I find interpreting oracle rolls and coming with a narrative to fit is different from GMing a game for someone else.
Where I would often decide on an outcome to an action my players chose, based on my expectations, when playing solo I find I turn to the oracle dice and they disrupt my expectation.
I think that disruption is not needed in a multiplayer game with one person running the world because the GM is there to provide a consistent world and it’s usually the players’ job to disrupt it. It’s a different flow, but one I’m coming to appreciate!
It depends a lot on your style of GMing. I never feel confident in arbitrarily making decisions that could dramatically determine the fate of characters. Call it deresponsibilization, but in those cases I prefer to rely on the Oracle's dice.
An important key to solo play in my view is to distinguish what depends on the character from what depends on the world. In the former case I use skill tests (or similar); in the latter I use the Oracle.
So in group play, it is clear that players' decisions can be unpredictable and the GM has to take that into account, and in that case I would never dream of invoking the Oracle (it would subvert the principles of listening and reincorporation that I think are essential in group RPG). But there are two cases in which I feel comfortable invoking oracles: 1) as mentioned before, if the decision I have to make is far too impactful on the characters' fate, I prefer to roll 2) if I step outside the details I have prepared, then I happily roll on spark or random tables
I find interpreting oracle rolls and coming with a narrative to fit is different from GMing a game for someone else.
Where I would often decide on an outcome to an action my players chose, based on my expectations, when playing solo I find I turn to the oracle dice and they disrupt my expectation.
I think that disruption is not needed in a multiplayer game with one person running the world because the GM is there to provide a consistent world and it’s usually the players’ job to disrupt it. It’s a different flow, but one I’m coming to appreciate!
It depends a lot on your style of GMing. I never feel confident in arbitrarily making decisions that could dramatically determine the fate of characters. Call it deresponsibilization, but in those cases I prefer to rely on the Oracle's dice.
An important key to solo play in my view is to distinguish what depends on the character from what depends on the world. In the former case I use skill tests (or similar); in the latter I use the Oracle.
So in group play, it is clear that players' decisions can be unpredictable and the GM has to take that into account, and in that case I would never dream of invoking the Oracle (it would subvert the principles of listening and reincorporation that I think are essential in group RPG). But there are two cases in which I feel comfortable invoking oracles: 1) as mentioned before, if the decision I have to make is far too impactful on the characters' fate, I prefer to roll 2) if I step outside the details I have prepared, then I happily roll on spark or random tables