I have several solo campaigns on my YouTube channel. However, I thought it might be fun to try my hand at blogging one. This will also give me a chance to play around with some of the solo RPG rules out there. I think this might help me make my own solo rule set more robust. I've been working hard developing this as it's the solo rules I apply to the campaigns I use in my YouTube videos.
I also figure this is a great way to get some solo TTRPG content out there quicker so that anybody who enjoys following my solo D&D campaigns can have more regular content and some additional food for thought while waiting for new videos (which take me a while to produce sometimes).
Solo RPG Using Mythic GM Emulator and OD&D - Part 1 - Setting the Scene
This campaign is going to be a bit of a canvas of experimentation and therefore it might go in any direction. I will attempt to discuss my thought process and approach in as much detail as seems natural to me, so you can gain an insight into my personal approach to playing solo RPG's. As this is experimental, I may switch the rule set at any point if I want to test something out. This could either be the core game system I am using as well as any solo game system.
To get things kicked off I want to use the Mythic GM Emulator as I've always wanted to try this system in action. The core rule set I want to use alongside this is Original Dungeons & Dragons (OD&D). I return to OD&D from time to time because I love it's simplicity. I also love discovering new things about these original rules. Most of all I absolutely love trying to capture the original flavour of old school D&D for aesthetic purposes. So, here goes...
The first thing I want to do (in accordance with the Mythic GM Emulator) is generate a random event to setup the first scene in the game. I have a desire to just kick things off very quickly so I'm going to hold off on character creation for now. My plan is to roll the characters ability scores and generate their background details as and when required so you could consider this approach a kind of 'Quick Start' method. One of the great things about OD&D is that character sheets don't have a lot of details like some of the later editions do, so it's relatively straight forward to generate a character on the fly. Let's see how this works in practice.
One important point I'd like to make just now, is that I have never used Mythic, so you'll need to bare with me when I fumble through the rules. There will be a learning curve involved. This learning curve will also be extended to the OD&D rules as although I have some experience with this edition, if you're familiar with the three rule books: Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure and the Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, then you're probably aware that it's not the most robust and fully fleshed out system. It requires a little interpretation from time to time. I realised this to the fullest when I started my OD&D solo campaign on YouTube.
So here we go then I have my Mythic book open... Scene 1...
According to Mythic I can use a Random Event to setup a new adventure off the cuff. The Event Context is the character(s). I have quickly decided to open up this story with just one character. This is a great opportunity to test out my own approach to handling a lone wolf adventurer. I will detail my rolls in the 'Courier' font to separate rolling from the rest of the text. Hopefully this will help give you a clearer understanding of what's going on.
Roll on Event Focus Table: Ambiguous Event
Roll on the Event Meaning Table: Abandon Food
I will now need to interpret the results above. What immediately comes to mind here is that:
My character is out in the wilderness checking their hunting traps, when they discover a deer - only something else found it first! It's quite clear from examining the carcass that whatever has feasted on this is a very large monstrosity.
So, this is what is going to pull my character into the adventure.
I'm not going to write this up as a flowery narrative. At least not for the most part (I may change my mind later), but I will separate these little snippets of plot by writing these in 'Courier' as well.
I think I want this blog to be focused on the solo game mechanics, so I can impart to you a sense of how my approach works in theory and this will hopefully give you a good context of how I generally run my own solo games. Hopefully this alongside my tutorials as well as my YouTube campaigns might inspire you and give you enough of the groundwork to delve into your own solo adventures.
It is very apparent at this point that my character does not have a name, so let's take care of this. I'm going to use my own name generation method for this, which I developed last year. This will be included in my own solo rule set when I finally publish it. I plan to do this when it's complete. The general gist of it is that I roll on a table of individual sounds which make up a name. It's basically the same concept as a table which is included in the D&D 5th Edition Dungeon Master's Screen (or at least an early version of it).
Before a name can be generated I need to know the character's race. Now here is the first obstacle to overcome in my attempt to create a 'quick start' character. In OD&D your characters race and class is largely dictated by the Ability Scores you roll, as there are certain Prime Requisites that should be met in order to satisfy the requirements of a chosen Race or Class. This is simply a matter of rolling some 6-sided dice though. As I am playing a lone wolf character I am not going to roll the recommended 3d6, instead I'm going to roll 4d6 and drop the lowest to give my character a better fighting chance.
Here are my Ability Scores:
- Strength: 5
- Intelligence: 15
- Wisdom: 12
- Dexterity: 14
- Constitution: 9
- Charisma: 9
This characters strength is pretty concerning, but let's just see what happens...
With the Intelligence Score being the highest it would make perfect sense that my character is a Magic-User. The low Strength Score would probably rule out playing an Elf, so Magic-User it is.
The next obvious thing to do is to determine my characters pronouns (i.e. she/her/he/him/they/them). It is absolutely your prerogative how you handle these labels. I have a table in my own solo rules which handles the determination of a characters pronouns. I will roll on this now:
- 1 or 2 - She/Her
- 3 or 4 - They/Them
- 5 or 6 - He/Him
1d6 = 1 = She/Her
Now I can roll for a suitable fantasy name. I have a pretty robust method to generate character names, but I won't go into this in detail just yet (I might revisit this later in the series). There are plenty of methods for coming up with character names.
My character's name is: Mona
The Mythic GM Emulator keeps track of something called a Chaos Factor. We will get into how this works as we progress. At the start of the adventure the Chaos Factor is 5. I guess it's logical to presume the introduction of the monstrosity that has ravaged the deer will influence the Chaos Factor, therefore I will increase the Chaos Factor by 1.
Current Chaos Factor: 6
We also have a New Thread, which is to 'find out who or what ravaged the deer':
New Thread: find out who or what ravaged the deer
In accordance with the Mythic GM Emulator we now have our first scene setup, so I am going to end my first campaign session here. In the next session I will focus on running my first scene to see how it plays out.
Be sure to check back in to find out what happens next. In the meantime:
- Follow me on Twitter @crawlersolo
- Check out my YouTube content at youtube.com/c/SoloDungeonCrawler
See you next session...
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