The worst thing about being me is that I have too many ideas floating around in my head and an inability to focus on one of them long enough to bring it to the table. This trait is exacerbated when I consider the subject of playing solo, alone and for myself.

One key bias is the belief, deep down in my gaming psyche, that the most worthwhile form of roleplaying is a dedicated long-term table of players meeting face-to-face.

I suppose that this belief is rooted in growing up through the 1980s with a group of friends who played almost daily for some ten or more years. Looking back, I was mightily blessed to know a solid half-dozen or more gamers who committed to one-another over our entire time in secondary school.

Today, it feels like meeting online is a step away from that idealised belief of the most valuable game. It’s even more removed when we don’t play in a dedicated manner, perhaps choosing one-shots instead. It’s ultimately driving hard against the grain of that belief to play alone in a solo game. Yet, over the years I have been a champion for the idea that playing solo is better than not playing, and that playing online one-shots is a great way back to the table.

The past four years have been a journey for me to challenge a great number of deeply held beliefs which have not been helping me. This is not just around gaming, for sure, but it does include my roleplaying games hobby. When I published Roleplay Rescue Season 8, Episode 2, “Thirteen Game Master Rules” back on January 2nd 2021, I unlocked a whole pile of internal beliefs that were ripe for challenging. It seems there are some more to consider.

I have an implicit hierarchy of gaming preferences built around group and game commitment. It looks something like this:

1. The best roleplaying game is a dedicated table played face-to-face with a group of players meeting long-term.
2. A dedicated table played online is an acceptable alternative if it’s played long-term.
3. An open-table is an acceptable alternative to a dedicated table as long as the GM keeps it alive long-term.
4. One-shot games with the same players are the next acceptable form, as long as the group sticks together.
5. One-shot games played with one-time players are occasionally acceptable, e.g. at a convention, but not ideal.
6. Playing solo is a viable alternative if you can make it last long-term.
7. Playing solo for a one-shot or short sequence is one step better than not playing – at least it’s play.
8. Engaging with RPGs, even if it just involves reading/consuming products, is better than not being involved in actual play.

Unfortunately, I am not convinced that this hierarchy is serving me in a helpful way anymore. Basically, the pressure of playing in a ‘Tier 1’ game feels overwhelming.

Anything dedicated actually provides me with a further problem because I have come to believe that I am really bad at keeping a game alive – so few games survive that I have a negative mental loop about prepping for them. Why prep if the game won’t last?

But anything less that a dedicated table feels like second-best too. The practical upshot is that I either never really get games going, or I get a game going and then panic enough to sabotage it.

Some of the previously expressed Thirteen GM Beliefs that I still carry hamper this process:

2. It is the Game Master’s responsibility to make sure the players are having a good time.
3. The GM needs to know everything about the game system and the game world before play begins.
4. The game world needs to make sense to everyone at the table.

All of which is a prelude to asking: What if I was to invert the hierarchy in my head?

To be frank, I think that holding an ideal for what a great game might look like is proving unhelpful. That said, you don’t just discard deeply held beliefs overnight. The methodology of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy suggests that questioning the beliefs and testing alternative beliefs is useful but that change also takes time.

Can a good game emerge through playing one single session? If that game proves enjoyable, we are free to add another session if we want to… but we don’t have to. Play is a choice, not an obligation. This has been the recent pattern in my play, for example with Fellmyr: we played a one-shot, then we played some more, we are still playing 6+ months on.

Can a good game begin with one person playing solo? If the game proves enjoyable, we are free to continue playing alone. We are also free to invite others to play in the game, expanding the group. We can even choose to run that game for someone else, one or more friends or strangers. But we don’t have to. Playing alone is a valid choice. Playing with others is a different choice. Running for others is a further option.

It’s tempting to see roleplaying games as only being about dedicated group play in a consistent imaginary world. That’s how many of us have been conditioned to view them. But if the past 50 years of RPGs has any lesson to teach us it’s surely that different people have chosen different approaches to play.

For me, roleplaying games are about playing the role of a character in a specific imaginary secondary world. How we attain that goal is much more flexible than I tend to assume.

• What if I choose a game just for myself, solo?
• What if I choose to play solo to find out what happens?
• What if I choose to begin with a solo one-shot session?

Game on!