Carsten's Mythic Adventures, Lessons Learned

From Carsten from Germany:

While I was playing my Mythic GME Star Wars adventure, a few issues have come up that I felt made the game somewhat more complicated than it maybe needs to be, so I felt I need to simplify things. First, let's talk about what was and is bothering me:

1.

I like the feeling of being able to explore an entire universe or world without being restricted in any way, sort of like in these very popular "open world" or "free roam" video games but with the added freedom that indeed you can do anything if you choose (unlike in these games where you usually can't climb mountains or trees etc.).

In my experience the mechanic that structures the adventure into scenes takes away from that. I found myself thinking in scenes and the entire process of changing a scene (updating lists, chaos, altering setup or not etc.) actually felt like a chore with a lot of bookkeeping involved, which broke the immersion in the story.

This mechanic is good for a certain play style where the adventure is structured like a movie but I prefer a more "sandbox style" game where I just explore, following my hero's motivation and see what happens.

2.

I don't like the Chaos Factor mechanic. Even with the discussed change of using the Chaos Factor in a reverse manner (see the actual posts and comments) I don't like the fact that the CF affects probabilities. You might disagree here and argue, that the CF represents hidden forces at work but my stand on this is, that I set certain probabilities for a reason, namely because they make sense within the logic of the game world and the story. If I set the odds at 50/50, then that is exactly what I want those odds to be because it makes sense. If I feel the probability should be higher, I set different odds. The fact that 50/50 odds can actually have a 75% chance for a yes is something I can't get used to. Even using the Chaos Factor in reverse, once you are at 7 or 8 things start to get messy and become illogical, which in turn can take the story into unsatisfying directions.

3.

The Fate Chart is too complicated with too many possibilities for odds, that, in my opinion, are really not necessary.

So, this is what I did to streamline these things:

• I completely eliminated the CF mechanic. In my other game and future games (I have a D&D session in the works at the moment, in German though) there is no CF.
• I simplified the Fate Chart to a point where you don't really need a chart. To resolve a Fate Question, I roll two differently colored d6 together. One die is designated the "Fate Die" and the other one is designated the "Event Die".

The roll of the Fate Die determines the outcome of the question: If the Fate Die roll is equal to or higher than the roll needed for a "Yes" the answer is "Yes". The needed roll depends on the assigned odds. There are 5 categories:

very unlikely ("Yes" on a roll of 6)
unlikely ("Yes" on a roll of 5+)
50/50 ("Yes" on a roll of 4+)
likely ("Yes" on a roll of 3+)
very likely ("Yes" on a roll of 2+)

The roll of the Event Die determines if the result is an exceptional result and if a random event occurs.

If the Event Die shows a 6, whatever the outcome of the Fate Die, the result is an exceptional result.

If the Event Die shows a 1, a random event occurs which is determined as normal or, with regard to JF's post using story cubes you could certainly use whatever randomizer you want to generate an event.

4.

I also eliminated the structure of scenes. I write the entire adventure as one story, just describing my hero's actions and the reaction of the world around him. I think one of the main reasons for using scenes in Mythic is, that the scene change is an opportunity to inject randomness into the adventure, which is of course necessary. So if you eliminate scenes, you need some other method to keep things unpredictable and provide action. This is why I implemented the Event Die mechanic.

In my experience so far, a 1 in 6 chance of a random event whenever you ask a fate question provides enough random encounters. If you want more action just increase those odds to 2 in 6 or add that a 1 AND rolled doubles with the Fate Die generate a random event.

However, if you don't use scenes and play in an "open world style", sometimes a random event won't fit into the action right away. In that case I just make a short note of the event focus, action and subject and inject the event in the adventure when appropriate.

So far this has improved my solo rpg experience a lot. Now I am thinking about getting these Story Cubes to generate random events...

Thanks, Carsten!