Solo Play: Journaling

At the 5:50 mark of the above video, Magehammer shares how he solo plays, and he uses a journal to record his sessions, just like an example of play. I found this really inspiring and looking closely at his notes, he does it something like this:

CK: You approach the door at the end of the hall and hear grunting noises beyond.

Balder: I ready my ax!

Ragnar: I listen at the door. (Rolls a 16+3 = 19)

The CK in the above example is the castle keeper, or the DM or referee. And he will write out the entire session in the "example of play" format, not explaining everything like a tutorial but making all the dice rolls, making decisions for characters, and playing the referee. Now, he doesn't use an oracle to solo play; he makes it all up himself based on what would make a good story, but you could also use this system with an oracle.

What I love about this system is it combined writing, journaling, and roleplay. Your decisions are set in stone. You are writing a story you can come back to later. And the game lives in this self-contained journal, and that acts as your "save game" for the adventure and the campaign. The downside is you are writing by hand; though I know typing is way faster, there are times when computers allow you to change too much, distract you from playing by offering too many other fun things to do, and do not force you to make a commitment to writing in a real, physical book.

Also, I found these very nice journals on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Journal-Lined-Hardcover-Notebook-Expandable/dp/B07L4JCG7T

They have a back pocket, perfect for holding 4x6 character cards. They also have a built-in elastic to hold the book closed, so they are a fun way to record an adventure and keep all the game materials organized. Granted, if I am playing with 4x6 character cards I will want a game that is simple and does not require pages of printouts per character, such as:

• B/X
• Savage Worlds
• Savage Pathfinder
• Castles & Crusades
• Amazing Adventures
• Star Frontiers
• B/X Gangbusters
• Gangbusters (original)
• Frontier Space
• Bare Bones Fantasy
• Covert Ops
• Cepheus Engine
• Sword of Cepheus
• ...and many others

I find myself gravitating towards the simple games as they just provide me with the same amount of enjoyment for a lot less effort and recordkeeping. I also used MS Word and made myself these awesome character card templates (for C&C), and since my printer can print on 4x6 blank index cards, I can print out dozens of character cards easily and fill them in by hand.

So all my characters can live in the journal they are adventuring in. I can start a different type of game in a new journal, like sci-fi, and have those characters live there, tucked into the back of the book.

Journaling also solves the problem of "where did we leave off?" Just bookmark your last location and read the last few entries. One of my problems with solo play is losing interest in a game and having it taper off. Not having the history you can read through drains your game of energy and impetus. Writing the history builds history and records of your game, and the more you have, the greater the reason you have to continue.

And really, there is no "right way" to do this. You can just shorthand everything when you feel like it, write long sections of dialog if that thrills you, speed things up, slow them down, handle the combat out of the book and just come back with the result, summarize things, write out every line of dialog, fast forward time, only handle the critical dice rolls, or however you want to play that makes the most sense to you and is the most comfortable.

I would recommend against games that take hours to resolve combat, lots of back and forth with no hitting, or piles of hit points where you are just journaling how four people reduce 300hp to zero - especially with repeated use of the same power turn after turn (looking at you D&D 4E).

Green flame blade!
Green flame blade!
Green flame blade!
Green flame blade!
...

Savage Worlds is one I want to try, since the game is fast-paced and cinematic, and non-wildcard characters only have one hit before they are taken out of the fight. I need to create a card template for this game and print that out.

So thanks to Magehammer for sharing this, and I hope this more organized and journaling focused style of play works for me.