The Doug Alone Check In: August 2024

I'm the kind of person that usually (at least in my solo play sessions) likes to fling things out there and try to figure out what it means on the way down  and this blog is sort of like an extension of that. It started as a place to post my "The Bloody Hands" Tricube Tales solo game while behind the scenes I was mostly focused on a couple of other campaigns, and then at least one of those campaigns, the SoloDark "The Bleak + The Pearl" has been added. It gave me the freedom of space to try out things (which lead to the completely new approach of gameplay that the Gareth Hendrix storyline let me try).

Still, each time I post I wonder not only "how can I change up how I'm playing" but "how can I change up how I'm writing about what I am playing". 

On How the Changing Style of Writing Is Impacting My Own Playing

I think is pretty obvious how the blog's initial designation as a place where I wrote, for lack of a better word, pretty broad recaps about my sessions changed a good bit as I've tried to write out my sessions as more of an actual story and keep things a bit more interesting for whatever random folks stop by (and also for myself). This has ups and downs. The up is that I am more proud of my stories. It forces me to dive into the characters, to add in details, to think even when I might be just wanting a quick reason to roll 3d6. The down is that it takes longer to write and much longer to read. This has slightly changed how I play. 

Around 4-6 hours of playing through "The Lost Citadel" became two blog posts: one + two. By comparison, the time since then has involved a lot more writing over actual rolling. So a post about a single group of encounters roughly as complex as the fight with the beastmen in The Lost Citadel becomes the backbone of two different blog posts: a different one + a different two. 

There will likely be 10+ more sessions to deal with the rest of just that dungeon (assuming I do not go off on a massive tangent, again). While that has given me a lot more space to work out characters like Grusk and Tom (Tom's morality is a major part of the process, now) I know it makes the process more complex. Not just for me, but also for anyone else. 4-6 hours worth of play into two sessions will likely be 20+ hours of play and writing across a dozen plus posts. 

The blog's primary focus is my own play for my own use and to expand my thought processes and ideas. I find that it helps me to be a solo player to have to stop and think about how other people might read and experience it. Explaining it to an audience, even a primarily imaginary one, helps me to better explain it to myself. BUT... I still want it to be entertaining and not just a slog of a creative writing experiment for others to wade through, though.

I will try and work on balancing both. In that above linked "a different two" (dealing with the conclusion of the fight with the gar folk in my SoloDark campaign) I compressed down about 15 minutes of behind the scene play into just a few lines. I'm not saying that's the solution but it's a solution for sure. 

I did think about trying to play out a session in my short hand form with quicker beats and resolutions but I found that does not quite work because it makes the longer write up more artificial. I would spend a lot of time (and I appreciate the irony of what I am about to say) making up things. What I mean, though, is that if I play out a fight and then explore a few rooms and then come back after and try to fictionalize it I have to build in more than "they opened the door" and that means I need details and concepts and emotions and motivations and if those things were not there to begin with then it's an artificial skin on a skeleton. 

My Favorite Thing from the Past Month

My favorite thing from the past month has been the finale where Gareth Hendrix ends up being less about a battle and more about fighting the good fight. Not only did he focus less on any particular conflict but he inverted the primary expectation of the whole mini-campaign. Well, I did. But I did it because it felt right for the character.

My Least Favorite Thing from the Past Month

I have already linked this twice already but my least favorite thing is the way I allowed myself to stall out when dealing with the conflict with the gar folk in "The Bleak + The Pearl". It actually took me several days and sort of derailed what was meant to be a few days off work to focus on some fun solo play projects because my brain kept trying to make it more complex and more moral-driven. That is not a bad thing in itself but these are fictional story points in a fiction that I am writing. I should have just set a limit for myself. Just summed it up a couple of rolls. A single complex question roll could possibly solved the whole thing. I'm sure it will end up being a much better campaign because of taking time to work with it but it sucks that it took so much energy out of my enjoyment.

Something I Would Like to Do in the Next Month

I think my biggest wishlist is for a game that brings in a bit more complexity with dice rolling and more excuses to use more tables and charts and tools but also decentralizes combat as the only good conflict. I have some ideas.

I also sort of want to play with Mythic, more, since the main campaigns have kind of not needed that level of tool and I miss having more complex threads and relationships. 

Finally, it is time to get my Advanced Fighting Fantasy back on and as we approach the one year anniversary of that I am ready to dive back into that world.