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Comment by asimpleusecase | Hacker News Reader

Seems like a bad idea for anything other than a bit of testing. Back in university a gang of us played all the time and many of us were the prototypical nerds and somewhere on the socially awkward spectrum. But role playing gave us social interaction practice because we did it together. We knew one guy who was so introverted that he would sit in his room and run a dungeon by himself. He did not do that because he was shunned by others it was because he preferred to not interact with anyone else. It just reinforced unhealthy habits for him. In our society we need more person on person interaction, not less. Spending scores of hours running yourself through a dungeon seems unhelpful for the most part.

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I feel it adds a lovely bit of variety to the experiences. Tried a journaling RPG for the first time recently — spending 4 hours imagining experiences, describing them, and guiding my creativity with the game's ruleset / prompts. The game allowed room for introspection, for overcoming internal obstacles, for writing / thinking carefully about how I phrase things.

That was a profoundly different experience from my Tuesday afternoon RPG campaign where the social aspect, on-the-fly improvisation, "yes, and"-ing and the collective storytelling dominate, but would not discard the solo game as a bad idea — it's just built for something else.

You started with a goal and you took notes so the only thing different between your experience and Exploratory Testing is the debrief session. Oh, but you've started that here already, too.

If all manual testers played games like you, there would be more respect for that profession. Likewise, if more game testers did . . . anywho . . .

What, may I ask, did you play?

As if I'll look back here again! Seriously, I'll try to remember. That sounds like the kind of exercise James (not the seagull son) Bach would do. ;-)

https://www.satisfice.com

Thousand Year Old Vampire is probably the best single player RPG.

https://thousandyearoldvampire.com/

Here's a gorgeous illustrated playthrough:

https://www.timdenee.com/A-Thousand-Years-of-Vampire

Ironic that in a thread about shaming how people should be permitted by others to have fun, the first page of that web page is a long rant about the author's demand to gatekeep his purchasers political views, dripping with hatred for his opponents.

"If you stand by quietly as Republicans take the power of the vote from African Americans in Alabama and compete to hurt trans people as badly as possible then you are part of this problem. You are lobbying for the death of my friends and relations, you are pushing for dangerous authoritarians to destroy the systems that let books like mine come to be. And this goes for equivalent groups outside the US–you know who you are."

Ie, don't be a fascist.

That is a generous reading of the paragraphs of rambling on that page. The author lumps half of all voters in with actual "extremists". It is just useless, divisive political vitriol.

One thing I have learned over the years is that politics is extraordinarily complex. Painting with wide strokes and making caricatures of the "others" isn't useful or accurate. Nuance is just too complex for our monkey brains, so tribalism reigns. We must demand better every time this kind of drivel appears, regardless of the level of agreement with anything being said.

Perhaps those who wish to remove rights from people and treat them as second class citizens simply because of their sexual orientation, religious belief or lack of belief, or socioeconomic status deserve to be treated the way that want others to be treated.

I see little wrong with letting people experience a bit of what they, if they could, would force others to experience.

Frankly, those that "have fun" by punching down the already-downtrodden deserve everything they get, especially when one side is a lone politically powerless nerd. Suggesting an equivalence between the entire political right, with its glorious machinery designed to disenfranchise, and some guy who writes simple RPGs, is a false equivalence at best. Remember that politics is the study of who gets what, where, when, why, and how they get it -- this lone nerd isn't even preventing anyone from anything, he's just spewing helpless vitriol. The grand array of the political right is actually actively taking, right now.

I don't see how saying, "have fun how you'd like to" and "dont buy my thing if you have different fundamental beliefs than I do" are the same. Feels like you're stretching a bit to try to make a point.

I had to google journaling rpg and the first thought I had is that this could be a big part of a creative writing class in high school for some kids.

When I was in high school, I despised the writing assignments and I believe I'm worse off now for never developing that skill.

Yep, I used to teach creative writing and the kids loved these. They can be cooperatively social, too -- I know one of my former colleagues is using a journaling RPG as a framework for a shared worldbuilding project that his students seem to find really engaging and generative.

If you wouldn’t mind sharing any teaching resources, I would really appreciate it! Email is in profile.

Counterpoint. The "nerdy" hobbies are dominated by gatekeepers who have played the thing they're into (e.g. DND, MTG, Warhammer) for a long time, who don't actually want to get you into it as well, but who want to flex their experience and skills. They don't want people to play with, they want an audience.

You can be into social games but still be socially maladjusted. I prefer the single player experience over that.

If your goals, personalities or experience don't align, it will suck to play games with certain people. But that's the case for all social activities. But plenty of game groups exists with enough people that you don't have to play with the people you don't like playing with.

I think is a bad idea as reading a book. If the only thing you do is that, a lonely solitary thing, it doesn't matter if it's a book, watch a series or play a solo RPG: the issue is not the activity, it's your relation with it.

I agree with you that social interaction is important, needed for a sane life, but at the same time, I consider this as not a bad option for those cases you cannot meet with friends.

Trying to force multiplayer RPG's to work solo is a stretch, I give you that.

On the other hand, there are good, well made, solo-rpgs, aven though many are more of a creative-writing exercise than the monster-smashing/dungeon-delving/hex-exploring many of us associate with the genre.

Gentleman Bandit is great! Thousand year old vampire made me feel things!

The introverted guy you mention maybe could use some more people in his life, but that seems orthogonal to the existence of this interesting genre. Maybe if he didn't run his dungouns, he would be writing schlocky fantasy fanfic, or solving infinite number of sudoku. And while I might still slightly judge him as an introverted weirdo, I wouldn't judge him more, or less.

Well... Not everyone plays table top games with the goal of expanding their social skills. Some play to relax. I don't see how this is different from reading a book or playing a solo video game.

I've done some solo roleplaying (1000 year vampire is a great system I played recently) and its fun. It's also easy to do while traveling instead of trying to coordinate an entire rpg group.

How is that different from playing single player computer games? Would you also say people should only play multiplayer computer games?

Computer games are more rigid. Tabletop RPGs are fun (IMO) because of the interactions between people, which more often than not involve modification of the rules. I'm not here to tell people what is fun them, but I'd guess that most people would very quickly (a) decide a computer might as well keep track of the rules - you've reinvented Final Fantasy - or b) look for some friends to enjoy the game you've experimented with by yourself.

It's not that different at all. Especially if you talk to a variety of people about what the game does for them. And not even just simulators. Most computer gameplay is easily modeled as solo role play with fancy tools.

It also makes me think about the huge variety of games that used D&D style stats, back in the day (many still do). I was reading the manual for Sea Rogue for DOS recently (treasure hunting scuba game) and mechanically it's transparently TTRPG behind the scenes for character actions.

To most people RPGs are understood as CRPGs. Or as tabletop munchkin-ing - getting loot while leveling up. These are the times we live in.

I am curious about the online professional GM/DMs. But also afraid it would be more of that. Because that's what people expect.

Even with just board games, I've had groups who've been able to explore new ideas together. Historical, social, political. We've played out how to run counter-insurgency and how to be war profiteers and how to seize power and how to play Kingmaker (AH joke!). We've behaved in ways our work and school lives would not tolerate. Heck, we even spent some time exploring how games have evolved like the roots of MTG. And I'm planning some series on different takes on similar topics by game designers of different eras - just for the fans of design(ers). But we have been playing games. Together. To experiment and learn and grow. Individually, but also together.

I own some solo games, but I could easily write more challenging code than the game bots. On that topic, I've been wondering if there's anything chewy there - any reason to try to do code for those. What if I have 2 other people and we want to play Diplomacy? What kinds of game-stupid AIs are interesting for my favorite train games and how could they be balanced for difficulty? Can anyone build a truly challenging ASL bot? Etc.

Just because you engage in solor roleplaying doesn't mean you shun communal roleplaying. Another comment asks what's the difference with sitting along in your room and playing a computer game. Well, yes.

Also, another comment in another thread reminded me of Choose Your Own Adventure games that were popular in the '90s and I suppose they were popular among the same crowd that played D&D with each other.

Back the day I played a bit, the old Star Wars D6 (still my preferred system and universe, I'm a total EU nerd) and the German DSA. That being said, finding a group with a similar playing style is a challenge. RPGs do help a lot so when it comes to moderating and participating workshops and the like in professional life.

Without a group, and without the time, I ended becoming kind of a single player role player. More like developing stories for some character concepts and the corresponding world building. It is a distraction, after 8 hours plus clued in front of a screen watching a movie or gaming is not as interesting most of the time as it used to be. And it helps in developing story telling skills, which are helpful as well. And fun, not that I ever want to become an author (my ability to create unique worlds suck, I'm much better working with existing stuff), but I do like it a lot.

I agree that this is me balancing a solo, creative activity against social interactions. For someone struggling with social interactions in general I'd not advice it as a main activity.

> In our society we need more person on person interaction, not less.

perhaps, but if you can't find that interaction (sometimes not in fault of a lack of trying), you gotta do what entertains you.

I agree, and I'd add: Entertains or protects you and your health. Forcing one's introverted self to be extroverted is associated with psychological risk. Ethics courses in the field of personality type usually cover this emphatically, with regard to personality discovery. Just like in gaming, if you have high INT and low CHA for example, it's important to be careful with high CHA tasks and know your archetype.

Extroverted activities can be helpful at times but will naturally cause introverts stress; growth stress sure but it's still stress. It's silly to treat such a person as if they are broken, when they may be doing their best work by themselves. There are other ways of looking at such a situation that are more helpful.

And overlaying a simple "get out more" model on them is ethically questionable to say the least...

Single player RPGs are just constrained writing exercises, the same way single player DMimg is just writing a book. I actively play in my campaign as a player, but spend a lot of spare time writing campaign settings I never intend to play. It's a blend of creativity and fun which most good hobbies have.

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