundings in now and future.
8. You are now Creating Conflict and thinking from both perspectives, just like a kid who pits two action figures against each other does.

# Deep Dive If you mastered the basics:

• About consequences (table).
• More info about Conflict.
• Check Hex-Crawling > More Ways to Create Obstacles > "Combine:..." for an example.
• Again in Hex-Crawl > "Imagining Dragons" part for monsters.
• If you want to delve deeper, pick yourself story themes, character archetypes, settings with different moods to Explore.
• If it is FUN for you, go for it! If it is not, remember, It's YOUR game, YOUR rules.