solo play logs - Doronai not-mini update
Sunday, 28 September 2025 16:11![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
comet_scoutI'm getting into soloing again, and wanted to get a mini update of what happened in my Doronai Nui Game since.
No surprise, what got me back was 810nicle day, and to my luck I got back just about when Unmasked Games released their Scrapmetal album, which was to be the soundtrack for their canceled Bionicle fan-game. It was a treat to play while listening to it.
So Kynai got dragged thought the portal. I was struggling still to what could happen next, and no expected scene test helped me on that. So I tried simple, 'Were we still on the island? No, ok I don't want to go too far, so boat, 'Is there any new being? Yes', it must be whoever teleported us.
I started rolling between a few tables, when I realized, these descriptive rolls are very familiar! Together with the 'Goal: Escape' from OPSE, I thought, it's the Augafi pilot from the beginning of this adventure! It's silly, but at the moment if felt like a heavy hitting surprise, that could be why he wasn't on the dungeon cells, and it makes sense from him to be with the people who are actively against who he had been against. From here, things rolled up a lot more smoothly.
I got some Creepy/Evocative rolls that made me imagine that something about the interior was evocative of an unpleasant long gone memory, I was sure this was going to straight up be an interrogation scene, even checked on my endurance, but just as I was asking about what Koven, the guy Vortixx, and the Augafi were talking about, I got a random event with NPC positive. So Koven was open for a proper discussion, and better yet, knowing I had a crystal from the maguffin, that they were willing to pay for it (just that 'no' wasn't an option.) No use for widgets on an abandoned island, I would give then the crystal, if they got rid of the pirates. He accepted as long as I helped (Had to keep the game going.)
"It does not need to be for free. We'll pay you, get you out of this island and to any nearby village you wish. But we need the crystals one way or the other."
"I don't care about leaving. I care about those pirates being gone"
Some other things that I learned: They have a client, but it isn't the Augafi, the Crystals most likely have something related to teleportation, or more, and they have one of four. Vhizep was resistant to trusting Kynai, can't blame them, but Koven seems to get plenty of positive rolls around her.
Since I still had some in game time (I'm using a fantasy calendar to keep track.), I decided to try out some downtime stuff, so rest time wasn't just "and then they rested". I'm going thought a more narrative angle this time around, so I wanted to expand 'role-play' (If it could be called so in solo, I think so personally.) So I rolled, again, in some tables. Forever ago I stumbled by a table for GMs where they get two players and make then roll in a development or interaction table. I got something around giving advice, and I also got Hollow/Alter/Weakness in the verb table. And got Bekta, the Gawalai, in the NPC table.
Until now Bekta didn't do much to the story, so it was interesting to build 0.5% of a character for him thought a small interaction that I polished a bit more after. It was a neat little moment, and one that made what came up later on more interesting?
Since I had even more time, I played out the scene of giving the crystal to Vhizep. The thing is, I had two, and decided to only give one. Surprisedly, I got an exceptional no to suspicion (I also did roll a good sleight of hand/ thieving in DN). Small thing, but my assumption is that seeing I was truly unrelated to the pirates and just a lone Matoran could have softened them up to Kynai? Sad considering I'm bluffing them right now.
I actually used Solo Cutz to try to think up what plan Koven would come up with, I really like the random page from random book trick, and the random stitched together trick also sounded fun if not too much work. So it's neat to have a free tool for it, I actually want to customize it to better fit Bionicle by modding the sheet tool they give you. I was trying to do it with my failed Star Wars game. Simple plan, Koven and Vhizep would get most of the stronghold's attention, while Kynai and Vhizep would sneak in through the same entrance I had gotten in last time.
I had yet plenty of downtime! So I decided to engage with the crafting rules, they are a lot easier than I remember, what I truly struggled with was figuring out what extra DMG die would mean for a Low diceless DMG weapon lol, in the end I went with just a +1. My Hooked Dagger is, fittingly, very modded away from the OG daggers of the game, I used the crafting rules to essentially deconstruct it and replace the given components of it then make it a Tier 1. Even if the rules say you can't "upgrade" a weapons tier, shhhhh. But I do have a lore reasons, maybe I'll share how I think Kynai makes weapons later on, lol.
There's when it gets somewhat more interesting. I was indecisive if I used The Solo Adventurer's Toolbox or Central Casting Dungeon. All things considered, TSAT is a little more functional for soloing, but I really love CCD's dressing for the rooms, so even if it's a bit slower to play thought it, I went with CCD. I'll spare describing every each room, so I'll do what I did while playing, only writing down the rooms that mattered and leaving the rest for the map drawing.
The first room was very empty, I was using the fact that Vhizep and Koven would be working as a distraction to half the chances of the encounter. And yet we had one at a corredor a little bit after when I rolled if Bekta breaking down the door would get anyone's attention. It started good, I got some great rolls, and did some huge initial DMG! A mix of the supertypes and the multiattack+1 I halved the Vanaki's health. Bekta failed an attack of his own. And then! Random Event!
PC Negative / Inquire + News
After a lot of brainstorming, I came up with this: The Vanaki recognizes Bekta and asks him to help, and Kynai is taken aback, Bekta tries to play around it. A huge personality thing for Kynai is her wariness and suspicion of everyone, long isolation on an island that tends to gather malefactors does it to you, and with the moment some time back, trying to think what she would think was very fun. I failed the insight check, she doesn't know what to believe, so Kynai flees, leaving Bekta behind.
While unlocking a door I do get another very fitting RE with 'NPC Negative - Distrust / Reassurance', that regardless if it was the right choice or not, Bekta may have gotten into trouble. The reassurance makes me think it could have been the right choice.
After some Stronghold crawling later, where every time I came across a room that sound fitting, I would roll a 1d20 for the machine, increasing the odds each time, I find it on a very guarded "Chapel" room. I was able to sneak past to be under the stand where it and one of the crystals stayed, but wrecked my brain to how I could actually get it. My sneak at 9 is very high, but it's not likely for me to not get seen just grabbing it. A bit earlier, while fleeing, I ended up at an armory, and there I decided that I had found a few throwing daggers. I also have flint and a few probably flammable badges. I light a few on fire and thrown them at the banners of the room. It doesn't take long for all to notice and worry about getting them out.
I get the machine and crystal, then run to the door, and then! New Scene, Interrupt scene, NPC Action / Continue + Group. That's where I left my game. With the idea that Vhizep and Koven show up and that we will continue as a group. I'll probably have to explain Bekta, and think about how this could be consequential. Sounds like a good place for a "Boss fight" of some kind. Considering that all thought out my exploring I was not able to find a place to roll some rest die and have some DMG, I wonder how it's going to go.
Honestly, with all of this, it also makes me want to get my Transformers game going, I really liked my set up there, but I wanted to remake Comet's sheet and maybe restart the game. Ugh, that kind of killed my Star Wars game, so who knows.
I didn't think I would be typing all of this, but I guess with the Uni exam's over and my mom travelling, I didn't have much to do this weekend but game NMS, and writing this down was good to try to redirect me back to my solo play. Also sharing some of my art inspired on the game. SoloTTRPG spaces have been having a huge influx of AI, I'll not go much into it, but I still appreciate that Zine that showed up on the r/Solo_Roleplaying that incentivized people to log in their solo plays thought comics and drawings and the r/RPG_illustraded that came up from it. I'm not doing the Storyboard format anymore, but playing always gives me a lot of inspiration to draw. I'm playing since 2022, wow.
No surprise, what got me back was 810nicle day, and to my luck I got back just about when Unmasked Games released their Scrapmetal album, which was to be the soundtrack for their canceled Bionicle fan-game. It was a treat to play while listening to it.
So Kynai got dragged thought the portal. I was struggling still to what could happen next, and no expected scene test helped me on that. So I tried simple, 'Were we still on the island? No, ok I don't want to go too far, so boat, 'Is there any new being? Yes', it must be whoever teleported us.
I started rolling between a few tables, when I realized, these descriptive rolls are very familiar! Together with the 'Goal: Escape' from OPSE, I thought, it's the Augafi pilot from the beginning of this adventure! It's silly, but at the moment if felt like a heavy hitting surprise, that could be why he wasn't on the dungeon cells, and it makes sense from him to be with the people who are actively against who he had been against. From here, things rolled up a lot more smoothly.
I got some Creepy/Evocative rolls that made me imagine that something about the interior was evocative of an unpleasant long gone memory, I was sure this was going to straight up be an interrogation scene, even checked on my endurance, but just as I was asking about what Koven, the guy Vortixx, and the Augafi were talking about, I got a random event with NPC positive. So Koven was open for a proper discussion, and better yet, knowing I had a crystal from the maguffin, that they were willing to pay for it (just that 'no' wasn't an option.) No use for widgets on an abandoned island, I would give then the crystal, if they got rid of the pirates. He accepted as long as I helped (Had to keep the game going.)
"It does not need to be for free. We'll pay you, get you out of this island and to any nearby village you wish. But we need the crystals one way or the other."
"I don't care about leaving. I care about those pirates being gone"
Some other things that I learned: They have a client, but it isn't the Augafi, the Crystals most likely have something related to teleportation, or more, and they have one of four. Vhizep was resistant to trusting Kynai, can't blame them, but Koven seems to get plenty of positive rolls around her.
Since I still had some in game time (I'm using a fantasy calendar to keep track.), I decided to try out some downtime stuff, so rest time wasn't just "and then they rested". I'm going thought a more narrative angle this time around, so I wanted to expand 'role-play' (If it could be called so in solo, I think so personally.) So I rolled, again, in some tables. Forever ago I stumbled by a table for GMs where they get two players and make then roll in a development or interaction table. I got something around giving advice, and I also got Hollow/Alter/Weakness in the verb table. And got Bekta, the Gawalai, in the NPC table.
Until now Bekta didn't do much to the story, so it was interesting to build 0.5% of a character for him thought a small interaction that I polished a bit more after. It was a neat little moment, and one that made what came up later on more interesting?
Since I had even more time, I played out the scene of giving the crystal to Vhizep. The thing is, I had two, and decided to only give one. Surprisedly, I got an exceptional no to suspicion (I also did roll a good sleight of hand/ thieving in DN). Small thing, but my assumption is that seeing I was truly unrelated to the pirates and just a lone Matoran could have softened them up to Kynai? Sad considering I'm bluffing them right now.
I actually used Solo Cutz to try to think up what plan Koven would come up with, I really like the random page from random book trick, and the random stitched together trick also sounded fun if not too much work. So it's neat to have a free tool for it, I actually want to customize it to better fit Bionicle by modding the sheet tool they give you. I was trying to do it with my failed Star Wars game. Simple plan, Koven and Vhizep would get most of the stronghold's attention, while Kynai and Vhizep would sneak in through the same entrance I had gotten in last time.
I had yet plenty of downtime! So I decided to engage with the crafting rules, they are a lot easier than I remember, what I truly struggled with was figuring out what extra DMG die would mean for a Low diceless DMG weapon lol, in the end I went with just a +1. My Hooked Dagger is, fittingly, very modded away from the OG daggers of the game, I used the crafting rules to essentially deconstruct it and replace the given components of it then make it a Tier 1. Even if the rules say you can't "upgrade" a weapons tier, shhhhh. But I do have a lore reasons, maybe I'll share how I think Kynai makes weapons later on, lol.
There's when it gets somewhat more interesting. I was indecisive if I used The Solo Adventurer's Toolbox or Central Casting Dungeon. All things considered, TSAT is a little more functional for soloing, but I really love CCD's dressing for the rooms, so even if it's a bit slower to play thought it, I went with CCD. I'll spare describing every each room, so I'll do what I did while playing, only writing down the rooms that mattered and leaving the rest for the map drawing.
The first room was very empty, I was using the fact that Vhizep and Koven would be working as a distraction to half the chances of the encounter. And yet we had one at a corredor a little bit after when I rolled if Bekta breaking down the door would get anyone's attention. It started good, I got some great rolls, and did some huge initial DMG! A mix of the supertypes and the multiattack+1 I halved the Vanaki's health. Bekta failed an attack of his own. And then! Random Event!
After a lot of brainstorming, I came up with this: The Vanaki recognizes Bekta and asks him to help, and Kynai is taken aback, Bekta tries to play around it. A huge personality thing for Kynai is her wariness and suspicion of everyone, long isolation on an island that tends to gather malefactors does it to you, and with the moment some time back, trying to think what she would think was very fun. I failed the insight check, she doesn't know what to believe, so Kynai flees, leaving Bekta behind.
While unlocking a door I do get another very fitting RE with 'NPC Negative - Distrust / Reassurance', that regardless if it was the right choice or not, Bekta may have gotten into trouble. The reassurance makes me think it could have been the right choice.
After some Stronghold crawling later, where every time I came across a room that sound fitting, I would roll a 1d20 for the machine, increasing the odds each time, I find it on a very guarded "Chapel" room. I was able to sneak past to be under the stand where it and one of the crystals stayed, but wrecked my brain to how I could actually get it. My sneak at 9 is very high, but it's not likely for me to not get seen just grabbing it. A bit earlier, while fleeing, I ended up at an armory, and there I decided that I had found a few throwing daggers. I also have flint and a few probably flammable badges. I light a few on fire and thrown them at the banners of the room. It doesn't take long for all to notice and worry about getting them out.
I get the machine and crystal, then run to the door, and then! New Scene, Interrupt scene, NPC Action / Continue + Group. That's where I left my game. With the idea that Vhizep and Koven show up and that we will continue as a group. I'll probably have to explain Bekta, and think about how this could be consequential. Sounds like a good place for a "Boss fight" of some kind. Considering that all thought out my exploring I was not able to find a place to roll some rest die and have some DMG, I wonder how it's going to go.
Honestly, with all of this, it also makes me want to get my Transformers game going, I really liked my set up there, but I wanted to remake Comet's sheet and maybe restart the game. Ugh, that kind of killed my Star Wars game, so who knows.
I didn't think I would be typing all of this, but I guess with the Uni exam's over and my mom travelling, I didn't have much to do this weekend but game NMS, and writing this down was good to try to redirect me back to my solo play. Also sharing some of my art inspired on the game. SoloTTRPG spaces have been having a huge influx of AI, I'll not go much into it, but I still appreciate that Zine that showed up on the r/Solo_Roleplaying that incentivized people to log in their solo plays thought comics and drawings and the r/RPG_illustraded that came up from it. I'm not doing the Storyboard format anymore, but playing always gives me a lot of inspiration to draw. I'm playing since 2022, wow.
