Mythic Magazine #19
Added 2022-06-30 21:25:57 +0000 UTCGreetings Mythicists!
Mythic Magazine #19 is here, and with it Halloween arrives early this year! This issue contains:
- Tips For Threads List Management: Move over Characters List, quit hogging the limelight! The Threads List finally gets some attention with tips and ideas for how to make your Threads richer and more dynamic in your solo Mythic adventures.
- Crafting Solo Horror Adventures: I love a good horror story, so I'm excited to present a system for guiding your Mythic adventures into a horror framework. Be afraid!
I hope everyone likes this issue, and I'd love to hear your feedback. Especially, I want to hear what you all think of the horror rules. This is the third time I've presented thematic overlay rules for Mythic (the previous two were the Mystery Matrix and Emotional Quests). I think Mythic's modular nature makes it ideal for these kinds of rules that nudge the narrative, making it easy for you to experiment with optional mechanics in your games with a minimum of effort.
Happy adventuring!
Comments
You're right. Although I meant it for horror, or any peril laden adventure scenario, it could be applied to anything. When people discuss solo role-playing, a lot of the time people's play styles seem to fall into one of two camps: they either like the simulationist style surprises from solo, even if it comes at the expense of a cohesive narrative; or they want more of a connected narrative, and use more rigid and directive solo rules to get it. The Horror Track is like a bridge of those two styles. You can play a straight up, surprise and twist laden simulationist Mythic adventure, but you can impose on it a forced narrative structure that keeps it from derailing the most important bits until you've built up to it. You're right, you could use the system as is for any adventure. You just take a Thread that you want to define your adventure with and make it The Horror. Maybe call it The Prime Thread or The Crux. The concept of Leverage could remain as is. No matter what your goal is, you are seeking Leverage to attain it. If that sounds too confrontational, you could rebrand it as Progress. Protection could be changed to Stability: it's anything that doesn't progress you toward the goal, but helps you somehow anyway. It stabilizes the progress you've made so far. Shivers could be changed to something like Flashpoint. Honestly, Turning Point would work too, but that phrase is taken :) Or maybe Shivers should just be thought of as a Progress Opportunity. Plot Armor is imposed to protect against any development in the adventure that would end The Crux before the Confrontation (which could be changed to Conclusion). There are narrative gaming and solo systems that seek to mirror cinematic writing techniques, like a 3 act structure or something like that. Using a system like what we're talking about here would automatically impose such a screenwriting structure without overtly saying "Okay, this is the first act of the adventure, so it MUST include ..." No, you can let those details work themselves out organically, keeping in mind the minimalist restrictions stated above. I think this would turn any Mythic adventure into what one would expect from a movie or tv show. Characters in shows run into Shivers all the time, and get their fat pulled out of the fire one way or another to move the story along. That is, until they've reached the end of their story arc. Maybe a future article can expand on this idea, imposing cinematic rules on your solo adventure so you can have your chocolate (Mythic surprises) with your peanut butter (always get a cohesive narrative).
Tana Pigeon
2022-07-09 21:13:52 +0000 UTCSo I really liked this issue, and I see an application that extends past solo play. In addition to loving to solo play, I also run 1 on 1 games, and I use a lot of emergent play techniques. I like the surprise of it all. But I, like all DMs and GMs, have felt the anguish of premature death for my villain's (and sometimes my PCs). Your Shivers and Confrontation mechanic is just what I need. My few players are rum sorts and will not mind me making a meta mechanic means to save a nemesis to face them later, as long as they get a crack at them eventually. So, in that respect, it is less about horror and more about narrative tension. So thanks, and maybe some other GMs can get some use out of this. PS. Would you consider it necessary to reskin the ideas of Leverage and Protection in this sort of case (reoccurring villain who isn't necessarily horror). It almost seems to work as is, but i can't quite fit my head around it.
Robin Goodfellow
2022-07-08 16:59:59 +0000 UTCThank you, Tana!
Paolo Robino
2022-07-02 06:49:36 +0000 UTCThe file has been updated with a new PDF containing the table of contents. Thanks again, Paolo! :)
Tana Pigeon
2022-07-01 17:19:34 +0000 UTCThank you for the kind words, Paolo :) And ... oh snap! The table of contents is missing because I forgot to put it in! You know, when I was finishing the file I thought to myself, "This seemed to go faster this time. Huh." I will correct that now and replace the file by the end of the day. Thank you so much for drawing my attention to this!
Tana Pigeon
2022-07-01 17:05:55 +0000 UTCGreat issue, Tana! I'm in the middle of a hard sci-fi game, and it will be some time before I can try out the horror overlay, but it looks so good. The pdf has no table of contents though – is this intentional?
Paolo Robino
2022-07-01 05:07:15 +0000 UTC
