Some thoughts on solo party play mechanisms

1. Either skills or classes are needed for characters in a solo game. As you are both the GM and player, skills or classes will help define the capabilities and limitations of the character on the sheet. Without the type of guidance either of those two mechanisms provide, there will be a tendency for PCs to become homogonized into reflections of  your knowledge pool of the game. 

If the 3 PCs you are soloing with are capable of performing all tasks based only on the roll of a die to check for success, then all 3 can gain equally from your play knowledge and you are playing with 3 interchangeable PCs. This interchangeablitiy degrades the importance of tactics that test the solo players mettle. 

2. Movement, time, and turn add consequence to the solo game by placing limits on the flow of the game. Normally done by the GM in group play, if these items are not adhered to the solo game can begin to flow past a manageable speed. 

Party character sheet design

 This is an updated variation of a party character sheet I used for in my solo RPG core rules set. 

It is designed with a limited inventory per character concept found in games like Maze Rats, Cairn and Fallen. In those rules light OSR games trying to solo with one character is challenging at best, and I have more fun with 3 to 4 characters in a party. With the 10 item inventory slots it makes it important what each character brings and keeps with them. 

It also designates what items are where. One item each on the arm for hand held items, 2 items on the belt area, and six lines for knapsack items. I usually place the 3 to 4 ability numbers or modifiers in the four spaces along each drawings collar piece and level or HP  in the belt buckle or in the outside squares, two lines for name and class if needed. Pencil in if they have an item, erase it if they lose it or replace it. 

 If only one character has a torch written in arm space and it goes out then the party is in the dark. If the guy with a rope fell down the 30ft hole then the rest of the members don't have rope to get across the chasm. 

I have a total of 12 different types of drawings, both male and female that I switch out. I also made a 4 character variant to use

Fallen rpg

 Picked up Fallen rpg by Perplexing Ruins a few weeks ago from itch.io. The descriptive blurb got me, and I also have some great 15mm highway men from Blue Moon. Tricorn hats are the best!

Fallen is a rules light rpg although the skills category is a lot more that I'm used to compared to other rules light rpgs I have. Never one for a lot of fluffy skill sets, I am seeing where they are useful in the scheme of this game. With the Hilgraab supplement in hand I have set out with no particular overall mission or theme in mind - have just let the game progress thru encounters moving around the map, and I'm hooked in deep!

I've done about 6 days worth of adventuring and only had two combats, both over quickly in my parties favor, although Gallus Mann did take a glancing gunshot wound and is recovering at this moment. Aside from combat, its been moving around town, following up on rumors, collecting clues and finding out that something horrible may be manifesting within the sewers, and outside of town towards Holly Hill. Quite a change from dungeon delving, and I've implemented journaling to enhance my game. Never thought I would do that, but its been very helpful and I'm getting better at it.

A brief sighting of a Veiled Capra coming from the sewers, a mysterious found object, and parts of a Trionfi deck are all weaving the way into the world of vampires, possibly witches and who knows what else.

The map of Hilgraab by mapcrow is a gem; and the supplement is full of info to flesh out the map. 

Firearms are part of the scenario as the time frame is 17th to early 19th century, so the characters have FOCUS as an ability. I've been a fan of the 3 ability setup for rules light OSR, but I think the focus for shooting is spot on and may just switch to 4 ability categories for my homebrew game. 

The magic system (incantations) is pared down from my typical rpg play. I have not implemented it yet and my just rely on things like scrolls, using wards and blessed items. 

Fallen Character Sheet

 Picked up Fallen rpg a few weeks ago and made up a party style adventure sheet. There are a few more spaces needed than my OSR character sheet because of the character skills so I put 3 characters on a sheet with one square for notes, timer, and party usage die. Limited the number of skill options to 2 per player to keep the game flow manageable ( having 5 skills per character would probably be info overdose for me).

I'm playing with the sheet first to see how I want to set up the mechanisms in the final form. 

                             Fallen character adventuring sheet.

 

I like the detailed drawings with the clothes better than the blocky style, so will probably take some time and revamp the old ones with some typical character class headgear.

Character Classes for my RPG game

 I've been working on a solo RPG

system this year geared toward the type of play I like. 

• Quick character creation
• Trackable, meaningful inventory, encumbrance system.
• Random generated spell system 
• Sparse silver based economy
• Fast and deadly combat

A lot of it is in place and I print it out in booklet form and play thru it, adding notes, editing, then print the new edition and repeat. I'm trying to keep at 14 pages (not including front and back cover) plus a combined character and play sheet. 

10 pages are pretty much done, but still working on a few things. Still fleshing out random charts for magic items and tinkering with level progression, but the main functions or classes, combat, magic, economy and gameplay are pretty tight. 

Once I get the print done I will pop in the art work and possibly put it on itch.io ( mainly for my own satisfaction). 

This is the current character and gameplay sheet I've been using. A hex field for setting up encounters and four characters with turn timer and encounter, usage blocks. 

RPG, Wargaming counter tool

 I use dice as markers quite often to keep track of HP, but what to do when the numbers I'm tracking get higher than the die pips? I toyed with making small wooden slide counters with limited success, but then I located these Knitting counters.

I placed a standard six sided die by them to show the size.  They are hollow, and slide onto knitting needles and I think you click them to keep track of the pattern or something ( I have no clue about knitting). 

They are made of plastic, don't really click sharply into place but will hold the position you rotate them to. With two adjustable columns they can track from 01 to 00 or one to one hundred. A pack of 10, five of each size was about $7.00 if I recall. 

I have primered and painted them and they still function well. For under $10.00 I think this is an excellent buy and a handy thing to have for wargaming. 

DIY dice (cheap!!!)

 I use a small dice tower to roll when I'm gaming and the one irritant is the 4 sided die. Trying to pick it up out of the tray is difficult because of the triangle shape. I have found some barrel shaped ones that work pretty good but they are pricey and won't be buying any more since I found these. 

These were at the Dollar store, which is now the Dollar twenty five store, and are 36 to a package. Yes, they are six sided, but at that cost I simply number the sides 1 thru 4 with two sides blank. Do I have to re roll sometimes?- Yes but its easier to grab on to them, and they seem to tumble better than the d4's.

They are pretty light weight compared to  acrylic dice and have sharp edges, but those can be sanded. I have some I've painted, but I used a sharpie on a few right out of the package and was rolling in seconds.

You can make d4s and extra d6s, but I have also made a six choice worded oracle die which is handy. 

The top row of dice have been painted with acrylic paint and I will mark those in the future, the second row has 2 d4s (marked with a sharpie) and an oracle die. I angled the numbers on the d4s to avoid any confusion with a couple of other dice I made as hitpoint markers for characters. 

I will edit this post with a small table on how to use 2 d6 to replace all the standard dice rolls if you are ever found lacking a d20 or other type of die. I'm sure there are other great uses for these beyond my imagination, so I will be on the lookout for ideas - advantage, treasure bonuses, wpn generation, weather, etc.

Die replacement chart using d6's

d4 - roll one d6 until you roll 1 - 4

d6 - duh!

d8 - roll 1 d6   1-3 = 1-4,  then second roll not counting 5or 6

                        4-6 = 5-8, then second roll  1 = 5

                                                                    2= 6

                                                                    3= 7

                                                                     4= 8,  5/6 not counted.

d10- roll 1 d6  1-3 = 1-5, then second roll not counting 6

                        4-6 = 6-10 ,then second roll  1=6

                                                                       2=7

                                                                       3=8

                                                                       4=9

                                                                       5=10

d12 - roll 1 d6  1-3 = 1-6, then second roll 

                         4-6 = 7-12, then second roll add six to the rolled pip.

d20 - roll 1 d6 1-3 = 1-10

                        4-6 = 11 - 20  then roll the d10 pattern above to finish the final d20 roll. 

A bit slow but if you only have one d6 you can still generate the random numbers in all the standard gaming dice. Because of multiple rolls the probability may not be exactly even between numbers, but should be pretty close without a lot mean considerations.

Simple Oracle d6

1 No, and             4 Yes, but

2 No                     5 Yes

3 No, but              6 Yes, and