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Monday, September 2, 2013

How often do you engage a randomizer for story needs?

It seems to me that for one to engage in solo roleplaying some sort of random input is needed to direct one's imagination. Without it, the exercise becomes plain creative writing, or storytelling.

Still, engaging a randomizer results in a break in the flow of imagination as you interpret the results. The break in the flow might be short, but it is there. I've found that trying to keep a cohesive feeling to the story sometimes means that the breaks are longer as I try to make sense of some random result in context of what has happened in the story prior to that.

What is your sweet spot in terms of percentages? Do you have any rules of thumb as to when to call upon Randomness?


In your solo roleplaying, how often do you engage your randomizer for story needs?
  
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4 comments:

  1. DaveLSeptember 5, 2013 at 10:37 PM

    I use it as much as is necessary. Sometimes I have a notion on how the story is going, so I just go with it. Sometimes I have no clue, so I consult some random tables. Frequently there may be more than one possible outcome to a given scenario, in which case I'll create a short list of possible outcomes and roll.
    I don't mean to be vague, but I feel there are no hard and fast rules for this sort of thing. My .02 centavos, anyway.

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  2. DreamerSeptember 6, 2013 at 9:56 AM

    Thanks Dave!

    I guess the question could be rephrased as "What percentage of time in a session have you found it necessary to use a randomizer?"

    I guess I'm looking for a very rough/ballpark estimate of the ratio between plot points + npc actions + color points vs use of randomizer. Like how many of those come from the random results (and their interpretation) vs just you using your imagination without the direction of random input?

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  3. Ricardo NakamuraSeptember 8, 2013 at 10:14 AM

    When playing solo RPG sessions, I tend to use randomizers a lot for the narrative elements, including plot, NPCs and events. That said, I try to use the advise in Mythic: if I cannot make any sense of the random result, I toss it away.

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  4. DreamerSeptember 10, 2013 at 8:16 AM

    Hey Ricardo,

    I think tossing results out are are part of what I have trouble with because I'm both stubborn and indecisive. I could probably help myself by having some structured rules about how much time I allow myself for interpretation before the rules force me to throw a result away.

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