Two more days at work and then it’s the holidays and, frankly, I have no idea what to do with myself and the hobby. Ideally, I would be digging in to develop the After Ruin fantasy campaign that’s running with the Nottingham Dice Cup crew and working up a fresh online RPG offer. In reality, I have little idea what to do beyond basic prep.

But I’m hungry to play something good.

At times like this, I find myself drawn to the idea of solo play and my tool of choice is the Mythic GM Emulator. I’ve had the 2nd Edition book for 2 years but I’ve not really got it to the table. Alongside Mythic, I know that I want to deepen my experience and system knowledge with GURPS 4th Edition. It seems obvious that I should link these projects.

Mythic has been useful for me in scoping out and beginning to develop what I do (and don’t) want to play around with. Picking up a rough idea and using the GM Emulator to assist my creativity has been effective several times. Given that I’m seeking a setting worthy of long-form play, it seems reasonable to spark my imagination with an assist from Mythic.

With GURPS as the core game engine, there’s a need to scope the world and setting before you try to bring the system to the table. Past failures have all come from inadequate description of the world, the situation, and the characters. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools that Mythic can offer to help shape and define the world that interests me most.

One of the tensions I experience with solo play is the sense of randomness providing details that I simply don’t like. What I always seem to forget is that, with only myself at the table, it doesn’t matter if I change what Mythic suggests. Just because the Emulator proposes an idea doesn’t mean I have to accept it.

In fact, being presented with ideas that I don’t like can act like a Via Negativa – an apophatic approach which helps to define what the game I want to play isn’t. Perhaps a spell of playing alone and exploring the possibilities would be useful because it will clarify some of the aspects of play that I most strongly resist and dislike.

Either way, picking the books off the shelf and bringing them to the table is in itself better than passively sitting and wondering. Picking a starting point and making some dice rolls is a far more active and positive direction. After all, this past month or more has left me no closer to the next game. I wonder what I have to lose in trying.

Game on!