PWM: Sanguine Dust, Post-Season Debrief

A look back at 19 chapters of a solo-gaming campaign and what comes after

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

As a teacher, I always believe in starting with the positives. So, let’s look at what I feel went well with Sanguine Dust.

First, the system and setting of Starforged are fantastic for playing space-faring adventures. It’s character and sector creation rules are great. The Vows push your character into conflicts. The moves lead to interesting and intriguing outcomes. The wealth of oracle tables are inspiring and never repetitive. The system is incredibly well-designed, and basically teaches you how to solo-role-play as you go. It’s a great first system if you are thinking about trying out solo-gaming.

I think Sanguine Dust had a great setting and an interesting starting sector. I had cool settlements and planets, and a great sector trouble to start the story with the plague. I’d like to think I came up with cool ideas based off oracle results, integrated them into the story, and pushed the plot in interesting ways. I feel like certain storylines were pretty interesting and engaging. Exploring the underwater settlement, hunting down the tyrant, exploring the vault, etc. There were some exciting battles and a handful of interesting character moments.

Now, for the less than positive. I think it shows that this was my first true solo-roleplaying campaign. I moved quickly, with more focus on action and less attention to details and setting. I didn’t take the time to detail a room or a planet or a situation, and I think this shows, as I move quickly from scene to scene. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to move quickly, especially if that’s what you’re interested in, but I found, having not established scenes and places very well, that I could get lost. Where am I? What am I doing? What’s happening in this scene, this place? Without concrete details, it can be difficult to visualize what’s going on or what could happen next. So, I feel like this campaign can feel a little…fast and loose. And that’s fine if that’s what you like to do. But I’ve found that I play better when I try to establish more details about the space I’m in, the characters around me, and the situation going on. It may slow things down but it allows for more development and hooks for interesting things to happen. If you take the time to establish details, you can bring in more of your world-building, make the characters feel more 3-dimensional and less like cardboard cut-outs.

Shen, aka Coyote, was not a well-established character. I created him as a gun-slinging scoundrel trying to do good. I couldn’t think of a good background vow, so I gave him the “Explore beyond the void”, thinking it would never be something he would get to, but would give him enough motivation to keep going if he found himself with downtime and little else to do. Unfortunately, I didn’t really care about this vow. It’s not very interesting and I’ve found, with solo-gaming, the more hyper-focused and specific your character is, the better your story will be. Something like “Avenge my father’s death” is super cliche but it gives you a great motivation in moving forward.

My story meandered a bit, moving from place to place and not staying in anywhere for very long. I felt the first half was fairly solid. Saving a friend, overthrowing and hunting a dictator, but after that is when my interest began to wane and it shows in the narrative. The symbiote was very cool, but I just kind of lost interest. Delivering shipments wasn’t a fun vow. I didn’t find myself invested in the story anymore, or the characters within.

Which isn’t to say I regret anything. Playing this way led to 19 chapters/sessions of very fun gaming. Of course there’s bits that could be improved but whatever way works for you to play and have fun is the best way. I always see, on reddit and discord, that the problem most solo-gamers have starting out, is literally “starting”. How do I start? What do I do? And the answer is “just do something.” Starforged does a great job of getting you going, but whatever system you use, the answer is just do it. Roll on a few oracle tables if you want, or if you have a cool idea in your head, just go with it. The point is to start. You can always reverse, go back, edit, and make changes, but unless you actually BEGIN, you have nothing. I used to have a blog called “Write First, Ask Questions Later”, which was based around the idea that, when doing something creatively, you have to do the thing first. When writing, you have to write first, then you can edit, change, add to, expand, etc.

But you can’t do anything with nothing. The same idea applies to solo-gaming. You have to play first and ask questions later.

Another good habit for a solo-gamer to have. Stealing. Steal from your favorite stories. Steal ideas, characters, situations and plots from your favorite movies, tv shows, books, etc. Want to play through your own version of Alien? Start yourself off alone on a ship or space station and there’s a monster hunting you. I wanted a symbiote because Venom is my favorite Marvel character. Bam, it’s black, it has sentience and makes Shen into a violent monster. Sure, I tried to turn it into my own thing but it started out as just a cool idea I shamelessly stole. This includes finding cool art online that goes with your story. I have a pinterest board with cool sci-fi art I find that I would look at for ideas and inspiration.

I hope this has been helpful and interesting, whether you’re planning on solo-gaming yourself or just find this way of following a story intriguing.

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Midas_Push over on the Lone Wolf Discord asked: “What are the main factors to keep in mind/make a priority when running a solo campaign of any game system?”

For me, I’d say…

1. Having fun

2. You are in control

The most important is, of course, to ask yourself if you’re having fun. If you’re not, investigate why. Is the plot uninteresting? Are the character(s) boring? Are you not invested in the situation? What would shake things up? When did you stop having fun?

The other factor is to remember that, ultimately, you are in control. No matter what system you use, you get to decide what happens next. A roll goes bad and by the rules, your character should die? Decide that it doesn’t happen. Maybe they’re beaten up and left for dead. Maybe they’re imprisoned. Maybe something or someone intervenes. Don’t follow the rules just for the rules sake. GMs have the ability to fudge the dice to make the story more interesting and exciting. So do you. Sometimes, it can be good to go over the stakes before an important roll. If you’re about to lose a battle, think through the different options. “If I succeed, I turn the tide of the battle and achieve the objective” vs “If I fail, I’m disarmed and captured” or even “I manage to escape but the enemy achieves their objective.” Deciding before hand ensures you’re interested in the outcome, either way.

3. Don’t try to be perfect

You’re going to make mistakes, miss details, get bogged down, get bored, etc. You have to roll with it, or make changes, or retcon as needed. The only judge is yourself and the only measure is whether you’re enjoying yourself or not.

4. Like your characters.

Another member of the Lone Wolf discord, JeansenVaars, responded with this important idea. “Like the characters, like the setting, be curious into what can happen. When I lose those things I end up dropping the game".” I completely agree and would expand that to include flesh out your characters. Shen wasn’t a fleshed out character and, to be brutally honest with myself, none of the NPCs he met were fleshed out either, which made it hard to care about them. I was so quick to get into playing, to make things happen, that I didn’t take the time to create characters I really cared about and I think this contribued to the lack of interest and engagement towards the end.

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Moving forward, I’m going to take a break over the next couple weeks, then I’ll have a couple non-PWM-gaming weeks including a rundown of more Game Master Emulators, a cross-post of another solo-gaming campaign and then I’ll begin my Thousand-Year-Old Vampire campaign.

I also plan on introducing some reader-interaction! The first question: What time period should my Vampire life begin? I’ll link to a poll over the next few posts, here and start a Substack Chat thread, so readers can chime in. If you have any interesting historical settings you think would be cool, let me know! I’ll be starting a brand new TYOV campaign for this, which is exciting for me. Since I’ll be playing as I post, I’ll be asking for some reader input into the story. Drop a comment with a thought or a question and share if you think anyone else would be interested. I’m excited to play through and share a solo journaling game.

Thanks for reading!