One thing I have done, to make me feel a bit more at ease with the set­ting and to pro­vide some back­ground colour, is to super­im­pose some of the pub­lished Conan RPG set­ting to Xoth.
For exam­ple Shoma, I have placed a Punt over­lay.
Azimba = Kesh
Nabastis = Zin­gara.
I was sur­prised at the easy fit.
This added lay of depth is what I needed.
Nabastis for exam­ple is now a war torn land­scape after a recent, maybe still ongo­ing civil war. Takes noth­ing away from the pub­lished Xoth set­ting.
This allows me to use some of my Conan col­lec­tion and also give a bet­ter cur­rent events feel to the set­ting.

My cur­rent sit­u­a­tion with only one player does present some added chal­lenges to gam­ing. I do need to keep this in mind as its only us two at the table

Good job! Now just back him up! Let me explain.

First, gen­tly advise him that you need to fol­low his lead. When some­one needs talk­ing to his char­ac­ter should be the one to han­dle things. If he seems a bit stuck on what to do next then have him role play that inde­ci­sion out and offer a few choices via your npc and then step back and let him pick his own way for­ward. This serves two pur­poses: he keeps his free­dom, and two, it keeps you from being pushed for­ward into awk­ward in-​character con­ver­sa­tions with other npcs; essen­tially role­play­ing by your­self with him as an onlooker.

Pay hawk­like atten­tion to any moments where he gets inter­ested or ani­mated. If he’s con­vers­ing with an npc and starts get­ting into the moment then that npc’s impor­tance should grow. If he’s intrigued by some­thing he sees then build into that. Dur­ing these solo games this is where your fun comes from; never know­ing what comes next, and stay­ing on your toes by going with the strongest cur­rent flow of inter­est. This is also the same pot that his role­play­ing meal will come from.

Nice one thanks

Allan; aka Alim

Michael wrote:

Aside for life, this is one of the issues that have lim­ited me from Ref-​ing any games of late. Expec­ta­tions to pro­vide a world/​framework/​backdrop/​story arcs (main and sub) and so on. I do enjoy lay­ing out skele­ton world and over­ar­ch­ing story arc (based on the play­ers /​char­ac­ter inter­ests) but Blade is not so con­ducive to do that. And hon­estly I have not had the time nor drive to start it.

My play­ers have been con­di­tions to expect cer­tain hand outs in that arena — and get­ting them rewired to prop­a­gate their own sto­ries is more than I can hope for currently.

Update to my play­ers char­ac­ter, for those who would like to see his improve­ments.
As men­tioned else where, with only one player, it is not always pos­si­ble to rewards lots of expe­ri­ence from PA use.
I give at least one per ses­sion.
Allan