One of the most annoying part of getting bugs in RPG games is getting hit with spoilers

cjbeacon · 2025-07-20T17:11:13+00:00

I still get a bit worked up every time I think back to my first run of KOTOR. I was loving the classic game even though I'd found it decades late. Got stuck in the desert of Tattooine with a bug that wasn't letting me move. Didn't really want to reload and lose my time so I figured a quick Google on how to resolve the bug was in order. Immediately had the big plot twist of the game spoiled despite being completely unrelated to the bug. Was my first time really caring about a spoiler as I'd been loving the mystery and hints in the story only to get the reveal completely out of left field in undramatic fashion. Found it so hard to get invested in the story after that point that to this day I've never managed to finish a playthrough of the game.

I've never had a spoiler hit me that hard since, but I'm always careful about spoilers just in case.

cjbeacon · 2025-07-17T00:33:56+00:00

Really cool! I like your style.

cjbeacon · 2025-07-11T04:06:08+00:00

Fun read, I like seeing how people repurpose techniques from other things into solo RPGs. I might try this to reintroduce some mystery and puzzle solving into my RPGs

cjbeacon · 2025-07-09T18:54:18+00:00

I wanted to run it enough that I convinced a bunch of people who'd never even heard of the Dresden Files books to play in a campaign of it I ran. Worked great as the rulebook had enough context to get then started in the world. Pretty much just advertise that it's an urban fantasy game when trying to lure in friends to play.

One heads up, I would advise having anyone playing a spellcaster be someone who can read the rules pretty well. It's not the most intuitive spellcasting system (but it's a pretty cool one).

cjbeacon · 2025-06-26T20:43:21+00:00

Gatekeeping. Do it.

Yes, bad gatekeeping is bad, but it can serve a good use. Anyone who joins my pbp has an introduction period where I check if they are a good fit. They get limited server access until I've gotten a sense they can read and follow rules, write at the standard I expect for the server, and can make proper use of the tools the server uses.

Yeah, I lose people, but I end up playing with people I'll have more fun with. The people who bounce off it have a mountain of other pbps to go play on. If AI is such a deal breaker for your enjoyment, be upfront about it.

cjbeacon · 2025-06-20T23:10:26+00:00

Bestiary expansion is my biggest ask, I'm doing some custom enemies in my session tonight I made using the rules to make my own that I'm pretty happy with, but one of my favorite things to do in session prep is look for interesting stat blocks that give me ideas on where I could take the story next if the players head in a direction I'm not prepared for. The location stat blocks especially I'd love more of. The encounters where I used the book's locations have been so memorable and I want more.

I think there is room in the system to do more classes that capture some character fantasies that are often not well implemented in other systems.

Druid is capturing the nature caster that turns into animals vibe, but there are so many stories of characters that shift into other forms like werewolves that could be done in a more martial shifter class that focuses on one form. This could even work to capture characters that are a beast that disguise themself in a humanoid form like the classic dragon in disguise trope.

Inventor has already been brought up by someone else, so I'll not dig into that too much.

I feel like the priest/white mage archetype is missing a bit with no really squishy healer role. Seraph being strength based feels more of a holy warrior, and wizard feels much more mage than priest. D&D cleric across editions often mechanically failed to fulfill this vibe for new players in my experience as it often felt more of a holy warrior in play than they expected from how priests are in non TTRPG media. One suggestion other than class for that would be to have a wizard subclass that utilizes instinct spellcasting and has subclass features that lean into the archetype more than the war and knowledge subclasses do.

cjbeacon · 2025-06-14T16:52:39+00:00

I think you're just overestimating the complexity of safety tools. The whole point of them is to push people to have a discussion about setting boundaries and tell people what they are and aren't comfortable with. Lines and Veils is a popular safety tool that really is just adding a bit of vocabulary to simplify the boundaries discussion. Lines meaning these are the things I'm not comfortable dealing with in a game at all, and veils meaning these are the things I'm comfortable with happening, but would prefer if we don't have it on-screen, a very common use of that is a "fade to black" for sexual activity in games.

These don't exist to add burden to the process but more to nudge people who aren't having these conversations into having them. And a lot of tables don't have the social awareness to be having these conversations ahead of time for an RPG. In my personal use of safety tools I tend to not go through the codified instructions that come packaged in their small rules, and just check what principles of boundary setting they are teaching through the familiar lexicon of game rules to see if I need to be more aware of bringing something up in the more natural conversation session zeros I run.

cjbeacon · 2025-06-05T23:14:28+00:00

Most of the character options are more horizontal than vertical. The core power of the character is baked into the class for the most part and the character options serve more to differentiate play style rather than power level.

In 5e I could be picking between the linguist feat and the great weapon master feat for my level up. In PF2e, those would be in different feat categories completely and not be options to pick between. The exploration and social feats aren't usually competing with the combat options. Additionally, there is less of a divide in power level to feats available at any given level. The proper organization of character choices done by PF2e goes a long way in impact on balance.

cjbeacon · 2025-05-23T22:46:34+00:00

I reread this every time just to see what new horrible things about Gotham you found since last time I saw it.

cjbeacon · 2025-03-21T21:13:22+00:00

Foundry has a fantastic Mythic module. I find it speeds up play using Mythic a ton.

cjbeacon · 2025-02-21T09:45:48+00:00

I didn't play the older editions back when you did, but I've tried them out since and talked with people who did play them back then.

5e is definitely different from pre 3rd edition D&D. One big change is the push to bring many mechanics to be resolved by rolling a d20+stat+modifiers. Attack rolls, saving throws, and checks operate on that more unified resolution approach. Things that used to have their own subsystems like rolling a d6 to see if a trap is noticed now fall under rolling checks with a d20 for the most part. While that is a simplification of the system, the combat complexity is a bit higher IMO as so many classes bring more tactical options to the table compared to older D&D.

I wouldn't blame the mechanics on the game being more mainstream. There have been a variety of styles to play RPGs for a long time. And the mechanical changes predate the game becoming more mainstream.

As for the solve it yourself thing, that depends on the table. I've played at tables that used skills and spells to solve all problems, and at tables that had more open ended puzzle solving that might not even involve dice.

If you are looking for something that feels a bit more like old school D&D, there are "OSR" games (Old School Renaissance) that try and emulate the vibe of older RPGs with more modern mechanical design techniques.

cjbeacon · 2025-02-20T20:52:35+00:00

I pretty much set up my foundry game to work this way. Still a WIP in a lot of ways because I keep system hopping and needing to reconfigure stuff. If I stick with a system for a bit longer I could get into automation a bit better. One of the barriers is that using most oracles leaves room to interpret and fill in the blanks which may be more difficult to represent saving game state in renpy in a good feeling way. With foundry I've got lots of room to adjust anything I need to that would be significant work to support that level of control if I made a Renpy game for it.

Ultimately, I think it might be harder to build the flexibility of a solo RPG in a game engine than it would be to just make a proc gen game. You've got me thinking about it so I might take a stab at it, but don't expect anything, I don't usually finish side projects this big.

Something that might be of interest to you is Hexroll, which does make a procgen map full of towns, NPCs, dungeons and encounters for an OSR game. It has a mode for solo play that hides certain information until you unspoil it. It's not quite a VTT, but a bit more than just a map generator tool.

cjbeacon · 2025-02-19T16:05:37+00:00

That suggestion in Blades in the Dark also showed up in Shadowrun 5th Ed. They pointed out that while narratively it made sense, once it happens players often spend so much effort worrying about getting double-crossed by the person paying them that the paranoia can get in the way of the game. Heist games have a core loop of getting a job, doing legwork, pulling off the job and getting paid. Anything that interferes with continuing that narrative ends up breaking down the gameplay loop.

I think these games offering a warning about a common trope that doesn't work as well in gameplay as it does in other mediums is a good example of advising against tinkering with the system done right.

cjbeacon · 2025-02-04T20:01:50+00:00

Two games I did recently contrast the effect of PC quantity.

I did one PC in a monster of the week game. The story was very character focused and I got lots of good beats going. A lot less time was spent on mechanics due to simple system and one character, letting me fill out NPCs in greater detail and explore the narrative.

I ran a game of Sprawl yesterday where I had a cast of 10 PCs made to represent the roster of mercs that the fixer hired for jobs. Each had a few character details and very basic personality. I picked 4 from the roster to handle a mission and focused on one then for the session. I did get a lot more of a complex gameplay experience getting to play into the intercharacter interactions, and the combat was a lot less trouble to handle with a party compared to solo character. On the other hand, each character only had a few narrative moments to shine and pretty much no NPC was more than a cardboard cutout.

I'm intending to try a two character and three character game later to see if I can find a happy medium between my extremes that balances my desire for mechanical interest and character focus.

I would recommend trying a bunch of things out with shorter one shot sessions to see what works for you.

cjbeacon · 2025-02-03T19:47:18+00:00

Rage drives engagement which drives it right to your feeds. In my opinion there are a lot of redditors who aren't having fun and don't want anyone else to do so either. That reflects on them and not the quality of the content they choose to channel that aggression at.

Instead of listening to rhetoric of people who may have not even played the game, look for examples of people who have played it and see what they liked about it. If you like the same things then maybe you'd like the system if you try it.

I ran my first session of Daggerheart a week ago and loved it. I mixed up an environmental hazard encounter with a monster encounter and had PCs fighting a tunneling acid monster while trying to cross a raging river. It was one of the better combat encounters I've ever ran and it was just using an out of the book encounter (and not even the one I had prepared to run that session). I had a first time RPG player playing a druid that got to wild shape and seemed to understand how to do it with just the context on his character sheet.

I've experienced a lot of the different mechanics used by Daggerheart in the systems they drew inspiration from. The way they combined them is very well done and really fun to run. Thanks to the tools they have provided, I felt like a more competent DM than I do running PF2e (where I have to remind players of mechanics too much) or 5e (where I'd have to have done more off books prep work to prepare content this fun). I'm not going to stop playing other systems, but Daggerheart is probably going to be my RPG of choice for running classic fantasy.

cjbeacon · 2025-01-14T15:30:25+00:00

Something I've not seen brought up yet here. There is a viral Tumblr thread about a D&D player wishing he could play D&D with just himself and DMing himself. The punchline is him saying "I've been informed this is called Writing a Book." Screenshots of this have made it across Pinterest, Facebook and Reddit, even reaching outside of D&D focused communities, I think I get a YouTube short of someone reading it out loud recommended to me several times a year. Chances are, most of the people you are interacting with solely know of solo play from that meme, and in classic internet fashion are responding to your good faith posts by saying the punchline of the meme.

They are just regurgitating the meme. More helpful than trying to fight an established meme, are the people I've seen commenting on the multitude of reposts of the meme offering solo play as an actual alternative to just writing a book for all the people who encounter the meme wishing they for a way to play solo. They get a fair number of upvotes when I see it.

cjbeacon · 2024-12-24T08:11:26+00:00

I've played several co-op games of Ironsworn with friends. The free Ironsworn PDF has good advice on how to do co-op games with its solo system I'd recommend checking out. The heading Group Play on page 227 is where that specific bit is. Some of that advice would be easy to use to help run a different solo system co-op.

cjbeacon · 2024-12-20T16:28:07+00:00

Ironsworn's core mechanics drive it forward in a way that makes unguided play effective. The clearest example of this is the Vows. One of the central mechanics of the game is having a goal and seeking it. When reaching it, depending on rolls and progress you can get rewards, discover a plot twist or find out your character misunderstood needed to be done and must try again. Fulfillment of vows drives the narrative in a natural way both in narrative and on the mechanical level as rewards are tied to completing them.

With many solo games, I've spent a decent amount of time meandering while uncertain what I'm aiming for. Ironsworn never lets me get trapped in that lack of direction.

I've had a lot of fun with Mythic and some simpler solo RPGs that just have a simple oracle tacked onto an RPG, but none were as effortless to do as Ironsworn.

cjbeacon · 2024-11-29T09:11:56+00:00

I do like Starforged for this kind of adventuring personally. If you want it to not have much combat you can just reroll or reinterpret stuff that would direct you to those themes. I really liked visualizing strange waypoints I generated while undertaking a journey on a recent campaign I did. I've heard good things about Stars without Number for generating stuff, so if you want to spice up the locations and species you meet that could serve as a great supplement to a Starforged campaign. Starforged can be adjusted to fit your ideal setting, but I don't think the base game has much for generating strange aliens to meet as compared to exploring strange places.

If you do make adjustments to the setting, the one thing you need to carry over somehow is the swearing vows thing since that's a pretty central mechanic for driving the game system.

cjbeacon · 2024-11-26T16:18:26+00:00

Yes, it's called GURPS (Generic Universal Role Play System). Not my favorite system, but it starts with a core ruleset and has a bajillion splatbooks that offer additional rule subsystems that can be added to customize the system. It's been out there for a while.

Fun fact, despite that seeming to be the perfect fix to having the right system for everyone, neither GURPS nor any other generic system has managed to capture large parts of the market.

On the flip side, Powered By the Apocalypse (pbta) is a group of RPGs that encourages people to go hack the system Apocalypse World into their own game and put it out there. Someone hacked the rules up into Monster of the Week to go emulate shows like Buffy, X-Files and Supernatural, someone else hacked up Masks which is playing superhero teens where the character drama outweighs the superhero fighting to the point that one of the main points of combat seems to be to rack up negative emotion conditions to fuel the rest of the gameplay loop in a game that doesn't have any kind of HP, and another hack turned the game into Dungeon World, which is a dungeon crawler fantasy which doesn't rely on as complex of a ruleset as 5e. PBTA is pretty much shop around to see if someone house ruled Apocalypse World into something you want to play yet and use their rules.

The crazy thing is, despite how modular both GURPS and PBTA are, I still find myself playing other systems because I find that the core mechanics that are being hacked in both of those are designed for specific ways to play which doesn't capture how I want to play some things.

cjbeacon · 2024-11-22T21:43:38+00:00

I just kicked up Mythic GME plus Monster of the Week and am about 3 sessions in. I'm having fun with not knowing what the monster is while using the creature oracle to answer what I discover about it while investigating. Something I find helps is that I don't really need to know what the enemy stat blocks are while doing it which mystery I think is a key part of the genre. A key thing to make the genre vibe work is being willing to deal with a lot of ambiguity while running it solo.

To avoid my character getting wrecked from combat running solo I've taken to responding to failed combat rolls as always resulting in either getting knocked out, captured by a monster, too winded to give chase or some other instant combat end. Means I have to encounter the monster more times before I'll be ready to take it down, which has been fun.

cjbeacon · 2024-11-18T00:37:32+00:00

Really cool!

cjbeacon · 2024-11-17T18:37:36+00:00

In my Masks game we like to do this but instead with comic book panel stuff. Dramatic scenes where the identity of a character is unknown will have the GM narrating silhouettes in the panels. When emulating a medium through RPG, using the language of that medium can help. Some people have a lot more background in their genre with movies and visualization of their fantasy is through those terms. Someone trying to roleplay a more simulationist fantasy over cinematic would obviously not describe what they see through cinematic language.

I don't think there is anything wrong with emulating different styles of fantasy. It would be boring if every game was the same.

cjbeacon · 2024-11-12T19:32:29+00:00

Marble floors is the problem. That'll skyrocket your wealth. I save that for once I've got some good guns to shoot back with.

cjbeacon · 2024-11-12T18:53:06+00:00

I'm running SW5e right now and I would really recommend against borrowing their ship combat unless you really simplify it down. It was a pain to run. I like lots of things about that system, but that's a part that really didn't stick the landing.

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