The difference between a role-player and a story-teller has always been particularly vague for me. Oftentimes I try stories as a game, or a solo-game becomes a story. Since the "Covid-Solo-Revolution", (where we all stayed home, baked sourdough, became insane, and threw dice for a table of none-existent players) solo-games & tools have cropped up in abundance.
Yet many of them, if not most of them, get in the way of the writing. If using traditional RPG's as a solo session, you can almost forget about brain-storming (think about how much you have to look up if you play AD&D solo). Or the rules are too static to write anything about the story (the case against “Four Against Darkness”. Which I do love, especially for dungeon maps).
Further, while heroic fantasy is a great read, I grew tired of solo-playing from one point of view. I would become disinterested, even tired very quickly. This is one of the biggest reasons why I tended to not get
into “Ironsworn”. Given, I consider Ironsworn to be one of the, if not *the*, best solo game of all time. Thanks to Shawn Tomkin for leading in the CSR. I just need to think up “Party-sworn”.
I have always been in search of a tool, a set of rules, which can focus on one group, not one main one character. Along with that I wanted a set of rules that don’t get in the way of the writing.
Thanks to Matalina on Github, at
https://story-mode.just-us.net/, I may have found the Shangri-La of Story-driven/Group-driven Solo. It has everything I would want except for one small thing.*
Taking inspiration form the Cypher Rules, Matalina has created an online "desk" that allows for a multitude of writing actions, and inspiring things. At the center of the system is scene difficulty. Rather than giving each action in a scene a difficulty task, Story-Mode gives the whole scene a difficulty. This eliminates not only a lot of game-clutter, but also a lot of game-thought. Game-thought, worrying about stats, looking up rules, and character sheets, are perhaps the major obstacles to "Writing with Dice" (the fusion of writing and RPG).
Cutting out all the block red tap, Story-mode also it eliminates all stats. Too much? Are you hanging on to your RPG security-blanket-stats? Not to worry you can add or subtract as much as you want for an action using the buttons provided. You have control but have the joy of randomness to keep that noodle in your skull busy for hours (as you can see from the example).
This results of this scene difficulty were truly liberating for one who writes with dice. You look nothing up, everything is in front of you. There isn't the need to think and rethink, the muse just ignites you.
And, there is an oracle- smartly represented by a crystal ball.
I played with this thing for hours and hours. I opened it on my laptop to expand on a dream I had the night before into a story. Then later, I started another called 'Time Vikings. On every occasion Story-Mode was a companion, that helped and inspired, never getting in the way.
Given, stories and setups cannot (currently) be migrated from device to device (a procedure far beyond this humble enthusiast) but you can copy the entire session and paste it anywhere
and it appears like so (font choice was my own...)
(The following and the picture is an expansion of a dream I had. It focuses on a setting and series I have in mind called Rivermoon)
`RIVER & ARCANA\
Notes: I know the language- the accented. It is New Orleans but dangit have some fun, open stuff up, Make Jackson Square La Plaza de Armas again.
*Players in constant danger, anything could happen*\
**Scene Status:** Insane 5 (15)
Scene Difficulty is Insane!
**Do:** Does the Elixir come at a Vodoun Shoppe, there in what is to be the District or something?\
\
**Fail, but** \[5(15) → 4]\
Goods, Stray, Slice
No but the ingredients are from there, a slice of this good, and something stray.
**Q:** No doubt, I will figure that out. Now to ask the oracle, what major event comes at that time, what is the first thing in other words?\
\
**No, but** *(1d20: \[9] = 9)*\
Son, Priest, Dream
**Do:** The man, fideous fench, we shall call him, thinks it is a dream, and appears on a bench in front of what he thinks is the St. Louis Cathedral. But damn it is NOT the Cathedral. Is it daytime?\
**Fail, but** \[5(15) → 7]\
Love, Command, Song
`No it, is night but there is a couple at the other bench looking at him really weird, like New Orleans there is a song in the air. He thinks it is nothing but cosplay.`
This makes for no more RPG accounting mess. Hell, no more rule-books or character sheets. Story-Driven is literally one place for everything, one scene fixes ALL.
*And what is that small thing? Just give me the ability to hit <return> when I write something down, rather than having to use the mouse.
And with that all my rule are condensed into one site, one scene-many actions, infinite inspiration.
