Tuesday TTRPG Talk.

A weekly(ish) round up of what’s going on with the blog and anything else TTRPG related that caught my attention. I have not had an great deal of time for my hobby over the last couple of weeks. Without going into too much detail I am about to start some potentially difficult hospital treatment which…

the solo gamer

April 23, 2024

A weekly(ish) round up of what’s going on with the blog and anything else TTRPG related that caught my attention.

I have not had an great deal of time for my hobby over the last couple of weeks. Without going into too much detail I am about to start some potentially difficult hospital treatment which may knock me about a bit. This will impact my miniature painting business so I have been working hard to get the last few commissions completed and out to customers. I have almost managed to clear the decks, just one fairly large 10mm Ancient British commission left to complete. This though has resulted in both gaming and the blog being ignored.

All this has made me re-evaluate what is important to me. Its time to bring the commission service to an end. I can still paint up a few minis and sell them on that well known online auction site, I also want to try and develop the gaming side of things, I already sell a few poly dice sets and dice bags and I think it would be really fun to expand that some how (your suggestions are very welcome). That brings me to the blog. I always had plans to do review, posts on world building, city building as well as actual plays. I just never found the time to develop the blog the way I wanted. Now could be that time. Again I would welcome your suggestions dear readers.

Once I start my hospital treatment I will have a better understanding of what I can and cannot physically do but I know that I will still be able to read, write, type and roll dice, so I plan to put solo gaming first and foremost, well second after recovering from my illness.

Valraven: the chronicles of blood and iron quick start.

This popped up in an email from Drivethru RPG. I will admit it was the cover artwork that initially got my attention. I then started thinking, as a solo gamer do I need anything more than the quick start guide to run a small campaign. Then I thought, can you run a solo game for free. I decided to download Valraven with a view to answering those questions.

I have had a very quick read through of the Valraven quick start pdf and it sounds interesting, all the rules are there to get your game started, there are 5 pre gen characters, a decent sized introductory scenario and enough rules to get the game up and running. Its not the full game, you are missing seasons, interludes and XP rules but for a one off game they should not be missed.

When I get to a point with my current Tales of Argosa game where I can take a break I may use Valraven quickstart to show what you can do with a free set of rules, in the meantime I will leave you with the blurb from the game creators, The World Anvil.

Valraven: The Chronicles of Blood and Iron immerses you in a savage fantasy realm embroiled in an unending conflict, where empires clash and demonic entities vie for dominion over the continent of Valraven. This role-playing game unfolds within a grim medieval universe, echoing the intense aura of Kentaro Miura’s Berserk, and drawing inspiration from other mature fantasy series like Dragon Age and A Song of Ice and Fire.

Valraven: The Chronicles of Blood and Iron is the new project from the two-time ENNIE-nominated (Product of the Year, Best Adventure) team behind Broken Tales, Broken Tales: Lost Stories, and Dead Air: Seasons.

The campaign for Valraven: The Chronicles of Blood and Iron starts on Backerkit Crowdfunding on May 8. You’ll find all the links inside the quickstart PDF!

And that’s all for this week, thank you for reading.

2 responses to “Tuesday TTRPG Talk.”

John Merle Holes

April 24, 2024 at 12:10 am

Dear Stu:

Best wishes for a full recovery!

About solo play, reading the Old Gods Of Appalachia TRRPG rules called something significant to my attention: that the GM’s primary task is to assign difficulty levels to challenges. Because of this, solo or GM-less play can be accomplished in any setting with just this simple principle because, provided that one is objective in determining the difficulty of challenges, it will be randomly determined whether each challenge can be overcome. Oracles and other tools are really just there to prevent writer’s block, create more inspired twists, and expedite various systems.

With this in mind, any setting’s material becomes a sandbox. The richer the lore and the more depth a setting has, the less work that the player must do to keep everything in motion.

I would encourage you to focus on broadening your number of solo-played settings. This is the best way for you to encourage others to seek them out, far more than recommending a bundle or setting. Because others are doing that.

I think that the bane of what is happening currently is that many players buy content and then don’t do anything with all of those bundles and boxes (I speak from my own experience of backing 200+ projects three to four years ago). Better that you showcase adventures where you can occasionally highlight rules and their treatments which encourages us to play more rather than buy more in a supersaturated market that is doomed to produce too much content and eventually bankrupt itself when the existing player base cannot store or do more with all that they have acquired.

This is why it’s better to reach a broader audience through a broader range of solo-played content. I point you to Parts Per Million (PPM Games) for inspiration. Peter Rudin-Burgess, a founder of thar company, has explored and published solo play guides for a lot of diverse systems, and I think that has broadened his reach and his audience far more than he could have done just through game reviews.

Another option would be to compile TRRPG resources from across the Web into a one-stop shop, such as what zombiecircusgoats.com (Dubious Merit Games) had been hoping to do for an ultimate bestiary beyond their own bestiary publication, or what Headless Hydra Press has been trying to accomplish through their own online random generation tools (negating the need to look elsewhere). Otherwise, how else can one keep track of the 100 of this and 33 of that lists of creators like Philip Reed? Without an overarching index, it just becomes an endless sea of cool islands to explore!

May the chronoscapes of all of your perceived multiverses be created fully for future dreamers to experience,
John

Reply
1. the solo gamer
  
  April 24, 2024 at 10:22 am
  
  Thanks John, health wise we are just keeping our fingers crossed everything goes well.
  I find Mr Rudin=Burgess a real inspiration, his solo playing tips on you tube are always interesting, short but worth watching and his solo guides are well thought out and really useful.
  Although I want to concentrate most of my time on the games I enjoy (Tales of Argosa, Beyond the Wall, Lowlife 2090) it would certainly be worth finding the time to solo short scenarios using some of the other games I have and never played, fitting the in and around longer campaigns I am playing.
  My Tuesday TTRPG Talk was really just something I thought would force me to write a post very quickly on the blog, My solo AP post take me ages to do but I do enjoy writing them.
  A lot for me to think about but don’t be surprised to see a few AP’s using some smaller indy RPG’s.
  
  Reply