changeling the dreaming ~ play so far

[kossai]

so yes , solo changeling game with GEMulator !
as of right now , this is one part cathartic roleplay , and one part just silly fun . both aspects very important , of course . :)

currently run through little prelude that might evolve longer - childling kossai deal with family and school while make friend , who just start to experience dream dance and awaken to changeling self .

one downside is childling kossai is somewhat unbalance , in sense that ... things which childling would need roll for , coincidentally things which happen to be good in , like perception , dexterity , and crafts . likewise many of 0 to 1 dot traits do not have relevance to childling - like political knowledge , ability to drive or use firearms , and so on . so actually sometimes reroll things that go very well , because " yay this work perfectly " is less fun than something go wrong !

adult kossai in more adult world should have much better balance , just right now ... little off . :P

Comments

[onlyknownothing]

You are absolutely allowed to reroll to encourage more-interesting outcomes. One of the things I tend to do is "put my finger on the scale" when either success or failure is happening continuously by actively raising or lowering difficulties based on how many prior success/failure events have occurred:

If I start feeling it's too easy, I raise the difficulty by one step for every success I have until a failure happens (and then reset it to the defaults for the system).

If I start running into so many failures that it stops being fun, but my characters would continue on with their set path instead of changing course, I start dropping the difficulty bit-by-bit until they manage some sort of success. Or, alternatively, I go "they succeed" and then check for how long it took and what consequences there were for spending the time/making a bunch of attempts to manage it.

[kossai]

yeah ! sometimes have plans and know that plans should go this specific way , but numbers do not totally suit that ... sometimes fun to throw curveball in plans , but other times that would mess up things further ahead and make less fun , so just want to know how much of failure or success , not totally throw to opposite outcome .

is sort of why do not understand about GMs who complain about numbers completely ruin experience because like , well , nat 1 on avoid of deadly traps ! think there can sometimes be more to do with that than just instant death , even if refuse to reroll .
really like changeling ( probably general WoD ) difference between failure and botch . and even then , changeling encourage creative botches which defy expectation of most obvious disaster !

so guess sort of twofold problem there - one that insist traps must be deadly for stakes , and another that interpret nat 1 as most obvious and catastrophic event . but not really good stakes if player just want to ragequit due to outcome of dice roll which lack control over .

… oops ! write this earlier , switch away from window and forget to come back or even send . >.>

[onlyknownothing]

One of the things that I like about the most popular solo RPG "generic" ruleset, Freeform Universal (or just "FU"), is the possibility of "yes, but" or "no, but" outcomes. I find that if I need something to happen for personal-preference reasons, either success or failure, what I do is run the test/check anyways. That check isn't for "does it happen," but is instead for "HOW does it happen." If I know my character is going to succeed, is it a mixed blessing or a just-barely accomplishment? Does it have unpleasant knock-on effects? That's what I'm actually checking for in those times.