How I Solo - Emergent Narrative Pt 1
Everything starts with character generation
It seems more and more people want to play solo.
I mean, as an avid solo player, I understand. Not only is solo play fun, but it’s convenient. You don’t need to work around a bunch of schedules to get a game going.
There are still so many questions about how emergent narrative works in solo games, so I thought I’d share the basic method I use. Hopefully, there’s even a nugget or two for experienced players.
My working definition of emergent narrative is “the story that arises from dice rolls and prompts.” It evolves organically by thinking creatively about your characters’ actions and reactions to the people, places, and events in the game world.
Yes...that is horribly dry and academic sounding.
So how does it work in practice?
Most solo games provide some sort of setting for context. Consider the strange town of Bastion in Into the Odd, the sword & sorcery wilds of the Kyrg in Kal Arath, or the post-apocalyptic zone of Niv Lova.
Character creation begins to build an identity for the PCs. It forces you to answer the questions, “Who am I and why am I here?” Fortunately, many of the games provide an origin story table and possibly even a purpose or quest.
So when I played Kal Arath as the barbarian Vergus, I knew from the start that slavers had burned down his village. Bloody revenge was his goal. Very, very Conan-like.
You can read my actual play of that campaign here.
With that simple origin and purpose, I knew two more things about the Kyrg. Somewhere there was a destroyed village, and somewhere else was the headquarters of the slavers.
I made up the name Torga on the map and stared him in the ruins.
He’d been out on a hunt during the attack, surviving out of sheer luck. But did anyone else survive? What was left of the village? Did the slave raiders leave tracks? Was there anything useful still left there?
*Boom*
A story is already emerging.
Kal Arath is classless, and your identity comes through backstory, skill choice, and gear. I chose multiple attacks as his skill and armed him with a spear. This further fleshed out Vergus’ backstory.
He was a warrior, not a mystic or rogue…and he was hella mad. What do spear-wielding barbarians do when someone slaughters their tribe? They go after them.
A simple Yes/No oracle will help you flesh out the initial setting even more. With a few dice rolls, I found out:
The slavers’ tracks led west.
Evidence suggests that not everyone died in the attack.
They’d looted everything except for a few days’ rations.
All I did was build a character, and the world already had two factions (the Torga tribe and the slavers), conflict, and a direction.
So, Vergus’ quest for retribution began. He headed west with what little he had on his person. The story narrative emerged, and I was excited to see where it would go.
But what if Castle Grief hadn’t put an origin table in there?
Well, I would have just made one up. Vergus had to come from somewhere.
Where was that? What was his role in the tribe? Was he married? Have kids? Did he still live in the village? If not, why? Could he have been ostracized? If so, for what? Etc.
If I’d chosen to make two characters who would adventure together, they could have both been from the same tribe, reinforcing the storyline. If the other character wasn’t a Torga villager, then I’d need to develop their backstory also, and create a plausible reason for them to be together.
This would have added depth to the story and new locations in the game world.
Narratives emerge almost instantly when you generate characters in an open sandbox world. If you decide to play a solo dungeon crawl or one-shot, you won’t even need to do this much work.
For all of you would-be soloists out there. Just start playing. It’s going to feel strange if you’re coming from an exclusively group setting. But you’ll get the hang of it quickly.
As I continue this series, I go through how I use each encounter to drive and expand the storyline.
P.S. Everyone plays solo games differently. There is no “correct” way to play. As long as you’re having fun, you’re doing it right.
This was incredibly helpful to read. One of my favorite things about solo role play is creating characters and finding the reasons for that character to exist. This often leads to world development , more characters, pantheons; the list is endless!
Thanks for sharing how you make use of character to start and flesh out a story.
Excellent write up about creating a character. I have a barbarian in my Guild, but he's out of Discworld, so I took a short cut. But you've inspired me to give all of my characters more depth. Thanks!