Just as well, ChatGPT is too much of a yes man to give much of a real challenge, not to mention the AI's short attention span gets really annoying after a bit.

I have to say, besides the content, i love all que production quality you worked for these videos. I have ADHD diagnosis, and the subs, the face and the sheets, the way you structure your videos (i've seen the series so far) makes your solo rpg content so entertaining and educational (and doesn't mess up with my attentional spam)... Thanks a lot! i am enjoying this!!!

Seriously, thanks for the positive reinforcement. Not so seriously; For me, it's all about getting the ball rolling. I don't worry about having a unique beginning. Can't think of a cool start off point? Fight rats in the basement of the local tavern for all it matters. You will quickly arrive at a "yes and..." or a "no, but...". Still nothing? Then keep up the tropes. Are there rats in the basement? "No, but you see a trail of dirt leading behind the kegs. There is a waist high tunnel dug ino the wall." Even using tropes is being creative. You want to be the chosen one? Go for it. You want to be the conflicted healer? Loner edgelord? Have at 'er. Eventually the plot unravels as you go. I also advise liberal use of retconning.

Damn 😢😢😢

Fun watching the dungeon get created with different sets of rules each episode. I did find the music levels a little high this time, making hearing you a bit more difficult.

Gotta trust the dice. RIP Junoor, we hardly knew you. But someone will surely make it outta here.

Thank you so much for this video as its an amazing tutorial on how to use the Sandbox Generator. Also, how did got get the Biomes book printed like that? Did you do us on our own, if so how? Or did you get it printed somewhere else?

I like you straight out saying you're at an intermediate level. I also paint mechs as a side hustle bit I think I'm putting too much into them for what I get back. I started painting in second edition 40k so haven't been too much into speed or contrast paints but I may revisit. Thanks for the video.

Recently found and have been enjoying your channel. Was really excited to see this and the last few episodes, because running a solo funnel is something I've wanted to do for a while as a way of chargen. However, my understanding of a funnel is that you run all the characters at once and they all start to fall off one at a time until you're left with the last survivor to make your main PC going forwards. This process doesn't feel as funnelly to me.

Just a tip for anybody who might be struggling with getting their pages to print properly. It took me two hours and many pages to learn that for my printer, I can’t put the pages back in to print on the next side in the order they came out. I have to re-stack them (top page to bottom etc). This was also the only way I could get the back sides to not print upside down(regardless of choosing flip on long or short side, it made no difference). Cheers! :)

Hello Wizard! I relate to being a lawful good kid and young adult 💛 That intro cracked me up 😂

I say screw AI. To give any aspect or part of the process to the machine is to deprive yourself of the growth and enjoyment that is derived from engaging your whole being with the hobby. I dont even want it for brainstorming; Ive got analog generators for that. Ive got Tarot cards and a thousand other implements. You really do lose imagination and growth by delegating the job to the AI. Its no longer "Solo" gaming.

4:40 Great idea for the dice change! I did NOT like that they put a "Maybe" on the Fate dice, lol.

Some of the things you said hit me pretty hard. Especially the part about this sense of possibility - games nowadays tend to restrict their players with elaborate rulesets that govern what is and what isn't possible within the environment of the game. OSR games have none of that. It's either "use the logic of fiction" or "come up with the ruling on the fly". And this is so, so liberating! I know now I'm going to enjoy your content. Your style of presentation is very approachable, and you have many interesting things to say.

Can’t believe you don’t have more subscribers. Thought I was “outgrowing” D&D because I was getting so tired of 5e, turns out OSR is exactly what the game needs

Can't wait to see what you do next, you have a passion for solo RP that really inspires me and the way you explain everything is clear and precise. Love your videos. <3

Nice video. I have found AI helpful for certain tasks, mostly brain storming. Tell it about your game and have it come up with 20 possibilities of what happens next. But yeah don't let it run the game. Many have tried and it's just not capable of a decent consistent story.

Great to see anyone enjoying solo rpgs but for me it doesn't work. I'd rather pay to have world building and mood in a box. Which I found.

Great video. Love the inspirational approach

Thank you for explaining this. I have read that section of the book so many times and never understood it until now.

Great video to understand solo. Thx mate

I really enjoyed seeing how this story came to life. I just got Sandbox Generator and Four Against Darkness, looking forward to starting solo rpg soon!

Come for the moderated random, stay for the chillvibe guitar riffs.

When I’m playing solo, I tend to reserve Oracle questions for times I’m unsure how to proceed. I don’t tend to use it for stuff that could cause damage or death. I’m glad you gave him a dex save, to me that part makes more sense. But I’d have left it at that. Essentially, he made a dex save but still died from the rocks he just avoided because of the Oracle roll that followed. Once the dex save is successful, my next question may have been, so did rocks fall but pin him down (or knock him over?) something that might make the next task difficult, but not necessarily BE the end result. Hope that makes sense. There of course is no right or wrong, people have different styles! I like to watch other people play solo because I want to see how they are playing and get ideas.

When you were talking about avoiding cascading no's, and just choosing things you think would happen, I really struggled with that at first. I'd roll for everything, often ditching good ideas. Now I try not to roll unless I have to because I am out of ideas or feel I could use a boost, but if I have a solid idea, it's best to just run with it and move on. I had an idea that everything should be random, a lot of it is from some solo players that play that way. But like you grabbing a torch, or coming up with an alternative if you get a no, sometimes it is best just to go with your ideas. Some people like the randomness, but I found I would rather move the story, and roll mostly when I am stuck. I have even started planning out adventures more like you would running a game, where I outline key story elements of what is going on, why my characters are questing, what the goals are. After, I get a good basic plan outlined I start playing and see where the game leads. I find it tends to lead to a better concise adventure when I do that, and it things start to feel too random and too directionless, I steer them back to the next element as needed. It is nice that you have two characters you can spin off for other mini series, it'd be nice to see how they play out if you revisit them. This is not a system I would play myself but I do quite like how you add in new concepts, and rule books to change things up, and show more different styles. And you do quite well explaining your though processes and trying to show different ways to solo, because as you said there are many ways to play, but it is nice to be introduced to new ideas and rule sets and such.

Thanks for the Shadowdark series, I enjoyed watching all of these! I recently bought it myself (pretty new to solo rpg's) and am soloing a few characters through a hexcrawl. I'm not very good at drawing, but sitting down and gradually creating this world and story is, while challenging, also gratifying and relaxing, seeing something come to life. I definitely want to keep in mind my characters backgrounds when using the oracle to ensure I'm role-playing as them and I like the idea of them having a personality trait to enhance the flavour. Can't wait to see what you post next! Thought I'd share my adventure so far: I have a Halfling fighter called Hobb and a Human thief called Clip who both have noble backgrounds and a sardonic (low Cha) Elf Wizard called Sand with a medical background. They are on a quest to deliver the captured hunter of the royal knights back to King's Gate - a Dwarven mountain city to the north. Talking to Jorgena the publican in the village of Ostlin she knows of someone who can help us, but required us to recover a treasure from a monster den in exchange for her knowledge of this contact. So the team traversed the jungle and a river to get to what we discovered was a den of Beastmen. We had a good string of luck seeing a crudely prepared pit trap and we got the jump on them killing two fairly quickly with a magic missile and our warhammers, and the last eventually going down after hitting Hobb quite hard. We recovered a scroll of sleep and a golden monkey statue from our delve and returned to Jorgena to give her the statue. Happy with her new treasure she informs us that there is a Halfing urchin called Wendry in town who can help us. We find Wendry and give her some gold and she tells us of a dungeon far to the south, the dungeon of cyclopean warriors that she escaped from, where the hunter is located. To get there we will have to start traversing jungles past a temple of Ord, a barbarian camp, or if we are a bit crazy, the deadly mountains of the Blood Peaks where it is rumoured a giant blood wyrm resides within.

What I always find interesting about solo roleplay videos is comparing processes. No specific observations about how I'd have differed from what you did - In some places I'd have likely asked different questions, in others I might have asked a question where you assumed a yes - or vice versa but on the subject of nesting nos, I will say that for overland travel, at least, I sometimes ask a general "Do they encounter anything of note?" question before probing further with either a roll on a word table or a more specific question where I actually have something in mind for how to handle a yes vs a no - Basically a general 'do I start using the game's random encounter systems/use my oracles as a random encounter generation tool or is it half a day's travel where nothing happens' sort of thing. Looking forward to the journalling game stuff in particular - have only really just started exploring that side of the solo space with Thousand Year Old Vampire (which I'm a little annoyed I didn't manage to get a second play in last month) and a tiny little game called Drowning (that while I think it did exactly what it intended to do, I'm not sure I'm ever going to be in the mood to play again - And I don't mean that as a criticism)

This sounds interesting but what I miss in this video is more of an explanation on what makes OSR different. I thought it just meant simpler rules, black & white illustrations, graph paper instead of battlemaps and minis, and more of an emphasis on dungeon crawling. Is there something else I'm missing? It sounds like there has to be something more.

Excellent video😊. There is definitely something special about solo role play. I recently started playing strider mode for the one ring and it blew my mind. I’ve played in groups but it never clicked. It’s right what you say, solo gives you the room to be creative. I’ve started keeping a diary for my character, as a way to flesh out the journey and a great way to flex your creative muscles. I would say people who are interested to try solo roleplay might like to try the one ring strider mode, it’s rules light and the system has a lot of structured mechanics like hex crawl travel and councils which help add structure when your first starting out.

Great video, spot on. I'm a Gen-X Olde Schoole RP'er, and that's how I've always enjoyed role-playing. However, I also recognize that there is no "One True Way" to play. As you say, the possibilities are limitless. Ironically, this was the in-built intent of the those ground-breaking games back in the seventies - they were intended as tool kits for us to bolt on whatever our imaginations could come up with. However, these games then evolved into what they are today out of consumer demand for "show us the True Way!", and thus we now have these artificial divisions in gaming culture such as Old vs New School. Find your jam and roll with it has always been the message! Sorry 'bout the long winded comment, but you struck a chord! Great content, BTW. Keep it coming! Only 357 subscribers? Allow me to make that 358 and here's to 358K <cheers>.

Thank for making this video! I wrote down instructions that translated better for me based off this. I have played a few games with my gf and friend and just ordered some coins to use instead of my glass beads. This game alone is great at the bar when your with friends and gamble for drinks 🍺

My journey is a little different. I actually quite like D&D, I mostly learned 2nd edition in the 90's through computer RPGs, then in the early 2000's they all switched to 3E. I played a few times but not often. The 5e craze came out and I played some, but really 2nd ed is much better, but 5e works in a pinch with a good table. I also realized you can do anything you can in 5e in 2nd ed and pretty much any other system. You can have your players roll on Wisdom to track things of find traps, or roll Charisma to impress people, you can even bring in new spells and things, you don't have to have a separate skill for anything, just roll your most applicable stat. I agree 5e is really bloated, and offers a lot to keep track of. Pathfinder is a nightmare, just too many combat rules for me, combat takes for ever at a table. The reason I got into OSR is I really am at an age most my friends are too busy with families, I don't have a lot in common with young players, and it's hard to find a good group to meet up, every so often, so I ran across people playing solo and thought this might be the solution. My first try was take what I know, get some random generators and use that to run some 5e, with the hope of mastering it and moving 2nd ed. That was a nightmare, 5e is so bloated that you just end up in your own head, you finish a battle controlling both sides, and you quickly lose motivation to play more. It did not help I was running a 4 character party, which added a lot to control. So I had to find a way to streamline things more, and found out that not only did OSR offer simpler rules but many of the things I liked about 2nd ed was because of how close it still was to the original systems. There are still a lot of supplements in 2nd ed, and you can get really deep fast, and the core rules are still much larger than they need to be, but it still had that feel of an old school game. But, for me, OSR really strips down 2nd ed, without losing much of what makes it great. To the point that I can focus on the game, and building out the adventure and not burning out on combat, even if I play a party. I just keep the characters a little less fleshed out than a solo character, use side initiative and can roll several d20's at once to see who hits, which really speeds up the combat. OSR I think can be really great at any table and can be adapted to most anything 5e players are used to, and it might be easier for new players to learn, as long as you push them to think about what they want to do and let the GM worry about the mechanics of it. But for playing solo, the OSR are necessity, and even then you might want to strip them down more. I think the only reason to play 5e is that what others play, and what I knew best, because that's what people wanted to play.

This was a great twist, and I like the idea of trying a new system for him. It's just really cool that you left to a whole new area, it could be new world or plane even. Does he know the guy? Did she die of natural causes? A lot of questions can be had here.

Watching both episodes 1 and 2, My thought when Junoor died was this is a very hard core system. I think your Scarlet Heroes game would be more my style. I mean, as far as watching I am okay with what ever your do, and I am sure if you finished your quest and level, that character will mean a lot, because so far it seems really tough to make it out of this dungeon. I just think for my solo games I like to go more relaxed, see what happens and how the game and maybe even world evolves in time, death can and should happen, but I like to keep a fair chance of success. It's always fun to see how other solo RPGs and a surprising few I have found don't often show playing them much, they talk about systems and ideas, maybe share the story of the campaign, but I like to watch others play, and see what differs form what I do and what I could bring into my games.

And so how long have you been a motivational speaker? You're good at it. The OGL fiasco really turned me on to the full world of TTRPGs and I'm increasingly interested in creative solo play too

I don't know that I've ever seen such an introspective video on KZbin about anything before. Super helpful to hear!

Always fun to watch.

Such a great heartfelt and passionate video! This was very inspiring! I've subscribed! 👏😺

So glad I came across your channel. Your passion is much like my own when it comes to TTRPGs and a self journey, and creativity. I learned about Solo TTRPGs this year while recovering from a major surgery. I wasn't just stuck in bed. I was moving to a valley and farming, or being a ronin wandering for revenge, and the dramas those unfolded. It allowed me to be creative in a way I missed. And when I recovered it then let me be creative with my art. It didn't have to be great, it just had to exist. And that whispers to experience to my other games I run/game in with others. Sometimes, maybe its good to just check in with yourself.

This is like Dark Souls RP... Hardcore mode 😂

What happened to hugging the wall?! Don't go over there Wulf!!!!!

wasn't Junoor the one with the grappling hook, not Ruhiel?

I've never done solo RPG before but am interested in increasing my creativity for DMing and roleplay in general but I have a question... Do you usually do it all in your head or do you RP aloud?

Great editing and video!