Mythic is an RPG which has within it a system for ‘game master emulation’, i.e. solo play, apparently there was sufficient interest in this that the author (Tom Pigeon) published just the emulator rules as a standalone, which is what I bought.
How I got here - I read the Questing Beast Newsletter for February (2021), it contains many fascinating links some of which i am still investigating now, one of them under a section on solo RPGs is a video by Geek Gamers. This video is an entire metropolis of rabbit holes all by itself, although solo play seems to be the focus of the channel. In this video she uses the Fate chart from Mythic extensively and its basic structure. Having been inspired by English Eerie I had already embarked on my own solo play rpg before I watched the GG video, otherwise I would likely have tried playing a game using the whole Mythic system, as it is I have only borrowed from its tables on the odd occasion.
Mythic is based around asking questions - which arguably regular rpgs are too in that they essentially progress via the players and GM asking questions of each other. So you frame a question about the circumstances - was the village massacred by a new threat? Is the chest trapped? Then decide the likelihood that the answer is yes and roll on the Fate table which modulates the probability by the Chaos Rank to produce an answer from from Exceptional Yes to Exceptional No and includes the possibility that a Random Event occurs.
The Chaos Rank is an indicator of the general state of control the player has over the world, it is modified by the outcome of each Scene. This is the basic structural unit of Mythic, you decide what the setup and purpose of a scene is then use the Fate question format (or whatever additional RPG rule-set you are using) to resolve it. Randomness is interjected by rolling before beginning the scene to determine if it should be altered or interrupted entirely. The details here are generated from 3 tables, one which sets the focus of the random event (a player character, a story thread etc), and 2 others which are d100 lists of Actions and Subjects to be interpreted into some kind of encounter. Lists of NPCs met, NPCs important to the player character and the Story Threads provide further grist for the random event mill.
Thus far I have only used the Action and Subject tables for my own solo RPG, but I may well give the system as a whole a go at some point, though I generally prefer making my own quick tables for possibilities rather than following the twenty question approach.
No comments:
Post a Comment