Friday, December 15, 2023

[Secret Santicorn!!] Player simulation oracle for solo games

It's Santicorn-time on the OSR discord server!

Kirt Dankmyer requested "A small oracle for solo OSR play oriented toward simulating party members and not the GM. Tho bonus points for a GM replacement oracle that dovetails with the first one."

Okay, my entry here is a bit of a stretch... But to truly replicate the OSR (and RPG...) experience, you need to account for the whims of the players themselves! So, you, as the solo DM, present the situation, then roll to see just how you, the solo player, are interested in this stuff...

THE PLAYER REACTION CHART (2D6)

 

 

Sample quip (1d5)

2

deal with it begrudgingly


1.    “Mehh, I think riddles are stupid”

2.    “Sure, although this is not how Jeff runs it”

3.    “This fight is a slog, I stab myself”

4.    “Ugh, not *another* ‘you start in a tavern’ session”

5.    “This goes against all established lore though”


3-5

scatterbrain


1.    “Sorry, I thought this was still Elsa’s turn”

2.    “Remind me, who is this guy again”

3.    “Wait, what do I roll for that?”

4.    “Yeah, it’s on my character sheet. Or this piece of scratch paper. I just can’t read it”

5.    “Can I borrow your dice?”


6-8

acknowledge & participate


1.    “Yes, this is all part of the game”

2.    “Fair enough, I hit it with my sword”

3.    “I ask the wizard if he knows the location of Castle whatsitsname”

4.    “My thief checks the lock for traps”

5.    “We ascend the stairs”


9-11

honest interest


1.    “Oh, I have this in my notes!”

2.    “Let’s try and befriend these goblins, we need allies against the Fish Lords”

3.    “That blacksmith is quite a character, I’m sure we can ask about her battlescars AFTER we are done with what we had planned”

4.    “What a quirky trap! We reset it to lure the next monster into it”

5.    “And I have just the spell we need!”


12

HYPERFIXATE


1.    “OMG so adorable let’s adopt this random gnome fighter”

2.    “We could make so much money by bottling the healing water from this random pool! Leave dungeon crawling behind”

3.    “I check for secret doors and traps every 5’ instead of 10’. There MUST be something here”

4.    “No, these broken chairs cannot simply be dungeon dressing. The GM mentioned them for a reason”

5.    “Okay, I examine the next book. And the next. The next one too…”


  



2 comments:

  1. As I mentioned on Discord, believe it or not, the only other player emulator I'm aware of also works kinda like this, only less tongue-in-cheek and longer.

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  2. My second take on this prompt: https://eldritchfields.blogspot.com/2023/12/secret-santicorn-second-more-serious.html

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