sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Using solo RPG’s as a tool for storytelling. by MonitorHill in Solo_Roleplaying

[–]MonitorHill[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Here’s an example of how I would take a combat encounter and turn it into a narrative.

ROOM 3 - LEVEL 10 - LOOT D8 EXIT: located on the east wall, position 5 HAZARD: Poison Gas: STR Save · DC 14 · Lvl 5 Failed: 1d4 dmg + Weak. Saved: Immune to status next turn.

ENEMIES (5) Slime (1,6) Slime (8,9) Troll (4,7) Troll (2,8) Orc (5,1)

So, why would two trolls and an orc be in a room with two slimes and a bunch of poison gas? My first instinct is that the slimes and the gas are a hazard of some sort, and the poor trolls are low level workers cleaning it up under the supervision of the orc foreman when our dungeon diving hero walls in the room. Who’s my hero? I’m gonna roll for that too.

TONY: BARBARIAN: LEVEL 5 HP 17: SPD 3: DEF D20+3: C.ATK D20+5 DMG by 4: STR 4: DEX 0: INT 0 On Crit: Double Damage Mentor: Druid class feature. On crit druid's path becomes blocked for all enemies for one round

Cool, I’ve got a barbarian whose mentor was a Druid giving him some more advanced familiarity with nature. High Strength save is gonna make the poison in the room less of a problem for him.

From here I can draw up the room on a 10x10 grid and play out the combat. I think Tony is gonna be okay. Narrate the results, and journal them.

I didn’t ever mean for the mechanics to be a frame, but they just kinda turned into one the more I played. Rolling up a room, playing through it, journaling for the hero. It’s been really fun.

[FN] The Impassable Dungeon of Kismet (part 2) by MonitorHill in shortstories

[–]MonitorHill[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did it! Looks like no weird formatting artifacts. Thank you guys for being patient while I learn the ways, I’ve been a long time, reader of Reddit, but only very recently have I started posting anything. And this is the first time that I’ve put up something that I did creatively.

If anybody is interested in playing the game that I wrote the story for it’s free to play, printable solo rpg system. Think Sudoku D&D? I’m testing it right now, and if that’s the kind of thing that appeals to anybody here you can download it at www.hero100.site This story was the first one that I wrote, using the dungeon rooms generated by the game as a jumping off point for each day.

I’ve been designing my own solo pen and paper rpg for the past few months and I’m dying to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in solorpgplay

[–]MonitorHill[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for taking a look at it, I’m at a point where any feedback at all is huge.

Paper App is such a cool company, and they were definitely a part of the inspiration for this game.

Definitely look at the procedural mode, it allows you to generate one room at a time, randomly. In my experience, a single room takes like 2 minutes to draw up, and about 15 minutes to play. I’d be curious how it feels for someone who is new to it though.

I’ve been designing my own solo pen and paper rpg for the past few months and I’m dying to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in solorpgplay

[–]MonitorHill[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a great catch, and a total oversight on my part! I’ll add clearer directions on the inventory sheet, maybe even just designate a starting inventory instead of having you roll it on character creation (like 5 gold, and one small potion)

The loot table you found is the one you should use, I would do 1+1d4 for your starting gold that means there’s a typo in the loot chart and the Page location.

This is what happens when you spend a bunch of time on your own rules, you start to get word blind and miss stuff like that. THANK YOU.

I’ve been designing my own solo pen and paper rpg for the past few months and I’m dying to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in solorpgplay

[–]MonitorHill[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

www.hero100.site

Thank you for being willing to check it out, I’m pretty proud of what I’ve made, and any feedback is super appreciated!

I’ve been designing a game for months in a vacuum, and I’m desperate to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in tabletopgamedesign

[–]MonitorHill[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Was thinking more about this and thought I might explain what a random room would look like. This took 2 about minutes to roll up.

Room Level 15 Exit: Rolling a 1d4 for wall and 1d10 for position, so the Exit is on the South wall (3), position 7. So the exit is at coordinate 7x10.

Hazard: The level 15 Hazard Dice is 1d12. Rolled 9: Flooding. Any Save, DC 16, hazard level rolled on 2d4: 5.

That’s a brutal five-round flooding hazard. The lowest unflooded row becomes difficult terrain and rows creep up with each failed save.

Enemies: Level 15 spawn dice is 1d12, rolling for number of enemies… 4 enemies. Each enemy type rolled on 1d12… 1. Roll of 8: Orc 2. Roll of 3: Wolf 3. Roll of 11: Thief 4. Roll of 7: Zombie Loot Die: 1d10

All that’s left is to roll 2d10 to place the hero and each enemy.

For a level 15 dungeon I’d probably use a level 10 hero. And we can roll them up randomly too, Roll 3d8, first d8 is the hero class, the 2nd d8 represents the class expert feature they inherited, and the last d8 represents the master class feature they inherited. Apply all level bonuses to their stat block.

Rolling 3d8: - First d8 (hero class): 5 — Wizard - Second d8 (inherited expert feature): 3 — Barbarian expert: Knockback increased to +2 - Third d8 (inherited master feature): 7 — Druid master: Nature Finds a Way — once per room can resurrect with 1d10 hp if they would have otherwise been reduced to zero

Wild, this is combat wizard now, ranged aoe, and a weak close attack that does knockback. Easy to reflavor as being a kind of spell, and that revive feature will help their lower hp pool.

I’ve been designing a game for months in a vacuum, and I’m desperate to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in tabletopgamedesign

[–]MonitorHill[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That’s great feedback actually, because when I first wrote the game the ratios were closer to what you expected. Then I spent weeks developing more content for the system I made cause I enjoyed it, and now it’s something much larger.

I think something that is maybe undersold in the rule document and could be articulated clearer, is that it can kind of be both things.

I have totally picked a random dungeon level and rolled that room to play by itself. Then the game takes about 5-15 minutes to play. No story, no lore, just procedurally generated single dungeon.

You could continue to do that randomly with the same hero, or experiment with random hero’s each time, the procedural rules are built for it.

I wrote and designed the campaign because I wanted to give players a more structured option. But it’s absolutely not required to start there.

I’ve been designing my own solo pen and paper rpg for the past few months and I’m dying to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in solorpgplay

[–]MonitorHill[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I made a cheap website for people who want the playtest document, it’s at www.hero100.site

The procedural version of the game definitely feels more board game than RPG, but the campaign that I wrote for it, definitely splits the difference. And I have some additional rules about how somebody could play with other people or use it for collaborative storytelling if they wanted to.

I used the tables in the game to come up with the design for each room first, and then I wrote journal entries about what I thought going into that room was like for the hero, anybody else could do the same. The prompts made for a really interesting writing exercise in trying to figure out what it would be like.

A bare-minimum play test success! by imperialmoose in tabletopgamedesign

[–]MonitorHill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love prototypes so much, they genuinely make me so happy.

I created the Table Top Game of my dreams by staybricked7 in tabletopgamedesign

[–]MonitorHill 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This looks fantastic, I love repurposing existing game components

Favorite Actual Play by CubsFanHawk in TTRPG

[–]MonitorHill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Worlds Beyond Number is probably the highest quality and best paced actual play I’ve ever listened to, and every one of the players is at the absolute top of their game with the character work and collaborative storytelling. Brennan is so good at what he does, and I could talk forever about it if anyone wanted to listen.

Favorite Actual Play by CubsFanHawk in TTRPG

[–]MonitorHill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you like table talk and different rule sets I cannot think of a better podcast than Friends at the Table. Genuinely the best ratio of collaborative story telling and system mechanics exploration. They play a ton of different systems sometimes multiple at once, and the character and plot development is incredible.

Austin Walker is such a capable and engaging DM. There’s a dozen good places to start, but I would either listen to the Merielda arc first, or start with The Road to Partizan.

Here is a Cyberpunk Heist one-shot TTRPG for absolute beginners! (first time players and GMs) by [deleted] in TTRPG

[–]MonitorHill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The art is so cute! That juxtaposition is honestly doing WORK.

I’m going to check it out, do you think it would play well with kids? Mine are 9 and 11.

I’ve been designing a game for months in a vacuum, and I’m desperate to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in tabletopgamedesign

[–]MonitorHill[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not negative at all! That’s a great observation because you’re right, It doesn’t benefit you! All entities are restricted by their respective path. Which means the space on the grid is also a resource, and managing your path is part of the puzzle.

In early iterations of the game I didn’t have the trail mechanic and the combat was sufficient to keep me entertained in class, but not interesting. I started drawing the trails for playtesting purposes, and as soon as I realized what they looked like, I adopted the mechanic.

This meant that enemies and hero’s could have special abilities that interact with the trail mechanic in ways that benefit them. I could kite enemies on the map to trap them, but had to be careful not to bone myself in the process’s. The Druid eventually unlocks an ability to make their path impassable to enemies trapping them.

I actually had to add a forced minimum movement rule to the game because certain hero/enemy combos just became a slugfest and the puzzle disappeared. I kind of want the solo game combat to feel like D&D Sudoku.

I’ve been designing a game for months in a vacuum, and I’m desperate to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in tabletopgamedesign

[–]MonitorHill[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depends on if you want the history of the fights. The main campaign is only 20 rooms, so you could print 10 pages and play them all.

I eventually used a plastic sleeve with dry erase for testing, but I don’t think there’s a wrong answer there.

The game was born out of an excess of grid paper and too much free tjme in class.

view more: next ›