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Feb. 15th, 2022 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreA great thing about solo rpgs is that you get to skip or handwave all the parts that you don't find interesting. One of the things I usually handwave is food - I am supremely uninterested in tracking rations or having to think about how my characters are feeding themselves on adventures*. (Generally, I find inventory tracking annoying in general. I much prefer inventory systems like Ironsworn, which are basically "assume you have reasonable gear for your character and the setting - roll to see if you packed weird stuff.")
The other thing about solo rpgs that's good is that I get to take time to focus on stuff that interests me and which might not interest other players as much.** I do care about food in my rpgs as a worldbuilding detail - I like to figure out what kinds of foods my characters have access to, what the food culture surrounding them is like, what they prefer to eat, etc. But I only do it as an interesting background detail, not something I actually have to keep track of.
Right now, I've been playing with my current solo D&D game, wherein my two characters (a spooky warlock and his spooky paladin buddy) have recently finished a dungeon crawl in a haunted wizard's tower that they then decided, because of reasons, to fix up and use as a home base. They live there alone (except for the occasional giant spider they still have to deal with) and it's, y'know, an isolated scary wizard's tower, so the nearest town is about a day away. Tracking food is boring - my two spooky boys figuring out how to cook and keep food in a haunted wizard's tower is fun. It appeals to the same part of me that likes to think about the process of Dracula learning to make roast chicken for Jonathan Harker. Spooky people doing domestic tasks is always the best.
They should probably have a kitchen garden. The idea of my spooky super fastidious warlock in a straw hat, putting in a kitchen garden, hating every minute of it, is my favorite thing I've thought of today.
Maybe they should have chickens.
*I also handwave this in any game I run and tell my players that upfront. I don't care. Unless it is somehow actually interesting that your characters don't have food, they just have food. They also have ammo if they need it. If someone else is GMing and they care about that sort of thing, I'll track it, but I personally find that really boring.
**This is also why I have probably at least idly thought about textile production and the general cultural level of literacy in most of my rpg settings.
The other thing about solo rpgs that's good is that I get to take time to focus on stuff that interests me and which might not interest other players as much.** I do care about food in my rpgs as a worldbuilding detail - I like to figure out what kinds of foods my characters have access to, what the food culture surrounding them is like, what they prefer to eat, etc. But I only do it as an interesting background detail, not something I actually have to keep track of.
Right now, I've been playing with my current solo D&D game, wherein my two characters (a spooky warlock and his spooky paladin buddy) have recently finished a dungeon crawl in a haunted wizard's tower that they then decided, because of reasons, to fix up and use as a home base. They live there alone (except for the occasional giant spider they still have to deal with) and it's, y'know, an isolated scary wizard's tower, so the nearest town is about a day away. Tracking food is boring - my two spooky boys figuring out how to cook and keep food in a haunted wizard's tower is fun. It appeals to the same part of me that likes to think about the process of Dracula learning to make roast chicken for Jonathan Harker. Spooky people doing domestic tasks is always the best.
They should probably have a kitchen garden. The idea of my spooky super fastidious warlock in a straw hat, putting in a kitchen garden, hating every minute of it, is my favorite thing I've thought of today.
Maybe they should have chickens.
*I also handwave this in any game I run and tell my players that upfront. I don't care. Unless it is somehow actually interesting that your characters don't have food, they just have food. They also have ammo if they need it. If someone else is GMing and they care about that sort of thing, I'll track it, but I personally find that really boring.
**This is also why I have probably at least idly thought about textile production and the general cultural level of literacy in most of my rpg settings.
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Date: 2022-02-16 10:47 pm (UTC)Also the idea behind solo RPG sounds really cool! Do you have a system (like a book or website) you use?
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Date: 2022-02-16 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-17 12:43 am (UTC)