Solo Investigations

So as stated one of things this blog will cover is solo role-playing games, that is playing an RPG without a GM.

This is a fast growing area of the hobby, and with the coronavirus pandemic has become more prevalent.

Generally when I solo RP I use the industry mainstay Mythic GM Emulator (hereafter called Mythic GME). This is, in my opinion, the best solo emulator there is, however it does have drawbacks, particularly in its handling of investigations.

Now investigations in RP have long been an area of difficulty, even in group games. They can be hard to provide the necessary clues to the players, and have the mystery wrapped up in a satisfactory TV or novel  style way.

Given those difficulties it is even harder for these styles of adventure to succeed in solo play as one of the joys of solo play is seeing where the story goes, which is difficult when that story is trying to end in a particular way.

That is not to say that people have not tried, and there are a number of systems and approaches both for group and solo games, although group games understandably is where most of the work has been aimed.

In order to find out which investigation methods and systems work best for solo play I intend to give each of them a playthrough for at least a couple of investigations. That should hopefully let me see that system in action sufficiently to have an educated opinion of each of them.

I intend to follow each system exactly as written to give each its fair chance.

Now in order to make the comparison fair I think that other factors should remain static as far as possible, and this relates specifically to the underlying RPG system I use to resolve actions and scenes.

Ordinarily I would use the classic version of Freeform Universal (otherwise known as FU). This small but fantastic system is great at providing a small narrative push with each roll which would work extremely well for the social interactive nature of most investigations. However when trying to review the systems I feel this could get in the way of how they operate so have decided to use a more traditional system based on John Harper's Danger Patrol beta.

Finally, I have decided to base the run throughs in the same place, a cyberpunk-style city of the near future based on Blade Runner, Detroit: Beyond Human, AD Police, The Department of Fabricant Management and others, where androids and related problems exist alongside good old human foibles and greed.