After refining my technique and tools for playing RPGs solo, I'm posting my setup. First you need a rules set, and AD&D RAW is just a great way to go, especially if you are playing in 1:1 time, and you should be running your solo campaign in 1:1 time, it makes all the difference. AD&D Tables for terrain generation, towns, keeps, NPC parties, Dungeon, Treasure and more are invaluable. You can generate a whole solo campaign world just from the back of the DMG. Where I feel AD&D suffers in solo play is with combat, so I'm opting to run B/X for combat. I may occasionally run AD&D combat solo, but I found after a 2 month campaign it got a little tedious. The other reason I have my B/X around is I love the Tom Moldvay scenario creation tables. I use them frequently.
The next thing you need for solo RPG play is some randomizing material. I love the Table Fables 2 book for the great tables for traveling encounters, and landmarks and sites. I also got these great dice that randomize dungeon creation, dungeon features, terrain, treasure, weather, compass direction, and reactions. All have their place and degree of usefulness. The third thing you need for good solo play is a system of answering questions, likelihood of actions and decisions being successful, and the possibility of unforeseen events occurring. The OSR Solo book does that. It gives die rolling methods for likelihood, NPC interaction, plot twists and more. A very useful document.
Here is my self developed method for hex crawling. I use it for solo play and in my group campaign for determining wilderness encounters. Also included is a list of wandering monsters based on terrain. I also use this d100 weather chart, tend to roll off the chart first, then use the weather dice on subsequent days to see how the weather changes. I don't always get great results from the weather die, sometimes I ignore rolls that don't make sense. I also have a set of 10 encounter scenarios based on the B/X Moldvay method. Each scenario is a small blurb usually consisting of a site and a potential challenge for the party that can be solved in 1-2 encounters. They are great to have so should a party be hex crawling, and you determine a location has been found you can just choose or randomly select a prewritten scenario.
Lastly the campaign map and character sheets. I need to develop or find a more abbreviated character sheet for ease of use, but the full sized AD&D sheets are classic and serve fine for now. The map I keep largely empty, the river is an actual Greyhawk river connected to the hex I run my other campaign in, and the NW corner of the map is the part that has been populated through solo play. The large geographic feature in the center of the map is kind of the lost world area the players (solo or possibly at some point players from a group) will at some point in the campaign discover. I have a basic idea what could be there, but there is lots of room for in-game developments.
That is my whole set up for solo RPG play, I feel it's just enough tools to give me variety and choice, but it's not overly complicated. This is my Nappendixia open world solo/group campaign. It's a sword and sorcery flavored world inspired by the fiction of Appendix N (duh). I have yet to have any other players participate in this campaign, and I'm looking for players that want to either solo game on this map and combine the sessions into one game world, or also looking for players who may want to play in some 1:1 time sessions live online. Please get in touch to participate in any way.
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