I am still one day behind, but I will try and catch up!
Today’s prompt is Change.
I want to share an experiment I have been having a lot of fun with recently.
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When we buy new RPGs, one of the things I certainly do, and I think most GMs do, and that is make lots of characters.
These characters are never wasted, we can use them as NPCs when we get to play. Making them gives up experience of making many different types of character and helps when you need to help you players create their characters when you get to run the game.
Unless you are solo playing, in which case, you are the player.
And this brings me to my experiment.
I was playing a game, solo, when I had a chance encounter with an NPC. It was a simple crossing of paths, no real interaction. In doing so, I didn’t know what or where the interaction was going to go, and I had a prepared character sheet to hand, which I stuck the NPC’s name on.
Over the next couple of days, I got to wondering about that NPC. I put the main game on hold, and I started solo playing that NPC from the moment immediately following the chance encounter with my main PC. I had the character sheet to hand, and over those couple of days I had imagined their back story, which is what made them interesting to play. I only played them for a day or so until they met a violent and bloody end.
Roll the clock forward and last week I was playing Dark Streets & Darker Secrets. [Solo rules here], and I had a similar chance encounter. This one made it into the book as an example, the lady with the French Perfume. I was thinking about her and as I had a pile of NPCs made, I decided to play her for a session. An hour in she nearly got hit by a car outside the airport. I was reminded of a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction with Bruce Willis. So, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I gave the car driver a character sheet and played him for a while.
This body hopping was a strange experience. It is not often we get to change the point of view within a game. We are inside our characters and see the world from that character’s point of view.
If you are running a solo game with lots of social interaction and intrigue, why not give this character changing experiment a go?