After writing and playing a first group campaign in the world of Bahasaf, I realised that the nature of the setting was to inspire stories full of mysteries linked to old gods and prophecies. When creating the main character for my game, my first instinct was to give them a backstory and a motivation to do things in this world that stemmed from their lack of understanding of themselves and their past. Something about themselves has been hidden from them by life, and their goal was to recover this knowledge.
My second instinct, drawing from years of GMing for groups, was to outline the truth behind this gap in their backstory. I stopped myself halfway, thankfully, after realising that I would likely spoil the fun for myself in knowing exactly where things were heading. I very much need to get used to the idea that in a solo RPG, I am not just the player and the world, but also the character. And with this comes a strange tension between discovery and authorship.
After this revelation came the need to draw lines on what to prepare and what to uncover during play. I will now outline the decisions I took for this first game, with a disclaimer: this is my first game of solo rpg. I may not know for myself what is fun and what isn’t. I am simply experimenting and documenting this process here.
Knowing the Truth ≠ Killing the Mystery
Here is a bold statement for you. Knowing the truth of a mystery before the game doesn’t necessarily kill the fun of the game. If you’ve ever been a dungeon master before, you know that the fun isn’t in having full control over the mystery will unfold, but to let your players tell a story, rewrite the truth and surprise you at every corner.
I believe that knowing the connecting thread of the story doesn’t necessarily ruin the surprise. That is because some mysteries, and particularly the mystery at hand here, do not mean “whodunit” as much as they mean “what does this mean to me?”
In traditional TTRPGs, there is always a discrepancy between player and character, where the player wishes for a narrative arc while a character wishes to save the world as fast and efficiently as possible. (Brennan Lee Mulligan).
One can imagine that in a solo RPG, where one assumes the triple-sided (yes) role of player, character, and world, there would be tension between these roles.
- As a world in solo TTRPG, I wish to be as coherent and deep as is allowed by the other roles.
- As a player, I wish to uncover the truth as pleasingly as possible, through a complex character arc.
- As a character, I wish, again, to save the world, or myself, as efficiently as possible.
I came to the conclusion that it would be possible to create coherent and intentional mysteries in solo RPG while marrying the expectations of all three actors within the game by creating personal mysteries.
Personal Mysteries
Personal mysteries make use of the strength of solo RPG: a deep sense of the character’s knowledge, wants, and needs, and lesser control over the events of the game, which is controlled by the oracle.
The fun, then, comes less from a deduction game of understanding the truth behind the curtain but from seeing how this truth unfolds for the character, with the oracle’s randomness throwing obstacles and unexpected twists at you.
The elements of the Oracle’s randomness and the character’s selfhood become major instruments in unfolding the story in a pleasing and fun way. You may know from the beginning of the game who the adopted character’s parents are, but you may not know how they will come to find out and what impact it will leave on them.
In other words, in my opinion, the How is more important than the What in playing an interesting mystery.
Balance
I believe there is a balance to be struck, of course. While I don’t find the idea of jumping into a random mess of a story without assumptions or leading thread to be fun, if you know every detailed element of the mystery before playing, you may as well scrap your oracle and write a novel.
As such, for my character, I have decided to define the vague idea of the entity behind the curse of my character in order to better define them, while leaving out the details about what exactly happened to her family, why they’re bound to this god and how, what breaking free from the curse means, and what it costs, etc…
The Character Arc
Here is what I have defined: I know that her family once worshipped or served an entity that moves beneath the sands. I know that her bloodline carries a trace of that connection — a curse, a servitude, or a debt? And I know that she is drawn back to her past by a threat to her current self, caused by this curse or servitude.
I have a rough idea of the narrative tools it will take for her to uncover her own story.
Around this knowledge however, is a sea of uncertainty. So much of that story I have crafted in my head remains flexible. And virtually all of its consequences are unknown.
In defining this arc, I believe I’ve outlined a few anchor points that will drive the story forward and shape my expectations, without dictating how the story turns out. The main points of Sabriyya’s story should not work as rules but as guidelines, and they only give me enough knowledge to understand what she deeply desires and how she will want to act.
What I hope is that I have defined the shape of the mystery, but not its contents.
I will make sure to report back on how fun my handling of the mystery turned out to be.