It's been three days since I set out from the capital, and I can't believe how quickly the countryside is changing. I've seen fields and forests that seem to go on forever. And the road! It's a straight shot north, with few turns or detours. The people who made this must have had a lot of patience and time on their hands.
The weather has been fair, and I've had a chance to enjoy the scenery. There's been a surprising amount of wildlife too: deer, rabbits, and even a bear once.
Last night, I stopped at an inn in a little town called Farras. The food was delicious, and the locals were friendly. One farmer told me he had spotted a band of orcs roaming nearby. I thanked him for the warning and made sure my sword was ready.
He told me the roads north of here became increasingly dangerous, and not to travel alone...
Buy yourself one of those blank journals or composition notebooks, and keep a character diary. When you play solo, you need that motivation, a record of "what happened," and that stream of consciousness that makes a character's story compelling and worth following up on. Yes, this takes a little more work, but if we are playing solo to create a compelling story, what better way to do it than keeping a diary or journal, and writing in "in character?"
But, I can hear you say, what if my character gets killed two pages in? You are making me waste an entire notebook on one character! This can get expensive!
Here is the solution. If you don't want to just "start a new diary" in there, do this. Make the next character "find this diary or journal" in the game, and have access to all the information inside of it. Have them continue their diary from where the previous one left off, and explore ways to utilize that information to help the new character navigate the world.
If that new character dies, start another and have the journal serve as the "in-game legacy" of this entire arc. Perhaps this is a magic book that always survives, and somehow keeps people with heroic (or evil) tendencies finding the book and continuing the story. Yes, this opens up one of your arcs to be an evil arc. When the villain meets their fate, the good character who finds the book can use that information to destroy the evil character's creations, right their wrongs, and try to make things right.
Keep that journal as the constant in your play, and use that writer inside you to write the story in character! Put dreams and fears in there, wonder about things, and ponder what is out there. Record adventures, create small dungeon and wilderness maps of what they explored, and try to include as much "adventure information" as possible in this book.
If the character loses an NPC, grieve there and include the location of the burial site. Hide a treasure since you can't carry it home? Make a treasure map here! Make a list of the people in town the character spoke to, and what they think about them. Do they seem trustworthy? If a wilderness map has a fresh water source or safe camping spot, make a note of that! If you find a camp of orcs, make that a note too! If a thief character scouts out a wealthy merchant's house, sketch a map in character here, and it does not have to be complete, just what the character was able to see. The maps could be wrong or missing information, too. If your next character finds a map or discovers a clue, it should be in this book!
This way, the previous character's death is less significant, and it only adds to the story for the next one. The following tale always builds upon what came before.
It is like life.
What happens when you reach the end of the book?
This is a magic book, you know. Something special may happen. The character who writes the last entry of the final page, on the ending line, gets a wish.
Any wish at all.
Bring back the best character from the previous entries, and live happily ever after with them? This is your story. You get to write the ending.
And then, you get to start a new journal...
