Solo Gaming Appreciation Month starts November 1st, 2018! Survey results are in and the SGAM projects and themes for this year are set! You can check out last year’s mischief here, and information for 2018 is below.
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SGAM2018 Giveaways!
New for 2018, we’ve partnered with Larcenous Designs to offer some giveaways to SGAM participants!
Nathan Rockwood, educator, game designer, and proprietor of Larcenous Designs, LLC has graciously agreed to offer up several of the ever-popular The GameMaster’s Apprentice decks as giveaways to SGAM participants. We’re very excited to have this support and the opportunity to hand out some freebies!
Larcenous Designs is dedicated to the theory that games are as important to the world as any other form of
literature, and all our work is meant to promote games as a worthwhile experience for everyone. Please join
us in bringing gaming not just into the mainstream of recreation, but into learning and academia as well!
The Giveaways
The GameMaster’s Apprentice decks are a prized possession of many a solo and GM-less gamer, GMs, and even authors! Each of 7 themed decks has 120 cards and each card includes a dozen or more randomizers for generating everything from dice rolls to sights and sounds to NPCs and random events. If you aren’t familiar, I recommend you check out the (free) instruction download through DriveThruRPG and the demonstration videos on Youtube.
The plan is to give away one of each of the 7 GMA decks to Story Seed participants. But that’s not all! A Grand Prize that includes all 7 decks will be awarded to the winner of a NEW challenge.
Each winner will receive a DriveThruRPG download link/code good for a FREE PDF version of the deck(s) (regularly $9.99/each) and at-cost print-on-demand pricing (about $5-6 per deck, plus shipping – roughly 70% off the full retail price).
The Decks
Check them all out in the bundle listing on DTRPG.
- The GameMaster’s Apprentice: Base Deck
- The GameMaster’s Apprentice: Age of Sail Deck
- The GameMaster’s Apprentice: Demon Hunters Deck
- The GameMaster’s Apprentice: Fantasy Deck
- The GameMaster’s Apprentice: Horror Deck
- The GameMaster’s Apprentice: Sci-Fi Deck
- The GameMaster’s Apprentice: Steampunk Deck
How to Enter
Any time in November, submit an entry into the Story Seeds community project and you’ll be entered into a raffle to be drawn at the end of the month for one of 7 themed GMA decks. Easy as that!
To be entered for the Grand Prize, you must complete the new challenge to Create a solo game or tool for the community. At the close of SGAM 2018, one of our solo gaming cat herders (Todd Zircher) will create a poll with links to all entries. Then, the solo gaming community will vote for a winner.
For additional details, see this document created by Todd Zircher about the giveaways and how to enter.
We hope this adds to the fun and excitement of SGAM 2018! Good luck, and we look forward to reading (and using) your Story Seeds and new games and tools!
NEW Challenge
Create a solo game or tool for the community. This can be a full game or RPG, an oracle, random generator tables, inspirational cards, or even an app or web site. At the end of the month, one of our solo gaming cat herders will create a poll with links to all entries. Then, the solo gaming community will vote for their favorite.
Story Seeds
Last year, we dedicated SGAM to the memory of the late Zach Best and his contributions to solo gaming through his publishing company, Conjecture Games. While we hope you’ll remember Zack again this year and try out UNE or CRGE in your solo game, for 2018 we opened suggestions to the Lone Wolf Roleplaying community and +Todd Zircher compiled the suggestions into a survey for voting on a group project and selected challenges for the month.
The results are in, and the theme for SGAM 2018 is Story Seeds:
Story Seeds
Roll three game icons (using a free web site) and describe a starting scene.
The results for your story seed submissions will be collected throughout the month of November and compiled into a single resource for use for kicking off your solitaire role-playing sessions.
How can you participate in SGAM?
There’s lots of ways!
- PLAY and post!
- Create tools and post!
- Make NPCs and post!
- Even if you don’t post, PLAY!
P.S. Don’t forget your #SGAM and #SGAM2018 hashtags.
Do we have any themes or challenges?
As always, solitaire gaming is about enjoying tabletop gaming in your own way, but of course, we’re here to get you started and playing along with some SGAM Challenges!
Week One Challenge
New and Shiny, expand your frontiers and play a new game or new genre. Perhaps play something in a new way such as taking an old game and playing it with a completely different solo system.
Week Two Challenge
Hybrid Game, combine solo role playing with another game (such as a board game, a micro game, or a card game.) The idea being that the non-RPG game acts as a driver for the solo gaming experience. The level of mixing is up to the individual. It can be something as surreal as your journey through Candy Land, role playing in the mean streets of Monopoly, mourning your loved ones on the Oregon Trail, or a gritty war journal about what happens to soldiers caught in between the turns of a war game.
Week Three Project
Story Seeds, take three random icons and write of a paragraph or three about the story or scene that they inspire. I’ll set up a Google Forms page and some instructions. The goal is to create a free PDF to share with the group so that they have a collection of creative ideas to use.
Week Four Challenge
Open, a chance to finish up the challenges, add more Story Seeds, or perhaps create some fun tools. I’ll be working on a solo project for NaGaDeMon as an example.
Rule One
Have fun. We do this for the love of the game. If you want to do the challenges out of order or you’re not inspired by a topic, that’s cool. You don’t even have to share if that’s not your thing. Of course, any format on any platform is acceptable. Heck, if you’re playing Sea Dracula and you want to film yourself doing a silly dance, I’d LOVE to see that.
Lastly…
Last, but not least, help get the word out about SGAM by sharing it on Google+!