Instructions | Notes | World Setup

Please see the world settings at the foot of the page.

Solo Engine

Set the Scene

Describe where your character is and what they are trying to accomplish, then get a SCENE OBJECTIVE.

Oracle (Yes/No Question)

Ask the ORACLE questions like you would the GM. Ask leading questions that are most likely or most interesting. Choose the likelihood from.

Complex Question

Give me an answer and I interpret it within the context of the current scene. Tell me now.

NPC Reaction

When you meet an NPC, Check their initial reaction.

Enemy Tactics

In combat, enemies should do what makes the most tactical sense. Pick their tactic.

 

Wandering People

Create Person

Create a random Person.

Military vs Civilian Location?

Military Complex

Mostly military

Mixed

Secure civil centre

Civilian centre

Meanness?

Kind and helpful

helpful

Mixed

mean

Drunken Brutes

Servants vs Trades

All servants

Mostly servants

Mixed

Mostly trades

All trades

How To Use 'Normal People' Solo Engine

This is a 3 part solo role play tool. The three parts are the oracle, the person generator and a control panel.

  1. The oracle: This is an automated oracle developed from the original by Karl Hendricks. This version replaces the dice and playing cards with randomised results. Jus tap/click the links for the sort of question you are asking and you will get an answer.
  2. Normal People: This is not part of the original solo engine. The sliders allow you to tell the solo engine something about where your character is in their world. The solo engne will then return an insignificant NPC doing their normal thing. As your adventure continues you should nudge the sliders one way or another to reflect the characters changing surroundings. These sliders will be frequently adjusting.
    • The first slider is for how the mix of guards to civilians. If you are in the dungeons below a castle then the slider would be all the way to the left. All guards and virtually no nannies and chefs! If you were on a peaceful utopian world then it would be all the way to the right. As you move from area to area in your world nudge this in the most suitable direction.
    • The second slider is the servant vs trades balance. In a castle then you are going to find maids and valets, chefs and gameskeepers. In a town that could be blacksmiths or estate agents.
  3. World Setup: You should only need to change this section once per adventure. These settings add a lot of local flavour to the output. You can change the names of the typical guard to reflect the genre, setting and culture. You change the weapon names, styles of clothing and the genre of the game.
    • Default Guard: You can list multiple descriptive names of guards each seperated by a 'asterisk' character (the vertical bar symbol) for example [Police Officer|sargeant|detective] or [elven warden|elven warrior|elven sentry] or [stormtrooper|imperial sentry|imperial trooper]. The generator may add and 's' at the end of these names when more than one of them is present, so 'one Police Officer' or 'three detectives'. You should use these to add setting specific labels.
    • Default weapons: You may add a list of weapons each seperated by a 'asterisk'. These may or may not feature in the guard descriptions such as 'armed with a shotgun'. These allow you to add a bit more cultural colour so elves may be armed with [elven longsword|elven longbow|spear] but a police officer may have [taser|shotgun|sidearm].
    • Default fabrics: You have two boxes where lists of fabrics may be added. These are split into male and female as many cultures have had different cultural norms for the different sexes. Although PCs often break these norms the 'normal people' created by this tool don't. You may add the same list to both inputs or have similar items on both lists. You could have men in leather and women in [cotton|silk]
    • Gender Balance: You have two controls here, one for guards and one for servants. A culture of warrior women may not allow men to carry weapons so all the guards would be female. In victorian britain on the other hand all the police would be male. When the sliders are in the central position guards are likely to be 50/50 male/female. The same control is avaliable for servants as well as guards.
    • Genre: You have the choice of three genres. Fantasy, Modern and Sci-Fi. Changing this slider mainly changes the descriptions of peoples roles and the props they carry. As the descriptions of people are purely visual some professions are obvious immediately such as a butler or chef. In the fantasy setting people consult pieces of paper. In the modern setting that could be a watch or a radio.
    • Save Settings: Your choices in the world setup section can be asaved as a cookie. Clicking/tapping the Save World Set Up button will create and save the cookie. The Load World button will retrieve the cookie and restore your settings and the Delete World setting will delete the cookie and your settings. These are the only cookies set and they are under your control.

Using Normal People

Imagine your character is sneaking around a part of a castle where they shouldn't be. The reach a corner in a corridor. What is around the corner? Click the Person link. We now know there is someone or some people around the corner. What are they like? Now click the NPC Reaction link. You now know how they are going to react. Why is that? Click the Complex Question link and then think, what is the most logical interpretation? My results were: A bleary-eyed guard, wearing buckskin gear, he is sauntering in the other direction. He tightens his helmet strap followed by The NPC is friendly and needs a favor or has a job. So what is this favour or job likely to be?Seeking + physical. It looks like he needs something. He is bleary-eyed so maybe he is drunk or ill? I think what he needs is medicine but he cannot get it because he is on duty. I can now play out this scene. As it happens the guard is heading away fom me so I can simply pause, stay quiet and he will move on. If he had been coming this way then I could have role played the encounter and I already know something of his personality (friendly) and what is on his mind.

Developer Notes:

  • 07/12/2018 Problem: Some of the random props are inappropriate. The solution is to have profession specific props lists. Status: In progress.
  • 07/12/2018 Problem: Clothing descriptions do not scan well. Remove the hardcoded word 'uniform' and improve the clothing user imput.
  • 07/12/2018 Problem: Need 3 clothing descriptions, Guard uniforms, male civilians, female civilians
  • 07/12/2018 Problem: Upgrade cookie with new fields
  • I know there are no couples, just male and female groups.
  • I want to add a few more types of people such as unban workers and beggars.
  • When I have sufficient variety of social groups I want to add a 'random person' option that will randomise between social groups.
  • In the world settings there will be a slider or radio buttons for the social standng of the area you are in so poor areas will have more lowly trades and wealthy areas will have more servants and guards.
  • Is it worth adding a Genre option so it will produce fantasy guards and servants, and a modern day setting that would swap out maids and grooms for estate agents and secretaries. Hi Tech guards could talk into communicators rather than consult pieces of paper.
  • I want to construct more sophisticated and varied descriptions, so ideally you will never see the same guard, servant or group twice.
  • I could save your world settings in a Cookie so you don't have to enter the same settings every time you use the solo engine. Some people don't like cookies but that would be the only information saved, no tracking going on here. Would that be worth the negative view of having a cookie?

Dice Roller

Roll'em!
 

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