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Really like the phrasing here: a refreshing change from the usual "yes, and...", "no, but..." oracles.  Those "buts" can really be thought-stoppers. "Valuable Failure" is much more evocative. 

Would be happy to see your ideas. 

Just noticed this platform has no DM function. You can contact me at the website, and we can continue on email. 

Don't want to drop an email here and then suffocate in a spam-bot-o-rama!

Thanks so much! 

I'm not much of a wargamer myself. 

Or at least not of the type that's deep into historical accuracy, large playing spaces, and detailed minis. I see the charm of it, but laying out all that gear would just kill my momentum. 

Which is probably why I gravitated toward something much simpler and a bit more abstract! 

Haha. Thanks!

I had originally made a version of this for last year's One Page RPG jam But I didn't finish it because there wasn't enough time to complete the paper minis I had planned. 

I looked at it again for this year's jam, and realized just using the original chess pieces would be far more flexible and portable!

Yes, that's exactly right. Character questions are included with the "state of the world" questions in principle 4. It's a process of discovery.

I did this because I found character creation acting as a barrier to starting a solo session. 

First, I'd spend a lot of time on learning how the system wanted me to do it. 

Next, assuming I got that sorted out, I'd run through all the options to create the character. But then there wouldn't be much time left to progress the session.  

Or sometimes after creating the character, I'd lose momentum to actually play the game. Character creation and running a game are such completely different activities, and the mood you get in for each are so different. So by integrating character creation into the session itself, I ended up playing more. 

Thanks so much for reviewing it! I left a comment on your blog. 

Hadn't really considered expanding it. I suppose making it any bigger would run counter to my original aim. :-)

If anything, maybe it could be further condensed.  Although the first rule tries to accomplish that. I suppose it could be played in an even more minimalist way by just asking the oracle for everything, and not figuring  success likelihood or counting failures.  

That random dungeon word generator is very evocative! 

Thanks! 

Yes, I know that feeling well: going through a few turns and then stopping to check a rule. 

Or worse, not even starting a session because I haven't mastered the system yet. And probably never will. 

Now I use RPG books and rules  as an idea-generator, or to get a sense of mood or setting, and then just use these principles. I've enjoyed myself a lot more since.

This is great and thanks for publishing it. 

It does a good job of showing that solo play doesn't require an exhaustive journaling session. I know there are those who like it that way, but for others (like me) it can feel like a self-imposed homework assignment, and it can turn into an OCD slog when the point is to have fun. Your unified and simple notation system really works in that sense. 

I also like that you can get a snapshot of numerous sessions with a quick look. With your examples, in just a couple seconds I could get a rich sense of what happened over minutes or even hours of play.

Nice work!

Thanks for asking. They come from the  Mnemonic major system,.The letters were chosen because of they resemble the shapes of numbers, or have some other memorable connection. So there is nothing that is specific to English in that sense. Other European languages should be fine. 

There would be some difficulty in using it for languages without a lot of consonants (Hawaiian and Polynesian languages). Also Arabic is missing a p and doesn't use g in a the same way as English, but this is okay because you have other b and k sounds to stand in for those.  L and R might not be as distinct in Japanese and Korean. In that case, the L/R sound could both be assigned to 4, and other sound like h or y could be assigned to 5. 

As somebody who actually listened to cassette tapes in a VW Bus that looked exactly like this, I had to download it. Nice game you've made here!

Edit: I should also mention, it's great that you've also used the cassette itself as a functional holder for cards and dice.