Saturday, December 31, 2022

Life Paths for Solo play

I've come to the conclusion that RPG system that embrace a life-path mechanism for building characters are ideal for solo RPG players. The systems that do this build up a neat story around the character before the actual play even starts.

In Mekton (giant fighty robots) the life path generates not only a family for you, but breaks down the relation ships with your relatives and co workers. Do you have sibling rivalry? Hope so, because that will make for a very infesting character play. These relatives can come into your story at any point for twists and rescues.

In Vaesen, your character has to have been through a terrible mythic trauma. You can make one up yourself, or pick from a list. You also get motivations for your character's involvement in seeking the beasties. This is so much better than going in with a bland character, you are given a drive and reason to push the story forward, 

Even Classic Traveller had a sort of life-path system, you would follow the character through their employment and you would have to invent any details around that framework. BUT as the versions have iterated up to Mongoose's, they've enhanced the life path by adding events into the term system. So you start with a character's employment history, but also some life charging events that you can bring into the actual play.

With this addition of character history you are better equipped to make an interesting and rich story, you start armed with threads to pull on. 

Of course classic D&D and OSR games don't incorporate more than class and stats which is a very poor form of life path. I actually think that's fine for playing with others and the story emerges much easier between the player's characters, which is something that is just not there for solo play.

If someone is looking to make a small RPG product, can I request that you pump out a life path system for all the classic OSR races and classes? Please. Pretty please. 

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