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Ok who out there would like to play PFRPG alone with no GM or other players? If thats you then post a comment and add to this thread. Imagine there you are rolling the probabilities of the actions of your character no other players to help you and no GM to guide you. You have to survive by your wits and skills, do you think you have what it takes? Well anyways please place your comments to follow if the demand for solo adventures happens, then we can bring about change.
Maybe i don't get what you mean, but if for example a solo 1lvl wizard decides by himself he gets to fight a CR 25 great red wyrm, he also gets to decide who wins ?
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If I understand correctly, this idea has been used before.
TSR and a number of other publishers came up with adventures you could purchase and play as solo sessions with no GM years ago. They were a lot like Choose Your Own Adventure stories but some used dice or had rules for determining the outcome of battles based on points you could acquire through the book. For example, if you got to pages 4, 16 and 84, you might have come across some gear that would get you enough points to beat the dragon on page 54. If you didn't have enough points, you might die or have to run away and turn to another page.
Project Aon has the Lone Wolf adventures available online if you want to try one of the best solo RPG series ever written. It isn't Pathfinder and it isn't even D&D, but the stories and campaign world are pretty cool.
Also, Gnomes-100, Draconians-0 from TSR was a lot of fun. You play the role of a chef's apprentice locked into a steam-powered suit of armor and tossed into a battle betweem the army of Takhisis and the Tinker Gnomes of Mount Nevermind.
This stuff is great for when you don't have access to a group and just want to kill some time, but I never thought they were as much fun as a full game with other players and a GM. As a regular thing I guess they could be awesome for people nobody wants at their table.
Project Aon has the Lone Wolf adventures available online if you want to try one of the best solo RPG series ever written. It isn't Pathfinder and it isn't even D&D, but the stories and campaign world are pretty cool.
Thanks for that linky - Geez they could have done that online version better!
If I understand correctly, this idea has been used before.
TSR and a number of other publishers came up with adventures you could purchase and play as solo sessions with no GM years ago. They were a lot like Choose Your Own Adventure stories but some used dice or had rules for determining the outcome of battles based on points you could acquire through the book. For example, if you got to pages 4, 16 and 84, you might have come across some gear that would get you enough points to beat the dragon on page 54. If you didn't have enough points, you might die or have to run away and turn to another page.
Project Aon has the Lone Wolf adventures available online if you want to try one of the best solo RPG series ever written. It isn't Pathfinder and it isn't even D&D, but the stories and campaign world are pretty cool.
Also, Gnomes-100, Draconians-0 from TSR was a lot of fun. You play the role of a chef's apprentice locked into a steam-powered suit of armor and tossed into a battle betweem the army of Takhisis and the Tinker Gnomes of Mount Nevermind.
This stuff is great for when you don't have access to a group and just want to kill some time, but I never thought they were as much fun as a full game with other players and a GM. As a regular thing I guess they could be awesome for people nobody wants at their table.
When I first started playing first edition AD&D, I bought one of those and still have it. I was confused because it was basic D&D and you could only be a dwarf. Also, it didn't require you to use a d20. Instead, it had a chart with 1-20 in random order and you were supposed to close your eyes and run your finger over the chart. Wherever you stopped, that was what you rolled.
But back to the thread topic, in today's day and age unless you pick up these old adventures on Ebay, probably some of the various online games. And if you are entrepreneurial inclined, niche market anyone?
I reckon theres a good market for solo games, and similarly, single/duo+GM games.
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You reckon wrong. The game is not designed to have the same person playing and running the game. That is why DMPCs are such an issue in some games.
People might want to play alone because they cannot find anyone to play but the reality of lone play is the the difference between being married to my wife and having two kids vs still being a bachelor. Pretending I am married to a body pillow and having two small pillow kids is not the same as actual marriage.
If you think lone play is the solution to your problem then think again. It will bore you quickly. Take this advice from a fellow who has searched for a good group for a long time (finally found one wooooo!)
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You reckon wrong. The game is not designed to have the same person playing and running the game. That is why DMPCs are such an issue in some games.
People might want to play alone because they cannot find anyone to play but the reality of lone play is the the difference between being married to my wife and having two kids vs still being a bachelor. Pretending I am married to a body pillow and having two small pillow kids is not the same as actual marriage.
If you think lone play is the solution to your problem then think again. It will bore you quickly. Take this advice from a fellow who has searched for a good group for a long time (finally found one wooooo!)
I disagree.
I don't get to play with a group nearly as much as I wish. I've had LOOONG dry spells with no players. So I often just create a whole party of PCs and run them through an adventure. Yeah, I feel pathetic (and hesitated posting this for that reason.) But it's a good way to learn a system. Even when I was playing real games, with actual players, I was also playing other campaigns solo. This was especially important when I first started running 3.0, which I found complicated. Running a solo game helped me to learn the system in a fun way.
Some people may object: but if you, as GM, know all the secrets of the adventure, how do you know what your PCs can figure out?
Well, obviously you shouldn't run a MYSTERY adventure. But hey, when you're GMing a REAL game, how do you know what the NPCs can figure out? Just wing it. Have the party make decisions that you WANT them to make. Or just roll a die (odds we go left, evens we go right.) You could just use common sense, or just make a decision because you wonder what the consequences will be.
To summarize, running a full-party game solo CAN be fun. I'll never forget the time I ran "The Lost City" solo. It took surprising turns that made me feel compelled to keep playing, because I was DYING to know what would happen. It was more entertaining than TV. I could go on and on about that, if anyone's interested.
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When I was a little kid, back in the early 80's, and first got into D&D, my dad was my DM and my two sisters were more or less conscripted to be the other players for my adventures.
My sisters both hated playing, but my parents guilted them into playing once a week for an hour.
One of my sisters found a solo adventure called Blizzard Pass and bought it for me as a birthday present. The module had special text boxes that could only be revealed with a special (highlighter) pen that would reveal the text.
It ran as a choose your own adventure, and you had to roll the dice yourself.
It was fun until you exhausted all of the options.
Mythic RPG
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I don't get to play with a group nearly as much as I wish. I've had LOOONG dry spells with no players. So I often just create a whole party of PCs and run them through an adventure. Yeah, I feel pathetic (and hesitated posting this for that reason.) But it's a good way to learn a system.
Really, this just proves my point.
I can't disagree with learning the game. Everyone does it differently. But it is not the same. The market for RPG stuff is small already and the market for lone player stuff would be a very small piece of a very small pie.
To be honest. If you want to play alone you can just buy a regular adventure or just rotate through the monsters of your CR. Dragon magazine had articles once in a great while about playing solo. But it is silly. Are you going to let your character die? Why should you? You are also the DM! The monster has you at one hit point but then stops to scratch his behind for a few rounds. It is silly on its face.
The market for RPG stuff is small already and the market for lone player stuff would be a very small piece of a very small pie.
Meh, Choose your own adventure and Fighting Fantasy (and Lone Wolf) were HUGE.
Can't see why a similar system based on PF with its rich lore would be such a flop.
But it is silly.
To you, karkon. To you.
Are you going to let your character die?
YES!!! I have played many, many solo campaigns that ended in a TPK. Never mind individual character deaths.
Why should you? You are also the DM! The monster has you at one hit point but then stops to scratch his behind for a few rounds. It is silly on its face.
With that same reasoning, why should you let a monster kill a party played by real players? You don't WANT to kill them, do you? But if, in the story, a monster wants to kill a party, and you have the monster change its mind for no reason, that's not a very fun game, is it? It gets boring when there's no risk.
And when a GM does decide to go "Bond villain," (e.g. "No, the sword is too quick and clean a death for you. I'll take you alive and throw you into a complicated, easily escapable trap...") it's completely irrelevant whether there are real players or whether you're going solo. It plays the same. In fact, now that I think about it, I was MORE likely to go the "Bond villain" route with real campaigns than with solo ones. After all, you can kill your OWN party without hurting anyone's feelings.
But if, karkon, the gist of your argument is "the market for lone player stuff would be a very small piece of a very small pie," then I guess I'll tentatively agree with that. I don't NEED solo adventures; a regular one will do just fine for me.
(But really, I'll never forget when I ran an Al-Qadim campaign solo. My party killed a bunch of salamanders, and then I decided to let the PCs do something stupid, which led to them getting ambushed by another group of salamanders. I figured that they had handled salamanders before, so this would be no big deal. But the element of surprise made all the difference. The short story: it ended in a TPK.)
I've messed around creating characters in the old Traveler system for fun, the random rolling for character generation was interesting and I thought of lots of good NPC or PC ideas for other games that way. I've also recently come upon ffproject.com, which has some converted Fighting Fantasy type stories that you can play online which is fun for a choose your own adventure type solo game.
I'm intrigued by this idea and would definitely buy a quest book put out in this format. I'm in the period of my life where my gamer friends have families and we live in different parts of the country. We do get together and play, and I do run a campaign with my family, but I've run solo adventures to try different options and play adventures I know my group or family wouldn't have time or interest to play. You also have to realize that in many parts of this country there aren't game stores or active gaming groups. Not to mention, people have busy schedules and don't always have time to commit to a new group.
I just bought the Pathfinder starter set (I'm a long time D&D guy who's getting a little fed up with them finally) and I saw the small solo adventure to teach you the rules. It's in the choose-your-own adventure style. I like this style, but I would do a hybrid that mixes this with a traditional quest where the player could still use maps and minis. Just hide what's coming next somehow.
Look up Ambush or Sniper. one player games go back to the early 80s.
While not of the PF ruleset, there are some solo style gamebooks out there:
Party of one- Leda by Expeditious Retreat Press
Kenzer and Company with their Soloquest series.
You reckon wrong. The game is not designed to have the same person playing and running the game. That is why DMPCs are such an issue in some games.
People might want to play alone because they cannot find anyone to play but the reality of lone play is the the difference between being married to my wife and having two kids vs still being a bachelor. Pretending I am married to a body pillow and having two small pillow kids is not the same as actual marriage.
If you think lone play is the solution to your problem then think again. It will bore you quickly. Take this advice from a fellow who has searched for a good group for a long time (finally found one wooooo!)
I disagree.
I don't get to play with a group nearly as much as I wish. I've had LOOONG dry spells with no players. So I often just create a whole party of PCs and run them through an adventure. Yeah, I feel pathetic (and hesitated posting this for that reason.) But it's a good way to learn a system. Even when I was playing real games, with actual players, I was also playing other campaigns solo. This was especially important when I first started running 3.0, which I found complicated. Running a solo game helped me to learn the system in a fun way.
Some people may object: but if you, as GM, know all the secrets of the adventure, how do you know what your PCs can figure out?
Well, obviously you shouldn't run a MYSTERY adventure. But hey, when you're GMing a REAL game, how do you know what the NPCs can figure out? Just wing it. Have the party make decisions that you WANT them to make. Or just roll a die (odds we go left, evens we go right.) You could just use common sense, or just make a decision because you wonder what the consequences will be.
To summarize, running a full-party game solo CAN be fun. I'll never forget the time I ran "The Lost City" solo. It took surprising turns that made me feel compelled to keep playing, because I was DYING to know what would happen. It was more entertaining than TV. I...
Cool, glad to know I am not the only one who has created a full party of adventurers, then ran them through a module, by myself. :)
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There is this. I've used a little bit and the only problem I've encountered yet is coming up with stats for NPCs that are introduced. However, books like the GameMastery Guide and NPC Codex would help with that.
Expeditious Retreat Press has 1-on-1 adventures (meant for one PC and one GM) in both Pathfinder RPG and d20/OGL flavors.
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It seems like this could be done pretty well using tech ...
1. Use a Virtual Table Top program (Paizo Game Space, Roll20, etc), it NEEDS dynamic lighting (Just shows what your character can see). Some slight modifications allowing players to "open doors" before light gets in.
2. Each square or defined area could have data for different types of rolls (you could have every skill, with a DC, and what you see/know ... only the relevant skills if any need to be in there)
3. Room descriptions with hidden information that pops up after initial action, or when triggers happen (monster at 0, etc)
Not really alot to it ... some such features would really set Paizo Game Space apart (wink, wink)
And as for people "cheating" ... that is only a problem when you are NOT playing alone. If you enjoy cheating by yourself great ... same as using cheat codes on video games. Fine when you are alone, but not competitively online.
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And just for kicks, here is a finished Kickstarter of a random dungeon generator. The project was to make a poster that walked you through the AD&D random dungeon generator from the DMG. He also made an online version that walks you through the poster (the Kickstarter update is with this link is public.)
http://blogofholding.com/randomdungeonmap/
The Kickstarter ... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2040314005/random-dungeon-generator-as- a-dungeon-map
i wouldn't mind a solo game with a DM.
provide me some NPC allies, and i would be fine.
Never Winter Nights is still around I believe. People are still making modules for NWN1 and 2. No dice, no other players and no DM.
If you think people just making their own style of games, there are others trying to make old PnP games like Against the Giants and Keep on the Border Lands.
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You reckon wrong. The game is not designed to have the same person playing and running the game. That is why DMPCs are such an issue in some games.
People might want to play alone because they cannot find anyone to play but the reality of lone play is the the difference between being married to my wife and having two kids vs still being a bachelor. Pretending I am married to a body pillow and having two small pillow kids is not the same as actual marriage.
If you think lone play is the solution to your problem then think again. It will bore you quickly. Take this advice from a fellow who has searched for a good group for a long time (finally found one wooooo!)
Solo adventures were fun. I primarily played the Fighting Fantasy books when I was a teenager. It's certainly different to playing with a group, but it can be a lot of fun to play a solo adventure. Whether they are a genuinely commercial venture I don't kow but I suspect the real reason they don't do them so much for mainstream RPGs, and particularly D&D-based ones, is the technical issue of how to cope with different classes and what they can do, given the rule-set assumes multiple classes in a party, and how to manage appropriate challenges (spells, in particular as they work in D&D, are such a wild-card as to make it very difficult to do something like that in a D&D-based system and have a sensible set of choices). TSR did some solo adventures, but you had to be a specific class II didn't play them, I don't know what they were like). There were also some very good ones done for RuneQuest (Scorpion Hall springs to mind - that was really hard!) but that, of course, wasn't a class-based system. I guess multple characters would work better in that context.
Amazing how Karkon argued his opinion that no one would want it, when you actually do want it. He even had a bad analogy he made up.
Its not a substitute, but its a fill in when you can't have games for a long time, just like playing a solo computer game over and over, even when you've completed it. Its the same thing, its just a matter of making dice rolls vs having the computer randomly generating numbers and consulting charts automatically. The only other thing is that you are using imagination to see what is happening vs computer-generated graphics.
To use a similar analogy to Karkon's is that when you don't have a girl-/boyfriend, you don't go oh, I don't have GF/BF therefore I need to go without any sexual fulfillment - no, a lot of people take matters into their own hands, so to speak, if they don't have their number one choice for that sort of thing.
Usually, solo play is more roll play than role play, though, but not always. Some people are so into role play, they role play board games, card games, whatever. They're probably ones who had tea parties all by themselves when they were kids, just because they had no one else at the time to play with. I've watched Felicia Day roleplay characters on Table Top on Geek & Sundry YouTube channel. Funny as heck. Pisses Wil Wheaton off.
Never Winter Nights is still around I believe. People are still making modules for NWN1 and 2. No dice, no other players and no DM.
If you think people just making their own style of games, there are others trying to make old PnP games like Against the Giants and Keep on the Border Lands.
Yes this would be the funnest option.
The computer is the GM, in fact any single player CRPG works wonders to this end, although Neverwinter Nights uses 3.5e which is as close as I have seen to Pathfinder as a computer game comes.
Issue #12 of Dungeon featured a solo AD&D adventure for a 12th level fighter that incorporated use of the combat rules. It was the first of its kind that personally remember that gave you little more control of the outcome, and didn't just rely on picking Door #1 or Door #2.
Eye of the Serpent is a neat adventure, UK5, I believe. It is meant for one player playing a monk, ranger or druid lvl 1... But also adds in one or more extra NPCs for such characters... Never quite understood that.
There's always Amber and you might even use the current APs and convert over to Pathfinder.