Do It Yourself!

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 Solo RPGs.

It's a fascinating concept. We used to like books like Fighting Fantasy and the Grailquest series (the tinglerings you get in book 1 and 2 don't do anything until book 3.  Yeesh.) I mean, they were fun, you got to throw dice and go through an adventure - but it's kind of a one and done, you know?

Solo RPGs seem to be a big thing now. There's a bunch of expansions for games to play them solo, there's a bunch of games which are built from the ground up for playing solo, and ... okay.  Sure.

But for me, it's just another Fighting Fantasy / Grailquest thing. It's a nice little story wrapped in dice, and perhaps a bit more sandboxy than you'd normally get, maybe. But I have a hard time seeing it as a TTRPG.

Why?

Well. To put it bluntly, there's not much roleplaying there. You kind of go along with the script, see where the garden path takes you, and that's it.

But what if you want to hang out with a few NPCs, see what they're up to, and get into some RP with them?  Well, you're pretty much out of luck. What if you want to pursue your backstory and see where it goes?  Not really going to happen. I mean, you can make stuff up, roll a few dice, and write out the story, but it's not the same.

If you've ever seen AI Dungeon, though, it's a lot closer to what I'd call Solo RPGs. You can set up a world, put in the 'laws' for how it works, make NPCs, add some plots, critters, and rules, and then drop in a character and play.

The AI's also not half bad, meaning you can explore, get surprised, and find interesting twists.  The AI isn't perfect, but you can step in and edit bits to make the overall story more cohesive. It's close to a one on one between a GM and a player, with the AI acting as either the GM or the player (or somewhere in the middle), and you can team up with other people to go through this -- even have one person be the GM and the others take on the roles of the players if you want.

That's a lot closer, I think, to Solo RP. It actually feels like RP.  I'm not against solo RPGs, I think it's a fascinating thing, I just don't think it's accurate.

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