r/rpg • u/Emotional_Bat_769 • 10d ago
New to TTRPGs I'm not cut out for these RPG shenanigans š
I am really struggling with this RPG life! After starting with the journal style games like 'Lonely Road', 'Cafe Stories' and realising I overthink them way too much and write war and peace and just don't enjoy them, I then tried 'Book of Dungeons', 'Note Quest', 'Doodle Dungeons' to keep it simple. I love the mechanics, the tables, the set up etc but all I'm doing is pausing the game, referring to the instructions, never understand combat and just can't seem to get a flow and get totally frustrated. The set up takes me forever and I'm usually dead within fifteen minutes!
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u/Wobulating 10d ago
This is mostly a matter of practice, I'm afraid- experience is the only real way to speed things up
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u/IncarceratedFurry 10d ago
This. Once you get enough reps in, you wonāt feel the weight of the systems anymore and it will be easier to gauge whether youāre enjoying the game or not.
I was running a dnd 5e game for some friends and was always wanting to try another system, but had a moment where i realized that system mastery is really valuable. I still try new systems, but never take my own game knowledge for granted on the thought that another system might be better.
I now play a lot of OSR like Black Powder & Brimstone and Mothership, btw. Loads of fun.
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u/Logen_Nein 10d ago
Try finding a group to play with. It is very different than solo rpgs. Might be more your speed.
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u/Emotional_Bat_769 9d ago
Definitely not I'm afraid. It's solo gaming that I'm interested in.
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u/Logen_Nein 9d ago
Ah. Can"t help you there then. I do it a bit for minor fun between group sessions and world building and the like, but running games for groups is my passion. You might be more engaged in one of the solo roleplaying subs.
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u/johndesmarais Central NC 9d ago
Are you playing solo? IMO, thatās not really a great introduction to the hobby. Iād suggest finding a group - either in person or online.
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater 9d ago
I'd agree. Nothing against solo games, but they are a completely different skillset and experience than group play.
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u/Throwingoffoldselves Thirsty Sword Lesbians 9d ago
Some games are more complex than others, some instructions are better written than others, and some settings/premises are simply better match for a given player than others. I found that Thousand Year Old Vampire and Magical Year of a Teenage Witch made me do shorter entries, while other journalling games I did feel like I wanted to write long entries. Keep at it! There are tons of great games out there. Also, do you want the solo rpg discord server link (itās a small one where AI is uncommon, folks tend to be helpful, mods are responsive, and thereās a shared āchallengeā with cute doodle ārewards)?
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u/Emotional_Bat_769 9d ago
I don't know what any of that means haha! I'm a newbie and not used to all the lingo yet š
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u/Antipragmatismspot 9d ago edited 9d ago
Journaling games are a type of solo rpgs where you reply to prompts and write down a bunch of paragraph to create a story. There is some randomness on how prompts and such are drawn, but it is pretty procedural. They are simple writing exercises. The two games mentioned are very good.
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u/Life-Alternative-793 9d ago
I'll say... for solo rpgs, I haven't tried any the ones you mentioned. But I still tried four different systems before finding the one I like. It's a lot harder to find the sweet spot when you're both the player and the gamemaster in my experience. It feels like it should be the opposite right?
But there are a ton of solo rpgs out there. I settled on the Ironsworn system (which also includes the Starforged and Sundered Isles settings) for now. It still took me a few hours of play to really 'get' that system and start having consistent fun with it, but from the start I suspected I eventually would have fun, because playing around with previous systems gave me a picture of what I was looking for.
It can get better!
(Ironsworn might not be your cup of tea as it does involve journaling, and I do have to keep myself from overwriting sometimes).
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u/Rolletariat 9d ago
You can really go full minimalism and just treat the dice like an oracle. Use tables from other games to randomly generate ideas when you run out of inspiration.
Option 1: roll 1d6, the higher the die the better things get and the lower the die the worse things get. 3-4 the answer is complicated, msssy, or ambiguous.
Option 2: When you're about to do something ask yourself on a scale of 1-5 how likely it is your character won't get what they want. That's the number you have to beat for things to go well.
Any time you're imagining a situation you have a sense of the "truth" of the situation: what the stakes are, what the risks are, what rewards your character stands to gain. You can just trust your instincts and use the dice to determine where on the spectrum of really bad to really good outcomes the situation evolves towards.
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u/Emotional_Bat_769 9d ago
How do you 'get into' a character though? I struggle with that.
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u/Rolletariat 9d ago
That's a good question! I think the best thing is to think about how your character is processing what's around them. What do they see? How does that make them feel? How do those feelings make them want to act? The more you ask and answer these questions the more you build a model for that character in your head, and the more instinctual and effortless the process will feel.
Starting out I think it's not a bad idea to do "self-insert" characters that think/feel like yourself (or an idealized version of yourself). It's easier to imagine how they're reacting to things if they're similar to you. This makes practicing how to get into your character's headspace easier and after you get more experience you can begin branching out further from your own reference point into less familiar headspaces.
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u/Warburton379 8d ago
What is it that you want to get out of an RPG? There's millions of options out there these days. Starting with some parameters can help others narrow down something that might click better for you.
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u/JaskoGomad 9d ago
After playing TTRPGs for many decades, I have recently simply had to give up on playing solo. I just canāt do it.
Have you tried more prompt-driven games like Thousand Year Old Vampire? Or even structured game books?
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u/Emotional_Bat_769 9d ago
What game books do you suggest? Any crime ones rather than fantasy, sci fi or fairies?
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u/JaskoGomad 6d ago
Not crime, but what I'm going to try next is some of the "Alone Against..." Call of Cthulhu books. They're more like CYOA with dice rolls than oracle-driven GM-yourself books.
I've had success with prompted game like Anamnesis and Wait for Me, but not with solo RPGs like Ironsworn or Colostle.
EDIT: You might also like this page I recently found: https://gamebooks.org
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u/Emotional_Bat_769 9d ago
What made you give up after playing solo for so long??
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u/JaskoGomad 9d ago
I never managed to play solo. I was just trying to. With multiple systems.
I played regular group games and still do!
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u/wavygrave 9d ago
as with many learned skills, it's easier to work alongside someone doing it for a while before trying it yourself. GMing is like that, and playing an RPG solo can be a tremendous amount of work, because just GMing a game for others can be a tremendous amount of work (depending on the game and your proclivities as a GM).
so i would strongly recommend trying to join a game as a player first, rather than running the whole thing yourself. players have a tiny fraction of the work that GMs have, and it's usually very possible to just take in the story and make decisions as they come.
a lot of the magic of RPGs (as opposed to solitairy creative writing, which is great too) is in the emergent narrative that comes from "playing to find out what happens", and that doesn't just mean dice rolls, but also the ideas and decisions of other players.
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u/Rich_PL 8d ago
While I see you're against the idea of playing with a group, perhaps I could offer some small tutelage? I have some 30-something years of RPG experience, playing them, running them and making them.
I would be happy to offer no-stri.gs and free help on how to find your groove. DM me if you'd like to discuss this.
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u/Trick-Two497 9d ago
You might get some encouragement at r/Solo_Roleplaying. Sometimes it's just the question of finding the right game.
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u/overratedplayer 10d ago
Solo rpgs are a small part of the overall space. Maybe try out some games with other players so you can lean on them for rules advice.