How and why do you solo play?

[J.Quondam]

Yeah, mostly -- it's been a trend to include a published solo adventure with new TTRPG rulesets and starter sets. And sometimes there are separately published adventures. Are there other ways you are getting solo adventures? Feel free to elaborate!

Solo play has practically become a formal mode of play in its own right. There are RPGs focused mainly on solo play, as well as bolt-on frameworks to facilitate soloing in games normally meant for group play. Such systems might support individual adventures only, or ongoing campaign play; and range from highly-plotted storytelling prompts to randomly generated sandboxes. In my very limited experience, however, they all require a LOT of personal motivation to keep going.

As for me, when a solo adventure is included in a starter set, I almost always play through it to get a feel for it. It worked well enough with my Basic set back in 1983, and it still seems the best way to learn the feel and basic mechanics of a game, imo. More recently, I've been learning about solo play because I don't have an in-person group, but still want to scratch that creative itch. However, it's gone slowly as I have yet to find an engine that really works for me.

 

[Duke_]

Solo play has practically become a formal mode of play in its own right. There are RPGs focused mainly on solo play, as well as bolt-on frameworks to facilitate soloing in games normally meant for group play. Such systems might support individual adventures only, or ongoing campaign play; and range from highly-plotted storytelling prompts to randomly generated sandboxes. In my very limited experience, however, they all require a LOT of personal motivation to keep going.

As for me, when a solo adventure is included in a starter set, I almost always play through it to get a feel for it. It worked well enough with my Basic set back in 1983, and it still seems the best way to learn the feel and basic mechanics of a game, imo. More recently, I've been learning about solo play because I don't have an in-person group, but still want to scratch that creative itch. However, it's gone slowly as I have yet to find an engine that really works for me.

It definitely requires motivation, but that the same time, there are also only the expectations you set for yourself. It can be very liberating. If you've grown tired of a particular game, you can just kill it, mid-scene if you want. Nobody's going to care. Want to pick it back up later? As long as you kept your notes, go for it. Want to play in a 15 minute snippet? You can do that. You want to play for a few hours? You can do that (real life schedule permitting of course). There are no external requirements, no need to work around a half dozen other schedules... it's pretty nice, honestly.

Side bonus: if you play solo with oracles rather than published "If make you Search roll go to 57, otherwise go to 23" type solo adventures, it really helps your improvisational skills.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Solo play has practically become a formal mode of play in its own right. There are RPGs focused mainly on solo play, as well as bolt-on frameworks to facilitate soloing in games normally meant for group play. Such systems might support individual adventures only, or ongoing campaign play; and range from highly-plotted storytelling prompts to randomly generated sandboxes. In my very limited experience, however, they all require a LOT of personal motivation to keep going.

As for me, when a solo adventure is included in a starter set, I almost always play through it to get a feel for it. It worked well enough with my Basic set back in 1983, and it still seems the best way to learn the feel and basic mechanics of a game, imo. More recently, I've been learning about solo play because I don't have an in-person group, but still want to scratch that creative itch. However, it's gone slowly as I have yet to find an engine that really works for me.

I'm curious about this. I've definitely done solo boardgaming for games built as cooperative and have had a lot of fun with it. We also have a lot of fun playing these same games as a group. Where and when do you think the formal (exclusive?) solo play in its own right began? It's curious to see games that began as group activities morphing into solo activities. I can understand and appreciate the attraction, just want to understand what's driving it.

 

[schneeland]

I have voted "Other" for the time being. I don't really do solo play of regular RPGs, but I do like game books like Lone Wolf, which are probably pretty close. Also, it doesn't really supplant regular RPG play in a group, but rather complements it from time to time.

 

[Duke_]

I'm curious about this. I've definitely done solo boardgaming for games built as cooperative and have had a lot of fun with it. We also have a lot of fun playing these same games as a group. Where and when do you think the formal (exclusive?) solo play in its own right began? It's curious to see games that began as group activities morphing into solo activities. I can understand and appreciate the attraction, just want to understand what's driving it.

Tunnels & Trolls was designed with the idea that it could be played solo from its first edition (1975) and started publishing solo adventures in 1976, that's the kind of thing you're talking about. So it's pretty much as old as the hobby.

I'd say interest really took off during the COVID pandemic though, along with a surge in VTTs of course.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I enjoy solo play as an adjunct to other play.

Thousand Year Old Vampire and now Notorious (both of which have threads here on ENWorld) have been among my favorite RPG experiences.

After I wrap up this Notorious run (maybe three or four more turns, I'm guessing), I'll probably move on to a solo play of Castaway (a game I'll probably never get to run otherwise) or one of the solo D&D adventures I backed from Obvious Mimic.

As a forever DM, I rarely get to play as a PC, so solo play scratches that itch.

 

[J.Quondam]

I'm curious about this. I've definitely done solo boardgaming for games built as cooperative and have had a lot of fun with it. We also have a lot of fun playing these same games as a group. Where and when do you think the formal (exclusive?) solo play in its own right began? It's curious to see games that began as group activities morphing into solo activities. I can understand and appreciate the attraction, just want to understand what's driving it.

Tbh, I'm not too familiar with the history of it all, but like Duke_ said, I know the drive for solo play has been around since the beginning. Personally, I liked TolkeinQuest books as a kid in the 1980s; those were basically CYOA storybooks with a hex map to explore and stripped-down MERP engine to resolve encounters. The first somewhat formalized systemless "oracle" -based engine (ie, ask a question normally asked of a GM, and make a random roll on a table to answer it) that I was aware of was the Mythic GM Emulator, which first edition came out in 2008(?) 2003. There were probably other similar systems before that, but that's the first one I encountered, and seems to be the most high-profile one; currently, Mythic in now in an expanded second edition.

As for "why solo?", I imagine it's just a response to wanting to game but not having people to play with, which is a conundrum that's bedeviled a fairly large fraction of gamers since the beginning. That spiked during covid, of course; but I've also heard that, in a broad cultural sense, Americans, at least, have gradually been becoming more solitary over the last decade or two (less eating out, less dating, less exercising, less theater attendance, etc), so that might be driving it too, at least in the US.

In my personal case, I used to scratch my creative RPG itch with worldbuilding and designing adventures, even in times with no group. I'm kind of burned out on that side of things right now, so I'm exploring actual play via solo engines. I'm also trying to aim that effort at less familiar genres, just to stretch my wings a little.

(Edited to correct and extend info regarding Mythic GM Emulator.)

 

[sevenbastard]

I appreciate a solo combat exercise to learn the combat rules. Not an adventure just here is how combat works practice a couple of times so you don't get killed in the game.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

i have, as a dm, done what i guess you could describe as "solo play" to test things or set up scenarios where the party is walking into the middle or result of a fight between npcs. i don't think that's what's being described in the op, though.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Tunnels & Trolls was designed with the idea that it could be played solo from its first edition (1975) and started publishing solo adventures in 1976, that's the kind of thing you're talking about. So it's pretty much as old as the hobby.

I'd say interest really took off during the COVID pandemic though, along with a surge in VTTs of course.

Yep, I remember those T&T solo adventures, and I know RuneQuest (SoloQuest) and Cthulhu (Alone Against the Dark ftw!) did a bunch back in the day as well. It seems I am hearing a lot more recently about how great a game is for solo play -- Dragonbane is one example I have heard about in particular. Maybe I'm only hearing about it later, but it seems there's been a recent surge in interest.