Talking Solo: GME's

Game-Master Emulators

Game Master Emulators (GMEs)

I’m taking a one-week break from Sanguine Dust so the Monday post will instead be a Talking Solo piece. If you’re interested in reading my solo actual-play of the game, Starforged: Ironsworn, check out the Table of Contents.

At some point when you are playing a tabletop role-playing game solo, you will need something to emulate a game master. Something to spur your imagination or tell you what happens next, or how an NPC responds to your character. There are a vast number of these out there, so we’ll start simple.

If you play a ttrpg that has solo rules, they likely have what’s called “Oracle Tables”, which are random tables you roll on which can tell you what enemies you face, what sights you see, or evocative words and phrases to answer open-ended questions. For example, in Starforged, the current game system I’m using for “Sanguine Dust”, when you arrive at a new place in space, you can roll on the “Space Sightings” oracle table. If that tells you there’s a planet, you can roll on the “Planet Type” oracle table to see if it’s an ocean world or a shattered world, etc. You can then generate settlements, life, atmosphere, etc. Starforged has very specific tables that work really well, but it also has more generic tables that you can use when you have an open-ended question. Maybe your question is, “Why did NPC Bob attack me?” You can roll on the Action and Theme oracle tables. You might get “Demand Warning”. Then you have to decide what that means. Maybe Bob was warned about you, or he was ordered to attack you by someone else. These types of oracle tables give you words and phrases meant to stimulate your imagination. Sometimes they work great, and other times, it can be difficult to use those words in your current situation but the great thing is, you can just roll again! I’ve found oracle tables to be extremely helpful in pushing a story forward, seeing what my character confronts and also about plot beats happening in the background.

But let’s say you want to play a ttrpg that doesn’t have solo rules or any oracle tables. How do you do that? Well, the most simple answer is to ask a yes/no question and roll a die. Maybe you’re interested in playing Dungeons and Dragons because it’s grown so popular but you don’t have a group to game with. You create your character and then what? Well, imagine a starting situation. You enter a town. Is the town safe? Assign yes and no to the values of a die and roll to find out! You can start at 50/50, half the numbers are “yes” and half are “no”. You can also decide on two options, assign half the die to one and half to the other and roll. Read on for an example.

Example:

• You enter a town.

  • Is the town safe? 1d6. 1-3 = no, 4-6 = yes.

  • 5 = yes.

• You head to the inn.

  • Does the barkeeper know of any rumors?

  • 4 = yes.

  • Is the rumor about wolves or goblins? 1-3 wolves, 4-6 goblins

  • 3 = wolves

  • Have wolves been attacking the nearby farms?

  • 1 = no

  • Have wolves been attacking people on the road?

  • 5 = yes.

• You head off to deal with these wolves.

You kind of get the idea. You can go with different values than 50/50. If it’s more likely to happen, give the option more opportunities. If it’s more likely to be wolves than goblins in the forest, then make 1-2: goblins, 3-6: wolves and roll a 1d6. You can use bigger dice if you’d like more options.

You can even use this for combat. Does the goblin stay and fight or run away? Of course, instead of random fate, you can input character abilities and skill rolls to see if you succeed or fail. Instead of randomly deciding if the goblin runs, you could roll Intimidate to see if you make the goblin scamper away.

Now, this is very basic but it does work. If you want to make it a bit more interesting, you can give more outputs per die roll.

Example:

• 1d6

  • 1 = No and,

  • 2 = No,

  • 3 = No but,

  • 4 = Yes but,

  • 5 = Yes

  • 6 = Yes and

The “and” and “but” push you to elaborate further and expand on the answer. This is a very common Game Master Emulator (GME) and can be used with any system. Another option is to create your own oracle tables. Input options for different dice values and roll.

Example: “What do I encounter in the forests?”

• 1d100

  • 1-10: Wolves

  • 11-20: Bandits

  • 21 - 30: Goblins

  • 31 - 40: A Hunter

  • 41 - 50: A quiet pond

  • 51 - 60: A woodland animal

  • 61 - 70: Peace and quiet

  • 71 - 80: A trap

  • 81 - 90: Someone in need of help

  • 91-95: A band of elves

  • 96-00: A monster

You can create your own random encounter tables depending on what you would like to see. What’s great is you only have to encounter things you find interesting and can leave out things you don’t want.

GME Products

If you would prefer finding and using a more complex system, there are many to choose from. I don’t have personal experience with many of these as I tend to make my own or use oracle tables, but I’ll share a few I’ve read and heard about here. Just know that some of these can be very in-depth and content-heavy. That’s not a bad thing but it can feel overwhelming to read thick, dense text when you’re just starting out wanting to play a game. These next ones I’ll call “The Big Three”, because as I was starting out, these were ones I heard about over and over. All have been around for awhile, for good reason.

Mythic GME

It’s not one I have experience with but it gets talked about on forums and discord regularly. It seems very expansive and a very good tool. Even if you don’t use the system itself, it offers great advice and information on the act of solo role-playing.

Motif

Motif is another one that’s talked highly about. I purchased it and read through it as I was interested in it’s “Mysteries” patch. It is in-depth and cohesive. It also has numerous “patches” you can add onto the base system to customize the engine to best suit you. I haven’t tried it yet, but I may in the future, especially if I attempt to solo ttrpg’s that involve ‘mysteries’.

CRGE

CRGE is another one that’s talked about often. I have downloaded and looked through it, and it’s definitely a well-thought out system. I haven’t used it, but it is free, so that in itself makes it worth checking out.

• Other GME’s and Tools:

  • Tilt - “Tilt offers a different take on odds based oracles. Its aim is to help you generate obstacles that encourage problem solving using the resources available to you in your RPG of choice.”

  • Recluse - “Here’s a simple question-answering tool you can use to tell stories with unexpected twists, or as drop-in replacement for the oracle in your favorite GM emulator.”

  • GM’s Apprentice - A website that deals you a random “card” that gives you all sorts of answers. Can also purchase it as a deck of cards. There are other decks suited to different genre’s of games.

  • Plot Unfolding Machine and Scene Unfolding Machine - “The Plot Unfolding Machine (PUM) is a one-pager GM Emulator that helps you come up with scene proposals, challenges and stakes for your PCs to fight for.” “The Scene Unfolding Machine (SUM) is a GM Emulator that helps you come up with content during your scenes. Ask the virtual GM their next actions and reaction, after our characters took their actions.”

These are just a handful of the tools out there but don’t feel overwhelmed. Pick a system, create a character and try something! If you have used these systems before or are currently using any of them, or your own, let me know. I’d be interested to hear about other player’s experiences with them.

Thanks for reading.

Next Monday, we’ll begin the second half of “Sanguine Dust”, as Shen aka “Coyote” hunts down the evil ex-overseer of Tranquility.