Sifting from the Stream of Knowledge

GMing Exercise: Solo Journaling RPGs

When I wrote previously about GMing exercises that we can do to develop some of our skills, I debated about including some discussion of solo RPGs. Mike Shea has written about how solo RPGs can be like cross training for a number of skills we use in our group games - especially making sense of random outcomes. I ended up not, because I've never really engaged much with solo RPGs. The more structured ones (like Ironsworn) are somehow too much game and too involved/time consuming for what I'm looking for between sessions. The journaling-style games (like Thousand Year Vampire) can be lighter, shorter and more fluid - but I've never really been much of a creative writer, so that kind of gaming has never been something I'm drawn to.

However, a couple of things came across my radar in the last few weeks that caused me to give it a try (in the spirit of "growing edges"). First, I saw this video by Peter from Tales from Elsewhere about recognizing solo gaming as one of his "blind spots" as a creator, but deciding to try to make one anyways. He talked about finding it valuable as a creator to engage with games that are very different from what you normally play, to see fresh design ideas. He notes that even when you end up deciding that a game isn't for you, you might find that there is a piece of it that can be useful for the kind of game you normally play/design. A second nudge was my friend Patchwork Paladin sharing that her game Alone and Palely Loitering was included in a solo journaling bundle on itch. She had showed me a version of the game when she was working on it - I had thought at the time that it was a fantastic and creative bit of design, but had mentally filed it as "the kind of game I don't really play." Finally, the third prompt was seeing a discussion on BlueSky about a number of people in the crafting/scrapbooking/journaling communities have gotten into solo journaling RPGs. Lizzie (the OP) noted that many were older women who (for a variety of reasons) may not have connected with more traditional RPGs like D&D when they were younger; follow-on conversation observed that girls and women were often excluded from RPG gaming (something I hope our hobby has improved on, but something to continue to be attentive to - it is important that everyone feel welcome in this amazing hobby).

I had a bit of time this afternoon, so I decided to confront one of my blind spots and see if I can exercise some less used creative muscles. I brewed myself some tea and sat down to play a session of Alone and Palely Loitering.

An Overview of Alone and Palely Loitering

Alone and Palely Loitering is a journaling game about longing and waiting. You once met a fey lover; they have gone with a promise to return in a year and a day - but that time has passed and you are still waiting (for now). You use a deck of cards to provide prompts about what you are thinking and doing: Hearts are prompts about your lover (e.g. you dream vividly about them, what do they say or do?); Clubs is about your daily life while waiting (e.g. you clean the cottage you are waiting in, what do you find?); Diamonds is about magical and mysterious signs (e.g. your mirror reflects something that isn't there, what is it?); Spades is about the waiting itself (e.g. you destroy something meaningful, what is it?). You also pick an ending mechanic: either using a Jenga tower (stopping when it falls), or having a pot of tea (stopping when it gets cold). Each turn you roll a d6 to determine how many prompt cards to draw, and then you respond to each one in turn. You then draw a blog/take a sip of tea. You can also choose to stop waiting, drawing one last card that gives a final prompt. There is also a final ending: if you draw all four kings, you realize that you are dying.

My Experience Playing

I quite enjoyed it! And it wasn't as hard as I had feared. Most of my responses to each prompt were fairly short, a few sentences, but that felt in line with the play loop of rolling for up to six prompts per sip of tea - and the expectation that you'll likely go through a good portion of the deck. I didn't find it had to come up with my response - the prompts were evocative and gave natural extensions to the developing story. The one exception was when I got the prompt to destroy something meaningful - but that was because the decision was actually a bit emotional at that point!

The game is set up for melancholy and disappointment - the realization that your fey lover is never going to come. Given how we tend to think of the fey, it felt to me like the easiest path is that your fey is fickle and flighty - that perhaps they have forgotten you (did they ever really love you?). However, my story went a different way - that what kept us apart was duty and obligation, that someone else needed their magic and wonder more than I. That the practical needs that we each were bound by had taken precedence over the joyful spark of our time together. And then I got the surprising draw of the Ace of Hearts - the beginning of a good ending where my lover would come in time. What a reversal - where now the prompts pushed me to hope rather than sadness. When the countdown on the Ace ended, it was still my choice what that meeting would be. It felt right that this was not a perfect resolution of the challenges that had pulled us apart - the demands and obligations were still there. But we had hope and the possibility of change - and a commitment that even when we have to part again it won't take another year and a day to make time for each other again.

Reflections as a GMing Exercise

Thinking about the experience of playing the game, it was definitely a useful form of exercise. It certainly pushed me to use muscles I don't often. When I play, I tend towards a fairly distant play style; when I'm GMing, I don't often get deep into the head of my NPCs. Responding to the prompts was a very different experience - it was easy to take that internal, close perspective. However, my problem was almost the opposite extreme - that it was too much me rather than a distinct character I was embodying. Perhaps that was in part due to the very personal nature of the premise (as compared to something like Thousand Year Vampire). Now to be fair, the focus of the game was part of what was drawing me to it right now; personal resonance can be a good thing - especially given that this is something I generally struggle with in my games. Getting inside my own head is probably the first step to getting inside another character's head. But I think I would need a different premise and set of prompts to be able to do that more easily - although hopefully something that I could still connect emotionally with, rather than approach analytically.

I do like the idea of potentially trying to understand one of the NPCs in my games better with doing some journaling from their perspective. We were talking on the Discord about the timing of how people prep in between sessions. I need to have at least a general idea of what the next session is going to be about several days before the session (otherwise I get anxious), but I don't do my detailed prep until the day before or day of. So perhaps this could be a quick five- or ten-minute exercise on one of those intervening days - pick an NPC that will be important to the session and draw a prompt for something that happened in their life recently and make some notes on how they reacted to it. As I've mentioned, I'm going to be running Curse of Strahd soon, so this might be useful for someone like Ireena, Rictavio, even Strahd himself.

In terms of prompts, perhaps the general suit themes from Alone and Palely Loitering could be a basis:

Lower numbers for small scale events, higher numbers for more dramatic or emotionally charged. It would certainly add a different dimension to my preparations, and might be useful for roleplaying the NPCs. I might just give it a try!