Sole Player - What To Try?

[nats]

I used to play Traveller years ago - most of the time on my own as I never seemed to have anyone around to do a game with. I did try playing it at Leeds Poly once or twice but there werent all that many interested parties compared to D&D. I have tried the various sole player things - character generation, making worlds, ship combat using Book 2 and 5, Marooned Alone etc. These are all ok in their own way but they dont really grab you as much as actually playing the game with others - it is meant to be played as a role playing game generally after all. Maybe I should try attending a Convention although I am so busy and skint with a family etc it would be very difficult, as I am sure many understand.

I was just wondering if anyone had an suggestions of any Traveller related things I could try. Ive looked at Gurps etc but couldnt really get into it - Classic Traveller is what I relate to. But I was wondering about the various specialist BITS ship combat expansions etc. Are they worth trying?

Any suggestions appreciated.

 

[samuelvss]

A CT speculative trading campaign was always a favorite of mine. Particularly if you do it as a "shipless character," it is very interesting.

If you use the ship encounter tables, that keeps things interesting.

 

[spinwardpirate]

I agree. I recall many years ago running a solo speculative trading game using the random tables from Traders and Gunboats. At one point, my ship was attacked by a pirate who was running an x-boat tender. Fun!

 

[Ron Gianti]

I rolled up 4 characters and one of them got a Free Trader for a mustering out benefit. They mustered out at Regina and did cargo runs from there. Ran into a couple of pirates who took everything but left them alive (rolled on the reaction table to see how agressive they would be), paid off the Free Trader, hired marines, got a pirate Patrol Cruiser to dock trying to steal our cargo, gave them a nasty surprise and took their ship.

Used that PT to roam the area and fight it out with pirates, made a couple hundred million credits.

Then I put together a mini game where the Characters were working for the local planetary governments and could use their repuation to buy Combat Armor, better ships, even Battle Dress if they had a good enough reputation. I streamlined the paperwork and would just roll on the ship encounter table looking for pirates. I keep track of it on a yearly basis.

I'll post up the document and you can see what I've done, if I can figure out how to post up a document here...

If you keep a running tally of what your characters have done, it makes it more interesting for you. You have to play both parts, characters and game master, so it takes some balancing. Think of yourself as the Characters, what do you want to do in your universe? Then "ask" the GM what you would need to do that and play it out. Or, you, as the GM, might have a story you want to play out. Ask yourself what your "characters" might find interesting and then "offer" it to them as a story line. The GM might need to up the offer if its a story the "characters" aren't particularly interested in. For example, maybe they are tired of their Free Trader. You could offer the chance to upgrade it at the end of a storyline you want to play out.

It also helps to be mildly bipolar

 

[Trouble]

I have run Robinson Crusoe type solos. Roll the animals as encountered and fill the tables that way. Some are food, some are dangerous some can be exploited in various ways. Depending on what you start with and the world you are on you have to find food, clothing and shelter as well as possibly water and air. The event line on the animal encounters I usually leave blank. When you roll it somthing significant happens ie. Friday shows up, the pirates attack, the volcano destroys all your stuff.

Just a thought.

 

[The Dragon Master]

Thanks to everyone whose posted here. I've been considering starting a solitaire campaign myself, but didn't know where to begin (other than character/sub-sector generation that is ). Now I'm all reved up and planning to roll up a character on my break.

 

[kinnerc]

One of the things that I tried a couple of times was something called "Real Time Traveller." This involved rolling up a character and keeping a journal in that character's name, but you'd do it in real time. So the character would jump three parsecs starting on a Monday, and he wouldn't get to where he was going until Sunday. What would he write about? What would he do?

Now as a "referree" you'd be busy during that week your character was in Jump Space creating his destination. He'd jump into system and you go through the regular random encounter/combat, if any. Then you'd have to see what happened on the planet, usually in terms of looking for cargo and selling what you'd brought, etc.

The real-time aspect was interesting. The other way I made it interesting is largely directing the character and using the die rolled encounters as spice. It worked out, largely.