Real RPGs, none of that new fangled computer bullshit

[Hansmeister]

I'm really enjoying the 5.5 rule set since it has been released. So much better balancing. I hated 5E when it first came out and it took me long time to warm up to it, but it really hit its stride in the new edition.

Still prefer Savage Worlds, though. Just wrapped up running "Blood Drive" in Deadlands.

[Valmy]

I'm really enjoying the 5.5 rule set since it has been released. So much better balancing. I hated 5E when it first came out and it took me long time to warm up to it, but it really hit its stride in the new edition.

Still prefer Savage Worlds, though. Just wrapped up running "Blood Drive" in Deadlands.

Glad to hear it. My son plays a lot of 5E but I am not really a fan. When he starts on the 5.5 stuff I will check it out.

Good to see you Hans.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Got to play a 1st Ed oneshot at a game con last week. I enjoyed it. Was a good DM.  Also an AD&D oneshot with a good DM. Played 4 lvl 0 characters in that one.

A 5th ed oneshot with a 10th level thief, set in the Forgotten Realms. I love the Realms.

I was hoping there'd be a Paranoia and/or Ravenloft game but the Paranoia one got cancelled.

[Hansmeister]

I just finished running a 1+ year long Deadlands campaign.

I'm really liking Blades in the Dark, anyone else having experience with the system?

[Neil]

I found the system for Blades in the Dark to be really good for producing cooperative narratives.  If you're looking for some tactics with your game, it's not the right system for you, but if you just want to riff with some friends then I can recommend it.

[The Brain]

I found the system for Blades in the Dark to be really good for producing cooperative narratives.  If you're looking for some tactics with your game, it's not the right system for you, but if you just want to riff with some friends then I can recommend it.

+1

[Syt]

HumbleBundle has a collection of Battletech RPG books: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/battletech-rpg-collection-catalyst-game-labs-books

[Syt]

I've given Modiphius' Star Trek - Captain's Log a go.

I like it, but I think I will have to tweak it some to my liking.

A little background - Modiphius have a D20 RPG for Star Trek going. A while ago I snatched up all the core materials for $20 or so from Humble Bundle. While I was rewatching Lower Decks I had a hankering for Star Trek gaming and saw there's an additional book I was missing on DrivethruRPG - Captain's Log, purporting to be a streamlined version of their RPG geared towards solo play. Yes, it's not the same as playing with people. But my itch for RP comes and goes, so committing to joining a group is a bit iffy for me. I liked running a Firefly RPG for friends, but I was also getting tired of it quick (and not because I had to GM).

I had dabbled with MythicGME in the past (a system for solo RPing), so I was curious about this, and 20 more bucks seemed fine for the PDF rulebook.



The premise is straightforward - you create your character, then roll on random tables for your mission and take it from there.

Character creation is very similar to their core book - you pick a race, then what kind of world they're from (e.g. homeworld or frontier colony or a warzone etc.), what their early outlook in life was (family background or aspiration), and how they were educated (Starfleet, allied military, diplomatic training, civilian training), with more decisions down the line. You can roll for random, or pick and choose.

Either way, in the end you have a character with a certain set of skills, some basic background, some focuses that reflect their knowledge (e.g. sensors operations, astrophysics, unconventional thinking, demolitions, emotional intelligence etc.), plus a set of values that reflect their background.

In my case it was a human scientist who had switched to command. He was from Earth and excelled in sciency and leadership stuff. His values reflected his search of truth in exploration and science. As a ship I assigned him to a small research Nova Class vessel in 2380, reasoning that Starfleet would want to better chart the space in the area between Klingons, Federation and Romulans after the Dominion War and the increasing unrest in the Romulan Empire following the whole Shinzon thing (Star Trek Nemesis) where they had their senate killed off. Since the Nova class is built for short range, I decided the ship (USS Nantucket) operated with two other ships from a local starbase, with an additional Luna class ship doing longer sorties.

The way the default game is structured is around "episodes." You generate a premise based on a set of tables that you then interpret into a story setup. You roll for the Mission Type (18 Categories with 20 options each), an inciting incident and theme, a complication or advantage, and an encounter. There's a decent amount of tables to roll on to create fairly broad range of scenarios.

In my case I rolled:
Mission Type: Diplomacy - Settle Interplanetary Dispute
Incident/Theme: Rescue/Crater
Complication: Infiltrator
Encounter: Abandoned Places - Containers of spent fuel rods contaminating this sector

I interpreted the Mission Type plus incident/theme, together with the encounter to come up with the scenario: Two neighboring planets in a nearby system are locked in rivalry. A massive explosion took place on one planet (crater). The planet is accusing its rivals to be behind the incident which they deny. Meanwhile, radiation is rapidly spreading from the site (encounter) and necessitates evacuation (rescue). I figure that the infiltrator stuff will figure into it later. We're the closest ship, but obviously our little boat is not set up to handle large scale medical support, but a medical vessel is also on the way. Our job is to provide initial support, investigate the incident and mediate.

I create some basic "screen faces" in the tradition of Trek for the two rival governments and some basic background for their planets from tables in the rulebook (I was very tempted to use generators from outside the book - I have way too many tables like that, plus bookmarks ), but decided to keep it all "in the book" for this first run.

I also created full character profiles for my bridge crew (a little superfluous in hindsight).


As said, the game is generally set to be played in episodes - 3 acts, 5 scenes each. The game expects you to do a lot of the creative heavy lifting with some support from its systems. But generally it tells you to create a fun and interesting episode plot, use skill checks, and its Yes/No matrix for when you would normally ask a GM something.

On task checks you roll two D20 against your character's appropriate Attribute (e.g. Reason) and Discipline (e.g. Engineering). You need to roll 1x under for a success. 2x under gives you momentum (you can add positive events or effects, make the next roll easier, etc.). Rolling over the target with both D20 means you fail. If you fail AND have a natural 20, you add a negative effect. That said, in most cases, the number you check against will be larger than 10 (usually 12 - 16), so most of the time you will succeed. The game argues that it's because you're Starfleet professionals. Overall, I saw a decent amount of successes with some failures. And obviously you can add house rules - e.g. adding a complication every time you fail, or every time you roll a 20 (even if you succeed), modify the target number for difficulty ...

This is where it breaks down for me a little bit. While the Yes/No (with different target ranges depending on whether you think a yes is more or less probable) is good and can lead to surprises, the game lacks very much the option to ask "what", e.g. what do my scans show, or what does the file contain, or what's inside the box. There are different types of tables that you can use for those, but it quickly becomes picking and choosing, because a lot of the time the  tables, while wide ranging and somewhat generic enough, are still too specific. I'm all in favor of trying to work with results you get if possible, but I didn't feel I could work "random gravity reversals" meaningfully into my unfolding story.

The rules suggest you write a summary log entry before the "episode", and then at the ends of Acts 1, 2, and 3 (which I did ). They also suggest character changes, if appropriate. E.g. if a value of the character was challenged - do they change their value now? If they needed to get down and dirty in engineering, should they add a point there (and remove one elsewhere)? Similar for their focuses - do they drop one and gain a new one based on their experiences?



I start briskly - assigning tasks to my senior staff - my doctor and security chief head to the planet to coordinate with the evacuation. I negotiate that one planet helps the other and then put my engineer and my chief scientist to work to scan the site. At first they don't find anything, and meanwhile things between the planets seem to get hostile with one ship starting to fire on rescue vessels from the other planet, but we manage to get it sorted.

After more analysis, my chief scientist is sure that the radiation hints at Klingon origin. We argue that if that's the case then there might be a cloaked ship nearby to investigate. I ask my engineer to use our probes to set up a tachyon grid to try catch a cloaked ship but fail. I check with my comms officer who finds that three encoded messages, apparently Romulan, were transmitted from somewhere within the system.

I report to my Commodore but he tells me to hold the information back for now. It seems too delicate to just announce it to the two conflict planets. I don't like this, but I get my science team to keep the investigators from the planet busy.

While my engineer recalibrates the tachyon grid to maybe find something after all, my pilot and I head to the surface in a shuttle to do close range scans. We can't stay long in the zone. The sensors malfunction but I manage to fix them. We get good readings and images - the debris is Romulan, with some signs of Klingon augmentation.

I report to the Commodore who tells me he's clarifying further steps with Starfleet and to keep investigating. He also tells me that there may be an infiltrator among the junior science staff.

My engineer has actually discovered what seems to be a cloaked vessel following a regular course above the planet.

My chief scientist suggests sending a point to point message using Dominion War encryption that was used with Romulans and Klingons - that would avoid the planets learning of what's happening too soon.

My chief of security is against it. She argues that it would give our only advantage away. I decide to go with my scientist's recommendation and send a message to the cloaked vessel, offering assistance and cooperation in investigating the crash.

Turns out (and I used up some "bonus" points I got on good rolls for this) the cloaked ship is a Klingon vessel that had been pursuing a Romulan prototype using stolen Klingon technology. When they spotted their pursuers, the Romulans tried to escape and collided with the planet. The Klingons share their data and leave.

Before we can celebrate, the EPS grid shuts down. Assuming our infiltrator tries to escape I order security to lock down the shuttlebay. Fortunately, my engineer quickly restores power, and the infiltrator (a Romulan posing as Vulcan) is cornered in the shuttlebay. After a shootout we detain her, though she refuses to confess who she was working for/with.

In the end, all is well. The medical vessel arrives to save everyone on the planet. We inform the planets about the truth behind the incident who become now friendlier towards each other and the Federation. And we can continue our surveys.



Act two was very frustrating for me. My scientist failed his skill check for analyzing the data (I later blamed it on the Infiltrator manipulating data), and even when he did finally had results I was struggling to figure out what to do with it and how to get further information about the findings and move the plot forward.

As said, the tables available in the book didn't hold any results that seemed applicable to me in the moment (or easy to spin into something that made sense). So I often helped myself with Yes/No questions. E.g. interpreting the readings from the explosion: "Is it a Klingon signature?"  I deemed it improbable, meaning that 1-5 meant "Yes" and "6-20" meant "No." Of course I rolled a 4. MythicGME might throw at you something like "Mechanically & Scary" (Borg?) or "Gladly & Cold" (not sure about Gladly, Cold could be Breen? Maybe we're glad the Breen crashed? Or is it a cryoship of some sort?) instead which allows for broader interpretation.

Overall I enjoyed the experience, and I will likely continue this experiment (though maybe with another charcter in the TOS era? you can get away with more pulp silliness in that ). Kind of interested in starting my char as Ensign and working up, but that seems a sure way to get burned out fast

Learnings:
- Creating full character sheets for my senior staff was maybe a bit much. It's nice to have some background, but by default your ship stats are supposed to stand in for your departments. So next time maybe just a few key points.
- Incorporate some mechanics from MythicGME. (It's based on "expectations" and then modifying it - each time you start a scene you run a check: does the scene happen as expected, or is it modified slightly, or is it replaced by an "interrupt". Similar with Yes/No checks, etc. It also has mechanics for adding more or less randomness organically, adding new plot elements ... but it's generally geared towards longer stories, not 15 scene stories But just the expanded Yes/No checks with modifications for fringe results (Yes and, Yes but, No and, No but) would already aid a lot.
- Check whether to add mechanics from the base Star Trek Adventures RPG.
- Thank god for Memory Alpha and Beta and all the nerds out there. *rolls for random radiation* "So, what does omicron radiation do ..." ... "How many science staff are on a Nova Class ship? How many shuttles? Transporters? Would they only have a ship's doctor or a full Chief Medical Officer?" ... "How do you detect cloaked ships, anways?" Etc.
- At times it feels more like a writing prompt generator than a game - see my comments about getting stuck in a "what next" kind of way.

While Captain's Log is generally designed around being a captain of a Starfleet ship sometime between Star Trek: Enterprise and the 31st century and episodes, the game does go out of its way to say you can do whatever - be a Klingon captain, be an ensign, run long form "movie" adventures, focus on a Starbase, be a civilian ... but for now the "classic" approach should be fine for me.

[Sophie Scholl]

Sounds like fun! I have a few games that have a "solo mode" style play, but haven't tried them yet. With some, it is their primary play style, with others it is an add-on. Often from their Kickstarter phase.

[Syt]

Yes, I might go back to dabbling more with MythicGME as well. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/422929/mythic-game-master-emulator-second-edition

In true ADHD fashion when I got into it a while ago, I bought tons of additional stuff, like random tables, generators for societies, etc. I'm tempted to try it out with the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPGs (which are not available in PDF due to some licensing quirk - apparently Lucasfilm's licensing agreement for RPGs somehow explicitly only includes print material; it was drafted in the 80s for West End Games, at a time when separating print and digital was a lot easier ... it's apparently never been updated, and so PDF distribution is still off limits, and all books are out of print; fortunately there's ... "alternative" sources.  I thought about doing a D6 West End Games adventure, but it's a lot rule heavier (which makes it IMO jankier for solo) than FFG, and of course the official content cuts off around 1998 or so (WotC then took over for a spell before it moved to FFG). That said, the FFG books are not nearly as heavy on sourcebook content than WEG ever was but focuses more on storytelling, so it might end up being a mix of both, if it comes to it. Or else, I still have all my Firefly/Serenity books on the shelf (I was lucky enough to pick up all 5 or 6 books before they went out of print).

But for now I'll stick with Trek.

I also picked up Ironsworn Starforged a while back, a solo space RPG (there's a free fantasy version "Ironforged"), that I will at some point surely actually try. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/391653/ironsworn-starforged

[Syt]

I've been doing some more exploring in the Solo RPG space. There's plenty of communities and resources out there, fortunately.

I've gone over the Star Wars RPG again. Currently I'm leaning towards the methods of West End Games' D6 version. Yes, it was cut off around the time the Special Editions came out, but there's communities out there that carry on their legacy, creating consolidated lists of aliens, ships etc. or create source data for the later movies and TV shows.

I had a closer look at Ironsworn: Starforged. It's a bit on the sandbox side. The setting is a retro-tech (think Aliens, Outland, though also Firefly), though I think you can adjust it quit flexibly. The game setting itself starts with letting you set some "truths" about the world - why did humans exodus to this part of space, do enhanced abilities (psi-powers, "space magic") exist, what's the view on religion, how fractured/united are humans, how populous are the worlds ... this feels wide open to adjust anything you like or recreate whatever setting you want, I think.

You then create your character - the main conceit of Ironsworn (the fantasy solo RPG) and Starforged (its refined space version) are Oaths - you swear an Iron Oath that you try to fulfill. You start with one, but you can pick up others along the line. Breaking the oath is one of the worst things you can do (maybe would work great in a Klingon setting ). Gameplay is based around "Moves", i.e. broader actions the character can take. That can range from socializing with locals and trying to create bonds to fighting in space to surveying planets and exploring ruins. Outcomes of moves will determine progress in various metrics (health, spirit, bonds with characters, your oaths, character progression ... ). It's a fairly intricate but loose system from first glance, and I look forward to giving it a proper trial run.

Another game I picked up is the Solo manual for Hostile. Hostile is based on the Traveller open license (like its sister product Cepheus), but heavily based on retro-tech sci-fi (Outland, Alien, Aliens) with horror elements. Gameplay is based around campaign types (cargo haulers, prospectors, marines squad, colonists ...). You assemble a crew and have a fairly well prescribed flow of action. It's geared towards creating relations and conflict between your crew, and adding random elements. There is an optional rule "looming threat" that will force the team to deal with a variety of scenarios when things have gone well for a while - could be a parasitic lifeform, aggressive xenomorphs, a crew member going nuts (either "naturally or through outside influence) etc. - the usual sci-fi "we're all doomed" scenarios. With it being based on Traveller's systems and procedures combined with its random encounters should lend it well to either longer campaigns or single adventure cruises of doom.

Finally, I've started a new episode for my Star Trek crew yesterday in Star Trek Adventures - Captain's Log. I made some tweaks. For one, I've nerfed my crew. Instead of using their full skills (which makes skill checks a bit easy), I change it so that they give bonuses/penalties to the ship's stats (e.g. my helmsman gives a +2 to piloting checks but would suck at medicine). I also removed some of their extra focuses and values. Also, when starting a scene, I use Mythic GME's scene check mechanic. I.e. I have my expected scene, but Mythic might make me change it or interrupt with something else.

E.g. yesterday I was retrieving a space coffin from the atmosphere of a gas giant and was about to start studying it. However, Mythic interrupted with an NPC and the description "harm" and "property". I deduced that another vessel was claiming the artifact for itself, worried we might harm it. I rolled on some tables from Captain's Log and a list of Sci-Fi NPC tables I had elsewhere and made it an egotistic sarcastic alien scientist who's constantly fidgeting and looking to gain scientific knowledge. This was the kind of twist or surprise I was looking for in my previous run with the system.

Starforged: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/391653/ironsworn-starforged
Hostile: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/406815/hostile-solo
STA: Captain's Log (has different editions, but only changes the cover): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/447448/sta-captain-s-log-solo-roleplaying-game-ds9-edition-pdf

[Sophie Scholl]

Sounds like some fun and shenanigans ahead for you! If you're looking for solo games, my all-time favorite ttrpg, The One Ring, introduced a solo mode in its second edition called Strider Mode. I hear it is decent.

[Syt]

Thanks for the recommendation. Not huge into LotR for RP, though and currently more on a Sci-Fi binge.

[Syt]

While I study explore browse through solo-capable RPGs, one that frequently crops up is Traveller, not least due to its systems heavy approach that lends an expansive and flexible framework of mechanics as guidance in the absence of a GM. Hostile that I mentioned above is based on Cepheus which is a Traveller variant. Research shows there's tons of editions and spiritual follow ups from Classic Traveller (which is available for free) via MegaTraveller, D20 Traveller, to the modern day where you have Mongoose publishing polished but very pricey books and guides (around $30 for the PDFs) and some who continue the "original" legacy but whose latest rulebook appears to be a dump of mechanics and roll tables for the veterans, compiled into three books of a combined 750+ pages.

However, looking at some of the books, one thing that strikes a nostalgic chord with me is its sub sector generation.

When I was a nerdy teen around 1990, before the internet or access to TTRPG-interested friends in my vicinity, I would spend many Sunday afternoons in front of the TV while creating my own space sectors - though I was inpired by the procedural galaxies of Elite on C64. I'd sit with an A3 sheet of graph paper, divide it into 6x6 square sectors that I'd group into bigger sectors.

Then I'd spend the day rolling dice, for determining the coordinates (big sector => small sector), biome of the planet, industries, species, cultures, etc. with ever more expanding random tables (E.g. starting with Agriculture, Industry, but then splitting it up, e.g. into Industry => Electronics, Heavy Machinery, Robotics, Shipyards, Consumer Products ... ) and dependencies (different development levels having different roll tables for industries). Then imagining the lore behind the sector or stories set within it.

I guess I always liked the idea of procedural generation and then "connecting the dots" to draw a big picture.

[Jacob]

Another game to check out is Stars Without Numbers. It's basically a marriage of classic Traveller and OSR flavoured B/X (I think). There should be a free, no-image version available on Drive Through RPG. It has a bunch of tables for generating worlds and so on as well.