Mastering Solo RPGs: Balancing Combat and Story in Solo Roleplaying | Solo Play Guide

Welcome to Hollowponds Solo Sagas!
Struggling to find the perfect balance between thrilling battles and compelling storytelling in your solo RPG adventures? In this episode of Mastering Solo RPGs, we explore the art of seamlessly weaving combat and story together to create immersive, engaging gameplay.
Discover how to:
Use combat to drive the narrative forward.
Avoid combat overload while maintaining story momentum.
Make every fight meaningful with real consequences.
Simplify mechanics to keep the focus on the narrative.
Leverage tools like GM emulators and oracles to add unpredictability to your encounters.
Whether you’re a seasoned solo player or just starting your journey, these tips and techniques will help you craft epic adventures where combat and story work together to enrich your experience.
🔗 Don’t forget to share your thoughts and challenges in the comments! I’d love to hear how you balance combat and story in your games.
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Stay tuned and remember, the adventure is just beginning!
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[@OldDesertGal]

Two things that helped me - have a procedure to follow when your imagination fails (time based procedures work well), and creating your starting environment using generative tools in your rpg (often your first adventure will come up during this)

[@HollowPondsSoloSagas]

Awesome advice. Thank you.

[@Saerbhreathach]

Abstracting combat and the Tolkien analogy was fantastic. Part of the reason my first solo campaign died out around level 7 was because as you said, it had become a combat grind one after another. And yea there was narrative reasons why this occurred, but I got too bogged down in the maps and token placement and skirmish gaming and not enough in moving the story forward - which was really hard when I realistically already knew the conclusion I was trying to reach. It became tiresome to play, which is antithetical to the reason we do it at all! Abstracting the combat - best advice ever for the “less than critical” fights that occasionally pop up. Also, letting the goons, grunts, mooks and henchmen run away once in a while - yes! This! - gives great incentive for one of them to rise in the ranks and come after you later on, which is great narrative inspiration if/when it eventuates. Rivalries and relationships squabbles are awesome story drivers, and it’s just there waiting to be grabbed - but we don’t, we just slay everything…. It’s mediocre lol. Excellent little bite of content here.

[@HollowPondsSoloSagas]

The fight is only half the story.😁 thank you so much for the feedback.

[@Sacred_Art_of_Gaming]

This is honestly one of those things that I know, deep down buried in my soul, but it can be really easy to forget about so thank you for the vid! I’m looking back at my solo play I just finished like yup…I definitely did not implement that as much as I should’ve.

[@HollowPondsSoloSagas]

I’m really glad it helped. Thank you for the comment.

[@JSmithHendricks]

Totally worth it! Thanks for sharing your thoughts

[@HollowPondsSoloSagas]

Thank you. I’m glad 😁

[@RollingSoloRPG]

Really great video friend! I really like the voice tone of the video. It just seems a bit more relaxed and gentle. But maybe I'm just reading into it too much lol.

[@HollowPondsSoloSagas]

lol no you picked up on it... its my teaching tone. From when I was a teacher :D

[@RollingSoloRPG]

It worked! 😁

[@BlueBeetle1939]

Having a hard time wrapping my head around soloing a ttrpg at all seems like cheating in a way

[@HollowPondsSoloSagas]

Watch some of my actual play videos. There are a few ways to play you can play mainly as the GM or mainly as the player. That way you decide with dice and tables and things called Emulators what the other party would do. Most people who play solo TTRPGs flit between the roles. The concept of cheating isn't really a thing. RPGs are a shared story building experience so no-one is cheating anyone you are building a story. And like s good DM (open the flood gates of debate here) might ignore a dice roll to keep the story moving you as a solo player can do the same. The only one who would be cheated when you solo play is you and the only one who knows is you so if you don't like cheating don't or at least don't let yourself catch yourself at it anyway.