Solo RPG Session 1 (with commentary)

First things first, lets randomly generate our player character, I've chosen to be a male, because I find it hard to roleplay the opposite sex, the home planet is generated before the race because of the chance that the race will be named after the home planet. I threw in a home city and country for fun.

Name: Ipsyrubye Iploa, or Ips (Eye-ps) for short.
Home City: Ronog (Roe-nog)
Home Country: Psucybec (Soo-cy-bec)
Home Planet: Otootupa (O-too-too-pa)
Home System: (Star) Big Yba (Big Ee-ba) and 10 other planets Otootupa is the 7th.
Race: Xohels (Zo-hels)
Race Type: Intelligent Energy/ Elemental (currently just for aesthetics)
Gender: M
Strength: 4c
Skill: 4s
Personality: 2c

To speed things up when generating the home system I only generated the home planet and star and just rolled for the number of total planets and Otootupa's position in the system. For the Star I rolled a 7, and generated Bigybap, it just made sense to me to drop the 'p' and split it into two words. For generating stats I now decided on 3 stats to keep the system simple and when drawing cards I only included 2s-6s so we have a lot of progress to make. Ips seems like a pretty strong and skilled Elemental, but is lacking severely in the personality department. For the next step I've drawn up a list of yes/no questions to ascertain where Ips is and why. I shuffled my deck and drew cards, red=yes, black=no, I'm ignoring any jokers. You might notice a lot of the questions are broad and are intentionally used to generate conflict situations, if I'm in a strange location I'll be asking about wars before I ask about holidays. The questions are also about generating a lot about your character and a lot of it is created on the fly.

Am I on my home planet? Yes.
If not I would have gone onto asking 'Am I in my home system? Sub-Sector? Sector?'
Am I in my home country? No.
What country and city am I in? Trivlo in Amo. (Generated in answer to the question)
Does my home planet have more than one race? (I rolled a D3 to determine the number) No (1).
Is this foreign country at war with my home country? Yes.
Are we winning the war? Yes.
Am I a soldier? Yes.
Am I currently on a mission? Yes.
Am I in charge of the mission? Yes.
Am I in charge of a squad? Yes.
I started small considering my stats, but if not would have moved up to platoon, company, army etc.
How many members are their in my squad not including me? 5 (D6 roll, re-rolling 1s)
Are we regular army? No. (Meaning they'd all most likely be Xohels)
Are we mercenaries? Yes. (Meaning a potential mix of races, depending upon tech level)
What tech level are the Xohels? (Because I forgot to ask earlier) Tech 6, Advanced Civilisation, Use of Aircraft, Communication with other planets, Satellites. (So my squad are all most likely Xohels, but I'll roll for it, on a 6 we have an alien mercenary)

Squad Leader: Ips Iploa (Me)
Strength: 4c, Skill: 4s, Personality: 2c
Squad Member 1: (Xohel) Utax Ogamo.
St: 4s, Sk: 3c, P: 6c
Squad Member 2: (Xohel) Mo Lo Kiu (Lots of shortening, almost a 30 letter name there)
St: 6d, Sk: 4d, P: 4c
Squad Member 3: (Xohel) Xagwe Jul
St: 5d, Sk: 5c, P: 3h
Squad Member 4: (Xohel) Mili Efe
St: 5s, Sk: 6h, P: 3d
Squad Member 5: (Xohel) Alix Omoja (dropped the third name 'Kibybu')
St: 6s, Sk: 3s, P: 5h
Are we currently fighting? Yes.
Are we in a good position? No.
Are we outnumbered? No.
Are we trapped? No.
Is there a bomb that needs defusing? Yes. (Maybe I shouldn't have asked that)
Are we also fighting enemies? Yes.
Do we outnumber them? Yes.
How many are there? 2 (I rolled a D6, ignoring 6s because we outnumber them)

I went back and generated the stats for my squad.

Are we well equipped? No.
Are the enemies? No.
(I'll ignore equipment for now, and assume we each have a ranged weapon that provides no bonuses, no armour and a melee weapon that provides no bonuses)
Are the enemies between us and the bomb? No.
Do I have the initiative? No.

I generated the stats for the Amo Fighters. I decided they would be 1 level lower than we were, so only put cards in the pack from 2-5 and didn't generate a personality stat, because I thought it would be pointless for this encounter.

Amo Fighter 1
St: 5c Sk: 3d
Amo Fighter 2
St: 3c Sk: 2s

I'll now ask some questions about the temperament of the two Amo Fighters, to gauge how they have reacted to walking in on us defusing their bomb.

Do the two Amo fighters stand and shoot? Yes.
Who does the first Amo Fighter shoot at? Utax (I rolled a d6 and went down the list of my squad including me)
Does Utax have cover? No (if so I would have added a negative modifier to the hit draw)
Skill Draw: Kc (King of clubs), the Amo Fighters Skill is 3d, the card is higher, and the wrong colour, meaning a critical failure. The Amo Fighters weapon jams.
Who does the second Amo fighter shoot at? Mo
Does Mo have cover? Yes (since the skill of the second fighter was 2 I couldn't add any value modifiers, so I added a suit modifier, only on a black 2 would they score a success).
Skill Draw: 7h compared to the Sk of 2s = critical failure, the second Amo fighter's weapon also jams.

I'm deciding each character in the combat can make 2 activations, so now i'll draw to decide what the Amo fighters will do for their next actions with the most sensible first. But before that I'll need to get some more info on their situation.

Is AF1 (Amo Fighter 1) in cover? Yes.
Is AF2 in cover? No.
AF2 will spend their second action running for cover.
AF1 will spend their second action unjamming their weapon.

Now it's my turn.

At this point I realised the defusal draw and firing will be dependent upon the Skill stat of my squad. And I'm not too worried about the shooting of the Amo Fighters, they seem to have proved rather useless. Before I start ordering folks around though I'm going to take a closer look at that bomb.

Am I near the bomb enough to work out what kind of bomb it is? Yes. (not sure if that's a good thing, but if I wasn't I would have spent my first action getting over there)
Is the bomb on a timer? No. (that's bad)
Does the bomb remotely detonate? Yes. (that's very bad)

I'm going to have to defuse this bomb, or this could be over before it starts. Milie has the highest skill in the squad so I'm going to send them to defuse the bomb.

Is Milie near the bomb enough to defuse it? Yes.
Skill Draw: (now I'm very nervous) 10d compared to 6h, the diamonds are the same colour, but the wrong suit and a higher number, that counts as a standard failure. Milie's action is spent and the bomb is not defused.
Milie does have a second action because they were already near the bomb, so I'll order them to keep at it.
Skill Draw: Qc compared to 6h, the result is higher and the wrong colour, a critical failure.

Let's ask some questions about the bomb, they all have to be pretty negative due to the critical failure, so lets see where this ends up.

Does the bomb immediately go off? Yes.
Is is an explosive bomb, designed to level buildings and kill people? Yes.

Poo.

Scene end.

That new and yet to be fully tested name generation table for human(ish) languages

Step 1) Roll 1D10 to determine the length of the word, rerolling 1s and 2s.
Step 2) Roll 1D10 to determine if the word begins with a consonant or a vowel, odd = vowel, even = consonant.
Step 3) Roll for your letters alternately on the following tables. Roll an additional D6 with your D6 for vowels and D20 for consonants. On a 6 this additional die adds a twist, roll it again to determine which. A twist is allowed to extend the word beyond its original rolled length:
Vowel+Y Table
D6 Roll	Vowel	Twist 1		Twist 2	Twist 3	Twist 4	Twist 5	Twist 6
1	A	Aa		Ae	Ai	Ao	Au	Ay
2	E	Ea		Ee	Ei	Eo	Eu	Ey
3	I	Ia		Ie	Ii	Io	Iu	Iy
4	O	Oa		Oe	Oi	Oo	Ou	Oy
5	U	Ua		Ue	Ui	Uo	Uu	Uy
6	Y	Ya		Ye	Yi	Yo	Yu	Yy
Consonant Table
D20 Roll	Consonant		Twist 1	Twist 2	Twist 3	Twist 4	Twist 5	Twist 6
1	B		Bl	Bl	Bl	Br	Br	Bb*
2	C		Ch	Cl	Cr	Cs	Cz	Ck*
3	D		Dr	Dr	Dr	Dr	Ds*	Dd*
4	F		Fl	Fl	Fr	Fr	Fs*	Ff*
5	G		Gl	Gn	Gr	Gw	Gs*	Gg*
6	H**		-	-	-	-	-	-
7	J**		-	-	-	-	-	-
8	K		Kl	Kr	Kn	Kt*	Ks*	Kk*
9	L		No twist	No twist	Lt*	Ll*	Lt*	Ll*
10	M		No twist	No twist	Mn*	Mm*	Mn*	Mm*
11	N		No twist	No twist	Nt*	Ng*	Nd*	Nn*
12	P		Ph	Pl	Pr	Ps	Pt*	Pp*
13	Q**		-	-	-	-	-	-
14	R		No twist	No twist	Rt*	Rr*	Rt*	Rr*
15	S		Sh	Sl	Sr	St	Sv	Ss*
16	T		Th	Tl	Tr	Tw	Ts*	Tt*
17	V		Vl	Vl	Vl	Vr	Vr	Vv*
18	W		Ws	Ws	Ws	Ws	Ws	Ww*
19	X**		-	-	-	-	-	-
20	Z**		-	-	-	-	-	-
*Re-roll if at start of word. **This letter cannot twist

Solo RPG: Basic Mechanics

While I've been developing my engine for generating universes to roleplay in, I've also been working on the basic mechanics of the RPG itself.
I wanted something quick and simple, where the whole resolution of a situation could be managed by drawing a single card. Drawing the card should tell us the outcome of - shooting, melee combat, picking a lock, hacking a computer system, jumping across a gap, haggling with a trader etc. And the cards I'll be using are a standard deck of 52 playing cards with the jokers included.
Your PC's stats so far are as follows - Strength, Toughness, Intelligence, Dexterity, Charisma, Stealth, Sense and Courage. The stat will be represented by a playing card. To generate a starting PC's stats, take your deck, remove the jokers, aces, kings, queens, jacks, tens, nines and twos. Shuffle the remainder of the deck and draw 8 cards. The 8 cards can be assigned in the order you drew them to the stats, so you have no control over what your character is good at, or you can place the 8 cards as you like, it really depends on how hardcore you want to play. When you have put the cards with  the stats, record not only the number on the cards but also the suits.
When it comes to skill checks in game, check your characters relevant skill stat - for example my character wants to smash open a crate. This requires strength. My characters strength is 7 of Clubs and so I draw a card from the top of the deck.
There are six levels of success or failure in the game when making a skill check -
Critical Success - The card drawn is lower in value than your stat and is the same suit.
Success - The card drawn is lower in value than your stat and is the other suit of the same colour.
Minor Success - The card drawn is lower in value, but is the wrong colour.
Minor Failure - The card drawn is higher in value than your stat but is the same suit.
Failure - The card drawn is higher in value than your stat but is the other suit of the same colour.
Critical Failure - The card drawn is higher in value and is the wrong colour.

In our crate example - a critical success could mean that I not only break open the crate but I also don't break anything inside meaning I get double the loot! A success could mean I break open the crate with ease and just get the loot. Minor success could mean I break open the crate but also damage a lot inside, gaining only half the loot. A minor success could mean I don't  get inside, but damage the crate a little, giving me a +1 to my stat if I want to try getting in again. A failure simple means I don't get in and get no bonuses for trying again. A critical  failure could mean I don't get in, and manage to hurt myself in the process. What each of those mean, is really up to the solo player, although you should follow these simple guidelines -
Critical Success - succeed and gain a bonus (yes and).
Success - succeed (yes).
Minor Success - succeed with a negative (yes but).
Minor Failure - fail with a bonus (no but).
Failure - fail (no).
Critical Failure - fail with a negative (no and).
I included the 'yes and' system on the side so you know where I'm stealing it from, the only difference here is I've introduced stats to influence the outcomes.

Another example - my Character Nezo Orak is taking a shot at an enemy NPC. Nezo's dexterity (the stat used for aiming weapons) is an 8 of Hearts. A critical success would mean I hit the target and put a negative bonus on their card draw to survive. A success would mean I just hit them. A minor success would mean I hit them but maybe in a protected place, giving them a bonus to survive. A minor failure would mean I missed, but was able to calibrate my aim, giving me a bonus if I take a second shot. A failure would just count as a miss. And a critical failure would mean I missed and maybe my weapon jammed!

Things I'm considering including are Super Critical Successes when you draw the exact card your stat is, and random outcomes which are represented by the jokers.

Thanks for stopping by!
WGP