Ensemble Adventure Gaming

Playing solo in the round.

The pandemic and associated social distancing has seemingly reinvigorated solo tabletop gaming as evidenced by the number of postings I have read on bogs and seen on video. As given online play has been given a significant  boost by social distancing, it stand to reason that solo play might also. It is the prospect of combining the two that I wish to ponder in this post.

Tabletop games are generally designed as a social gathering pastime. Group play is where real role-playing finds its audience and can excel as a form of shared entertainment. Solo play also has its adherents and although the audience is usually limited to just oneself, it can be quite rewarding as we sit alone, playing out fictional adventures through the actions of our character(s). 

During a recent short walk around the neighborhood, a thought occurred to me as I pondered various aspects of the day including solo gaming - "could solo gaming be a shared experience?" I wonder. Can we develop a way to cooperate with another in a shared adventure?  Through the gaming activities of two or more players, each playing solo, can we join our game narratives together forming something of interest to us all?

Many novels are written with chapters that alternate characters and setting, where each chapter is devoted to a different main character only to circle round to a previous character in the next chapter. By advancing a similar timeline through the novel we, the reader, first see what character A is doing, then the narrative will switch to character B and so on, until perhaps all the characters come together at the finale! 

This is just the kernel of an idea, but perhaps by corresponding with a fellow solo gamer something similar could be achieved using perhaps a common timeline connecting separate adventures in connected regions of a common setting. We each would start our characters on their respective journey, advance a day at a time with each player playing out whatever adventures our character has that day and finally either the players will compare notes with an eye toward any common threads looking for any places where serendipity may link our fates, or if sharing an online session, will immediately know what is going on and make suggestions as appropriate in an effort to weave the separate adventures together with some ultimate or emerging goal in mind.

In a certain classic fantasy story known to most in this hobby, a group of travelers set off to save the free peoples by destroying an evil ring. They become separated along the way, but they journey on in separate groups, each finding their own way to help accomplish the common goal of defeating the dark lord. Each of these groups will benefit from the successful actions of another group and it is ultimately perhaps the least likeliest of the fellowship upon whom winning and losing ultimately depends. In the end great evil is defeated and peace returns to the land. And a grand story is assembled combining the adventures of many when all is said and done.