Reader Comments
Reader Comments
Feel free to post here about the game or solo gaming in general.
Re: Reader Comments
Thanks! Hope to keep it interesting.
Re: Reader Comments
Anyone ever played a game called Dead Belt?
It's basically a salvage simulator game. Just picked it up. I'm not sure about the rules of the game itself but I like the concept of the scavenger crawl so I'm going to give it a try.
It's basically a salvage simulator game. Just picked it up. I'm not sure about the rules of the game itself but I like the concept of the scavenger crawl so I'm going to give it a try.
Re: Reader Comments
I plan on coming back to continue this game but I'm going to take a break for a little bit. I need to recharge my creative batteries.
Re: Reader Comments
I am going to put this game on hiatus. I'd like to come back to it at some point but, for now, I don't have the desire to keep running it.
I think it's been a very useful exercise on how to run a SWN game. I like SWN a lot. However, I've come across some things about my game that have given me pause.
Rewards in SWN - As you've seen, I find a disconnect between how much it costs to maintain a ship and how much the average adventure in SWN gives in rewards. My solution was to upgrade the amount of credits Adam earned but I felt it unnaturally accelerated Adam's rise from scrappy newcomer to wealthy ship owner.
Needing a party for a solo game - Especially when you run ship combat, you need other PCs who are roughly as skilled as you. I tired of having to create a whole party for just one aspect of the game, and it was a chore to level them up every time Adam leveled up. I don't know how I'd deal with this going forward but I think either I'm abstracting the NPCs or I'm giving Adam the ability to fly the ship by himself.
Too many hooks - This is my fault, as I tried to generate some cool things for Adam to do and it became too much. I know in video games you can go off on side quests and the main quest will patiently wait for you to return but in the game, it felt weird that I left a lot of main-type quests sitting there unpursued.
Factions - I have always wanted to create a game where there was stuff going on outside of what the party does, to make it feel more like a dynamic world. However, the SWN faction rules live up to their reputation as complex. I think I'd use something simpler next time.
The Starfield universe - It felt limiting to me. I wanted more settled worlds, more cities, more size and scale. Starfield felt too small. This is ironic, as Starfield has 100 procedurally generated solar systems, but they're all focused on flora, fauna, and terrain, aspects that are important for the exploration part of the game but less important for my game. I needed to be more comfortable in filling in the blanks, or just changing the truth of the video game to something that suited my game better.
Anyway, I'll probably be starting up some new solo games soon. Kevin Crawford's new Ashes Without Number looks cool. But I hope to come back to Constellation again and figure out how to make it fun again.
Thanks for reading.
I think it's been a very useful exercise on how to run a SWN game. I like SWN a lot. However, I've come across some things about my game that have given me pause.
Rewards in SWN - As you've seen, I find a disconnect between how much it costs to maintain a ship and how much the average adventure in SWN gives in rewards. My solution was to upgrade the amount of credits Adam earned but I felt it unnaturally accelerated Adam's rise from scrappy newcomer to wealthy ship owner.
Needing a party for a solo game - Especially when you run ship combat, you need other PCs who are roughly as skilled as you. I tired of having to create a whole party for just one aspect of the game, and it was a chore to level them up every time Adam leveled up. I don't know how I'd deal with this going forward but I think either I'm abstracting the NPCs or I'm giving Adam the ability to fly the ship by himself.
Too many hooks - This is my fault, as I tried to generate some cool things for Adam to do and it became too much. I know in video games you can go off on side quests and the main quest will patiently wait for you to return but in the game, it felt weird that I left a lot of main-type quests sitting there unpursued.
Factions - I have always wanted to create a game where there was stuff going on outside of what the party does, to make it feel more like a dynamic world. However, the SWN faction rules live up to their reputation as complex. I think I'd use something simpler next time.
The Starfield universe - It felt limiting to me. I wanted more settled worlds, more cities, more size and scale. Starfield felt too small. This is ironic, as Starfield has 100 procedurally generated solar systems, but they're all focused on flora, fauna, and terrain, aspects that are important for the exploration part of the game but less important for my game. I needed to be more comfortable in filling in the blanks, or just changing the truth of the video game to something that suited my game better.
Anyway, I'll probably be starting up some new solo games soon. Kevin Crawford's new Ashes Without Number looks cool. But I hope to come back to Constellation again and figure out how to make it fun again.
Thanks for reading.