So here is my go at recounting the events from the first *session* (actually about a week's worth of emails).

Toria is working at her boring job in Edinburgh when she senses the influence of the Shadows at a distant tower block on the horizon. Going to a nearby park in her lunch break she finds it fenced off and being demolished by menacing figures in all over protective suits and dark goggles, who won't let anyone in to get near the boarded up building. (The building is a Shadow Infestation with 10 tokens)

She changes reality so they know her, and the gaffer lets her in while they are on their lunch break to take a look at the aquarium that they are building at the foot of the tower. Here Toria finds a distressed woman looking for her missing daughter Jenny, who she fears has got into the building site, which used to be their home. (Jenny is a Thread with 4 tokens).

Toria goes to look for Jenny, and changes reality so that the tower block is actually a development of high class flats beside the sea, with a show flat open for business. She goes in to look for Jenny, but gets distracted by the salesman trying to sell her a house by the sea. (I make this an Obsession scene, tempting her to give in to her House by the Sea obsession). She changes reality to win the lottery, and buys the house (gaining a tear), which also gives her the freedom of the building.

Leaving the salesman behind she runs off into the building site, heading up the stairs after Jenny's footsteps, and finds the girl on a precarious landing above an open shaft full of smoke and metal. She quickly changes reality so that the building (Mermaid Towers) is actually much closer to opening, with the shaft replaced by a 5 story vertical fish tank waiting to be filled. Jenny tells her that her house used to be right where the tank was, and Toria prepares to take her back to her mother.

At that moment the door of the stairs burst open and menacing Shadow minions in boiler suits and masks came rushing out, attacking them both with their gas axes (I made this a Shadow scene and had the Shadow try to un-change Toria, with a pretty severe difficulty). Toria resists with all her might (and Infestation) and a fountain of water bursts from the central shaft, flooding the entire building and all of the surrounding city. The men are washed away, as is Toria, but Jenny turns into a mermaid and drags her through the flood and out of the building.

Here they are picked up in a small boat by Jenny's mother (Iolanthe), who explains that the mermaids lived in a hidden lake where the building has now been built which was broken into by the developers, who stole the water for their building and drove the mermaids out into the sea. Iolanthe took human form and tried to stall the development, but Jenny copied her and snuck into the building while she was gone. The rest of her people are out at sea, but some, along with the 'Guardian' are maybe still trapped in the lake.

At this point Victoria has dealt with one thread and retreated from the Shadow Incursion (to an area without Taint), so it seems like a natural break in the story.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

How have you been doing the mechanics/changing reality by e-mail?

Is it a case of you go back and forth and then if you find a bit where Victoria wants a change you go back and forth with which Obsessions/Limitations count and then whoever Narrates comes up with the final edit of the change after some clarification e-mails? Or do they just type out how the change happens?

Are they short or long e-mails? And how frequent?

(My experience of play by post, which is all I have to base it on, was made up of many shortish posts.)

The posts have been pretty short so far, and fairly quick, at least 10 a day.

The mechanics have been easy. One or the other of us identifies a need for a change, and then I tote up the base difficulty (e.g. 3 + 2 for shadow). Then Victoria tells me what she intends to do to make the change and I add on any Limitations that implies, and suggest some Obsessions. Then we go back and forth on the traits until we are both happy.

Then I record the results (infestation spent, traits ticked etc.) on the character sheet, which I have appended to each email, and one or the other of us narrates the result.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

In the first grounding session Victoria chose to un-flood the city to get rid of a tear, and reword a few traits. As a result of the tinkering and changes her character now looks like this.

OBSESSIONS
I want to have a house by the sea (3) (3 ticks)
I want to become a mermaid (3) (3 ticks)
I want to breathe water (2)
I want to free the killer whales (1) (1 tick)
I want to see the sea cover the earth (3) (2 ticks)

LIMTIATIONS
I would lose my son (3)
I miss my family (2)
I hate what being alone does to me (2)
I cannot swim (1)
The sea would die without the land (1)

TEARS 2 INFESTATION 2

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

I've finally done the diary entry (or whatever you would call it) for Session 2, and posted an AP about it on Story Games.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/index.php?action=cms.mt.session2

She fought off the Shadow. Awesome. And I liked the fiction at the end.

How easy was that for Victoria to come up? Was the pacing different for a one-on-one game as opposed to the three-on-one game you had at Conpulsion?

Or did the X tokens per player work out pretty satisfying, actually?

(Yes, I know, I keep asking boring questions about measured opposition!)

Awww I know your just trying to bump my threads :)

The fiction at the end was all Victoria, but there a few sticking points earlier on where she was short on ideas even though she was the narrator, and that became a little more collaborative between the two of us, even though I had no narration rights. I think that's maybe an inevitable consequence of one on one play.

The X tokens per player was just right, the numbers seemed find both times and there is a little leeway so you and twiddle with difficulty.

One thing I did which was implied in the rules but not written was that I allowed the Shadow to regain tokens it had spent on increasing difficulties (not the ones spent on threads) between sessions, since it was being left alone for a while. That seemed fine too.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/