Morning Coffee Solo Variations

(Second Draft), by Alea iactanda est

Of all the GM Emulators I've tried, I've had the most success with Mythic. The more I
used it, though, the more certain aspects of the Fate Chart began to seem troublesome.
The horror game I played with the rules out of Mythic Variations where I reached Chaos
Factor 9 by scene 12, and had to play the next 36 scenes at CF9 really cemented the
idea that the upper columns of the Fate Chart were seriously impracticable; if almost
everything is 90% likely to be a Yes answer, why bother rolling dice?

Also, there's no way I could ever memorise the Fate Chart, meaning I have to look up
the results every time. But the FU 50/50 chance for every question seems too simplistic,
even if it's easy to memorise.

Here is my proposed solution to the problems. It uses Mythic as its base, along with
ideas from Tiny Solitary Soldiers and FU. I realised I should probably call it something,
so I settled on the Morning Coffee Solo Variations (MCSV), as I made it up over my
morning coffee. Instructions follow, with the pertinent tables throughout. There are
some design notes after the instructions, then finally all the tables with a summary of
the instructions on a single page for reference.

You need a normal set of polyhedral dice, and one extra d6 for the Oracle. I recommend
the Oracle die be different in colour or appearance from all the rest so it is always
obvious which one it is in the event that you are rolling 2d6.
Contents
Chaos Factor ............................................................................................. 2
The Chaos Die ........................................................................................ 2
Oracle ...................................................................................................... 3
Qualification ........................................................................................... 3
Brief Example of Play .................................................................................. 4
Additional Options ...................................................................................... 5
Play without scenes ................................................................................. 5
Play without Chaos .................................................................................. 5
Chaos/Victory Points ................................................................................ 5
Adding Fudge/Fate Dice into the mix ......................................................... 5
Even distribution of qualifiers ................................................................. 5
Non-Binary NPC traits ........................................................................... 6
Non-Binary Random Ideas ..................................................................... 6
Random Chaos Factor Changes .............................................................. 6
Design notes ............................................................................................. 6

1
Chaos Factor
Like in Mythic, the Chaos Factor determines the general state of affairs in the adventure.
The factors are named descriptively rather than given numbers. The initial state will
usually be Average, but you are free to start with it higher or lower to suit the mood of
your game.

The Chaos Factor can be raised or lowered at the end of any scene or encounter. It may
also remain unchanged. This is up to you in your GM guise. If things have worsened for
your PC(s) in a significant way, it should be raised. If things are only marginally worse,
or only a little better, perhaps it will stay the same. Chaos Factor usually changes by
only a single step at a time, but this need not be the case. You could even have a split-
party game, playing every other scene with alternating groups of PCs, and charting a
separate Chaos factor for each.

There are three optional Chaos Factors, each marked with an *asterisk on the table.
These are not recommended for every game. You should probably decide in advance
which, if any, of these you will be potentially using.

Chaos Factor Chaos Die

*Boring d20
Under control d12
Average d10
Out of control d8
Madness d6
*Abject Chaos d5
*Plaything of the Gods d4

The Chaos Die

Each Chaos Factor comes with a corresponding Chaos Die. This die has two uses, setting
up a Scene and modifying the Oracle roll.

Scene set up: This works essentially like it does in Mythic (i.e. you make up something
plausible for the next scene), but instead of rolling a die under the CF to decide simply
roll the Chaos Die. A roll of 1-2 is always an Altered Scene (change the scene in some
way), a roll of 3-4 is always an Interrupt (use a random event to start the scene instead
of what you had planned).

Chaos Die Scene setup

1-2 Altered scene
3-4 Interrupt
5+ unmodified

2
Oracle
The Oracle answers Yes/No questions. Unlike Mythic, the odds are not influenced by
Chaos. The Oracle is always rolled on 1d6, and as the odds worsen, a higher roll is
needed for a Yes result. The odds are decided according to your best judgement. There
is always a 1-in-6 chance of a Yes or No at the extreme ends of the spectrum; anything
beyond that and you probably don't need to be rolling the dice, or you are asking the
wrong question.

Odds Yes result (1d6)

Certain 2+
Likely 3+
50/50 4+
Unlikely 5+
Doubtful 6

If you aren't sure what the odds should be, roll 1d6 and use this as the number the
Oracle die needs to equal or exceed for a Yes answer. Thus, a roll of 2 would equate to
Certain odds, a roll of 3 to Likely, etc. A roll of 1 indicates there is a 100% chance of a
Yes. The results of this roll may require more interpretation, but this will serve to deepen
the story. For example, you want to ask the Oracle, "Are there many guards?". You aren't
sure of the odds, so you roll and get a 5: Unlikely. Why, then, isn't it likely? What facts are there that
you (or your PC) overlooked? Then even if the Oracle says that there are indeed guards, you will still
have much more context about the scene. (Thanks to Zach Best for this rule).

The Oracle die is always rolled in conjunction with the Chaos die. The Chaos die
determines whether the answer is qualified (Yes, and... / No, and... etc.) like in Tiny
Solitary Soldiers, and whether or not a Random Event also occurs.

Qualification
The Chaos die always qualifies the Oracle result with And... on a roll of 1-2. It always
qualifies the answer with But... on a 3-4. The higher the Chaos Factor, the more likely
the odds are of getting something other than a simple Yes or No.

Chaos Oracle roll

Die
1-2 And...
3-4 But...
5+ unmodified

Random Events: Whenever the Chaos die and the Oracle die roll the same number, a
random event has occurred. Use whatever random event tables you usually use in this
instance. Again, higher Chaos factors result in more frequent random events. If you are
asking a series of questions to establish some pertinent facts, you may rule that only
one random event is possible out of all of them; you will still want to roll the Chaos die
for all of them to determine the qualifiers.

3
Brief Example of Play
Space Captain Margaret's last adventure led her to be cut off from her ship on the
backwater planet of Allenham IX. Rather than play out a methodical search of the
starport, Jane (the player) decides to throw Captain Margaret in medias res for the first
scene of the adventure. Jane decides to set the initial Chaos Factor at Out of Control.
Her proposal for the first scene will be "Captain Margaret finds her ship, the Norland,
hidden in docking bay 94, just as her enemies from the Ferrars crime syndicate catch up
with her". Out of Control means the Chaos die is a d8. Jane thus rolls 1d8 to see if the
scene setup holds or is modified. A roll of 1 indicates an Altered scene. The alteration,
she decides, is that members of the syndicate are not following her, but rather have
beaten her to the ship. She decides to ask a question to flesh out the scene: Are there
many guards? Jane assumes that it is Likely that they would have posted many guards,
so if the Oracle die rolls 3 or higher, there will be many thugs between her and her ship.
Jane rolls the Oracle (1d6) and Chaos (1d8) dice together, getting a 2 on the Oracle die
and a 3 on the Chaos die. The 2 indicates No, the 3 qualifies the No result with a But...;
there aren't many guards, but there is some sort of mitigating factor. Jane writes this all
in her notes as:

Q: Are there many guards? Likely: O4 C3

No, but... there is a single, very dangerous guard.

Jane decides the single, very dangerous guard would most definitely be Robert Ferrars,
the notorious cybernetic assassin, who has long coveted the Norland for himself. Jane
thinks there should be a small chance he may have already broken into the ship, so she
asks:

Q: Is Robert already aboard the ship? Doubtful: O6 C6

Yes + Event

The Oracle die rolled a 6, so against the odds Robert did actually manage to override the
Norland's electronic lock. The Chaos die rolled too high to qualify the result, so it's a
simple Yes: he got in (a Yes, but... might have meant Margaret arrived just in time to
see him running up the ramp into the freighter. A Yes, and... would have meant he was
already firing up the engines.) But in any case, the Oracle die and Chaos die both rolled
the same number, so a Random Event is indicated in addition. Since Jane is using Mythic
for random events, she rolls on the Event Focus and Meanings tables to get NPC
Negative: Negligence/Portals. Robert has obviously left the Norland's hatch open.
Margaret draws her pair of .75 recoilless duelling pistols, and sneaks up the ramp to win
back her ship.

Therein Margaret confronts the evil cyborg, and after a brief firefight (using the rules of
whatever RPG Jane is playing), vanquishes him. Jane decides that this is a good end to
the scene. Since Margaret performed admirably during the scene, and since there were
no random disasters brought about during it, Jane decides to reduce the Chaos Factor
for the next scene one step down to Average. She decides the scene will be Margaret
blasting off from Allenham IX and flying her ship to the jump point to leave the system.
She rolls the new Chaos die (d10 for Average) which comes up 9, so the scene proceeds
as expected.

4
Additional Options

Play without scenes

This options removes the need for scene setup. When asking a question of the Oracle,
simply use whichever Chaos Die you feel is appropriate at the time. This option works
well for hex- and dungeon-crawl adventures when there is no story or definite goal.

Play without Chaos

You will still need a Chaos Die to determine qualifiers and random events, but you need
only choose it once for the whole of the adventure. This can be combined with Play
without scenes if you are really only interested in generating random events and/or
qualifiers along with your Oracle rolls.

Chaos/Victory Points
Rather than deciding to arbitrarily raise or lower the CF at the end of a scene, you could
tie the change to the success/failure discrete PC actions. Each mission objective fulfilled
could provide a certain number of Victory Points and each failure could subtract points
from the PCs' total. Every 5 points accumulated drops the CF to the next level, every 5
points lost raises it. Depending on the objectives, Chaos may change during a scene.
Obviously, this requires a bit more setup and record-keeping than most options, though
depending on the adventure there are many wargames from which you could easily steal
a victory point table. You could also allow the PCs to "burn" victory points for re-rolls, or
decide that when a certain point total is reached, the adventure climax or final boss fight
occurs.

Chaos Factor Victory Points

*Boring 10
Under control 5
Average 0
Out of control -5
Madness -10
*Abject Chaos -15
*Plaything of the Gods -20

Adding Fudge/Fate Dice into the mix

The Fate RPG isn't really my thing, but I'm a sucker for unusual dice. Here, briefly, are a
few ideas for using Fate dice with the MCSV and/or other solo engines.

Even distribution of qualifiers

In FU, there is always an even 1-in-three chance of And/But/unqualified answers from
the Oracle. If you prefer this to the Chaos-dependent chance of a qualified result, when
asking a question, roll 1dF along with the Oracle and Chaos dice. The Fate die will
determine if the result is unqualified (blank face), And... (+), or But... (–). In this case,
the Chaos die will only serve to determine if a random event has occurred. If you like the
Mythic Fate chart as is, you could add in the Fate die roll in a similar fashion.

5
Non-Binary NPC traits
I like to roll a pair of personality traits for any NPC that the character(s) will be
interacting with for more than one scene. Many RPGs have a chart of these. UNE has a
table of 100. 1dF could be rolled with each trait to yield results of unmodified (blank),
exceptionally... (+), and somewhat... (–).

Non-Binary Random Ideas

In a similar fashion to NPC traits, you could use 1dF to modify the results of almost any
random idea generator. If, for example, you are using Rory's Story Cubes and roll a
picture of a house, a + might indicate a whole village, whilst a – is a house that is still
under construction. On the Mythic Event Focus Table, the +/– could indicate events of
greater or lesser severity. Modifying random ideas might start to seem like a lot of extra
dice to roll; you may decide it only applies at higher Chaos factors.

Random Chaos Factor Changes

Perhaps you aren't sure if the Chaos Factor should change at the end of a scene, or
perhaps you like to let chance determine the vicissitudes of your story. At the end of a
scene, roll 1dF: + increases the CF, – decreases it, and on a blank face it stays the
same.

Design notes
I always thought the decreasing chance of an Exceptional No with an increase in Chaos
was counter-intuitive. Higher Chaos now means more extreme results on either end, and
but also with a correspondingly increased chance of lessened or mitigated circumstances.

The Chaos die produces both the Altered scene and the And... qualifier on a roll of 1-2.
The mnemonic is that they both begin with A. I could never remember whether Altered
scenes happened on evens or odds in Mythic, so there is an additional benefit for this
simplification.

The odds of a random event are always 1 in N, where N is the number of sides of the
bigger die. The Average CF is set to emulate the chances in Mythic of rolling doubles,
assuming all doubles produce a random event (rather than needing the number to be
under the CF). The chances of an And... or But... are generally lower than in FU, until
you reach Madness (d6). Most of the Mythic chart has a 20% of an Exceptional result,
except towards the bottom left and upper right hand corners.

Some numbers, for those who like such things:

Chaos Factor Chaos Die Random Qualified

events result
*Boring d20 5% 20%
Under control d12 8.33% 33.33%
Average d10 10% 40%
Out of control d8 12.5% 50%
Madness d6 16.67% 66.67%
*Abject Chaos d5 16.67% 80%
*Plaything of the Gods d4 16.67% 100%

6
Morning Coffee Solo Variations

Odds Yes result (1d6) Chaos Scene setup Oracle roll

Certain 2+ Die
Likely 3+ 1-2 Altered scene And...
50/50 4+ 3-4 Interrupt But...
Unlikely 5+ 5+ unmodified unmodified
Doubtful 6

Asking a Yes/No question: Determine the

Chaos Factor Chaos Die odds, then roll the Oracle die (always 1d6)
and the Chaos die. A Yes results if the Oracle
*Boring d20
die rolls the indicated number or higher. If
Under control d12
the Oracle and Chaos dice both roll the same
Average d10 number, a Random Event has occurred in
Out of control d8 addition to any other result. If the Chaos die
Madness d6 comes up a 1 or 2, the result is modified to
*Abject Chaos d5 Yes, and... or No, and...; a 3 or 4 produces
*Plaything of the Gods d4 Yes, but... or No, but... results.
* optional chaos factors
Setting a scene: For each new scene, roll the
Chaos die. Rolling 1 or 2 will always be an
Altered scene, 3 or 4 will always be an
Interrupt.