Advice and ideas for my solo game - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Advice and ideas for my solo game

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
causa
Nov 21, 2011 15:03:07 Hey everyone,

I want to thank you in advance for taking the time to try and aid my campaign. After reading Oakspar's "DMing with my girlfriend" thread a few times, and referencing it often, I am finally about to start my own solo game with my girlfriend.

I have a custom continent with a few different nations that I play all of my campaigns in, and it sort of gets populated through the campaigns.

My girlfriend wants to play a vigilante of justice type of character, sort of like Orwell, sort of like Batman.

That is to say...she's sort of clandestine...hide in plain sight as opposed to sneaking around in the shadows,

but also sort of a cat burglar type when it comes to getting evidence or catching people in the act.

Her character is a half elf rogue, level 1. She has all of her character built but the skillpoints and the gear.

This is going to be less stat-crunching and more of a story game, so I am going to put more work into developing enemies and working out interesting and risky options for her to delve deeper into corruption and out the badguys, etc etc.

There will be combat...defeating hired goons and having other assassin types after her, etc etc, but before that it will be her learning of evil and unveiling it.

So,

Here are some loose, general ideas that I have sort of pegged into place, but they aren't ordered and they aren't fleshed out yet.

1) Backstory (intro session?) : Something needs to propel a character to become a vigilante hero. There is too much risk and too much cost to bother if you aren't doing it for a personal cause.

I am thinking that her family might have been connected to one of the corrupt elements, or was opposing them, and ended up getting kidnapped/ held ransom/ killed outright.

She would need training to be a rogue or train herself, but that seems less likely

2) Target : Who is she after? I was thinking like an organized crime ring, possibly linked to a political figure, or a religion that has their own version of secret police/ religion prisoners, etc. It would include people who oppose them openly on religious points, or who halt their economy conquest of the region.

3) who does she fight? A crime ring could have goons, hired thugs, even outside mercenaries. A religion could have their own guards / knightly institutions. Bosses could include zealot assassins like an Avenger, or a Paladin sent to help settle unrest in the city.

4) How do you implement it? I want to hook her on the first session, but I really don't want to do the whole "prequel" angle and cover the rest in the past.

I was thinking of starting with the tragedy, and leave her wanting to start avenging her family, and from there have her start her training, etc etc.

#2
TheForgottenCommand
Nov 21, 2011 20:02:16
Hey,

First things first, it seems as if you have chosen the direction you want to go and she knows what she wants to do, so that's good. That can be the most taxing part of campaign building sometimes.

For the backstory, you could work a assassin's creed style opening. A rather normal day, not missing action but not lethal, that allows her to connect with her family and gives her more motivation. Then when they are butchered in front of her, it has more impact. The first session should end with this climax, and the second session could then begin with the five years later opening. This skips the often booring and time consuming steps of training, investigating, and gives you leeway into adding npcs into the story.

Who is she after? Try combining the two you mentioned. She believes she is after a rather powerful/secretive assassin guild that has there hands in politics only as a cover and cares nothing for thier politcal employers when they have outlived their usefulness. After killing/infiltrating deep enough into the guild she learns that the guild is the right arm and hand of a cult dedicated to Zehir or something similar. Or the group is connected to the ambitious duke who plans to throw the region into chaos. Her family was originaly vassals for him, and he destroyed them for being more loyal to the law than power. Sounds full of irony.

Hope this helps
#3
SwampDog
Nov 22, 2011 13:08:14

1) Backstory (intro session?) : Something needs to propel a character to become a vigilante hero. There is too much risk and too much cost to bother if you aren't doing it for a personal cause.

I am thinking that her family might have been connected to one of the corrupt elements, or was opposing them, and ended up getting kidnapped/ held ransom/ killed outright.

She would need training to be a rogue or train herself, but that seems less likely

2) Target : Who is she after? I was thinking like an organized crime ring, possibly linked to a political figure, or a religion that has their own version of secret police/ religion prisoners, etc. It would include people who oppose them openly on religious points, or who halt their economy conquest of the region.

3) who does she fight? A crime ring could have goons, hired thugs, even outside mercenaries. A religion could have their own guards / knightly institutions. Bosses could include zealot assassins like an Avenger, or a Paladin sent to help settle unrest in the city.

4) How do you implement it? I want to hook her on the first session, but I really don't want to do the whole "prequel" angle and cover the rest in the past.

I was thinking of starting with the tragedy, and leave her wanting to start avenging her family, and from there have her start her training, etc etc.

First off, I think you're off on the right track as this is definitely a character well-suited to a solo campaign.

1. The backstory can be almost anything.   My advice is for you to write as little of it as possible.   Give her guildlines, particularly about creating many possible story hooks for you.   OK, so she has a bad guy from her past she wants revenge on.   Any lesser bad guys, annoyances?   How about past friends, lovers, relatives, etc.    Besides revenge, what motivates her character?   What did she do before she became obsessed?   Hobbies, jobs, likes/dislikes, etc.    What kind of place did she grow up in?   Rural, urban, forest, etc.    What kind of political structure does the world have?    Without getting silly about it, more is more.    The more ideas she mentions that you can take and run with, the better.

2.   Whoever she's after, it should take a loooooong time to get there.   She'll have to deal with clues, red herrings, sidetracks, etc.   Just because she has a specific goal in line, the path there should wander quite a bit.

3.   Have the BBG (big bad guy) only mentioned at first, and then only briefly.   And when he is mentioned, it should be with some reverence or respect or vile, etc. "Oh, you don't want to mess with so-so, he'll cut out your heart."    And don't just have people say it, give it some weight from time to time by showing evidence of his ruthlessness. Have lots of lesser goons and mini-bosses for her to go through first. And I don't just mean in a combat sense, but in a work her way through the network kind of way.   Some missions could involve sneaking in and sneaking past, but some could be undercover as well.   You could get a lot of mileage out of her roleplaying an undercover newly recruited thug, trying to ferret out information without giving away her cover.

4.   I use this approach with my players:   I come up with a plot that's at least tier-length, a plot that's independent of the party members even exisiting. I break this down in a short paragraph outlining it, and chop it up into 'chapters' of one sentence at the most.   Add some locations, key NPCs, etc.   Then, I get backstories from each of my players and I take 5 or 6 ideas from each as possible story hooks, independent of my plot.   So, now I have a plot and few dozen story ideas. These two things are completely unlinked to each other, and I find ways to link them.   I need a bad guy in chapter 3? Well it just so happens that player x has a bad guy from his past who just might be doing this.   Then, and this is key, try to make their stories continue or resolve as necessary, and strive to make these plots at least as important as your main plot.    In this way, your players are helping you to write the story they play, and it really helps to keep them engaged in what's going on.
     It sounds like you've got a lot of this covered, but I recommend you add in mini-quests to the plot that do not advance the main plot.   It's like a TV series, where they set up some dilemma for the main characters from the first episode.   Not every episode furthers that progress, just many of them.   This adds pacing and variety to your campaign.

Anyway, hope that helps.   Good luck.
#4
causa
Nov 26, 2011 14:50:57 Hello again, all.

I hope that everyone based here in the U.S had a nice Thanksgiving.

I just got back from family festivities and can post about my first session in this solo game.

I decided to dive in one night that we were both free. Time gets scarce as the holidays approach and I wanted to get a start on this, sort of get over the initial momentum.

So soon after the last post in this thread, I had things fleshed out enough to get a roll on them. This is about my...20th campaign or so as the DM, however most of them disintigrate pretty rapidly...usually by level 3.

So I decided to make a thread sort of drawing on ideas from the forum to keep new ideas rolling in and keep the challenges fresh and memorable.

So, Session 1:

The game started with me showing her the estate her family had, and sort of going through a list of vignettes, highlighting different moments in her character's backstory, and assigning her skillpoints as each scene ended...learning history lessons, attending state banquets and parties, and stuff like that.

She would play her character in these moments and accomplish the challenges, earning points in the correct skill, etc.

That served as a bonding time/ introduction to her parents and the servants of the household, and consumed some of her starting skill points.

Then flash to the present, she was attending a festival and playing with other kids...I had a game of hide and seek using hide/ms vs listen/spot, and an archery competition. (Thanks NWN2) She won Hide and Seek and a local farmer's son named Sol won the archery competition.

Their party was made up of

Tessa Arroway: My GF's PC. The main character.
Walerin Arroway: Tessa's Dad. Knight of the Frozen Thistle, self-made vassal of the Duke, Count.
Valerisse Arroway: High Elf from Melgorim (a neighboring nation), 3rd daughter of her (noble) house
Leovan: Hunter/Groundskeeper of the manor. Servant of her father. (Rogue)
Cameron: Steward of Valerisse, travelled with her to their manor, now Steward of the family. (Bard)

Then, on the way home, their carriage was attacked by two well-armed men in black. They exploded the carriage (no spellcraft training) and split it in half, then began to stab the family from horseback with spears.

there was 50/50 odds that either her dad, or Cameron would be killed first.

Tessa stood up and began yelling at the two attackers, asking them who they are, and who they are messing with, etc.

The 2nd rider begans to load a crossbow, and walk his horse over towards the back half of the wreckage (Tessa and her mom)

The Dad was a Knight, so he would have been a good fighter to live, however he was killed first. He was stabbed through the chest with a spear in the initial confusion.

However Cameron was able to cast Obscuring Mist (since he survived a round) and help conceal Tessa.

Tessa began to crawl away from the wreckage, and was able to hide at the side of the road, where Leovan helped to cover her and hide.

Cameron cast Still Image and was able to make a duplicate of Tessa, looking dead.   However he was stabbed next, and as he died, the image dissolved.

Finally when they were right on top of Leovan, he popped up and attacked the rider, and Tessa took off running.

Leovan was dispatched in 2 rounds, and Tessa, after a number of hide and move silently checks, was able to lose the two riders. They started getting further and further from her, and I eventually just let her get away.

She followed a river to an inn, and that is where we will pick up next.
#5
causa
Dec 10, 2011 19:14:53

For the backstory, you could work a assassin's creed style opening. A rather normal day, not missing action but not lethal, that allows her to connect with her family and gives her more motivation. Then when they are butchered in front of her, it has more impact. The first session should end with this climax...

Thanks for the advice!
This is mostly what I did. I went through her early years with her family, assigning some of her skillpoints along the way....

(I should comment now that she is asking for more structure and what would normally be called railroading...she gets nervous when the story is too open ended. She asked for more of a "choose your own adventure book" feel.)

So I assigned a good blend of her starting skill points, and let her play through a festival in her family's honor, before they were killed off. Thanks for the advice on this!

::::::::::SESSION TWO:::::::::::::::::::::

Between sessions, I asked the player what Tessa would be doing for money now that her family was dead and she was being hunted.

She looked over the character sheet and decided she would be dancing in a tavern and lightening pockets if need be.

So we started the session with her working in a tavern...the Midnight Candle. I set up a mini game that used the Perform skill like a Diplomacy check over a series of rounds that earned her tips. She has to bring in a certain amount of silver per day to pay the room and board, so that went on for a bit, and she really enjoyed emoting the dice rolls with different dance moves, and trying to be creative, etc.

Then, one of the patrons gets angry at her because she was playing two tables for tips in sort of a bidding war, and one side got angry. (The side that got the lower perform roll)

She went through her first couple of combat rounds, and I didn't roll for initiative...the combat broke out basically via Tessa grabbing a knife and giving him a piece of her mind. He lunges at her and tries to wrestle away the knife, which was basically a grapple attack from him.

I think this is a good way to handle combat in this particular campaign...where combat is a side effect of dialogue, and words from one can lead to blows from the other.

Anyways, after a few rounds of combat, and almost getting stabbed with her own knife, a "mysterious figure" slipped in the doorway and saved her from the attacker/ abducted her.

Now session 3 will reveal her new "home", who her hooded benefactor is, and start her training as a level 1 Rogue.

Any really interesting ideas for a "training session?"

I am thinking of a toughening session, since she chose Toughness as her level 1 feat, and then sneaking, lockpicking, etc etc.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 causa Nov 21, 2011 15:03:07	Hey everyone, I want to thank you in advance for taking the time to try and aid my campaign. After reading Oakspar's "DMing with my girlfriend" thread a few times, and referencing it often, I am finally about to start my own solo game with my girlfriend. I have a custom continent with a few different nations that I play all of my campaigns in, and it sort of gets populated through the campaigns. My girlfriend wants to play a vigilante of justice type of character, sort of like Orwell, sort of like Batman. That is to say...she's sort of clandestine...hide in plain sight as opposed to sneaking around in the shadows, but also sort of a cat burglar type when it comes to getting evidence or catching people in the act. Her character is a half elf rogue, level 1. She has all of her character built but the skillpoints and the gear. This is going to be less stat-crunching and more of a story game, so I am going to put more work into developing enemies and working out interesting and risky options for her to delve deeper into corruption and out the badguys, etc etc. There will be combat...defeating hired goons and having other assassin types after her, etc etc, but before that it will be her learning of evil and unveiling it. So, Here are some loose, general ideas that I have sort of pegged into place, but they aren't ordered and they aren't fleshed out yet. 1) Backstory (intro session?) : Something needs to propel a character to become a vigilante hero. There is too much risk and too much cost to bother if you aren't doing it for a personal cause. I am thinking that her family might have been connected to one of the corrupt elements, or was opposing them, and ended up getting kidnapped/ held ransom/ killed outright. She would need training to be a rogue or train herself, but that seems less likely 2) Target : Who is she after? I was thinking like an organized crime ring, possibly linked to a political figure, or a religion that has their own version of secret police/ religion prisoners, etc. It would include people who oppose them openly on religious points, or who halt their economy conquest of the region. 3) who does she fight? A crime ring could have goons, hired thugs, even outside mercenaries. A religion could have their own guards / knightly institutions. Bosses could include zealot assassins like an Avenger, or a Paladin sent to help settle unrest in the city. 4) How do you implement it? I want to hook her on the first session, but I really don't want to do the whole "prequel" angle and cover the rest in the past. I was thinking of starting with the tragedy, and leave her wanting to start avenging her family, and from there have her start her training, etc etc.
#2 TheForgottenCommand Nov 21, 2011 20:02:16	Hey, First things first, it seems as if you have chosen the direction you want to go and she knows what she wants to do, so that's good. That can be the most taxing part of campaign building sometimes. For the backstory, you could work a assassin's creed style opening. A rather normal day, not missing action but not lethal, that allows her to connect with her family and gives her more motivation. Then when they are butchered in front of her, it has more impact. The first session should end with this climax, and the second session could then begin with the five years later opening. This skips the often booring and time consuming steps of training, investigating, and gives you leeway into adding npcs into the story. Who is she after? Try combining the two you mentioned. She believes she is after a rather powerful/secretive assassin guild that has there hands in politics only as a cover and cares nothing for thier politcal employers when they have outlived their usefulness. After killing/infiltrating deep enough into the guild she learns that the guild is the right arm and hand of a cult dedicated to Zehir or something similar. Or the group is connected to the ambitious duke who plans to throw the region into chaos. Her family was originaly vassals for him, and he destroyed them for being more loyal to the law than power. Sounds full of irony. Hope this helps
#3 SwampDog Nov 22, 2011 13:08:14	1) Backstory (intro session?) : Something needs to propel a character to become a vigilante hero. There is too much risk and too much cost to bother if you aren't doing it for a personal cause. I am thinking that her family might have been connected to one of the corrupt elements, or was opposing them, and ended up getting kidnapped/ held ransom/ killed outright. She would need training to be a rogue or train herself, but that seems less likely 2) Target : Who is she after? I was thinking like an organized crime ring, possibly linked to a political figure, or a religion that has their own version of secret police/ religion prisoners, etc. It would include people who oppose them openly on religious points, or who halt their economy conquest of the region. 3) who does she fight? A crime ring could have goons, hired thugs, even outside mercenaries. A religion could have their own guards / knightly institutions. Bosses could include zealot assassins like an Avenger, or a Paladin sent to help settle unrest in the city. 4) How do you implement it? I want to hook her on the first session, but I really don't want to do the whole "prequel" angle and cover the rest in the past. I was thinking of starting with the tragedy, and leave her wanting to start avenging her family, and from there have her start her training, etc etc. First off, I think you're off on the right track as this is definitely a character well-suited to a solo campaign. 1. The backstory can be almost anything. My advice is for you to write as little of it as possible. Give her guildlines, particularly about creating many possible story hooks for you. OK, so she has a bad guy from her past she wants revenge on. Any lesser bad guys, annoyances? How about past friends, lovers, relatives, etc. Besides revenge, what motivates her character? What did she do before she became obsessed? Hobbies, jobs, likes/dislikes, etc. What kind of place did she grow up in? Rural, urban, forest, etc. What kind of political structure does the world have? Without getting silly about it, more is more. The more ideas she mentions that you can take and run with, the better. 2. Whoever she's after, it should take a loooooong time to get there. She'll have to deal with clues, red herrings, sidetracks, etc. Just because she has a specific goal in line, the path there should wander quite a bit. 3. Have the BBG (big bad guy) only mentioned at first, and then only briefly. And when he is mentioned, it should be with some reverence or respect or vile, etc. "Oh, you don't want to mess with so-so, he'll cut out your heart." And don't just have people say it, give it some weight from time to time by showing evidence of his ruthlessness. Have lots of lesser goons and mini-bosses for her to go through first. And I don't just mean in a combat sense, but in a work her way through the network kind of way. Some missions could involve sneaking in and sneaking past, but some could be undercover as well. You could get a lot of mileage out of her roleplaying an undercover newly recruited thug, trying to ferret out information without giving away her cover. 4. I use this approach with my players: I come up with a plot that's at least tier-length, a plot that's independent of the party members even exisiting. I break this down in a short paragraph outlining it, and chop it up into 'chapters' of one sentence at the most. Add some locations, key NPCs, etc. Then, I get backstories from each of my players and I take 5 or 6 ideas from each as possible story hooks, independent of my plot. So, now I have a plot and few dozen story ideas. These two things are completely unlinked to each other, and I find ways to link them. I need a bad guy in chapter 3? Well it just so happens that player x has a bad guy from his past who just might be doing this. Then, and this is key, try to make their stories continue or resolve as necessary, and strive to make these plots at least as important as your main plot. In this way, your players are helping you to write the story they play, and it really helps to keep them engaged in what's going on. It sounds like you've got a lot of this covered, but I recommend you add in mini-quests to the plot that do not advance the main plot. It's like a TV series, where they set up some dilemma for the main characters from the first episode. Not every episode furthers that progress, just many of them. This adds pacing and variety to your campaign. Anyway, hope that helps. Good luck.
#4 causa Nov 26, 2011 14:50:57	Hello again, all. I hope that everyone based here in the U.S had a nice Thanksgiving. I just got back from family festivities and can post about my first session in this solo game. I decided to dive in one night that we were both free. Time gets scarce as the holidays approach and I wanted to get a start on this, sort of get over the initial momentum. So soon after the last post in this thread, I had things fleshed out enough to get a roll on them. This is about my...20th campaign or so as the DM, however most of them disintigrate pretty rapidly...usually by level 3. So I decided to make a thread sort of drawing on ideas from the forum to keep new ideas rolling in and keep the challenges fresh and memorable. So, Session 1: The game started with me showing her the estate her family had, and sort of going through a list of vignettes, highlighting different moments in her character's backstory, and assigning her skillpoints as each scene ended...learning history lessons, attending state banquets and parties, and stuff like that. She would play her character in these moments and accomplish the challenges, earning points in the correct skill, etc. That served as a bonding time/ introduction to her parents and the servants of the household, and consumed some of her starting skill points. Then flash to the present, she was attending a festival and playing with other kids...I had a game of hide and seek using hide/ms vs listen/spot, and an archery competition. (Thanks NWN2) She won Hide and Seek and a local farmer's son named Sol won the archery competition. Their party was made up of Tessa Arroway: My GF's PC. The main character. Walerin Arroway: Tessa's Dad. Knight of the Frozen Thistle, self-made vassal of the Duke, Count. Valerisse Arroway: High Elf from Melgorim (a neighboring nation), 3rd daughter of her (noble) house Leovan: Hunter/Groundskeeper of the manor. Servant of her father. (Rogue) Cameron: Steward of Valerisse, travelled with her to their manor, now Steward of the family. (Bard) Then, on the way home, their carriage was attacked by two well-armed men in black. They exploded the carriage (no spellcraft training) and split it in half, then began to stab the family from horseback with spears. there was 50/50 odds that either her dad, or Cameron would be killed first. Tessa stood up and began yelling at the two attackers, asking them who they are, and who they are messing with, etc. The 2nd rider begans to load a crossbow, and walk his horse over towards the back half of the wreckage (Tessa and her mom) The Dad was a Knight, so he would have been a good fighter to live, however he was killed first. He was stabbed through the chest with a spear in the initial confusion. However Cameron was able to cast Obscuring Mist (since he survived a round) and help conceal Tessa. Tessa began to crawl away from the wreckage, and was able to hide at the side of the road, where Leovan helped to cover her and hide. Cameron cast Still Image and was able to make a duplicate of Tessa, looking dead. However he was stabbed next, and as he died, the image dissolved. Finally when they were right on top of Leovan, he popped up and attacked the rider, and Tessa took off running. Leovan was dispatched in 2 rounds, and Tessa, after a number of hide and move silently checks, was able to lose the two riders. They started getting further and further from her, and I eventually just let her get away. She followed a river to an inn, and that is where we will pick up next.
#5 causa Dec 10, 2011 19:14:53	For the backstory, you could work a assassin's creed style opening. A rather normal day, not missing action but not lethal, that allows her to connect with her family and gives her more motivation. Then when they are butchered in front of her, it has more impact. The first session should end with this climax... Thanks for the advice! This is mostly what I did. I went through her early years with her family, assigning some of her skillpoints along the way.... (I should comment now that she is asking for more structure and what would normally be called railroading...she gets nervous when the story is too open ended. She asked for more of a "choose your own adventure book" feel.) So I assigned a good blend of her starting skill points, and let her play through a festival in her family's honor, before they were killed off. Thanks for the advice on this! ::::::::::SESSION TWO::::::::::::::::::::: Between sessions, I asked the player what Tessa would be doing for money now that her family was dead and she was being hunted. She looked over the character sheet and decided she would be dancing in a tavern and lightening pockets if need be. So we started the session with her working in a tavern...the Midnight Candle. I set up a mini game that used the Perform skill like a Diplomacy check over a series of rounds that earned her tips. She has to bring in a certain amount of silver per day to pay the room and board, so that went on for a bit, and she really enjoyed emoting the dice rolls with different dance moves, and trying to be creative, etc. Then, one of the patrons gets angry at her because she was playing two tables for tips in sort of a bidding war, and one side got angry. (The side that got the lower perform roll) She went through her first couple of combat rounds, and I didn't roll for initiative...the combat broke out basically via Tessa grabbing a knife and giving him a piece of her mind. He lunges at her and tries to wrestle away the knife, which was basically a grapple attack from him. I think this is a good way to handle combat in this particular campaign...where combat is a side effect of dialogue, and words from one can lead to blows from the other. Anyways, after a few rounds of combat, and almost getting stabbed with her own knife, a "mysterious figure" slipped in the doorway and saved her from the attacker/ abducted her. Now session 3 will reveal her new "home", who her hooded benefactor is, and start her training as a level 1 Rogue. Any really interesting ideas for a "training session?" I am thinking of a toughening session, since she chose Toughness as her level 1 feat, and then sneaking, lockpicking, etc etc.