What Seem To Be Needed

Over the last few weeks I have been trying to take stock of questions posed to the Reddit community and one in particular is "What do I need to learn solo roleplaying?" There are  a few different ways to answer this question, but the most common one points towards the Mythic GM Emulator.  The Mythic GME is (in my humble opinion) the gold standard for learning solo play and stands the test of time despite new content and tools coming out every year. 

This option does seem to pose two issues to new players. The first is cost.  Not everyone wants to spend $15 on a book they may not enjoy or use. I can understand that, but always try and explain that Mythic probably should be marked up by at least 100% given the wealth of information contained in its pages. The second issue is length. This is much more understandable. Any reference document over 50 pages can seem daunting to players. I believe most solo players are also perma-GM's, so reading a 200+ page book is just another Tuesday evening for them, but to the average player this can feel like quite a hurdle. Add onto that another rulebook to read to learn a system and you have a college level reading schedule ahead of you.

But why am I blathering on about all this? I am working on outlining a product that will assist players who want to jump into the solo play arena. I am going to try and set a page count (sub 50) and make it available for free. This is in addition to everything else, but I am hoping to have it release sometime this year. 

The current idea is to combine solo play fundamentals with exercises that allow readers to practice and practically learn the rules. Also, reading game manuals can be a tedious process and breaking up the monotony with hands-on lessons could be interesting. I believe using a variant of my Key-Lock style of adventure could be very helpful in this matter.

We will see how it goes, as not every idea I have had is a good one.

See you in a week for the April issue's release!

The Pipeline

Current status of projects being worked on.

April Issue - Complete.

May Issue - Wrapping interest articles, proofing document, and playtesting Key-Lock Scenarios

Tea Leaves and Moonlit Schemes - Stuck in playtesting and a revolving series of re-edits.

Untitled One Page Space RPG - Testing mechanics and gameplay loop

Solo Play Handbook - Vision and idea stage

Mausritter Dungeon crawl - On hold