Nobody is more capable of handing my ass to me, than me.”
Me, 2nd Jan 2021.
One of the things that I do (a lot, it seems) when I come across someone’s blog about their campaign or game development, is that I like to scoot right back to the start where it all began and read that blog right from the beginning like it was the first book in a series of books.
And I love it when a blogger lays out some of their reasons for embarking upon whatever it is that they are doing. So, here are some of my reasons for embarking upon whatever it is that I am doing. Because let’s face it, I have no idea what I am doing.
Look Dad, No Hands!
One of my late father’s favourite Dad Jokes when I was a kid was that whenever we began doing something remotely risky or dangerous, he would turn to me and say “Look Dad, no hands!” and then after a pause he’d grin and say “Look Dad, no teeth!” in response to the first line. In that spirit, here I am letting go of the handlebars and riding this solo rpg sandbox bike like a loon.
I’m going to take a massive risk fully aware that it will likely end in failure. If I am lucky, it will be a heroic failure. But probably it will be a dismal mess.
I’m going to use Project Wonderland like a messy, disorganised ‘commonplace book’ where I will dump my thoughts and experiments.
My Lovely Sandboxes
The games that I’m going to play and do crazy solo things with are likely to be the following ones. I’m making this list because if I don’t, I’m likely to forget that this was one of the big reasons for beginning Project Wonderland.
Ars Magica
Pendragon
Twilight 2000 / T2K
Traveller (in its various versions, including Cepheus Engine)
Conspiracy X
Call of Cthulhu
Arkham Horror (LCG and 2nd Ed boardgame, both played solo)
Runequest
Star Wars (mainly D6 version by West End Games)
Outbreak: Undead / All Things Zombie / All Flesh Must Be Eaten
And the ubiquitous Much, Much More…
(Look at me, heartily resisting arranging this list in alphabetic order. Must. Fight. My. Programming.)
Organisation?
I’ll endeavour to keep things organised as much as possible by using categories, tags, and link index pages for each of my project strands. One of the great pleasures of keeping a campaign log / game write-up / AAR (After Action Report) is coming back and reading it again and again from start to finish in order to relive the adventures. Other people coming to this blog might want to do this too.
But if you come to the blog and just read the posts in order of the feed as I post them, it’s going to look hella ugly as I’ll be posting an aparently random splurge of things covering all manner of different games and adventures. There might be a couple of posts in a row for one solo sandbox game, and then a whole bunch of random stuff for other projects.
A Recipe For Chaos? Wait – What Does This Mean?
It means, dear reader, that I’m going to have lots of different solo sandbox games going at at the same time. I’ll be dipping in and out of them in whatever ways or order catches my fancy. A recipe for chaos? I’m hoping that it will be the Gateway to Creativity (TM). Lacking an actual, physical Games Room where I live, this is going to be my (Virtual) Games Room where I can just rock up and live out whatever I desire without worrying about being obliged to finish the previous thing first or respect the unreasonable wishes of the readers of a series to have some kind of blessed sequence going on that makes sense. Project Wonderland is a place where I am free to play to my heart’s content like I used to when I was a kid.
Could it go wrong and be horrible? Oh yes. Nobody is more capable of handing my ass to me, than me.
Is it escapism? Pure and simple. Notice how I have barely mentioned 2020 at all, or the recent deaths of my father and several members of my family, and the accidents and tribulations afflicting some of the surviving members etc. This is pure, unadulterated escapist fantasy folks. I’m 50 years old and I want a space where I can step outside of everything and just be free to create and enjoy, just like I did when I was a kid and didn’t know any better.
And Finally…
Oh and in case you were wondering, the mysterious subtitle of the blog “Koona t’chuta, Solo?” is from Greedo’s line to Han in the original Star Wars movie. It means “Going somewhere, Solo?” and I thought it would be a slightly self-ironic line to have as a sort of theme for my mainly solo roleplaying blog.
Love the Greedo quote. Might have to steel that one. 😉