My New Favorite Solo RPG Rules! Mythic 2nd Ed GMless RPG/Writing tool - Explained in 20 min

In this video I explain the basics of Mythic: Game Master Emulator 2nd Edition in 20 minutes. It's my new favorite way to play table top RPGs without a gamemaster and find inspiration when I am writing a story. I will probably also try it with others players because it's very useful when you need to improvise a story.
At the end of this video I also compare Mythic to another GMless ruleset called CRGE (Conjectural Roleplaying Gamemaster Emulator)
Table of Contents:
00:00 Introduction
01:29 Simple Example
05:39 Starting a Scene
09:02 Starting a Scene with a Random Event
13:00 Reading the Fate Chart
15:51 When to Adjust the Chaos Factor
20:00 Random Events During a Scene
21:26 Mythic 2nd Ed. or CRGE, Which is better? & Why?
25:00 Outro
#MythicGME #RPG #D&D #Toolsforwriters

[@TF8ase]

Excellent explanation. I really appreciate you taking the time to work things out and even manage to explain it without 'spoiling' it. The examples were superb and the profession of the tutorial was really easy to follow. Thanks so much

[@ValTheVideomancer]

Hey thank you so much for your comment! I'm glad I could help!

[@grumpyinbrooklyn6347]

This is hands down THE video to watch for those new to Mythic! I think I understand it better now!

[@ValTheVideomancer]

Thank you so much! And I'm glad I could help!

[@Rewstyr]

Fantastic explanation of Mythic, I finally grok it.

[@GenuineMattyC]

Great video. this is the best concise explanation of Mythic I have found so far. Thanks.

[@ValTheVideomancer]

I'm very happy to hear this, thank you!

[@kuraishinobi]

I came here to say this exact same thing. Well done done man, and keep up the good work 😁.

[@dragonchr15]

You are a great teacher. You speak very slowly and clearly.

[@winterhamilton1882]

Great explanation of Mythic Principles. I have used OG Mythic GME extensively for solo play, it works well. Asking great questions is the key to a fun game.

[@AmrutaRanade]

Excellent video!!

[@abrarfarhan9344]

thank you for making this video, it helped me understand mythic 2e within a short amount of time. excellent primer. tres bien.

[@mickeymyers13]

That youtube plaque in the back is amazing 😂. Love it. Great video, very clear explanation of the system. Thank you, friend!

[@ValTheVideomancer]

Lol

[@jsrock91]

Val, thanks a lot. Many people gets hyped and much videos are almost an ad. I needed a simple system. Watching this conduced me to read crge!

[@JavierSanchez-mo2ef]

Loved the video dude, great job hope you can keep up the good work!

[@HermitDad1980]

Nicely done, I've never tried a solo RPG before. I think I'd like to give this a try, I'm gonna pick these rules up. Thanks for the explanation. Have a great weekend!

[@ValTheVideomancer]

Hey, thanks! Have fun on your first solo RPG adventure. It definitely takes a few sessions to get used to imagining adventures that way, but it can be so rewarding!

[@vast3394]

Fantastic explanation

[@steveyoungwork]

great video, well done!

[@Trevie3]

Thank you for the explanation!

[@juauke]

Great explanation of Mythic GME 2E! Probably the best I've found on KZbin for now! However, I am not using it I prefer one or two pages oracles nowadays: One Page Mythic (removes chaos factor and puts meaning table and random focus into one table and is very elegant imho), OPSE (free, uses cards and dice which is pretty interesting and helpful even for hex and dungeon generation with its backside)... My favorite right now is the Dark Gods' Oracle at p98 Black Sword Hack which to put it simply is the One Page Mythic but with d6s (high is yes and low is no, with varying intensity) and d66 tables for meanings

[@ValTheVideomancer]

Thank you! And that's very interesting I will have to check all these out!

[@juauke]

@@ValTheVideomancer you're welcome! Do check these out 😊

[@pearlwinter4930]

Well done explaining the basics of Mythic 2e! I especially like your comparison of Mythic 2e vs CRGE. How do you feel they compare to Jeansen Vaars' GUM/PUM/SUM?

[@Giles29]

Been using the Visual Mythic Game Master Emulator app. I wish someone would update this for Mythic 2nd edition, but I guess we can't have everything. Maybe in my next game I will use Mythic 2E instead

[@60508]

Cheers!

[@quickanddirtyroleplaying]

Thank you for making this video, especially with the comparison between Mythic GME 2e and CRGE. The amount of gratitude that I have for Mythic cannot be understated. To my knowledge, it is the progenitor of GM emulation, which is fantastic for solo play, GM-less play, and a great improv system for GMs who wish to run a session with virtually no prep (it's a great training tool in that way). I recently bought Mythic GME 2e but I haven't delved deep into the details (waiting for my hardcopy). As far as GMEs are concerned, Ironsworn and Ironsworn: Starforged have been my favorite thus far, especially with the way they handle progress bars for vows (quests), as even fulfilling them completely can still yield a disastrous conclusion in the end!

[@ValTheVideomancer]

Awesome, I'll have to look into Ironsworn! And I totally agree with you, Mythic really shines as a way to improv sessions when you don't have time to prep for a game! So useful when you have a busy schedule!

[@trainer1kali]

[@TomeOfKnowledge74]

Great video, Mythic GME seems well explained.

[@ValTheVideomancer]

Thanks! Should be enough info for people to get an idea of the system and get started playing

[@TomeOfKnowledge74]

@@ValTheVideomancer I really liked your simple explanation about the types of Oracle questions that should be asked. As in, try to ask somewhat narrow questions, rather than broad ones.

[@jayvillanueva723]

Is there a way that you could do another video explaining the lists and how they work? I found it super easy when you were explaining this Mythic video all the other ones was super complicated from people.

[@ValTheVideomancer]

Thank you, and you are in luck, after your previous comment I shot a video explaining just that, now I just need to finish editing it

[@goldengriffon]

Very nice video, thank you. I'm considering using Forbidden Lands or Ironsworn, but Mythic intrigues me. I'm rather surprised at how many pages Mythic has however. I don't know if it's worth paying so much, for so many pages. It seems overwhelming and like it must be full of a lot of fluff or unnecessary rules just to make it bigger because "bigger is better". :-) But maybe I'm wrong.

[@ValTheVideomancer]

I haven't played Forbidden Lands or Ironworn, so I don't know how their solo rules hold up. If you haven't played solo rpgs before, I would suggest you go with one of the two systems you mentioned and go with their solo rules. Then, when you are used to the logic of solo roleplaying, you could dive into Mythic. If/when you do play Mythic, you'll find that once you get through the first 100 pages you will be set to start playing. There are lots of diagrams and illustrations so these are not as dense as you might imagine. Plus, lots of examples. Then you have about 70 pages of ''extra rules'' you can choose to use or not. Also, I have a series where I use Mythic to come up with an original story, so you can see how it looks like in actual play. Hope this helps!

[@djgreyjoy1495]

Very good and clear explanation, but the example of the NPC negative event is not NPC negative at all

[@ValTheVideomancer]

Thanks and lol, I hear you, I realized that during the editing. The mob and police joining forces is probably good for the mob so the only way it could be NPC Negative is if that particular mobster got a bad outcome from it

[@davidaiello3754]

Brother! That was gracefully managed. It was complex, but you just led us through it, one step at a time, applying actual rule timing and dynamic, And I really appreciated it. (I'm new to SPRPG's, Solo Play RPG's as I've heard them called) So, I'm a newb And I appreciated your instruction, most highly. ^_________^! *Bows Low *Snaps Fingers

[@goresk8869]

could you use this for tabletop skirmish fantasy wargames

[@ValTheVideomancer]

Interesting idea. I could see this working for certain things, in particular when you are coming up with events and scenarios between missions in a campaign. For example, if you are playing a wargame where one camp attacks and the other one defends, you could have the attacker come up with an expected scene. For example, the defender sets up their miniatures, and the attacker says: "I attack from the north". If they get an altered scene, they attack from a random table edge. And with an interrupt, you could roll on the random events focus table to get keywords, and then come up with something unexpected based on them. In this case, an interrupt scene may mean the attacker arrives via the expected table edge, but maybe they suffer damage, or the battlefield is somehow modified. Overall, you would probably have to use your imagination more than for regular stories, but I bet it would give you lots of inspiration to spice things up in your wargames.

[@jayvillanueva723]

If there's a way that you can make a video of filling out the sheets on of mythic, I have the deck emulator and I ordered the second edition book, maybe a tutorial and how to fill out the scene sheets would awesome 👍👍👍

[@ValTheVideomancer]

Sure, I could make it a short video!

[@muigokublack6487]

Have you tried to run any Essence 20 games with Mythic?

[@ValTheVideomancer]

I haven't but I'll have to look into it!

[@kyrnsword72]

For me: I'll skip all that noise and just go with the best Scarlet Heroes. And with Scarlet Heroes I'll use the ttrpg D100 Dungeon.

[@ValTheVideomancer]

Thank you for the recommendations! I will have to try both. I heard about D100 Dungeon before and the procedural dungeon creation seems really cool, while Scarlet Heroes might be just the kind of system I have been looking for since you don't need 4+ players to have a proper adventure (unlike D&D.)

[@llywyllngryffyn8053]

I've never hear of either system before. My solo RPG experience is pretty small. I've tried 6X6 Dungeon and Notequest so far. Right off the start, you opened by saying that you can play your favorite RPG with Mythic as a GM for you. You didn't touch upon a few critical ideas. How does combat work, because I can't think of any RPG that doesn't have that happen and two, who comes up with the stories and the settings? If I have to do all the work of setting up a location, the characters, and the reasons for things happening, then I am running the game. Which, as it turns how is what I usually do. I've been running games for ... let's say, a long time. :) Now neither of the systems AI mentioned have a great deal of real RP in them, but I didn't have to do much in the way of creative preparation to play them. Sure, they lack a lot of the joy of RPGs but I don't see that Mythic has what they lack.

[@ValTheVideomancer]

Mythic v1 had a combat system, Mythic v2 is more vague about it. You basically use the Fate chart, and treat every question like they have a Chaos Factor of 5. For more story-oriented sessions I find that it works, but if I want a more involved system I'll just use one from a game I like. Interesting point, I guess to have a 'fully' solo experience we'll have to wait for the AIs to improve. Until then, systems like mythic can help you retain a lot of the pleasure of being a player while still running a game. I would say Mythic is good at giving you inspiration, helping you take decisions with how events unfold, and throwing surprises at you to make you feel like you are playing a game rather than just writing a story. That being said, it's true that you still have to come up with a lot of the story yourself. For me it's a plus, but I can see others wanting a more guided experience.

[@JavierSanchez-mo2ef]

I wonder how the new AI tools can help out come up with interesting ideas, narrative descriptions, etc. for solo rolepaly

[@ValTheVideomancer]

That is a good idea, thank you for the suggestion!

[@samakechijowo]

I heard that there are people who, when playing solo, tends to roll on fate chart for every actions / checks instead of consulting the main system rulebook (D&D5e for example). That is not how you use these GM emulators / solo engines / oracles. They are there to help you build the story, not replacing the rulebooks. For checks, I think my correct way would be do the checks first (perception, history, investigation etc). If they fail, they fail, if they succeed, THEN you vheck the oracle what they found out. Also, there is right no answer to which one is better. The question you should ask is which one you're more comfortable with. One give you smorgasbord of options you can explore freely and others might be so simple it only have one page, or something like that. Just don't mix them together. Find one, add some suplementing tables, then there you goes!

[@ValTheVideomancer]

I see what you mean. I can relate to what those people say as I have found that I tend to sometimes rely too much on Mythic to resolve things, so I also try to be careful about that. With D&D, I have found it's not a huge deal to rely more on mythic for out-of-combat situations (maybe 70% Mythic and 30% D&D), and do combat 90-95% D&D except for when you want to ask if enemies start retreating or if you or them can use some unusual tactics. However, I am still experimenting with how to mix those two systems, so I might change my mind on that. I agree that rolling first (for example for a perception check) can be a good way to do things most of the time, but depending on the kind of story you are going for, it can be cool sometimes to ask if there is a danger nearby in case the monster/encounter sneaks up on you. Or in other situations, it can be cool to ask questions that your character might not know to create a kind of dramatic tension where you see your character going into a trap, or making a mistake they don't yet know about. But then you have to keep track of how your knowledge is different than theirs, so that can be tricky. As you say, there are no hard and fast rules, those are more like recommendations to get your story going or getting interesting things to happen. That's why I will usually turn questions in a way where on a higher chaos factor, I will get a more interesting outcome. Interesting take on CRGE v Mythic GME. Glad to see some people defending CRGE since I still really like that system for how elegently simple it is. On the other hand, if it wasn't for one guy saying Mythic is better on my CRGE video, then I might have missed out on this system!

[@samakechijowo]

​@@ValTheVideomancer I myself use One Page Solo Engine app to run solo, with some tables like UNE or Ironsworn (just the tables) on the side. I like the app as I can just type everything there and have a log ready for me to review (still use pen and paper to tracks NPCs, story threads, locations, items etc tho). I might purchase Mythic GME 2e sometime in the future. I saw that I can potentially use just that, without any suplements, paired with my system. As for how you pair oracles with the system, I'd say your ratios is pretty much spot on. And yes, outside battles not everything have to be skill checked, we can always use common sense and imagination until we stuck and don't know what to do then we consult the oracle. What I not agree with is Fate Chart replacing skill checks when it's time to use those skill checks. Also, yes, knowing ahead what's in the future can create tension for our PC when they engage with that information. Lots and lots of Solo RPG KZbin channels has done that. Anyway, keep the dice rolling!

[@john-lenin]

Way too complicated