Ghostmaster

Ghostmaster

Solo Roleplaying Ghostbusters International

These rules were created to help you play Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters International [West End Games] without a Ghostmaster.

They proved to be an interesting challenge. Horror games are fairly easy to solo and get the right feel. Horror games are about scaring the character, and if you can scare the player as well, that is a bonus.

Comedy games are about making the player laugh. You are often doing terrible things to the characters, but in a way that is supposedly comic. When you are both Ghostmaster and player, making yourself laugh is not so easy.

If you are entirely new to solo and have come to it because you have never been able to convince your group to play a Ghostbusters International campaign, I have a special chapter for you coming right up.

If you are an experienced soloist, you may have struggled to mix comedy games with the standard yes-no oracle. Comedy is often about timing and flow. The yes-no oracle can be more stop-start. You ask a question, roll the dice, get the answer and then stop to consider the meaning. This can disrupt the feeling of flow.

When I was developing these rules, I found to make the game play as intended, fast-flowing, comic mishaps, and improvising how my characters had to improvise clashed with the inherent stop-start of the yes-no oracle.

A print version of this book is available from Ghostmaster – PPMGames