TEXT:  Daydream Solo 
   
  Intro 
   
  This is (hopefully) an immersive meta-game that allows you to play your favorite role playing 
  game solo. In essence, you pretend that the things you imagine are actually sent from the 
  alternate universe where your role playing character is. However, there is a little more to it than 
  that as not everything that you imagine actually happens in those alternate universes. You have 
  to earn every goal you set for yourself 
   
  Concept 
   
  You play yourself in your normal world. However, you are gifted with the ability to connect with 
  other realities for which you have a psychic affinity. You do this by projecting your 
  consciousness onto an Avatar that can exist in those dimensions.  
   
  These alternate realities send information to you in various ways that may feel like your 
  imagination but aren't. You may experience those worlds in a vivid way or perhaps as more 
  abstract ideas, depending on your cognitive style. Sometimes you may have difficulty 
  connecting and may need to use some sort of divination, but it is certain that these alternate 
  realities will send you information if you seek to receive it. 
   
  You also have a certain amount of power to change these realities. In effect, you can edit them. 
  The only limitation is that you can’t violate their fundamental rules and your intuitions about 
  them.  
   
  Your Avatar 
   
  Your Avatar is simply whatever you choose, but its power to act in the world is limited by that 
  world’s fundamental rules. You may choose an existing denizen with its own history in the world 
  as your Avatar, by simply connecting your consciousness to it. You may choose to manifest one 
  into the world with no past history other than the one you create for it.  
   
  This is where we dive out of the fictional justification and do some real talk. You 
  simply create your Avatar in terms of a a roleplaying game of your choice (Dungeons 
  
  & Dragons, FATE, etc). The world’s rules, as they apply to it, are the rules of the RPG 
  along with any genre or setting rules you know.  
   
  How Other Realities Behave 
   
  Because of your psychic affinity to these dimensions is determined by your own beliefs and 
  ideas, their reality strongly conforms to your expectations and intuitions of how these alternate 
  realities should behave. If you clearly expect something to happen, for the most part it will. 
  There is a catch, however: Your presence in these alternate realities is aberrant and this makes 
  them behave in an antagonistic way towards you. This is an impersonal and deterministic 
  reaction based on fundamental laws.  What this means is that while everything else will work 
  according to your expectations, you will constantly find obstacles before every significant goal of 
  yours. In a way, you should form an expectation that you will have to earn every single 
  significant goal you want. 
   
  The mechanics of obstacles: 
   
  Both obstacles and the ability to change reality are represented by tokens. For 
  obstacles, you start with a random number of tokens  (dots, chips, whatever) each of 
  which represents an obstacle. (You start with 1d20 + 10 obstacles. Adjust the die size 
  or bonus to taste for a longer or shorter string of obstacles.) 
   
  One of these tokens is always saved for last because it represents the final obstacle 
  (in most cases, the big bad or antagonist). When you remove an obstacle, you also 
  remove a token. Once you are down to your last obstacle token, you get to confront 
  your final obstacle.  
   
  Obstacles that stand in the way of a goal can be beaten in four ways:  
   
  1.
  Creating a challenge with your roleplaying game’s mechanics and then 
  beating it with your Avatar.  
  2. Spending a token to change reality so that it indirectly leads to the defeat of 
  the obstacle. You can’t just edit the obstacle out of existence. That’s cheesy. 
  Edit reality in a clever way to help you defeat the obstacle.  
  3. Adjudicating the result using some other system, like an Oracle.  
  4. Thinking of ways to defeat the obstacles via Avatar actions that are not 
  necessarily mechanical. These actions are successful if your gut feeling tells 
  you they will work for certain. If you feel doubts, then it is not. (This is inspired 
  by the solo game named Beloved). 
   
  There is a catch to the fourth option: Beating an obstacle in this way means that 
  another obstacle will soon appear to block the same goal (remember that alternate 
  
  universes are antagonistic to your goals). Obstacles will keep appearing to block your 
  goal until your gut check tells you that more obstacles are improbable. At that point, 
  you have earned your goal.   
  1
  It goes without saying that in order to beat an obstacle, you need to know what it is 
  first. 
   
  How Information May Come To You 
   
  As explained before, information will come to you as if it was your imagination at work, though it 
  isn’t just your imagination-- these are transmissions from an alternate universe. For the most 
  part, if you see it, feel it, or think of it, it has happened. You will know because you will feel 
  certain of it; maybe because it feels logical, or because it makes the most sense given the 
  fundamental rules of that reality.  
   
  Sometimes a piece of information will not feel certain, however. When you feel a doubt like this, 
  it means you are receiving information about something that does not exist yet (a potential 
  event, for example).  It is also a sign of an unconscious struggle between your psyche and the 
  antagonism of the alternate reality. Ultimately, the alternate reality’s always imposes its 
  antagonistic version of events unless you use your power to change reality itself or act through 
  your Avatar to impose your will.  
   
  When Flow Is Disturbed 
   
  Sometimes the flow between the alternate reality and your psyche might become muddled or 
  blocked. You will know because transmissions  from the alternate reality will not feel clear or 
  2
  will not come at all. Divination may help in these cases.  
   
  Divination does not have to be limited to traditional tools like Tarot, I-Ching or Ouija boards. 
  Divination can be practiced with whatever object you want: coins, dice or even Magic 8 Balls will 
  do the job as long as they give you a feeling of certainty about what happens in the alternate 
  reality. 
   
   
  Your Power Over Alternate Realities:  
  1 ​This type of gut check requires you to be objectively honest with yourself. If you cheat the 
  system, you are really cheating yourself! 
   
  2 ​Transmissions being really your ideas for what happens next. Basically, classic creative 
  block. 
  
   
  Though you can enact your will in the world through your Avatar, you also have a limited power 
  to change reality. If you will it, for the most part, it will be so. The denizens of a world never 
  realize a change has happened or that you made the change. They behave as if things have 
  always been the way you made them. The only way they will know is if you reveal this to them. 
   
  However, learn to use this power wisely, as it is both a limited resource and it exposes your 
  Avatar to mortal danger. An alternate reality’s antagonism can become outright hostility when 
  you try to manipulate it. One change too many and reality might react by ejecting you out of it. 
  When this happens, your Avatar dies from the shock. 
   
  Mechanically, your power to affect reality is represented by a random amount of 
  Change Tokens that you start with (# of Obstacle tokens minus 1d6). To change one 
  thing in an alternate reality,  you simply spend a token one for one. That’s it… 
   
  Well, almost. There are limits: 
   
  1.
  Your changes can't alter or defy the rules of that reality (as you intuitively 
  understand those rules to be).  
  2. The changes must feel fair to you. 
   
  Also, when you spend a token to make an edit, you must roll a risk die to represent 
  this danger. Your risk die starts at d20 and steps down on a result of 1-3. The 
  progression is 1d20, d12, d10, d8, d6, and d4. When you hit a result of 1-3 on a d4, you 
  are ejected from the alternate reality and your Avatar dies from the shock. 
   
  The risk die is stepped up by one at the beginning of each session after a break. If you 
  start with a new Avatar, you start with a 1d20 risk die.  
   
  During your adventure, you can gain Change Tokens in these ways: 
   
  1.
  By adding more obstacles for you to face. You get a change token for each 
  obstacle token you add. (This cannot be done once you’ve engaged with the 
  final obstacle.) 
  2. When you post a session report of this adventure online, and get kudos from 
  readers (+1s, Likes, or comments). 
  3. When you review a session report  of this adventure, and think something is 
  really cool. (You can only use a session report once). 
   
    
   
   
  
  Appendix: 
   
  Why Are You In This Alternate Universe (1d4) 
   
  1.  Someone else is in trouble and you are here to help.  
  2. This alternate universe has something you or your Avatar wants. 
  3. There is a world spanning threat and you are the only hope.  
  4.  Your Avatar is in trouble and you’re here to help.  
   
  A Tiny Divination Tool (1d4): 
   
  1. False.  
  2. False. It would have been ‘true’ except for… 
  3. True in ironic fashion… 
  4. True 
   
  On writing: 
   
  With the exception of keeping notes of the portions where you are engaging your 
  roleplaying system’s mechanics, try not write anything down. Leave all the writing, 
  especially stylized prose, for the after session report. Instead, use that focus to nurture 
  a dream like state.  
   
  If you must write, keep short notes or use automatic writing. Try not to disturb your 
  day dream.  
   
  Inspirations: 
   
  Oculus 
  Macchiato Monsters 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Collections/Solo/2. GM Emulators & Generic Solo Rules/Daydream Solo.pdf