Pandion Games

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22 days ago

Project Update: Solo Play Deep Dive & The Final Week Begins!

Hello Marmateers!

We are in the final week of the campaign, and we are blown away with your support, with 549 of you helping us raise over $37,500 so far!

If you haven't yet, consider backing Midnight Muscadines today!

If you are interested in joining a community of players and creators and finding others to play Midnight Muscadines with, stop by our Discord server!

Because Midnight Muscadines is still under development, we love to hear your ideas, feedback, and questions on the preview PDF and what you would love to see in the game!

Solo Rules Deep Dive

In our last poll, we asked what you wanted to hear about the most, and a deep dive on the solo rules won by a landslide! So let’s talk about how we structure solo play and show some play examples of how the same encounter works with a GM vs. Solo.

Gameplay Loops

In our previous solo games, the entire game was structured with a beginning, middle, and end. Often, there were set events that triggered the end of your game as a solo player: visiting 10 locations, collecting a certain number of clues, or reaching the center of the Earth.

Midnight Muscadines is different as its rules are made for an open world sandbox, meaning we have no set endgame trigger built in. But it is still important to provide some structure for play. So we have created several loops to help you strike out on adventures. Think of these as a list of steps to complete. They’re written to give you direction while you play, but not to restrict you. Those of you who have been a GM for people in the past will recognize these.

Core Game Loop
The first is the Core Game Loop, which you will use to answer “how do I go out on an adventure?” This loop consists of 4 steps:

An Inciting Incident
- Determine what starts your adventure and gets your character out of the house using the prewritten mysteries, festivals, and adventures or the Inciting Incident, Rumors, Gossip, and Hooks rolling tables.
Encounter 2-5 Obstacles
- Your character runs into a number of challenges, conflicts, adversaries, puzzles, or encounters to overcome on their journey to their ultimate goal. Again, you can use many of the prewritten adventures and tables for inspiration. During these obstacles, you will use another loop to dive into them, which we will talk about next: The Scene Loop.
Achieve your Goal
- As you overcome obstacles, you get closer to your goal until you achieve it! How? What happens directly afterwards? Build upon your Inciting Incident and the previous events to culminate in a big climax you can overcome!
End on a Cozy Note
- Finally, wrap up your journey by relishing in a slice of life moment, festival, chat with a friendly mentor, or other cozy moment, before the next inciting incident hooks you into the next adventure.

Scene Loop

Secondly, we have the Scene Loop, which is meant to help you play out individual scenes both narratively and mechanically. Again, we have four steps within each scene:

Imagine the Scene
- As the scene opens, envision what your character is doing and what is happening in the world. Ask and answer questions about the world, other characters, and what happens next. Use your imagination, adventure, mentor prompts, and the oracle tables to help.
Take Action
- Now that you know what is happening, use your feats, spells, items, and abilities to react to what is occurring: Whether that is talking to a shopkeeper or jumping into a heated battle! Who or what are you taking action against?
Determine the Outcome
- Next, roll dice and burn cards to determine your action’s outcome.
Narrate What Happens
- Based on your dice rolls and card burns, how do the characters and world respond to your actions? What complication arises or disappears? If the scene is concluded, start at Imagine the Scene to begin the next one, otherwise, return to the Take Action step.

These two loops work together at the Adventure level and Character level to guide your play as a whole.

Player Facing Rules

One of the things we did with the rule system for Midnight Muscadines was ensure all actions, card draws, and dice rolls are done by the players themselves. The traditional role of the Game Master has become that of a facilitator of the story, rather than one who is rolling dice and taking their own actions behind a screen. Because of that shift, the responsibility of who is facilitating the story can move around the table or live with the solo player themselves.

Because we are writing a narrative ruleset, rather than a tactical one, a player’s roll acts for both the enemy and the player’s character at the same time. That is, actions and reactions are determined in a single roll.

Below is a play example with a GM, and the same scenario as a solo player who is journaling their adventure.

If you'd like to learn more about the core rules, the free preview PDF is available here.

GM’d Adversary Play Example

Emberpuff Toad Stat Block
Difficulty: 8, Resolve: 2, Actions: 1
Abilities:

Ember Snap: Lash out rapidly with your heavy tongue, so quickly that the air itself ignites on impact. 1d6. Set an object on fire, or apply an On Fire condition.
Scorching Blast: Release a burst of superheated steam to cook your food or a target. 1d6. On a 5+, apply a Burned condition.
Soothing Heat: Use your residual warmth to soothe weary muscles or injuries. Remove a physical condition from the target.

Description: Large, sluggish toads with fiery-red markings pulsing faintly in the dark, emberpuffs warm small homes or even turn ponds into hot springs. They are kept by apothecaries and witches for their heat-producing skin and for the potent alchemical ingredients they provide. When threatened, wild emberpuff toads are known to release scorching bursts of steam capable of burning unwary travelers.

Johan has been searching for a wild emberpuff toad to capture and bring back to an apothecary. He’s decided that he needs to knock it out first to transport it, and unfortunately, he doesn't have any sleeping magic or items on hand. He needs to roll two Successes against a Difficulty of 8 to achieve that!

Johan: I'm attacking the Emberpuff toad and casting my lightning jam!
[marks jam usage]
[Rolls a Check with Willpower attribute + Jam dice. It's a Success!]

GM: [Marks a Resolve from the Emberpuff before describing the Emberpuff and Johan both acting]
Fantastic! The Emberpuff lunges at you as you’re casting but you…?

Johan: Being fully focused on the toad, I’m faster, side stepping the toad just as the lightning bolt strikes down! The Emberpuff twitches momentarily, a scorch mark where the bolt hit.

GM: It lets out a wailful cry before it turns, glowering at you, its cheeks puffing up! What are you doing next?

Johan: Oh wow, it’s really mad now. Okay, I am going to try to slam down at it with my walking staff to finally knock it out!
[Rolls Strength + Staff’s item Dice. Dang, it's a Setback!]
[Johan collects a card from the top of the deck that he can use later to add a die to a future roll.]

GM: [The GM describes the Setback’s consequence, then the Emberpuff getting the upper hand and using one of its Abilities]
As you bring your staff up, the toad quickly leaps on you, knocking you on your back before you can strike! Reduce your Endurance by 1 for the Setback as your head thumps on the ground. It opens its mouth, letting out a scorching blast! Can you roll your Protection and a d6 for the Emberpuff?

Johan: [rolls Emberpuff's Scorching Blast ability, 1d6] It's a 4!

Johan: [Discards a card from their hand] Okay, I'm burning a card to roll an extra 1d6 for my Protection for a total of 2d6!
[Rolls their Protection dice] I rolled 6 total!

GM: Awesome! How do you protect yourself from the blast?

Johan: I, uh… I quickly grab my cloak and cover my face and body as best as possible!

GM: You can feel the sickenly wet heat blast through the cloak, your arms getting uncomfortably hot, but your hair and skin are intact as the blast subsides. What do you do next?

Johan: Right as the blast is done, I want to grab its tongue, and throw it off me, slamming it into the ground. That’s a feat, right?

GM: It is! The tongue is pretty sensitive for the toad (and this is super cool), so let’s say this feat’s Impact die is a d8. Use your Strength for this too!

Johan: Got it! [Rolls a Check with Strength + Feat. It’s a success!]

GM: [Marks the Emberpuff’s final Resolve]
Heck yeah! How do you knock it out?

Johan: I quickly grab its tongue before it can shut its mouth and with all my strength, I whip my arms back as far as they’ll go, launching the Emberpuff in an arc before it slams down, letting out a grunt before it's knocked out.

Solo Adversary Play Example

Johan: I attack the Emberpuff toad, casting my lightning jam!
[marks jam usage]

[Rolls a Check with Willpower attribute + Jam dice. It's a Success!]

Johan: [Marks a Resolve from the Emberpuff, then describes both his and the Emberpuff’s actions together in their journal]

The Emberpuff lunged at me as I began casting my lighting spell, but I’m faster this time! Side stepping the toad just as the lightning bolt strikes down, the Emberpuff twitched momentarily, a scorch mark where the bolt hit. It let out a wailful cry before it turned, glowering at me.

Johan: Okay, next I am going to try to knock it out with my walking staff! [Rolls Strength + Staff’s Item Dice. It's a Setback]

Johan: [Describes the Setback’s consequence, then the Emberpuff’s getting the upper hand and using an Ability]
As I brought my staff up to strike the toad, it quickly lept on me, knocking me back and I hit my head on the ground [reduces their Endurance by 1]. It then opened its wide mouth, letting out a scorching blast!
[rolls Emberpuff's Scorching Blast ability, 1d6: It's a 4!]

Johan: [Discards a card from their hand] Okay, I'm burning a card to roll an extra 1d6 for Protection for a total of 2d6 to protect myself. I rolled a 6 total!

Johan: As the Emberpuff unleashed a superheated belch of steam, I quickly grabbed my cloak and covered my face and body as best as possible at the last minute. I could feel the sickenly wet heat blast through the cloak, my arms getting uncomfortably hot, but luckily, my hair and skin were intact.

Johan: Right as the blast is done, I want to grab its tongue, and throw it off me, slamming it into the ground. That’s a feat, and the tongue is probably sensitive on an emberpuff, so I think I’ll use a d8 impact die for this, and it will take all my strength.

[Rolls a Check with Strength + Feat. It’s a success!]

[Marks the Emberpuff’s final Resolve]

Johan: Heck yeah! I quickly grab its tongue before it can shut its mouth and with all my strength, I whip my arms back as far as they’ll go, launching the Emberpuff in an arc before it slams down, letting out a grunt before it is knocked out.

—

As you see, the rules themselves didn’t change, instead the person describing the consequences and next steps is all that shifts. With duet play, the person not currently taking an action narrates what happens next, and it shifts back and forth, and with a GM-less group, that narration responsibility cycles around the table, each player taking a turn to describe a scene or turn.

Mentor Prompts

This is honestly one of my favorite solo play concepts that I’ve wanted to put into a game for literally years. We’ve taken 26 narrative tasks that you can use when you’re stuck, unsure what to do next, or are otherwise uninspired that a GM would usually perform.

These are perfect to use during the Inciting Incident and Imagine the Scene steps of the game loops.

An example action is “Shift the Focus”. This mentor prompt asks you to draw attention to a secondary character, subplot or overlooked detail: highlight an NPC’s motivations, explore a minor thread that you introduced earlier and expand on it, or explore the personal struggles of a companion. When you’re done, let those new details shift your perspective on the story and reveal new challenges and twists for your main story or character.

Each mentor prompt has a write-up explaining how to use it, what to do, and how it can impact your story. Mentor Prompts are also built into Midnight Muscadines card decks. Just draw a card to see what to do!

Not Just Combat

Finally, another important aspect to support solo play is that no creatures and folks you encounter need to be hostile or violent. While we provide abilities for IF the encounter turns hostile for most creatures, the descriptions and bestiary are set up to give you ideas of how each creature may be encountered and complications that may arise that could be a challenge to overcome, instead of an adversary to defeat.

The outcome of these encounters are determined by the player’s intentions: are you trying to capture a creature? Scare it off? Trap it? Are you attempting to fjord a raging river safely, or getting into a heated argument bartering for goods? The resolution mechanic is the same, but your actions and how you approach it are vastly different.

It’s possible that you cannot overcome a particularly difficult challenge or adversary because the Difficulty Rating is too high. Built into the rules is the ability for you to not face them head on, but instead find ways to put yourself at a greater advantage: reducing the difficulty rating. This becomes all the more important when you are out soloing in the world, rather than with a group, and lets you chip away at larger obstacles that at first seem insurmountable.

Have any questions about playing solo? Let us know in the comments, or come see us in our Discord!

Today's Lore Tidbit

Since we missed last update's lore tidbit, today I want to share a slightly longer one. This is the original tidbit for The Tapestry, which became a bigger part of our worldbuilding cosmology, universe, and folklore overtime.

The Tapestry: an interconnection of the realities of Dream, Dusk, and our own world of Song, the Tapestry exists under the world, described as a sea of stars swirling with floating vines, rivers, and islands, though descriptions vary from person to person. The seams where these realities weave together are highly concentrated magic that the Midnight Muscadine roots tap into to gather the last sources of magic in their grapes. These seams glow and shimmer brightly throughout the Tapestry.

Until Next Time,

-Andy Boyd

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