FlexTale Solo Image Oracle 2 (system-neutral)

Summary

The FlexTale Solo Image Oracle 2 is an innovative creative tool for solo adventurers to generate dynamic, intriguing answers to questions about your campaign and the adventures that take place within it.

A simple roll of 2d6 is all you need to generate over 900 answers and pieces of creative content for any campaign setting, any situation, and any level of skill as a G/DM.

Volume 2

This book is the second Solo Image Oracle.  You can use it in combination with Solo Image Oracle 1, or you can use it completely separately.  This second book contains all of the same relevant rules and descriptions of how to use the tool as the first volume.  

Free Sample Edition

Unsure, but curious?  Grab the FREE Sample Edition.  It contains 16 images instead of 36, and lacks the section on rules system harmonization, but is otherwise exactly the same content and massive utility as this full version.

Immediately Useful

Download this book, open it up to a random page, and pick any part of that page.  This book was designed so that whatever you end up pointing at, you should be able to use it in your campaign, whether you're a veteran DM of 30+ years running a published campaign for a dozen players, or a brand-new player giving solo play a try.

What is This Thing?

An Oracle is a tool to provide an answer.  Usually, this is in the context of a solo adventure, where you as the adventurer need to rely upon some external source of truth to keep things unpredictable and interesting.  Solo Oracle tools abound, and are quite popular--it's probably safe to say that nearly every single solo adventurer uses at least one Oracle tool.

The Solo Image Oracle takes this a step further.  (It wouldn't be a FlexTale book if it didn't take things an order of magnitude further!)

Roll two dice, and pick an image randomly from a grid of 36 abstract icons.  You can use that simple image as a point of inspiration on its own; this approach is very similar to Rory's Story Cubes, another popular resource for solo gamers.

A Step Further in Creative Inspiration

But the FlexTale difference amplifies the utility and power of this book as an Oracle: each of those images gets its own full page.

Each of those 36 images gets over 25 different elements: specific answers to questions, creative directions, entire quest snippets, magic items, random encounters, and much, much more.

All in all, two simple dice can drive over 900 dynamic and creative sources of inspiration for any campaign setting.

System-Neutral, Zero-Prep

This is a common objective in FlexTale books, and I'm thrilled to say that this book was designed from the start to satisfy these as requirements, even moreso than any other book before it in the FlexTale line.

The Solo Image Oracle provides visual and text inspiration.  As a result, it's system neutral, and can be easily used in any tabletop roleplaying game, though the particular answers in many cases are fantasy-oriented.  For those who use 5E, Pathfinder, Pathfinder Second Edition, OSR, or DCC systems, there is an extensive 9-page description of how to use specific rules language across those systems.

The whole point of this book is that it requires no preparation to use.  You can, quite literally, flip to a page completely at random, and point to a place on that page, and derive inspiration for your solo adventure cotntent.

Any Gaming Table

Although the Solo Image Oracle was designed from the ground up to be a tool to empower solo gamers, it's also an immensely powerful tool for a traditional gaming table.  A time-pressed or creatively stymied G/DM can use this book exactly like a solo gamer would, and find creative drivers just as naturally and quickly.

What's Included

The Solo Image Oracle features:

• 36 abstract image silhouettes
• 900 total creative elements
• 36 unique items and Rewards for PCs who complete quests
• 36 creative Penalties for PCs who fail quests :)
• 36 random encounters and drivers
• 36 interesting NPC behaviors, backgrounds, or characteristics
• 36 Quest snippets, ready to use immediately, or flesh out and make your own
• 36 twists and spins on enemy behavior to make every combat memorable and interesting
• Full and easy integration with other FlexTale books, in particular the FlexAI Guidebook, the Solo Adventuring Toolkit, and the Hexcrawl Toolkit
• And much, much more!

Creative Elements

Each of the 36 images gets a full page's worth of content, with 25 creative Elements to help drive game content and decisions.  These include the following, color-coded for ease and speed of reference:

General

• Noun
• Verb
• Adjective
• Adverb
• Question
• Detailed Answer

Social

• NPC Description
• Role
• Context
• Choice
• Result

Combat

• Combat Description
• Random Encounter
• Action Outcome
• Enemy Targeting
• Combat Role
• Combat Role Size
• Combat Stance

Quest & Encounter

• New Quest Snippet
• Quest Development
• Reward
• Penalty
• Quest Archetype
• Quest Sub-Archetype

Origins & Development

The author is a veteran DM who cut his teeth on the BECMI boxes back in middle school.  The approach taken with this book was pretty simple, but drives from decades of experience and talent: 

1. Pick an image.
2. Consider that image in the context of each of the 25 creative elements defined.
3. Create adventure content inspired by that combination (of image + element) and write it down.