Solo storytelling

[radiantfracture]

On the up side, because I don't love watching shows on my laptop* and it's hard to focus on reading, I ran a solo playthrough of Ten Candles tonight and enjoyed it immensely -- watching the show in my brain.

I did most of it out loud using voice to text, so hopefully I'll have some time over this curious coming week to clean it up and post it.

Ten Candles is that beautiful death ritual disguised as a TTRPG that I fell in love with last year, but I haven't run a solo game since eleven months ago -- it is a game for the dark hours, not the bright.

It seems to consistently generate pretty well-formed tragic horror stories. I think this story is the most an actual horror story of any I've generated so far -- not gorier, though there is some creepy body stuff, but what I'd call -- ethical horror? -- the horror of being subject to bad choices (yours and others') and of not being in control of your own actions.

Anyway, consider this the teaser trailer.

{rf}

-- speaking of which! Did anyone else catch the tiny new clip in the old Magnus Archives feed? Any speculations? Just teasing?

*I'm starting to think I should get a TV again, which seems ludicrous -- more and bigger screen? where put giant screen? -- but a TV does feel like company in a way a show on the laptop doesn't, for whatever reason.

Comments

[jazzfish]

The TV I have is maybe half again as big as my laptop screen, but it does make the whole experience of Watching A Thing feel more deliberate and settle-into-able. Even when it's something being piped from the laptop to the TV.

Magnus: I didn't catch the clip (my podcast listening is Sporadic At Best now that I have a dishwasher) but a friend pointed me at this: https://www.tumblr.com/a-ginger-in-black/698027126747709440/for-those-who-want-to-know-what-the-hell-is so if it's just teasing it's the most intricate just-teasing I've ever seen.

[radiantfracture]

Oh that is the best. So much more mystery than I thought.

I mean it looks like something is happening.

What could it beeee.

This is excellent self-isolation obsession material. Thank you.

[yhlee]

Okay, so Ten Candles is one of my favorite TTRPGs that I have never played, mainly because I couldn't think of WHO to play it with - at the time I acquired it, I had a gaming group but we played, y'know, Pathfinder/Starfinder. :) It never occurred to me that I could do it as a solo gaming experience! Although probably with some modifications because I am *kof* not allowed to use fire without supervision.

Anyway, I look forward to your post about it. :D

dooo itttt

[radiantfracture]

I think you'd do brilliantly with Ten Candles as a solo game, going by the way you enlivened the lighthouse game. It has a lot of scope.

I find it very easy to yield to story within the framework the game provides and just follow my intuition.

I am *kof* not allowed to use fire without supervision.

Ha! Of course the fire isn't wholly essential, but the ritual aspect of it does add a great deal, so I'd find a way to incorporate the formal structure that feels genuinely meaningful to you.

Obviously there are those little electric candles, but even ten significant objects that you put away one by one. Or emptying little cups of water and turning them over? That has a kind of finality.

Anyway, I'm sure you have your own ideas.

Also I would happily run a Zoom of Ten Candles sometime -- we've tried it online and it worked really well.

[ETA] Were you talking not that long ago about a game that was timed out using melting ice? Is that a fever dream I'm having?

Re: dooo itttt

[yhlee]

:D I was thinking of ice as a substitute ("Some say the world will end in fire / Some say in ice"???) and no, it wasn't a fever dream! I believe it was Jeeyon Shim's "The Thaw" in the anthology of mini solo games Hibernation Games ed. Lucian Kahn.