Solo Rpg Players: How often do you engage randomness for story needs?

[Dreamer]

It seems to me that for one to engage in solo roleplaying some sort of random input is needed to direct one's imagination. Without it, the exercise becomes plain creative writing, or storytelling.

Still, engaging a randomizer results in a break in the flow of imagination as you interpret the results. The break in the flow might be short, but it is there. I've found that trying to keep a cohesive feeling to the story sometimes means that the breaks are longer as I try to make sense of some random result in context of what has happened in the story prior to that.

What is your sweet spot in terms of percentages? Do you have any rules of thumb as to when to call upon Randomness?

[nanenj]

I should track it statistically sometime, I've got the tools to do so. Generally, I only engage the randomizer when there's an actual chance of something being different than expected. For solo-play, this means when I can hit a decent stride or two sometimes between engaging the randomization. A lot of things are still left up to the Yes/No mechanic of mythic, but, I don't need to ask it what my character should or shouldn't do. Like if I'm playing a dungeon crawl-esque game, and my character has just returned from the dungeon to the town, I may ask 'Has anything interesting happened in town while i was gone?' as a 50/50 question. If the answer's yes, i'll go ahead and roll a random event and try to interpret it. If not, I'll probably write a bit of story about how I sell some of the loot I acquired and resupply for my next trip down into the depths of the hole I just crawled out of. It's really on a whim and depends on how interested I am in exploring that section. I may even cheat, sorta.

Since this is my story and my game, let's say I don't really feel like writing all that out right now, so I do as above and gloss it over for the time being and go back to my dungeon crawling, but, a bit later I'm feeling a bit run down on the delving so I decide to go back and elaborate a bit on what's happened in that scene I glossed over. It provides some interesting creative limits cause I already forced a certain result, but i can still play within those constraints and get some more story out.

I apologize for rambling slightly off-topic, as I realise the question isn't so much about how you play... I think I engage the randomizer for story needs only when there's a chance for something interesting to happen that may not be the first thing on my mind or when I feel my current train of thought/story might be boring.

[nialios]

I think I really use it all the time.

Sometimes it's a bit much and I'm not too happy with the outcome,
but apparently I feel better with using it maybe once too often than
maybe a little less.

I got the impression that game play does get more fast paced and
maybe more "organical" if you like.

(Dunno)

[Dreamer]

Thanks folks! I appreciate the answers!

[MaxHeadroom]

Thanks folks! I appreciate the answers!

I also have this problem and I've created a simple method to put randomness in imagination. For ex. roll a D6: 1-3 Random positive event, 4-6 Random negative event. This roll doesn't mean that the event must happen. There's still the yes/no phase to do. It means that, if you want to make a question, you must make it positive or negative depending on the result of the D6 roll. Obviously logic and interpretation do their part. But WHEN make the question? That's the real dilemma. I think that this is a problem solvable only employing the player's discretion.

[Valdus]

I had an idea for a story a few days ago. I had no idea how to get it out of my head. I had a revelation but still could not grasp the angle. WHAM RPGsolo did it for me. I hit start and got.

"The setting is inspiring secret entrance involving above average spear and cold palace. Your quest is to defend the haunted docks. Trying to stop you is the hired thugs skilled in wilderness survival. You are currently at the well-traveled bathhouse."

There was the beginning, so yeah, I use it a lot. And this is a thanks for such a wondrous thing indeed- Ill be up all night.

[Valdus]

I confess rpgsolo.com has become my indispensable companion in my story-telling. Half the time I do not know if I am playing or writing the adventure. It is a treasure of ideas and inspirations. Ideas turn into solo-dungeon crawls that become story lines. I will say this, if I ever publish this site will be in the Acknowledgements- thanks so much!

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What is your sweet spot in terms of percentages? Do you have any rules of thumb as to when to call upon Randomness?

But to answer your question. I use it about as much as a normal RPG player would use a DM

[Farvus]

I noticed in some play reports that many people ask hundreds of questions for every single detail of the scene. For me personally that might be a little too much for two reasons. I like to stretch my imagination a bit when I'm figuring out less important things. The other reason would be beacause I want to let the story flow a little more instead of keeping it stuck. In fact I remember keeping the limit of questions and then proceeding to the next scenes mentioned somewhere in Mythic rules (which is a reasonable thing).

[Psyga315]

Sometimes I find it helpful to get a curve ball, especially if said curve ball actually helps line up the story. For example, an adventurer talks to a guide and then the random result reads something like... MYTHIC says Betrayal. Then it lines up to "The Guide is guiding us to an ambush".