The 7th of July is the final day of Superhero Week, an annual event that I hope brings us together with a theme of heroes.
However, with lockdowns still in force and with this Scottish blogger writing from a current infection hot spot, what if we can’t get together to play tabletop games?
Splintered Realms Publishing released this week Super Solo: A Solitaire Framework for Superhero Gaming.
The 2-page PDF is a “Pay What You Want” at DriveThruRPG with a suggested price of $1, which I paid.
The illustration free collection of rules are straightforward, released under a Creative Commons Share-Alike License and uses d6.
It tackles the particular problem with solo RPGs and superheroes – that superheroes tend to react to problems rather than, for example, proactively give themselves the mission of reaching the loot room at the bottom of a dungeon.
The solution? Don’t play as the superhero; solo-play as the conflict.
You might be taking on the role of the burning building, or the collapsing bridge, or the crashing airplane. You are the cosmic entity seeking to devour the moon (It IS made of cheese – really). You could take on the role of the government agency seeking to pressure the hero into revealing her identity to the world. The options are limitless. Okay, there’s probably a limit somewhere. But that’s, like, a lot of math.
It’s a novel approach, and I think it works.
The Super Solo framework then steps you through the steps players might take to solve you.
Here’s the first bullet point from “How to make decisions”;
Frame the event as a yes/no question: Do they hear the alarm? Are they nearby? Does the hero decide to jump in now? Does he try to fight me before rescuing civilians? Were they waiting in the vault the whole time? Is she going to punch me again (because that kind of hurts and I don’t like it). Start with what seems like the most likely (or one of the more likely) options and go from there. “Is the hero going to use their contacts gift to communicate with Project Javelin to activate a space laser to shoot me dead right now?” should not be your first (or second) question. I mean, that one is probably pretty far down the list, to be honest.
So, this Superhero Week, you can get a solo RPG and play as a crashing plane, a burning building or as a government conspiracy and see if the superheroes can stop you.
Quick Links
This post is part of Superhero Week, and you can find other such articles, landing on one at random, with this teleport post.
