Overcoming Dead-Ends in Solo Games
Alright, so you are deep into your solo campaign, fighting through a mega-dungeon, landing on a new alien world, or about to solve that mystery your character has been working on for the last year, and then… Nothing.
You just can’t come up with the next step. Maybe it's an oracle prompt that has you stumped, a circumstance you aren’t sure how to solve, or maybe you are just drawing blanks.
One of the major challenges with solo games is we have nobody to naturally bounce ideas off like you would in a traditional game. So, it’s all up to you to find a way out of a narrative or mental dead end, or is it? These are several techniques I use to overcome my frequent solo dead ends.
Take a break
This is the best advice I can give, and it is a technique I use most often. If I come across a point in my solo campaign where I am just stumped, I’ll give it a try for a while but I try not to force myself. I get up, put it aside and take a walk, or finish my session for the night. The solution, I’ve found, will pop into my head at some point. Or I’ll come back to my game with a fresh mind and way of looking at it, which often helps.
Every one of my actual plays has required a break at least once per post. Sometimes I’ll need a break of a day or two for me to figure things out. Take the time you need and when you return to the game, maybe try some methods to get into the mood of solo.
 |
| Go for a walk if you get stuck. Maybe not alone through a forest though. Photo by Dmitry Schemelev on Unsplash |
Utilize a different point of view
So, you’ve gotten to the last big bad guy of the very last dungeon in your campaign and… Nothing yet again, you’ve gone blank once more. What does the big bad guy do? How will the heroes react? No worries. Take a step back, stop looking at it from the point of view of the characters you are playing, and put yourself in the shoes of the bad guy. What would he/she/they do in this situation, with a ragtag group of adventurers challenging them? Would they try to negotiate and play to your character’s greedy side? Or would they beg for his life, stalling for time until their minions show up to save them?
Looking at this from another point of view can open up possibilities and plot points that may not be apparent to you at first. Your party or adventurer steps onto a new space station and the commander of the station approaches but you just desperately can’t think what he wants. By looking at it from the commander’s point of view it may be easier to see what he wants and what kind of missions he could offer.
Flashback or Flash forward
This is borrowed a bit from Forged in the Dark games. Forged in the Dark (or FitD for short) has a mechanic where you can flash back at any point to get an item, plan for something or have a skill. Well, we can do that in solo play even if the game isn’t a FiTD one. Found a safe and don’t know what to do with it? You can think of a past event where your character talked to a safe-cracker and learned a few tips they can put into use.
It also opens up some amazing roleplay possibilities by exploring characters’ backstories and learning about where they’ve come from. Your party just came across a village that has been razed, this is a great place to visit the backstory of a character who may have gone through a similar thing as a child, thus building on the character’s story and adding something more to the current scene.
Roll some dice!
When in a pinch, pick up those dice and start rolling! You can do this in a few different ways. You can roll on an oracle table and interpret what the results mean to your current campaign. For example, your party strolls into a complete dead-end. Well, you are literally and imaginatively presented with a large and impenetrable stone wall. Instead of banging your head against the wall, find an appropriate oracle table to roll on. Ironsworn has a bunch of great ones, as do many solo, and non-solo games.
I rolled on the Ironsworn Action and Theme tables and came up with Suppress Protection. For a dead-end tunnel that may mean there is a ward or message on the wall telling adventurers that they are not safe. Or maybe it means there is a weakness in the walls the characters can exploit. If it doesn’t make sense, roll another oracle until you are inspired by something. Take the time to come up with a significant next step for the adventure.
There is a D100 table where you first state how likely something is. ‘I think it is likely this bandit has a knife hidden’. OK so if I roll a 1-70 he has a knife and a 71-100 he does not.
 |
| Love rolling dice! I roll them for fun all the time. Photo by Alperen Yazgı on Unsplash |
Ask For Help
Yes, we are playing alone but that doesn’t mean we are alone out here. Ask for help interpreting a location or an oracle prompt. You’ll be amazed at how helpful and creative people can be. There are several helpful places you can ask, including the R/Solo_Roleplaying on Reddit ,or Twitter. And ask me on Twitter. I’ll be sure to help provide some answers and I’m sure some of the other people who frequent #solorpg will be happy to help out also.
 |
| I'm sure any of your RPG friends will help you. Ask in your local discord server or when you meet up with your traditional game friends. Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash |
Get Inspired
This is part Take a Break and part Ask For Help. If you are stuck, try getting inspired as to what to do next. I’d recommend checking out Actual Plays of other solo games (check out this post for some excellent solo Actual Plays or check out my Agon Actual Play campaign) or watching, reading, or listening to fiction that is related to your game. So if you're doing a Sci-Fi space campaign, watch some Star Trek. If you're playing a low fantasy game, try watching or reading Conan.
You may find yourself quickly inspired to find a solution to your solo RPG dead-end.
Dead-ends are where many people struggle with Solo RPGs, so next time you hit a dead-end and are staring at your paper or character sheets, or computer, try one of these techniques and I’m sure you’ll be creating new and amazing plot points and adventure hooks in no time.
Good soloing out there everyone and I’d like to know what your favorite techniques for getting through dead-ends are also.
Support the Blog
Are you on Twitter? Follow me at @croakersrpg. I talk about the blog, chat with other TTRPG creators, and have interesting conversations.
All RPG links to DrivethruRPG are affiliate links and if you click through and purchase something it will cost you nothing extra and help support the blog.
Another way to support the blog is to Buy Me a Coffee. Just a dollar or two will go a far way to helping me buy more RPG books to play and review.
RPG Books I Use
These are the books I used to write this blog. These are affiliate links, if you click any links on this blog and buy something from Drive Thru RPG, I get a small cut of the price at no extra cost to you. It will help support the blog and allow me to buy new and interesting books!
- Croaker
Comments
Post a Comment