Forecasting the Future of SoloRPGs…What is NEXT?

Its not exactly the same, but the Dishonored tabletop rpg (not a solo game) has something akin to a "morality" mechanic in its chaos mechanic, which is designed to try and mimic the system in the videogame. Basically, you can take actions and bonuses to dice that increase "chaos", which then gives the GM a pool of "chaos dice" that let them then use their chaos dice to give bonuses to your enemies or make situations more difficult, so there is a mechanical consequence for your actions. Its a pretty interesting system and could be a basis for further development.

In my opinion, you missed something in your motivation analysis: human minds like to answer questions, spot and complete patterns, to problem-solve (which includes anticipation). And soloing provides these in abundance.

Just making notes here for possible exploration.

Can't go into detail, cos I'm busy cooking food for my dogs.

1. Fabula/Syuzhet (from the origins of literary theory… The Russian Formalists).
Fabula = the raw material of a story, the universe of the story, the random tables and story intention of the solo player.
Syuzhet = the way the story is organised, the nuts and bolts and Meccano pieces as they are arranged in the actual story, the linear a b c d e f g written down in the soloist's journal.

2. For any given fabula, there are infinite syuzhets. Many stories from the same material. Your story, my story, the truth. That kind of thinking.

3. Jacobson's communication model. The sender –> delivers a message –> to a receiver. With various other components interfering with and modifying the message. No message is sent intact.

4. The map is not the terrain. Maps are unreliable. They are mediated, interpreted representations of a particular reality at a particular time. Maps are biased in favour of the hegemony. The story you tell is different to the story I hear, because reasons.

5. Story model. Whichever model… Hero's journey, save the cat, 5 act, 3 act. Whatever. There's a combination of protagonist, antagonist, and various other types. Each of whom are trying to GET SOMETHING. Every person in a story is their own protagonist. And they each perceive the events through their own lens.

6. Artificial intelligence as a transcriber.

7. Artificial intelligence as a tool to create point of view narrative bias.

Just some thoughts on how to get a multi-pov pervasive solo system that plays with other systems.

As a computer programmer… randomnization is distinctly not a simple problem.

Gamification of waffles
This is the future of youtube

There's been an inherent problem in many solo rpgs in that most (with a few exceptions) are trying to replace the GM. I'd like to see more solo rpgs that are designed around solo play mechanics, combat, social encounters, exploration are too ambiguous because most oracle systems try to encompass too much. The best solo games I've played are ones that are small in scope, (a tavern crawl is actually very entertaining).

Re: The shared solo RPG campaign. I followed a discord for a while where we were all doing a shared solo hexcrawl. We were all using different systems, but most used some kind of osr clone like basic fantasy, and whatever solo tools we chose. The shared world had a couple aspects. One was the session reports where someone would explain what hex they had been to and what they had found. This was used to populate a shared map with different adventure sites and loot and that kind of thing. There was also in game seasonal events that would have different narrative hooks to build off of. It was called "The Pit" and I think it had started in the Basic Fantasy retro clone community. Last time I looked at it it had died though.

Re: Playing Several Characters. It's something (improv) actors, wtiters and comedians have been doing forever. It's a matter of practice. Having some kind of solo mechanic to support this would be nice.

I feel even worse, when BG3 tries to convince me all is possible and simultaneously railroads me all day.

Very thought provoking, I am with you on the human side of the table, and I do see these activities as having a genuine spiritual potential for the growth of awareness, etc. So let's just ignore the negative reactions and focus on the positive potential, taking it as far as it can go.

For idea 2, I was thinking about my next solo game (I’m only on my first) would be some kinda brutal delve in the style of old dungeon crawlers or etrian mystery dungeon. when you lose, the characters are stuck in that floor until your backup squad comes. Or maybe one where the fallen characters become enemies.

I also like the centralized setting idea. I feel like it can work.

This one’s a banger.

I love a flowchart. I’ve been working on a SoloRPG Scene Loop – a flowchart that steps the player through a scene. Turns out it’s quite hard.

Thanks for all of your content! Great stuff.

I feel like my ideal "future" solo RPG experience would combine a large, designed evocative open world setting like Ultraviolet Grasslands with an integrated roguelike engine such as 2D6 or D100 Dungeon with a bit of designed strategic combat like Gloomhaven. I get it that UVG (not a solo game) is a VERY different thing than the solo dungeon crawlers named, but I feel like there is potential for a hybrid that would make for a grand solo world or worlds to explore. Obviously both D100 and 2D6 have random world generator systems to go with the dungeon dive cores, but I'm not certain those random world generators quite fit my personal taste. I need more playtime with them to confirm one way or the other, but fully random tabled worlds might lack some elements of designer intent that DO exist in a campaign world/setting like UVG. All that said, both Martin Knight or Toby Lancaster have created amazing systems and designs. That they are individual people creating these games and systems is mind-blowing to me. I enjoy their games very much as-is, so all this is just my own "what if" wish list kind of thing, no shade on these existing games.

In terms of random table innovations, one thing I haven't yet seen is the implementation of a random seed, where two different players using the same seed for their randomization of tables, etc. could have a similar (semi) randomly generated experience. For instance, if I play a solo game using a seed of 4354 and it's a particularly AWESOME experience, I can tell a friend or post online for other players to try the same seed to get their own version of that amazing experience. Just an idea taken from procedural content generation on computers.

Prognosticate? You're like Phil the Groundhog for solo RPGs! It's the same things your whole life. "Clean up your room.", "Stand up straight.", "Pick up your feet.", "Take it like a man.", "Be nice to your sister.", "Don't mix GME and Tarot decks, ever.". Oh yeah, "Don't drive on the railroad track."

For the integration between Solo and Group play, I think Star Trek Adventures Captain's Log does it well. While they do not explicitly talk about it in the game book, there are a lot of resources that help with.

FYI the actual translation of coffin/cake is "happy birthday to the ground"

For the gamifying life things, I'm not a huge proponent of it, because I think having the little rewards and tracking too many aspects of our lives can kind of end up screwing us up. Dunolingo gets people into language learning, but it also holds them back in some ways, ties them to the system beyond when they are really useful for that sort of learning. But part of that is it wants to keep its little owl claws in people, because presumably that what it profits from.

That said I'm not necessarily against it entirely, and some interesting things to look at in terms of lifestyle games;
Zombies, Run!, Pokemon go etc, for getting outside, or spicing up someone jog, or walk. It's a good habit to have, but not all scenery remains that interesting, and some people do find it a bit boring in the long run (hehehe).
Spirit city: lofi sessions, (on PC, Steam), which is sort of a background toy, you can have on while you do other things, that adds to the ambiance without being too distracting (I mean hopefully I don't have it myself).
PLAYNE: The meditation game, it has some advice and tools to help people get into meditation, and encourages use by having a bit of an evolving screensaver, the scenery grows with repeated use, and there's a fox to ask questions.
On the not video game side of things, I think the goodreads challenges gets into that, there are community bingo reading challenges, some really complicated ones involving magic schools.
I don't know much about it, but there's a bujo rpg, I don't get into productivity stuff, but I'm sure there's some wild stuff over in that space.

As far as health and stuff goes, that already happened with a bunch of Wii games, the most controversial one was Wii fit. For the Switch there's Ringfit Adventure which I think is an improved iteration on what they were doing before.
There is a pokemon sleeping app, that gamifies sleep quality.

It's out there, in electronic and pen and paper form.

This is a very interesting, philosophical debate that for the most part has a genuine, from my point of view anyway, basis in Stoicism.

Great video as always! I started to write a really self-indulgent comment about my experiences with solo rpgs, but realized that really I just wanted to ask people who are struggling to get into playing solo what they think would help them. Is there a specific type of tutorial that would be of use? Do you need more concrete examples of where to start? Is it the bit between starting and really getting going that's the problem? Do you want to write less? More? The same amount, but somehow in a different way? Between play sessions I've been thinking a lot about solo RPGing lately, and feel like I've had a few interesting revelations, but want to understand why other people who seem really interested sometimes have trouble getting into it.

Lol oh my god, this video showed up just as I was having a panic attack 😅.. ❤thank you

I grew up with roguelikes as a kid. Like nethack, rogue, Larn, and Angband.

I've noticed the terms "roguelike" and "roguelite" being used interchangeably.

Bugs we that the terms have been so twisted.

Not saying this as a "gate keeper". But, I feel the true nature has been lost these days.

Hey I tried emailing your friend about their game and the address bounced back