Solo Sci-Fi

[Napalm Backflip]

I've decided, given the relative sparseness of available players in my area, to go full force into solo gaming. I'm basically starting with an idea, a stack of rulebooks, and a bunch of questions.

The idea - a grand campaign spanning from space naval battles and mass ground combat, all the way down to skirmish level engagements. I plan to link everything at the start with a bare outline of a story, and let the narrative sort of build itself as the games play out.

The rules - I've done some homework in looking for rules that really shine with solo gaming and using any models in my collection. I've got a fairly substantial library of rulesets available to me including: 5150 (Star Army, Star Navy, and New Beginnings), Colonial Battlefleet, FAD, Five Parsecs from Home, Gruntz, Pulp Alley, Savage Worlds Showdown, and a few others.

The questions - Here I'm mostly just looking on how to put it all together. I tend to be like this with gaming: I get these grand ideas, stumble in the execution, then lose interest. This board never fails to inspire me! Have any of your had your own forays into solo gaming? How did it work out for you? What rules did you find worked the best? Any advice for sticking with a project of this scope?

[von Lucky]

A campaign is not much different to a group campaign.

Like any (real) conflict there's an initial battle or battles. So for your campaign is it a number of small skirmishes, a space invasion fleet that meets the thrown together defences or something else? That'll give you the start of the story. You can then build on the story with each battle - working at your own pace.

[Stroezie]

One squadron, transfigurable mechs for ground and space/air fighter combat.
Rules were a mix of THW, Gruntz and Squadron forward  by TFL.
Space battles were done using Brigade fleetscale fighters with a few capitol ships using THW Fighter Command.

Ground combat was a mix of Gruntz(better builder) with a bunch of the THW solo rules tacked on, using GZG's 6mm not-Votoms minis.

Squadron Forward was there to flesh out the backstory.

Lately I've been thinking of picking it back up using Horizon Wars so I can flesh out the transfigurable part a little better( with Gruntz I just used the rules for jumpjets)

If you want I can dig around for some pictures.
Good luck with your project, I'll be keeping an eye out on this thread, it just might get me motivated to pick my own campaingn up again😉

Cheers,
Stroezie.

[nozza_uk]

I play most of my games solo and I mainly settled on using 5150 and Pulp Alley.

5150 and all its variants really lends itself to solo play and Ed has put a lot of thought into the campaign generators. If it's "a grand campaign spanning from space naval battles and mass ground combat, all the way down to skirmish level engagements" you're after then 5150 would be the way I'd go. You've got 5150: Star Navy for big space battles and you can then bring in the other 5150 games for ground combat (5150 Battalion Commander or 5150 Platoon Commander) and skirmish (5150 Star Army). Also, THW have a sale on right now!

If you want something with a narrative (almost RPG lite), then revisit Pulp Alley.
Pulp Alley can be played solo with you controlling both sides and there's a soon to be released solo fortune deck that will help even more. The Perilous Island campaign readily lends itself to a sci-fi setting and Vice Alley can be tweaked for sci-fi. I'm using both Vice Alley & Perlious Island for a Judge Dredd campaigns and I've used Pulp Alley for Doctor Who, Star Trek & Stargate.

The only real limitation I find is finding time to play.

Hope that helps.

[zemjw]

I have had similar plans for a while, but never seem to get around to playing (always painting, finding new things to buy and make etc)

One of the problems is the rules - finding time to read, playtest etc, so a common engine across the game scales sounds like a good idea.

I never quite managed to gel with THW's ATZ zombie rules. Does the 5150 stuff use the same mechanic - are there "Stars" etc, and the "roll under to do stuff" (except not all the time )?

Their PDFs are pretty expensive, so it would be useful to know the approach they take before shelling out for yet another set of rules.

Pulp Alley keeps getting mentioned, so maybe it's time to explore that as well. However, I'm not sure it can handle spaceship battles

[nozza_uk]

It's probably worth downloading Chain Reaction 2015 http://www.twohourwargames.com/chrefive.html as the mechanics have subtly changed over the years. But, yes there is still Stars etc. 5150 uses Passing Dice (roll one or more d6 and compare each die score individually to the Target Number) or Rolling Successes (rolling dice and counting successes - score of 1, 2, or 3 - or failures - score of 4, 5, or 6).

Pulp Alley doesn't do spaceship battles but it's very good at narrative, character driven skirmishes. To my mind it's feels like episode of a TV /Radio show.

[Napalm Backflip]

Awesome! Thanks for the tips everyone. I'm trying to flesh this out more as the day goes on, but unfortunately work is busy today, so no luck getting paid to work on game stuff. 

Zemjw - I too have a version of ATZ that I could never get through. I found it convoluted, poorly edited, and just overall not inspiring. I'm pretty happy to say that the newer 5150 products have been WORLDS better. Much easier to follow. They're still very different from most other types of games and definitely take some getting used to, but I'm excited to try them out.  I definitely feel like they're much more worth the cost now.

Pulp Alley is one I'm very excited to check out. It gets rave reviews on here and other boards.

[zemjw]

There was a phrase in ATZ - "Let's see how that's done" if memory serves - that was nearly causing me physical pain by the time I got through the rules

I don't have the 2015 version of the chain reaction rules, so I'll download them and give have a read. If they don't make me want to set fire to them then I'll pick up the Star Army rules

@Napalm - what sort of setting are you going for? Mine is hardish SF based (think Traveller), but using figures/races I have - eg Tau, but no Imperium/Chaos. I also see more of a skirmish based setting, but with Big Stuff happening in the background.

I have some of the VBAM rules, which I considered using to drive background events, but, needless to say, that's as far as I got

[Napalm Backflip]

There was a phrase in ATZ - "Let's see how that's done" if memory serves - that was nearly causing me physical pain by the time I got through the rules

I don't have the 2015 version of the chain reaction rules, so I'll download them and give have a read. If they don't make me want to set fire to them then I'll pick up the Star Army rules

@Napalm - what sort of setting are you going for? Mine is hardish SF based (think Traveller), but using figures/races I have - eg Tau, but no Imperium/Chaos. I also see more of a skirmish based setting, but with Big Stuff happening in the background.

I have some of the VBAM rules, which I considered using to drive background events, but, needless to say, that's as far as I got

I know EXACTLY what you mean with that phrase. The rules are laid out much better now, and he uses 'stop boxes', basically shaded boxes with a few questions to keep things in an easily digested format. Still a little bit of a battle for me but I think the end result is going to be worth it.

Setting wise, I'm pretty similar to what you're thinking actually. The idea I have is of this grand war playing out across the stars and I'd sort of like a near-ish future earth to get caught up in the mix. I'm borrowing some ideas from sci fi novels, shows, and games. Namely John Ringo's Hot Gate series, XCom, and Falling Skies. I imagine that the Solar System is the site of a newly discovered wormhole or warp gate, which brings all sorts of interstellar visitors, some benevolent and some decidedly not.

As you can tell it's all pretty amorphous right now, but I'm getting there.

VBAM is in my collection too but it's too much. I basically went cross-eyed reading through it.

[Maj Guiscard]

I don't always (actually I would say I "just sometimes") game solo, but I have a long continuous storyline for my blog.
I play in Narrative style campaigns, much like you describe, as the battles are a mix of-Space/Sky, Mass Battle, and Skirmish.
http://govgensectorsix.blogspot.com/

Sometimes there are even diplomatic events with no violence at all (look under "Social Adventure").
It's been running since January of 2013.
I even once managed to participate in a cross-blog (and cross continental) campaign:
http://govgensectorsix.blogspot.com/search/label/Secret%20War%20and%20Grand%20Tour%20Campaign

Sources and Inspiration
My first inspiration comes from the (now defunct) but just awesomely excellent Major General Tremorden Rederring's Colonial Wargames Page. You can access most of its pages through the internet wayback machine. It is an amazing place of story and ideas.

Also, the active blogs of the "Emperor vs. Elector" blog.
http://emperor-elector.blogspot.com/
They built a massive semi-shared world through each building an "Imagi-Nation" on their own blogs.  They are past their peak years of contributions, but the concept of Imagi-Nations and the execution on the blogs of several contributors is just fantastic. (Not to mention the sexy term "Imagi-Nation")

Of all those blogs, the one that stands out most to me is this one:
http://tidders-kingdomofwittenberg.blogspot.com/
So many of his posts are just about life in the little Kingdom. A great exercise in world building, and providing a setting for small wars to matter.

For photographic and set building majesty, there is the blog, "Campaigns of General William Augustus Pettygree":
http://generalpettygree.blogspot.com/
Pack a lunch. It's a beautiful story based blog, you'll be there awhile.

I hope my post has been helpful, and if I can answer any questions about my own small contribution to the blogosphere, just let me know.

[Napalm Backflip]

I don't always (actually I would say I "just sometimes") game solo, but I have a long continuous storyline for my blog.
I play in Narrative style campaigns, much like you describe, as the battles are a mix of-Space/Sky, Mass Battle, and Skirmish.
http://govgensectorsix.blogspot.com/

Thank you so much for the post... tons of inspiration there. Your blog is fantastic!!

[d phipps]

You can download a free version of Pulp Alley to check out some of the basic mechanics of play. It doesn't cover everything, but it is enough to get started.

When we ran some retro sci-fi games, the flying rules in our Gadgets, Gear, and Vehicles worked really nice for some space battles. 

[Napalm Backflip]

You can download a free version of Pulp Alley to check out some of the basic mechanics of play. It doesn't cover everything, but it is enough to get started.

When we ran some retro sci-fi games, the flying rules in our Gadgets, Gear, and Vehicles worked really nice for some space battles. 

Thanks Dave! I'm absolutely going to be trying the rules out in the near future.

[Harry von Fleischmann]

Um, if you need random tables and a system with a campaign structure which can fit most sci fi genres then, Starport Scum is out. Shameless plug.

On a general note, I'd start small and build out. Don't pin yourself down to a whole galaxy, give yourself room and don't forget what they said about The Big Rubble - once they mapped it, it seemed smaller. The fun is in the journey.

Mind the void rippers....

[Napalm Backflip]

Um, if you need random tables and a system with a campaign structure which can fit most sci fi genres then, Starport Scum is out. Shameless plug.

On a general note, I'd start small and build out. Don't pin yourself down to a whole galaxy, give yourself room and don't forget what they said about The Big Rubble - once they mapped it, it seemed smaller. The fun is in the journey.

Mind the void rippers....

Thank you for the advice. Starting small is something I really have to work towards. That's one of my main problems! I have these grand ideas and then get bogged down in the execution. I think I'll start with a small scale skirmish campaign detailing the initial alien invasion of Earth, in the vein of Falling Skies and XCom. That will let me develop the world concepts and some starting characters.