Designing a Solitaire Tabletop RPG is Not Just Talking to Yourself

4 Comments

1. Luis on 05.01.2011 at 09:45

   Hmmm, why not play a computer role-playing game at this point. Aren’t they really advanced solitaire games?

2. user@example.com on 06.01.2011 at 13:49

   People play solitaire board games and wargames, despite computers being able to handle them. There’ve always been a few solitaire RPGs floating around, anyway – gamebooks (especially Fabled Lands, a vast, open-world sandbox gamebook series where your character could cross back and forth between books working on quests), a lot of classic Tunnels & Trolls and (IIRC) The Fantasy Trip stuff. Quite a few of the classic solitaire wargames have had heavy RPG elements as well. Runebound’s a board game, but has lots of RPG-liteness in it, and tends to play best solo.

   Someone must be playing them.

   Why not play a computer game? Well, the mechanics are right there in front of you. You can see what’s happening in the rules, and if you want to change something, you can do it right away. Sometimes you don’t want to play a computer game for other reasons. They’re advanced, but sometimes you don’t want advanced, or don’t want to deal with the hassle (“What hassle?” is reasonable, but it’s a lot easier to walk away at the end of a phase in a board game than save, pause, and quit a computer game)… One thing board games and wargames win out over computer games on, for me, is complexity – computer games tend to model loads of little details, especially in wargames, 95% of which are invisible to the player except as uncontrollable random variances. In a hex & chit wargame, units might only have a handful of stats, with a far greater level of abstraction that makes the game far more amenable to making informed decisions and plans (even if they then go wrong due to bad rolls, or what have you).

3. Luis on 06.01.2011 at 14:44

   A lot of what you say is very true. I’m sure SOMEONE must be playing them.

   I own a copy of the FABLED LANDS adventure books and I can see the appeal. Mostly it’s the low tech feel of it all while being open ended (ironically I own it on a pdf, which means I have to print them out first). I also own the MYTHIC GAME MASTER EMULATOR pdf (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=20798&it=1&filters=0_0_0_10070&free=1) which allows you to solo roleplay in the most open ended way I’ve ever seen. Perhaps it’s THE argument that trumps all the others. I just haven’t tried it out, perhaps because it’s not tactile enough? If it’s all in my head with occasional dice rolling, do I have anything to show for all my effort? When you sit down to come up with a short story or novel and you first just sit down and start brain storming, the end result will eventually be a tactile product, even if it’s just words on a screen. But when you sit and play a game that’s all in you’re head, and you don’t do anything except roll dice, is the goal just a feeling? Is it a game or an activity?

   Solitaire card games have an end, a visible goal. I guess that’s what makes me ask the question. Computer rpgs have an end; and many, like ROGUE or NETHACK [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetHack] (and by extension MYSTERY DUNGEON: SHIREN THE WANDERER [http://www.gamespot.com/ds/rpg/fushiginodungeon/index.html?tag=result%3Btitle%3B7]) aren’t even fancy or complicated at all. In fact, they are easier than most wargames and some board games. They are simple, random and you get a unique experience every time.

   I think perhaps it’s a matter of taste. I don’t often get a chance to play my boardgames as much as I would like. I’ve tried playing solitaire variants of some of them but they always leave me dissatisfied. I don’t know why. I’d rather play the game against a computer AI even if it’s less tactile just because there seems to be more conflict or more a problem to solve. There’s “seems” to be a mind (even an artificial one) working against you.

   I don’t know, perhaps someone will come up with a game design that scratches the itch that someone like me has and leaves me satisfied. Or perhaps I’m just not the right audience?

4. user@example.com on 09.01.2011 at 06:47

   Fabled Lands is back in print, by the way – books 1-4 came out just last month, 5-6 are out soon, and if they sell well, the rest of the series might be coming in the future!

   Full disclosure: I have nothing to do with the people behind it, but I’m biased because I want them to sell so that books 7-12 might be on the horizon.

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