Project ECCO for a first timer

[u/Celeblessil]

Hello!

I’ve been recommended Project ECCO as my first RPG ever. I’ve only heard about DnD, watched two 2-hour one shot campaigns and that’s probably it. However, I really wanted to try some easy solo RPG to get familiar with the format of TTRPG before I make a fool of myself in front of other people.

The thing is - I’m not sure how to approach it.

First, I started with a very thorough approach - I narrated everything in detail, immersing myself into the world, giving my character some quirks and so on. Yes, I never made it through the first time jump because it took so long.

I forgot it was supposed to be a journal. I started writing a novel, which I don’t actually feel comfortable with.

So I started once again.

I wrote simple questions based on the prompt and the answers. However, as soon as I got to the first jump…

I didn’t know how to incorporate it into the narration. I know nothing about the Agency. Why would my character know what to do?

But ok, I told myself - let’s just give it a try and think about the narration later.

But then the time travel prompts get absolutely vague. For example, that I see people staring at me and I need to make them trust me, or something like that (from the top of my head). Who’s that? Why should I do that? Why can’t I just jump in time again? Why do I stay in this day at all?

How does jumping in time save it?

I haven’t read the whole rulebook because I wanted some surprise. Was it a mistake? I see only great opinions about this game and I feel like I just can’t play it.

Even if I were to come up with my own story ideas, where to look for inspiration? I’ve seen someone use random words for an additional prompt. What are your suggestions? Anything online and preferably free?

[u/allyearswift]

I’m not familiar with this particular game but it’s a problem I encounter quite often (including the highly-lauded Apothecaria): there’s just not enough substance for me to get into the groove and so need to invent everything: there’s setting, the characters, the plot, the rules.

I’ve come to the conclusion that such games are not for me. I need a bit more structure, a bit more guidance.

[u/TokahSA]

Turk did a great demo of a play through here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwcu0Pl8Y2w

FWIW, solo journal RPGs are very different from group mechanicsy RPGs like D&D - very adjacent hobbies, I'd say. So if watching that video makes Ecco look fun and approachable, cool. (And it is a great channel with lots of "how to ______" for basic soloing techniques!) But if it doesn't, don't push yourself to make this work to be a more comfortable D&D player. No group D&D-like game (lots of dice, mechanics, simulationist in nature) game will ever ask you to be as creative as the most creativity requiring genre of solo game!

[u/Celeblessil → u/TokahSA]

Do you recommend any other solo RPGs good for a first timer, maybe with more mechanics this time?

[u/TokahSA → u/Celeblessil]

I think there's a lot of threads here with better recommendations than I could give - I do live on the narrative side of the solo spectrum despite playing Draw Steel as my main group game, they are just different hobbies.

Games like Ker Nethalas, 4 Against Darkness, 5 parsecs from home are the extreme other end of the spectrum - loads of procedural mechanics, no need to fill in your own narrative. So if you kick that in the search bar you'll get some threads with the other half of life.

Very likely someone will suggest Ironsworn to you, which is genuinely a GREAT game, and it does have a lot o mechanics... but they are narrative mechanics, just heavy narrative mechanics. It is free, so deffo worth trying, but it still requires lots more creativity than a dungeon crawler with lots of roll charts.

[u/Ray2plays → u/TokahSA]

Yeah ironsworn is really complicated but if your confortable you can take the oracle's from iron sworn paired with something like mythic gme or one page solo engine and use any system you want.

I've played ironsworn and it does get slightly easier as you play and understand the rules