Ideas for new Solo Scenarios...

[JLV]

I know that a lot of you are fond of the solo "microquest" kind of adventure, and while Death Test, Death Test 2 and all of the various Dark City Games adventures may scratch this particular itch, things like Grailquest still prove to me that there is an appetite for new ones, especially if they are radically different from the existing ones in some way or another.

To that end, Jim Kane and I were discussing what kinds of ideas might be interesting to us (you didn't think you were going to get out of this without taking some of blame, did you, Jim?), and we decided that this might be a valuable topic for the group to discuss as we watch the Kickstarter numbers roll ever upward.

Ground rules:

There's no such thing as a bad idea.

Whatever we all come up with is free for anyone to take and use -- Steve, Guy, or any one of you, if you think you can do it justice and make a Microquest out of it.

So, I'll lead off with a brief description of something that Jim and I came up with in our discussion:

A "Spy Thriller." We feel this would be nearly perfect for the solo genre -- a single daring spy a la James Bond, who can pick up a couple of "sidekick" characters along the way (the clever rogue, the "femme fatale," the innocent who needs protecting, etc.). It would be set on Cidri, and more or less medieval in concept (swords and magic instead of guns and atom bombs).

A variant on this theme that might work very well for a solitaire game would be the "super sleuth" a la Sherlock Holmes, perhaps modeled on the Brother Cadwael mysteries.

In either case, the protagonist would move through the adventure picking up clues, rescuing allies, fighting villains, and eventually solving the mystery/stealing the secret/disrupting the evil villain's plan in some highly satisfying (and cinematic, I presume) way at the climax of the adventure. As a potential bonus for such an adventure, it could also be used as a vehicle to introduce some (but not a ton, we trust) of new rules to the game -- for say, underwater or aerial combat and movement as an example, if it were germane to how the adventure played out...

So what do you all think? A good adventure concept? Something you might be interested in?

What other ideas are out there?

[tomc]

A ronin (masterless samurai) wandering a feudal japan-like world with magic and mythical beasts. Oni (Japanese ogres), ninja, sorcerers, and all the samurai movie cliches you can stuff in.

[luguvalium]

These were mentioned before by someone else: an adventure for a thief, and one for a wizard. Maybe:

A solo adventure for a burglar or many a small group: You must break into a mansion to retrieve a particular item, any other items, coin, etc is yours to keep, but the mansion is protected by guards, beasts, traps and possibly the master.

A solo adventure for a wizard or small group of wizards, somewhat like death test . In order to join a prestigious wizards guild, you must run a set of challenges that the guildmaster has created.

[luguvalium]

Originally Posted by JLV

A "Spy Thriller." We feel this would be nearly perfect for the solo genre -- a single daring spy a la James Bond, who can pick up a couple of "sidekick" characters along the way (the clever rogue, the "femme fatale," the innocent who needs protecting, etc.). It would be set on Cidri, and more or less medieval in concept (swords and magic instead of guns and atom bombs).

A variant on this theme that might work very well for a solitaire game would be the "super sleuth" a la Sherlock Holmes, perhaps modeled on the Brother Cadwael mysteries.

I like this idea.

To balance all the combat oriented adventures, have it so that no combat is preferred to complete the adventure. Influencing reaction rolls become very important. So does Alertness to find the right clues.

[ColinK]

JLV, have you read the series SPQR by John Maddox Roberts?

https://www.amazon.com/SPQR-Kings-Ga...AQG/ref=sr_1_5

There is a LOT of research material in this series for mystery and adventure in the last days of the Roman Republic.

Then there are the Brother Cadfael mystery novels by Ellis Peters.

https://www.amazon.com/Morbid-Taste-...VQO/ref=sr_1_1

Fun reading, too!

[schoon]

A gumshoe, investigative scenario could be fun as well.

[pyratejohn]

These all sound fun. I've been spinning around a few ideas for Roman adventures in my head, as well as some buccaneer hijinks both at sea and ashore.

[bluekitsune13]

I've tried my hand and creating some of my own adventures. Out of all the microquests, I really liked Master of Amulets the most. I liked the fact that it was very freeform, so you could travel anywhere you wanted to. You might also have random encounters on the map too, similar to a video game. Then there were a few numbered hexes which give you a unique encounter. I wanted to run with this concept a bit.

One of the things I thought of is having a set of "triggers" that you can obtain during the game. For example, if you pick up a special item, you might obtain Trigger F. You'd keep track of each of these, and then sometimes the game would ask what triggers you have. If you had Trigger F, then you might get a clue to where the next objective is. If you didn't get it, you might have to try going somewhere else.

Doing it this way would require a lot of thought and time to make sure it all makes sense. However, I like the idea of a tabletop game being more open ended than just following numbered paragraphs.

[pyratejohn]

GURPS Conan Beyond Thunder River comes to mind... if I'm not mistaken, it had a system of keywords that acted like your "triggers." Doing X would give you a keyword, and some of the paragraphs instructed you to do certain things based on the keywords you have collected.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by ColinK

JLV, have you read the series SPQR by John Maddox Roberts?

https://www.amazon.com/SPQR-Kings-Ga...AQG/ref=sr_1_5

There is a LOT of research material in this series for mystery and adventure in the last days of the Roman Republic.

Then there are the Brother Cadfael mystery novels by Ellis Peters.

https://www.amazon.com/Morbid-Taste-...VQO/ref=sr_1_1

Fun reading, too!

Sorry for the late response -- we were told to prep for evacuation here at about 11pm last night, and then the power promptly went out! The evac order was rescinded early this morning, and the power came on about half an hour ago, so I'm just catching up...

Alas, I was completely unaware of the SPQR series -- thanks a lot, now there's something ELSE for me to buy! ;-) (Seriously, I DO thank you a lot for bringing it to my attention!) I was aware of the Brother Cadwael series, and have read some reviews, but I have yet to pick any of them up (due mostly to the fact that I don't get down to a bookstore very often), but they are on my list of things to read.

I think something like this would work pretty well in a solitaire game. Heck, I KNOW they would -- Chaosium has done several "investigative" solos for Call of Cthulhu over the years (and so have a couple of other publishers, also for CoC), and they are all excellent. The only problem I can see is that for CoC, those books are quite large; while TFT is a simpler game, I'm guessing that to do an "investigative" solo would still take a bit more space than a dungeon-bash would.

Originally Posted by pyratejohn

These all sound fun. I've been spinning around a few ideas for Roman adventures in my head, as well as some buccaneer hijinks both at sea and ashore.

Mmm. Bucaneers! I'd love me some piratical goodness. Plus, maybe some good rules for ship-to-ship fights and boarding actions -- there was a set of rules for that in one of the Spacegamers, as I recall, but Steve may not have rights to that...not sure what issue it was in.