My Solo RPG Journey: Status Update #2

This is an import from my old site. Apologies for the spam. This is my 2nd Status Update. Another short break and some musings.

Greetings imaginary readers!

So I am taking a short break (only a day or two, really) from actually playing after losing Tella. It's always hard when a character you are invested in, in a TTRPG, passes away. At least in Tella’s case it was an epic fight against a powerful foe, and the dice fell as they were wont to do.

How I felt when it happened yesterday:

In talking with Alex he did at least agree that perhaps RHBF is perhaps a bit TOO lethal, and supposedly before release it was even WORSE?! The damage enemies are able to do is quite high, and the HP most PCs have is quite low. I think, when I get back around to trying RHBF again (And believe me, we will see it return!) I will have a few changes

• 1: Double Starting HP. Normally it's CON plus CON Mod. But I will do that, and then double it. That would have given Tella, for example, 32 HP instead of 16 at the start.

• 2: I will add either +1 or +2 HP on Character Level up. This is in addition to the +1 I can buy with my Development Point.

• 3: Use a different starting class. Beastmaster or Sharpshooter, more than likely. I think both of those have massive pros over the one I chose the last time. A pet is big, and the massive range of the Sharpshooter is just a huge win.

Alex says he wouldn’t do the HP on level up but I feel that man is a bit of a glutton for punishment so ya know! I will see how that feels, and if it feels too unbalanced then I can always change it later.

However, for now, I am sitting here with a lot of options on what to try next, including two more games from Alex. I have the following games I can try out:

• NoteQuest Expanded

• Tiny Cyberpunk

• Ker Nethalas

• Over War

• Under Ashen Skies

• Machine Gods of the Noxian Expanse (with Voidspire Territories)

• Kal Arath

The new ones are Over War (a Solo SRPG inspired by games like Tactics Ogre and FF Tactics and only PUBLISHED by Blackoath but actually written by someone else) and Machine Gods of the Noxian Expanse which is a bit on the lighter side of rules crunch, which I may not like? I am very much into some level of rules complexity on top of narrative freedom. In fact, Alex is worried I might not jive with Ker Nethalas and Under Ashen Skies because they are, narratively speaking, pretty limited. Both have very defined settings and experiences, but that is not actually a bother to me. I can build a narrative within a closed framework just as easily as an open one I think. I just want my actual game to have some meat on its bones unlike say 4 Against Darkness, which is very lightweight.

NoteQuest may end up feeling the same. Maybe I will start there. I honestly dunno. This is nothing to say of other possible opportunities (more on that later nerds).

I suppose eventually the hope for this entire endeavor, on top of just sharing my passion for roleplaying and storytelling, is that maybe my name will get out there to other designers so they can start telling me about THEIR work. There is a lot out there and new stuff comes out all the damn time, and I am very new to this entire thing so without word of mouth I have no concept of just what all is there. I would love to get emails from developers and writers about their projects. Just as long as they don’t involve AI in them. Fuck that shit. I will never stop saying that Gen AI is the death of creativity and has no place in the creative space.

Recently, for instance, I found out about Cairn, Niv Lova, and Kal Arath through facebook and the Blackoath Discord. Hell, I found out originally about Ker Nethalas by looking up stuff about 4 Against Darkness on Youtube.

One thing I am learning though is that a lot of these solo RPGs are “Rules Lite” for some reason, and that irritates me. The other end are the ones that are rules heavy but like, no setting whatsoever. It's like no one other than Blackoath is doing a happy medium! Unless, again, I am mistaken and just have been missing it.

Anyway this is mostly just to get some random thoughts in my head out there for those who care.

I had a fun idea. It's going to be perfect I think for NoteQuest. Let's see how it goes! It will still be a day or two before I write that up the NoteQuest overview. I want to reread the rules and figure out how I am gonna swing this fun idea.

Yea I think I am going to do NoteQuest for a short run and try it out, then pick up Kal Arath and try that, then come back to something from Blackoath. Maybe OverWar, since that is a weird looking one.

Till next time everyone. Keep gaming and having fun.