Reflections On Travelling Solo

Session 1 of my Traveller game went fairly well but there was a critical moment, in the transition between the hotel scene and the gym scene, where I nearly stopped playing. Why? I didn’t know what would happen next.

This is the big challenge in solo play. When playing through the fantasy genre solo games, I knew what was coming because I used maps to structure the play. On other occasions, I was playing a pre-written scenario, such as the Red Box “First Adventure”, and so I could trust that what was coming next was structured.

Yesterday’s game, like the earlier Traveller game I tried, was largely unstructured. Because I didn’t know what was coming next, I was worried it would be crap. The temptation arose to stop playing.

The Right Tools For The Job

What did I do to push through? I drew three cards from the GM Apprentice Deck and used them to create a scenario in that location. Doing this allowed me to get a handle on the scene, and especially what the scene would give the characters, so that I could keep on playing. In short, I used a different kind of structure – a random draw of three cards – to prompt my imagination. As the words found a pattern in my mind, I was able to move forward with a sense of knowing where this was headed.

Not being sure what to expect here, I draw three cards: Eliminate, Frightful, Power. Catalyst: Villain vs Villain Fight. Maybe our team is about to walk in on an interesting situation. (excerpt: Solo Traveller 1)

The problem with solo play is that you fear the adventure won’t “make sense”. If it hasn’t been carefully crafted and laid out as a scenario, how can it all come together? The reality I am discovering is that the adventure is made up of inter-linked scenarios which, through the use of whatever tool you choose to generate ideas, connects to the last scenario and to the next scenario. Your mind will create the linkages.

You need to trust this.

Knowing Where You’re Going

One of my past problems with improvising games within a group setting has been that I run out of ideas. Basically, I don’t really have any idea where the “big picture story” is going, so I assume the next scene is not really going to take us anywhere. It’s like wandering around with no map, feeling lost and wondering if you shouldn’t just retrace your steps and go home. Yet, as we know, the map is not the territory: the generation of scenes is not the same as experiencing those scenes.

In life, we only have the imagination of our day ahead to guide us through the actual moments of that day. We might imagine that we need to go to work today, and do all the tasks and engage in all the interactions that make up the working day. In truth, that day ahead is simply a product of our imagination which has been shaped by the expectations we either accept from others or place upon ourselves. It’s not real, not a part of measurable and reportable history, until we get to the other end. In real life, what we imagine will happen today is very rarely what we truly experience. As our life moves forward, we generate a narrative of our experiences and this becomes the story of ourselves.

In roleplay, as a player, you only have the imagination of the adventure ahead when you begin. You usually only have the vaguest ideas of who you might play and what part they might have in the unfolding story that the game generates. As the Games Master, you probably come with a stronger sense of what’s ahead; even with that in mind, you know that it will not survive contact with the players – it will change and evolve into the actual narrative of the game, the played-through story. Thus, what we imagine is ahead of us is an illusion. It won’t be like we imagine, ever.

Knowing this is liberating.

Let Go of the Story

What I’m learning is to let go of the story as it unfolds through the game. Certainly, plan some scenarios and scenes that you’d like to see occur. That done, remember that all of those ideas are contingent and may not end up fitting into the final experience. What we all, as players and Games Masters alike, bring to the table and agree to play through will become the narrative of the game. Together we will mould that collective experience into a coherent story about our characters.

Bringing that back to solo play, what I bring to the table is going to stand a much better chance of getting played. That said, if I don’t challenge myself to allow other input then I am really just writing a narrative down. In gaming solo, the first and most obvious other input comes from the mechanics of the game – for example, rolling dice to determine success or failure. In my own solo game, I allow input from the various random tables that I reference at intervals in the game.

Returning to my experience with the Traveller game, I used the three cards drawn from the GM Apprentice Deck to give me three points of input from which to generate a scenario. It didn’t stop there, however: I allowed noticing the phrase, “the sound of an electrical jolt” to prompt the need for action; as the action moved forward, I allowed dice rolls to influence the outcomes of the character’s actions; I randomly determined one of the Player Character’s reactions to another character in the scene; I randomly determined how many people were on each side of the fight, and so on.

The challenge is in becoming comfortable with not knowing what’s going to happen next. It’s in finding some tools that you can trust to prompt, to give you input, and move you from your state of not-knowing towards continuing to play. As you play, you’ll find that the narrative unfolds and you will naturally find yourself constructing the story. Just keep playing.

Game on!