I have a handful of roleplaying systems that I return to for solo roleplaying, but my favourite (at this time) is Freeform Universal (FU from hereon), and in particular the now rebranded 'Classic' version (or 1st edition, or whatever you might want to call it). First though here is a quick breakdown:
An FU character has a number of Descriptors (positive and/or negative), items of Gear (generally positive), and Conditions (things that have afflicted the character, and generally negative). There can also be scene Details which may be positive or negative depending on the Detail and the circumstances.
Determine what the character is trying to achieve or avoid and grab some dice. Start with a 'static' d6, for each positive aspect that is in play you add a Bonus d6 die, and for negative situations a Penalty d6. Bonus and Penalty dice cancel out leaving you with a net of one or the other, next roll the remaining dice and if net Bonus read the highest, and lowest if net Penalty. Finally read the result on the following easily memorised chart:
6 - Yes, and...
5 - Yes
4 - Yes, but...
3 - No, but...
2 - No
1 - No, and...
For example Nightcrawler is sneaking up on the villain's HQ, 'is he spotted?', he is STEALTHY and it is DARK, but there are CAMERAS EVERYWHERE. You can think of this as just setting the scene, pulling out the CAPITALS as they come to you. I would interpret that as 2 Bonus and 1 Penalty dice, meaning a net Bonus die. I now roll 2 dice getting 2 and 4 for a Yes, but... result.
With that description out of the way these are the reasons why I like it so much and why it suits my style of solo roleplaying:
Genre neutral
I can play pretty much any genre with FU, including supers and Enid Blyton/Scooby Doo style investigations (which was with my kids).
With a simple switch of the questions asked and narrative consequences I can make the game gritty and feel realistic, to cinematic swashbuckling, to the aforementioned supers.
Freeform
With freeform creation I can create pretty much any character, this is partly related to the above, but also allows me to narrow down on the important parts of my campaign, including ignoring combat altogether.
Interesting results
A roll in FU always impacts the narrative of the game. Now that is true of course to nearly all games, but with the small pushes towards partial and total successes it makes the narrative come alive to me.
These are great for combat and more importantly in social interaction.
Using FU my in-game conversations will often end in some sort of compromise or with an added benefit or detriment. This makes the conversations come to life in a way that binary systems often can't.
Fast NPC creation
This one is vitally important to me and my solo playstyle. With FU I can simply create a CRONY, and use that stereotype to affect the game, with little else required.
In truth I tend to use appearance and personality tables too, but that is still far removed from assigning skill levels, attributes levels, and other character aspects that other games require.
It is especially important to me that each NPC is unique too (or at least as unique as FU allows), so stock characters (if they exist at all for the niche game I might playing) often fall short.
Saying that, it also means that I can create swathes of goons and other inconsequential adversaries incredibly quickly, without statting them all up.
Not combat focussed
Another thing that I like about FU is that there are no inherent combat mechanics. Indeed I have often helped others see the unwritten bias to combat 'Conditions' in the various FU social groups, and like Fate's Consequences, Conditions can be non-combat 'injury' or inconvenience (and very often are in my games).
One of the games I ran with my kids was a Famous Five style mystery, and there was no combat and very little in the way of 'action' in that game, and it ran incredibly smoothly.
While I enjoy combat in some games, others involve very little, and FU handles it all the same and with interesting results (see above).
Fractal nature
I feel a lot is made of the Fate fractal, and indeed Fate is one of those handful of games I mentioned at the start, but this applies a lot more easily in FU. While in Fate a fire (to use a stereotypical example) could be represented by several game system components, a skill level, an Aspect, a full blown 'character'.
In FU a fire is nearly always another scene Detail, there is nothing else really to replicate it. This means I have less to think about, and can concentrate on the narrative of the game rather than how to represent it mechanically.
It also means that I can now replicate things like mechs, jets, sailing ships and other vehicles. What special qualities does this mech etc have that another may not. These are perfect for then replicating how I see the mech. Not only that but I can then use my character's skills, or lack thereof, as another defining factor.
For example I may be a skilled PILOT, so a FAST or AGILE mech I will be able to get the most out of, or maybe compensate for a SLOW mech, and while an AUTOCANNON armed mech will be a menace, it may not be able to get the target lined up to my mech.
Light weight
FU is extremely light weight. There is little to it other than the dice mechanic, using Descriptors of various types and Conditions. This does mean that it is incredibly easy to teach as a system, as anyone can start playing it in minutes. It also means that I do not need a grand tome to understand the game, or to find the aforementioned stock characters or multiple die roll modifiers.
It also means it is incredibly fast and available anywhere you can roll d6 (including virtual, so anywhere really).
That speed as I have mentioned before is important to me, I can roll the story along and add in NPCs and use my solo tools without troubling myself with another thought process. Multi threading I am not, jotting things down in a notebook or scrap piece of paper I most certainly am.
It's not Mythic!
Now this one could be seen as bizarre, but at one point I was getting fed up of using d100 to answer Fate questions. I've never really been a fan of rolling those two dice, so converted to using FU as my oracle (with another method of injecting random events). Soon I didn't know if I was asking Mythic or FU questions and the whole thing became muddled in my mind.
At first I stuck with FU as my oracle and used different systems, indeed I still do (including one I designed myself purely for solo), but they often lacked some of the points above and cycling back around to using FU as my game engine I knew I needed to revert to using Mythic as written (well my preferred No Chaos variant anyway).
With different dice to roll I can now separate the two systems physically as well as mentally, and this has helped differentiate between them much more and keep my games on track.
Downsides
FU is not without it downsides, and many of the features above can be doubled edged. I feel I have either mitigated some of these or come to accept them as a facet of the game I cannot, and do not, want to change.
So what are these?
Experience
FU is a game I feel like you need some sort of experience to get the most out of. In exactly the same way as Mythic, there is nothing stopping you asking any question. This leads many to life or death situations that they can't easily see themselves out of.
You also need to aware of genre conventions so that you can direct your questions in a way that serves your game.
Now I am an incredibly big believer in that there is no wrong way to play, and solo play extends this massively. There really is no one else to satisfy in a solo game, it is your game 100%, so whatever I may say or believe here is solely based on my experiences.
Saying that I do believe there is a 'skill' in asking FU questions (and Mythic Fate questions).
For example let's say I'm playing a Batman expy called Nightcrawler, he's just come across some cronies loading a van with stolen cash outside a bank. Now in my mind there is no (or very little) danger to him in this situation whatsoever. So what's my question? I could sock the nearest crony and take on each one-by-one, wearing myself, Nightcrawler and the story down, like making it 3 pages rather than 3 panels. But what if I made it 'Does Nightcrawler take out the cronies easily?'. Now, say I get a No, I might give Nightcrawler a Condition, or somehow one of them escapes, but this scene is over much more quickly and there are my 3 panels. If I want more, maybe the one getting away is doing it in the semi-laden truck? Seems like a good thing to ask Mythic.
Granularity
Characters' have very few Descriptors, and they either have it or not. This means that two SWORDSMAN will be equal (although I have a hack for this), whereas other systems this could be +1 vs +5, or 12 vs 16, D8 vs D12, or however else a game differentiates or works.
So if you want finer grain details then you are not going to get them in FU. I feel this is the trade off for speed, and while it doesn't seem like much, simply assigning a number, this often goes in hand with other micro decisions.
Advancement
Somewhat related to the above, but FU also lacks a 'levelling up' mechanic other than assigning another Descriptor. I know some people find levelling up or advancement to be a cornerstone of roleplaying, and that simply doesn't really fit with FU.
I can tell you various workarounds and 'tricks', but they are simply that, and don't stop characters getting incredibly powerful (in FU terms) quite quickly if you want a mechanical benefit as advancement fairly often.
It's Freeform
Hang on, wasn't this in the strengths above? Yes, it was, but can also be a weakness. Having stared at a blank page trying to make a Risus character, this is quite real for me. Luckily I have developed a shorthand for character creation that suits me perfectly, essentially relying on 8 archetypes or classes, but until then I wasn't comfortable making something truly freeform.
So there are my thoughts on Freeform Universal, and my it suits me in particular for solo games.
