A Solo Play example
Legend in the Mists includes a number of tools to support solo play, and I have noticed from comments and questions on the discord that this is a bit of a double edged sword.
On the one hand, the tools do a great job of making LitM incredibly solo friendly. On the other hand, they have introduced a lot of players to the idea of solo play and while they are a great tool for experienced players they are perhaps not the most straightforward place to start for players new to solo play.
Like many solo tools they are best used alongside other tools, however they DO provide enough to support play on their own so I thought I would provide an example of actual play to show one way it can work.
This is not the only way to make these tools work for solo play. It is not even the best way to make them work. Playing solo is a very subjective and individualized activity - the only rule is to have fun, and the only person you need to please is yourself, so the first thing you need to do is find a way to play that YOU enjoy. That said, a good way to do that is to take ideas and inspiration from the way others play and my hope is that this might help a few of you find your path.
Setting Up
The first task is to create a character (or characters).
I have found that my sweet spot is three characters, however I like to play an adventure with each to get to know them a little before joining them as a team.
So I am going to start with a single character for an introductory adventure, and to make things simple I will choose a pregen character.
How about Rags.
She is traveling the Dales performing puppet shows and telling prophetic stories. Sounds like a good candidate to find an adventure.
My next job is always to look at the characters quests as they will guide and influence pretty much everything going forwards.
- Never interrupt a good story
- My tales always come true, you just have to understand how
- I call no place my home
- the less you know about me the better
Next we need an adventure for her.
I like to set up a bit of a framework to guide play before I start, but if we use the Dales as our setting then a lot of that work has been done for us.
Rags is arriving in a new dale to ply her trade and I'll pick it randomly... Woodend.
So we are close to the Aldenwald, and the mysterious Vila that it contains.
The Plot
Next we need some kind of narrative structure so that we uncover a story of sorts rather than just a string of random encounters.
LiTM gives us two frameworks we can use, and I think the Mountain framework makes the most sense here - at least for now.
Our first adventure will take place in the lowlands (actually I would generally set at least 4 adventures in the lowlands - each characters intro adventure and the adventure in which they team up).
In the first adventure Rags will uncover and face a local danger with possible hints towards agents higher up the metaphorical slopes.
It should be noted here that you are in complete control of your adventure. You can simply make choices to enforce the kind of adventure you want to play at any stage. I don't know where I want to go with this so I am just leaving it to the dice.
There are two ways of going about this: you can create a danger upfront or you can discover it through play.
Creating it upfront has the advantage of helping to create a tighter narrative, while discovering through play has the advantage of retaining surprise.
For this adventure I am going to generate a danger upfront, and to do so I roll on the conflict oracle:
(44) A community or organization... (26) Drains, despoils, or corrupts... (54) The heroes current goal.
We start with that and take a look at Rags quests:
- Never interrupt a good story
So she might come across a "story" that is being corrupted by a community or organization and need to find a way to help it resolve the way it should.
I can imagine a number if ways this might play out.
- My tales always come true, you just have to understand how
A more nefarious option: Someone might try to manipulate or subvert her prophecy, twisting it towards their own ends.
- I call no place my home
A more wholesome option: it may simply be that she finds a place here and will need to make a choice whether to consider allowing herself to form attachments or turn her back on a place she could belong and continue her journey.
- the less you know about me the better
The intrigue option: an organization or community are looking into her for some reason and she will need to fight to maintain her privacy if she wants it.
A random roll gives me: 1. So this is a story she gets involved with and wants to see resolved.
That should be interesting. I could create some more details now, but the goal in setup is always to create enough detail to get started and give you a direction to move in. I think I have that, so we are ready for the first scene.
We will discover whose story she is going to get involved with and what their problems are through play.
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