I play solo quite a lot these days. To be fair, that's even the majority of my roleplaying career, as sad as it may sound to some.
Blame the scarcity of the French RPG scene outside of the big university cities, the life with a non-geek spouse, me not being a very social person, or, as of now, parenting three children.
So ! Reading about solo play, FKR (free kriegsspiel roleplaying, I'll add a link later), and reminiscing about my own CYOA book experiences, as well as the thousand of hours I've spent on single-player video games, I've put together a "good enough" system for solo play.
Of course, it's no Ironsworn — it runs on a basic oracle that accidentally plagiarizes Freeform Universal and on traits inspired by Risus, and it wants additional setting expansions to give actual meat to the bones. But here's the skeleton !
Oracle : for yes/no questions about the state of the world, like asking the GM. Not to be used with PC-driven uncertain actions.
Roll a d6...
1, no, and (the situation worsens)
2, flat no
3, no, but (unexpected advantage or leverage)
4, yes, but (unexpected problem or annoyance)
5, flat yes
6, yes, and (success with benefits)
It can also serve as a scale for absolute or relative values, e.g. "how is the weather today ?", ranging from 1 (awful) to 6 (great), or 1 (much worse) to 6 (much better).
Then you have your usual check, roll, throw, save, call it how you want : the roll that decides if a PC's dangerous action succeeds, or fails and provokes nasty consequences. I could do it with the oracle, but wanted a bit more granularity (as far as any of this stuff is granular !).
Roll 2d6, reach or beat a difficulty level. Those are : 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 (easy, fairly easy, medium, hard, very hard). If you have advantage, roll 3d6, keep the best two dice. If you have disadvantage, same but keep the two lower dice. Each of the ads and disads cancel each other, and you can't pile them up.
On to player characters ! They are succinct. Each PC has :
- 3 endurance points,
- 4 traits,
- that's all folks !
Endurance is lost whenever the PC is hit, takes damage of any kind, etc. It represents their will and ability to keep going during the adventure.
Endurance is lost 1 point at a time, unless something really bad happens, in which case all endurance is lost at the same time.
If all endurance is lost, the character is K.O. : they suffer a negative consequence (remove / add / change a trait, the situation worsens...), and all rolls are made with disadvantage (ignoring and superceding all other sources of advantage or disadvantage) until rest / downtime / recovery / etc. has been taken.
Traits give advantage, most of the time, but can also give disadvantage if the situation calls for it. They represent various aspects of your character. You can choose (or roll !) in this list :
1, appearance, looks, fantasy ancestries
2, careers, occupations, skills, groups of skills
3, past, past experiences, background
4, peculiar talents and powers (unusual knacks, magic, superpowers, curses, blessings, psionic abilities...)
5, contacts, reputations, faction memberships or ranks, social class or status, etc.
6, gear, equipment, possessions, companions, pets, vehicles, etc.
Note that, as your character will adventure, they will evolve : gain, change or lose traits along the ride. 4 traits is only a starting number, really.
As for NPCs, you can stat them up however you want : adjust endurance (1 for a minion, 2 for a sidekick, 3 for a PC equivalent, 4-5 for big villains, rarely more), traits (1 to 5-6 depending on the complexity you need), and that's it. NPC traits can, on top of the usual, be reactions, attitudes, combat tricks, loot, etc.
Then you're good to go ! Playing with this, two observations spring to mind. The first is that setting expansions really are the meat you need to play. With a few random tables (locations, NPCs, obstacles, loot, examples of traits...) and more procedures, it's much easier to get a game going, even if the game setting is already well-represented in your mind.
The second observation is that this chassis, being extremely flexible, can accommodate many types of games. I used the word "character", but it does not necessarily mean a single person : you can play as a party, an item, a vehicle, a place, and of course a faction or a governing body, all with the same setup (3 endurance points, 4 traits, 2d6 action rolls, 1d6 oracle rolls).
I'll be glad if this proves to be of use to someone, I know it works for me !
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