All Things Solo

You know, all those words in word tables are just prompts that spark the imagination to reveal a story. But did you know that there is a more mysterious and more powerful prompter, older than words? One such that existed before us and will exist after us. No one knows what it is and here I am trying to use it in my games, like a child playing with level 9 spell books. But it is time! Let's begin.

Time plays a crucial role in Solo Play as it determines the progression of events, character development, storytelling and combat.

# Story

1. Setting the Pace of the Story: Time can be used to set the pace of your story, creating a day-night cycle or light-dark cycle that drives the narrative and makes it unique to your game. This helps create a sense of progression and structure for your narrative, allowing you to imagine different situations based on the time of day. i.e: A holiday morning & doomsday night.

2. Imagining Situations: You can imagine various situations based on different times of day or events like sunrise (your PC waking up) and night time (a camp site getting attacked).

3. Random Tables: Time can be combined with other elements such as weather, place, event timing as in shop closing time to help set the tone for immersion in the game world. i.e: Rogue PC waits for the shops to close...

4. Inconsequential Journeys: To save time during gameplay, you can skip / fast forward narrating long journeys if they don't significantly impact the story or game progression.


# Gameplay

1. Timed Events: You can Introduce time-sensitive challenges or puzzles with random tables that require PCs to act within a specific time frame to achieve success. This adds urgency and excitement to the gameplay.

2. Realistic Time Passage: Simulate the passage of time using real-world minutes, hours, days, or even weeks to represent the length of time spent in different locations or on various activities. This helps maintain a sense of immersion and continuity within the story.

3. Time Limitations: Set a timer for certain encounters or decision-making moments, creating tension and urgency as PCs race against the clock to make critical choices.

4. Flashbacks: Use flashbacks to explore the PC's past experiences, allowing you to witness events that occurred at different points in time, thereby enriching the story and character development.

5. Time Travel: Incorporating elements of time travel or alternate timelines, enables Soloists to experience the consequences of their PC's actions in different time periods or realities to compare the results.

6. Clockwork Mechanics: Incorporating game mechanics into specific times of day, such as certain abilities or spells becoming available or unavailable only during dawn or dusk, can spice up your dull encounters and provide challenge.

7. Time Manipulation: Allow PCs / NPCs with time-related abilities (i.e: time mages or temporal manipulators) to alter the flow of time, creating interesting opportunities for puzzles, story twists, character interactions, and combat encounters.

8. Groundhog Day: Introduce time loops or parallel universes where PCs find themselves reliving moments or events repeatedly until they solve a particular mystery or achieve a specific goal.

9. Timed Quests: Add your quests time-based objectives that force your PC to act quickly or face dire consequences, such as saving a town from an impending disaster or preventing the spread of a deadly disease.

10. Time Capsules: Use Random Object or Location Tables that serve as time capsules for your PC to peer into future events or learn about past happenings that help shape their current decisions and actions.


# Character

Just like conflict, Time is a valuable tool for character development in Solo Play, as it allows Soloist to witness how their characters grow and change over time.

1. Character Goals: Set specific, long-term goals for your PC that require time and dedication to achieve. As they work towards these objectives, you can observe their growth and changes in motivation, skills, or personality.

2. Time-Based Skill Progression: Use the skill progression of your system in a way that takes place over time, allowing PCs to gain new abilities, improve existing ones, or unlock advanced techniques only as they reach certain milestones / checkpoints in gameplay.

3. Personal Timeline: Create a personal timeline for your PC, outlining important milestones, events, and experiences that have shaped them. This can include moments of growth, loss, gain, or transformation that contribute to their unique backstory and development.

4. Time for Reflection: Allocate time during gameplay for PCs to reflect on their decisions, actions, and emotions. This introspection allows Soloists to understand their PC's motivations, strengths, and weaknesses better, leading to more nuanced role-playing and development.

5. Character Relationships: Develop relationships between your PC and NPCs / Sidekicks over time. Watching these connections evolve and deepen can provide opportunities for emotional growth and personal transformation.

6. Time-Limited Decisions: Present your PC with choices that have long-lasting consequences, requiring them to think carefully about the potential outcomes. i.e: Dilemmas. This encourages thoughtful decision-making and demonstrates how their choices shape their development.

7. Flashbacks and Memories: Use flashbacks or memories triggered by specific events to explore your character's past experiences, highlighting key moments of growth or change -be it good or bad- that have influenced their current mindset and behavior.

8. Time-Based Quests: Create questlines that span multiple game sessions, requiring characters to invest time and energy into completing them. As they progress through these challenges, you can observe how their skills, abilities, and personalities evolve.

9. Emotional Growth: Use events or combat encounters that force your character to confront their fears, prejudices, or insecurities over time. This process allows Soloists to witness the emotional growth of their PCs as they overcome challenges and learn from experiences.

10. Time-Travel or Alternate Timelines: If your TTRPG setting includes time travel or alternate timelines, use these concepts to explore how your character's actions (or lack thereof) in one time period affect their development in another. This can lead to interesting insights into the nature of time, fate, and personal growth.


# Combat

1. Time Pressure: Introduce time pressure by setting a limit on the number of rounds or minutes a combat encounter lasts. This encourages Soloists to make quick decisions and think strategically about their actions, as they must act before time runs out.

2. Countdown Mechanics: Use countdown mechanics in specific situations, such as bombs ticking down or hostages being held captive, to create a sense of urgency within the combat encounter. Characters must work quickly and efficiently to resolve these threats before time runs out.

3. Tactical Movement: Allow PCs to use their movement strategically during combat by incorporating or changing different types of terrain, cover, or obstacles that require them to spend extra time to navigate effectively.

4. Time-Sensitive Abilities: Introduce abilities or spells that become more or less powerful or effective when used within a specific time frame, adding an element of risk and reward to combat encounters. i.e: Fire spells gain power in day light.

5. Dynamic Combat Environments: Use your Random Generators to add combat environments changing conditions or hazards that affect the flow of time, such as collapsing buildings, raging fires, or environmental triggers like earthquakes or magical storms. This adds an extra layer of complexity and urgency to combat encounters.

6. Tactical Pausing: Create Window of Opportunities for your PC to pause time during combat for strategic planning or decision-making, giving them a chance to think through their actions before committing to them. This can help manage the flow of time in an encounter and ensure that all combatants have ample opportunity to participate in the encounters.

7. Time Manipulation Mechanics: Include characters or abilities with the ability to manipulate time within combat, such as slowing down time for enemies or speeding it up for themselves. This can create unique strategic opportunities and add an extra layer of depth to combat encounters.

8. Teleportation Through Time: By special magical effects or abilities, PCs could get teleported to different locations, either by jumping forward or backward in time or by moving instantaneously through space-time. Not without consequences, though!


# Resources

• Timer by mattekure: https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/665/view
• Clock Adjuster by pr6i6e6st: https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/574/view To add a panel to your desktop, containing a clock, adjusters for the time, a reminder manager, an events manager, and a travel manager. !!!BEFORE USING: select a calendar, set a date and time and adjust your hours and minutes field at least once to make sure the numbers “exist”.
• Calendar Plus by darrenan: https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/82/view to take notes in timeline view or print the day / time into chat.