O.R.A.C.L.E. System - A Procedure for playing Solo RPGs

The Lone Toad - Ribbiting Adventures Issue 6

Welcome to Ribbiting Adventures Issue 6!

Welcome back readers as we continue our journey into the deep recesses of Solo RPG play and mechanics.

In this Ribbiting Adventure, I’m taking a hard look at the O.R.A.C.L.E. system, created by Alfred Valley for his solo Mothership adventure Thousands Empty Light, but as it is reiterated in the excellent Eco Mofos! By David Blandy.

Such a great cover! Well worth checking out.

When I stare into the O.R.A.C.L.E., will it stare back into me? Probably.

My power as a Lich is now presevered, and I can move on to the next stage of my plan. World domination. I need your likes, comments and subs to enact this plan, so be sure to throw some my way.

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The O.R.A.C.L.E. System

One of the wonderful parts of the Roleplaying hobby is there are so many different ways to do things. Designers have been hard at work for generations making cool new mechanics and interesting ways of play. The Solo RPG world is much the same, with lots of iterations and different suggested ways of playing.

Quite simply O.R.A.C.L.E. is a procedure of play, similar to the Ironsworn “Flow of Play”, O.R.A.C.L.E. is a step-by-step procedure for how to play through a solo scene. I think it’s worth saying up front, that none of these Flows of play, gameplay loops or procedures are definitive rules for how to play a solo RPG. They are there to help you get the best out of the game and take some mental load off by giving you a bit of a checklist you can review when you’re stuck.

 O.R.A.C.L.E. is an acronym for:

Observe your environment

Resolve goals and obstacles

Act, taking a consequence or roll

Conclude what has happened

Leave evidence by recording what happened.

I do love a good acronym. Credit to David Blandy

I asked David Blandy why he went with the O.R.A.C.L.E. system when he was writing Eco Mofos!

Eco mofos!! was built around the idea of no-prep play, and after Lone Eons (the solo version of my last game) solo play was very much on my mind. The game really started from the question of “How do you create a system where the GM discovers the world alongside the players?” The procedural worlding was there in the system itself, but I wanted a really clear procedure to help especially new solo players explore, and Alfred Valley’s ORACLE was a perfect fit.

Available for purchase today!

Now let’s go step by step through this procedure to see how it really ticks. I’m going to jump into the shoes of Ice, a chill laid-back Shadow who is currently hiding in some tall grass from a group of corpos who are intent on hunting him down. But this tall grass is keen on having a conversation with Ice. Yeah, Eco Mofos! can get a bit weird.

Observe Your Environment

This is the first and more self-explanatory step. What is going on in the part of the world that involves your character right now? What is interesting? What is dangerous? At this point, if there isn’t anything interesting or dangerous happening to your character, maybe this is a good time to fast forward to when there is something interesting going on.

Or you can start rolling dice, and isn’t that why we are all here? Eco Mofos has a number of tables that can be used to help generate some interesting situations, most notably the Portent Table. I know many people attempt to play their Solo games completely randomly, but I like a mix of my own personal creativity and letting the dice tell the tale.

Ice is lying flat against the warm damp dirt. He can hear the sounds of the Corpo death squad stomping through the grass, he can smell their sweat. He breathes very, very slowly. Quietly. They will pass him by soon and he will be able to make a run for it. Then he hears it. A soft voice whispering to him.

“Hey. Hey mate. How are you doing? What are you doing lying on the ground?”

God damn it, Ice thinks. Of all the places he picked to hide he had to get stuck in a grove of Talkie Grass. This will make things even more tricky.

Resolve Goals and Obstacles

Alright, so you're in a bad position. What are you going to do about it? In the Resolve step, you establish your goal. What does your character want to do? Here we have Ice, being hunted by corpos while some talking grass wants to have a conversation.

Ice could:

1. Make a run for it, to try to get out of the field.

2. Make a sneak attack on the corpos.

3. Convince the grass to be quiet for a while.

In this situation, I’m going to have Ice try to shush the grass.

Next, we need to think about the obstacles. That’s easy enough. The Talkie Grass is, well, talkative. So that will be an obstacle right there. The other one will be the corpos, any extended conversation will surely lead them to his hiding place.

Now it’s time to list Ice’s options. Threatening the Talkie Grass isn’t a good idea. They are just trying to be nice and Ice thinks that is a bit mean. Ice needs a short conversation, so convincing them isn’t a good idea either. Ice is going to try to bribe the Talkie Grass. Luckily, he has a solar-powered DVD player. He can offer that to the grass. Maybe a movie will keep them quiet?

Act - taking Consequences or Rolling a Save

In this stage, our character acts with whatever resolution system the game we are playing has. Eco Mofos has the option to take a minor consequence to earn a success, but I think this situation is too important.

Time to act, so dust off those dice. Ice is going to attempt to bribe the Talkie Grass to stay quiet. Will it work? Let’s find out…

Ice slowly reaches into his bag and pulls out the old solar-powered DVD player. He’d just bartered for a half-working disc of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and he sighs thinking he won’t be able to watch it. He whispers to the grass, “Hey, I’ll leave this here and you can talk to this magic image machine, but you have to be quiet or you will scare the tiny people. OK?”

Ice has a WIL of 11, and in Eco Mofos you have to roll under or equal your stat with a D20 to succeed. I roll the dice and hold my breath as the polyhedron bounces around my desk. I breathe as it settles on a ‘9’!

Ice leaves the DVD player on the ground and presses play. The intro Buffy music starts up, and he sighs… But the Talkie Grass stays quiet. He slowly creeps away…

Also, it’s an RPG!

Conclude What the Impact Is

Here we assess what just happened. If the roll was unsuccessful we would process the consequences. But Ice was successful so we will say this move to give up his DVD player was enough to allow him to sneak out of the grass and get away from the corpos.

Ice creeps out of the field slowly. He hears gasps and shrieks of joy from the Talkie Grass as he leaves. It must be an action scene. Damn, he thinks. At least he got away…

If this were my solo campaign, I’d also give Ice a quest thread. Now that he has shown Talkie Grass an excellent 90’s supernatural action TV show, they will want more and be willing to offer great rewards to anyone who can bring them a season of Angel.

This is also an RPG!

Leave Evidence

The final step in the process is to Leave Evidence. This is the bookkeeping aspect of it all. So Ice would remove his DVD player (and be sad about it). You’d also make sure any consequences are noted, XP given, notes taken, etc.

But also this is where you should record your adventure in whatever format you are doing. If you are writing a full narrative piece, a bullet point style, video/audio recording, you get the point.

And that is the O.R.A.C.L.E. system!

What can we learn from the O.R.A.C.L.E system?

The O.R.A.C.L.E. has a lot to teach anyone thinking about creating solo RPGs. It isn’t a mechanic or set of rules you have to follow, it is a Procedure.

What is a procedure? It can be defined as a tried and true process or method used to accomplish a particular task. So in RPG terms, it is how the game designer suggests you go about things because it is good at accomplishing what the play wants.

Procedures are great for beginners

The O.R.A.C.L.E. system shares a lot with the Ironsworn Flow of Play I covered in Ribbitting Adventures Issue 4. If a new player were to pick up Eco Mofos! and try to play it solo, they can flip to the solo section in the back.

By following the O.R.A.C.L.E. system, they understand everything they need to play through a tense scene solo. It is something not everyone finds obvious and can prevent players from stopping their solo adventure.

A good procedure can work in different games

Thousand Empy Light and Eco Mofos! are very different games built on different systems, yet O.R.A.C.L.E. works in both of them. Why? Because a good procedure can cross genres, systems, and gameplay divides.

A good procedure is worth a hundred mechanics

You can’t write rules for every situation. It is impossible and if you tried, your book would be like that one comical OnePiece book that is completely insane.

Not going to lie. I kinda want this.

So instead of giving players rules that cover everything, equip them with procedures that allow them to tackle situations as they happen. With a solid procedure and a bit of creativity, solo players can get into and out of some insane situations.

Acronyms are good value

O.R.A.C.L.E. is a great acronym, even if I’m starting to hate typing all those periods. Not only does it look cool, but it helps players remember the steps of the procedure.

I do have an improvement that could be made with the O.R.A.C.L.E. system.

Complete the loop - The Ironsworn Flow of Play does a great game connecting the loop and driving the player back to the top. O.R.A.C.L.E. is good at guiding a player through a scene but not explicitly driving it to the next scene. I could see a new player struggling a bit with what to do next.

What did you think about O.R.A.C.L.E.? What does it do well and what can be improved? Leave a comment below.

Oathbound: Trials of Caernlun

Want an amazing solo experience? Check out Oathbound: Trials of Caernlun by

Eric Dill

! It’s a fantastic solo experience with dungeon creation and fast combat.

The Trials of Caernlun is a stand-alone solo TTRPG set in the post-apocalyptic medieval fantasy world of the Chainlands. The Trials are a series of four tests set out by the Archmage known only as the Eagle. The knight who manages to complete the four trials will have proven themselves worthy of taking up the mythical sword, Selcharia, and of becoming the Oathbound Champion of the legendary fortress of Caernlun.

Draw! -  A rough-and-tumble sketch-and-play one-page solo RPG

Hey there partner. Now look here, you got yourself in a world o' hurt and you gotta get the hell out of dodge. What you did, and who you fought, well that's for you to figure out.

Draw! is my submission to the One-Page solo RPG jam. It’s got:

- Six different reasons you are getting the hell outa dodge

- Six different baddies that are trying to stop yuh'

- Six different things you may be packin

- 20 different bits of terrain to make your shoot-out crazy.

We got a standard PDF and pamphlet so yuh can play on a screen (whatever that is) or on the go. 

Next Month

Next month we are tackling a little-known RPG that people like to play solo. You may have heard of it. Oh, it's just a small thing that came out of a small resort town in Wisconsin.

You know. Dungeons and Dragons.

Tune in next month!

Thanks to everyone who reads this and all my posts! I write because you read them, and I thank you for that.