The Peril of Cymbaline Isle - Session 1 (Solo RPG using Scarlet Heroes, White Box, and more)

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[@TheDungeonDive]

After a couple of failed attempts, I finally come up with a beginning I like. And I forgot to plug in my mic. Ugh. Sorry about the phone mic audio. Rookie mistake. :(

[@crapphone7744]

The good thing about soloing is that you can do whatever is fun. When an idea seems to fail, or just isn't fun, start again, imagine a way out, work on some other aspect of the hobby, like draw a map, then come back to the situation afresh when you feel like it. Check out Geek Gamer's solo stuff. She seems to like to create characters and develop them a bit, then move on to another. Sometimes she comes back to them, some times not. She had a great remark about solor RPG, "It's all play" . If you like making characters, do that, if you like playing do that. I am developing a solo focused game system at the moment. I am enjoying playtesting, rules writing and crafting stuff like cards for part of the game. Some of the games are amazing, some less so. I have three campaigns going on right now. So the trick here is to realize ALL of this, like making the videos is part of the fun of your hobby, and don't stress about "failed attempts", it's YOUR game. :)

[@Elric54]

Can you inventory the tools you are using, and what you are using them for?

[@Stuart36]

I've been watching stoneaxe for a while now, brilliant guy & channel

[@TheVisionaryKing]

Stoneaxe rocks. Love that dude. lol Good mention there. :)

[@jakobzgela]

I agree with others. As someone who is interested in starting my own solo quests, it is very helpful and encouraging to see someone learn as they go, warts and all as you put it. It might be that I’m already invested in your channel but this has been the most engaging solo RPG that I have seen thus far. Can’t wait for more

[@TheDungeonDive]

Thanks, Jakob!

[@solorpgguy]

Thanks for the shout out. My 2 cents, just start simple and develop as you go. As long as your having fun, your doing it right!

[@NegatveSpace]

It makes sense that a solo rpg is a lot of reading and writing. The player is basically both the dm and player character.

[@Joris1111111]

I was playing around with words to make some names for months. I picked 8 months of our year, and gave them some describing traits. Then looked for synonyms for those traits. February + Cold = Frigidary March + Rain = Drenarch May + Fertile = Spawnay June + ? = Thrivune August + Hot = Tropust September + Lingering = Lingember November + Sadness = Melanchember December + Darkness = Darkember Nice adventure setup. Looking forward to the next one.

[@rolanejo8512]

Paul from StoneAxe games was my first exposure to solo rpg a year ago. I am hooked. Great channel.

[@MelvLee]

Thanks for the video and a great start! Shabby Tavern with a few mysterious patrons, a grumpy Inn keeper with a heart of gold & the corrupted town guard. Perfectly combination for an epic adventure / misadventure.

[@TheDungeonDive]

The pawns are in place!

[@leethompson6738]

Agree with the others who’ve said don’t aim for perfection. There’s no such thing. Flaws and all, this is wonderful as it is. As for month suggestions, how about something a little abstract like naming each in terms like ‘quiet’ , ‘chaos’, ‘hope’ to represent past times in the history of your world. Keep up the great work, Daniel!

[@goodlookingcorpse]

The months I used in my fantasy world: Young Moon Worm Moon or Crow Moon Pink Moon or Walking Moon Flower Moon or Rabbit's Moon Thunder Moon Monsoon (some three or four moons in length) Red Moon, Lightning Moon or Dog Moon Corn Moon, Harvest Moon or Barley Moon Hunter's Moon or Beaver's Moon Oak Moon or Cold Moon Old Moon or Wolf Moon (only occurs every four to five years)

[@TheDungeonDive]

That's cool! I like the moon motif.

[@FredBednarski]

Starting a new campaign is always daunting - it's the blank page problem all over again (and I can't imagine doing it on camera on top of that :o). You started now so it might not be that helpful, but whenever I have those jitters, I start In Medias Res. Maybe jump straight into an ambush or some other action scene where I can establish an NPC or few and roll some dice to resolve the action and "get the juices flowing." If you are still thinking about running that dungeon crawl with cards, I think a good idea would be to make a new "one shot" character(s) to run the dungeon and discover some ancient temple or something else for your main character to investigate. Then after that "side game" the surviving characters would somehow find their way to the Crooked Violin and your main PC to pick up the plot. Maybe it's somewhat connected to the missing artifacts you mentioned? What would be inside that ancient temple that would affect the current religion where the missing artifacts are from? I often play such "side games" without the main character(s) present to explore some other aspects of the world/plot/whatever. I might have a completely different set of rules (or use some other kind of game) to play those if it feels right. e.g I played a kind of chit&counter tower defense where some monsters where attacking a farmstead (mainly because I found an old game that had cool chits I wanted to use), only to loose, have a single character survive/escape. Then, because I got one of the Exit escape room games, I decided to play through its Abandoned Cabin scenario with this surviving character, just changing the flavor/details a bit in my mind to better fit my campaign. Once that character escaped and found their way to the main character/plot, I not only had a destroyed farmstead full of monsters, but now I also had a sinister cabin in the woods that needed to be destroyed (also rolled bunch of oracles from that which established a cult that connects the two), so then I played a more miniature wargame type game to actually destroy the cabin while fighting off the monsters from part one (which now have moved closer to the cabin, it turns out the farmstead was just on their way to here!). At the end of it all I got a new character (the survivor from the beginning) added to my "roster" and had bunch of plot hooks and leads to follow. So what I am saying, don't feel like you need to play the way some book says you do. Fill free to jump around, mix & match stuff. As long as you are having fun - you are doing it right :)

[@TheDungeonDive]

Thank you!

[@TheDungeonDive]

I really like that idea of a side story. Might send one of those tavern NPCs to do some investigating.

[@FredBednarski]

@@TheDungeonDive You should! I like the side stories, as they let me experience the world from more than one angle... more than that, they let me come up with details that would probably never show up in the main story.

[@TheDungeonDive]

Can also be used to experiment with different styles of game play.

[@FredBednarski]

@@TheDungeonDive Very much so! You can change not only the style, but also the rules, scale and type of game. Nothing stopping you from playing a wargame where your heroes are an elite unit, but only a small part of a larger army, letting time pass and the town/city change with something like "A quiet year" or just grabbing some solo "trading in the Mediterranean" style boardgame to see how their investments pan out. Use what makes you happy or just seems like a cool idea to tell a single overarching narrative :)

[@paavohirn3728]

Nice to see the process of figuring things out.

[@MrCooneybren]

.0 Excellent series so far! So interesting with the amalgamation of rule sets and components.

[@TheDungeonDive]

Glad you think so!

[@chadua76]

Great opening explanation to the game!

[@GrungefolkBoy2010]

Looking forward to these, interesting to see where the story leads 😁

[@pauldee227]

Enjoyed watching you flesh out the place and npcs - really interesting seeing how you are clicking the randomly generated bits together in a cohesive way. I'm only just getting into solo tabletop gaming in general really but already I find myself curious about the possibilities of solo rpg-ing. I'm reading through Ironsworn and starting to watch a few videos to try and get a sense of how it generally works. Fair enough if you decide to let this series play out over a longer period of time but I hope we see lots more of it soon!

[@TheDungeonDive]

I love connecting dots between random elements. It’s fun for me. :)

[@Grognard-Solo-Gaming]

This is great, I really like it! 👍 I’ve recently started playing solo using DnD, and I started out “free form,” but then I found I really enjoy putting a character through a written module. It becomes a much more fun and immersive way of learning a module before I DM it. But I definitely want to play solo in other ways too, so seeing others’ ideas is great. Thanks!

[@TheDungeonDive]

Are you employing any kind of system overlay to make it solo?

[@Grognard-Solo-Gaming]

@@TheDungeonDive Accidentally pushed post, in case you just saw half a post. Then I got started on Storm King’s Thunder, and for that I just used the character’s motivations and skill rolls to guide the story. Unfortunately I started watching YT videos about the module (because I also might DM it soon) but that was a mistake, it gave away the ending and that made me lose interest. But I got around half way through it. So now I’m almost done with my character for Dragon Heist, and I’m really looking forward to it 😁

[@Grognard-Solo-Gaming]

@@TheDungeonDive Then my first post disappeared. Not sure what’s going on. But here’s attempt number 2: For my first adventure I used tables from Scarlet Heroes, geomorphic cards for dungeon generation (“Dungenerator”), and a d100 Dungeon-like approach to rooms (Enemies, traps, quest/clue, geographic feature). It worked well enough, but I really just wanted to get started.

[@TheDungeonDive]

Are these official Modules?

[@Grognard-Solo-Gaming]

@@TheDungeonDive Yes, they’re for the current, 5th, edition of DnD. All I did was skip the intro, that has an overview of the plot, and just jump right into the story. The only problem is that you get to know everything as you move along, but I found that doesn’t bother me. I still enjoy seeing what happens when that information interacts with the character and the rolls, so I find it very entertaining.

[@sungminphilipcha9018]

I always get some inspiration from your video, and now I am also looking for some good system or tool to dive in solo RPG. It is interesting that some RPG rules also have a solo rule. I am considering to try some retro old school RPG with Mythic GM emulator, but I feel like it is too much for RPG beginner like me. Anyway, keep going! Always appreciate your fantastic videos!

[@jonathana6298]

I've never played solo RPGs, but am currently waiting for Ironsworn: Starforged to deliver. It could be fun and looking forward to trying something new. And it's all contained into a single system.

[@TheDungeonDive]

I found Mythic to be WAY to complex.

[@saraann8140]

I sooooo love Madeline Hales books 🥰 Geek Gamers is also a stellar KZbin show - Tons of excellent ideas 🥰 Where did ya get the standees and wirebound map pages? Those are awesome 😃

[@TheDungeonDive]

Oh yeah! I’m friends with Deborah. :). The map books are Loke battle mats and the standees are pathfinder pawns.

[@BrentARJ]

I'm 9 minutes in, and I want to say, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Please don't feel any pressure to deliver something flawless right from session 1. I'd imagine most of your audience are people like me, and I'm not expecting anything but you playing through a solo rpg for as long as it is fun for you. I've been playing through my first game of Ironsworn, and I feel like it changed my approach to tabletop gaming. I went into IS with a plan and a general arc of a story in mind, and in the first few hours, that all changed, and for the better, too. To really do a solo rpg, I had to let go of my GM hat and let the characters and the dice drive the emergent story. I have no doubt whatever you come up with will be so much better than anything I would do, so please don't feel like you have to railroad yourself to satisfy your viewers. Back to the video!

[@TheDungeonDive]

Thanks, Brent. For me, I kept struggling with the false notion that I needed to create an entertaining story for people to watch. And that was totally the wrong approach. The more I get over that, the better it will be. Thank you so much for the kind words.

[@TommySvensson]

One way of lessen the load of all is to approach the game like old school might and magic PC games. Narrative and threads are smaller, focus on dungeon crawl and quests from npc from villages.

[@BrentARJ]

@@TheDungeonDive you can only care so much about what the audience wants. First and foremost it has to be something *you* enjoy. If you're not having fun, that will be felt by people, and then nobody is having fun!

[@BrentARJ]

@Tommy Svensson Great advice. Not that there's not room for story-focused games, and a lot of amazing examples of it out there (Ironsworn being the best, imo), but you're so right that it's not the only way to do it. Or even always preferable. I love the way backstories, plot twists and character arcs arise out of the *playing* of a Moldvay Basic game rather than the *planning* of it. This comes out naturally when playing with a good group. It's harder to do in solo gaming because you don't have other minds to bounce ideas off of, which is where random tables and oracles come in. I'm not here to sell anyone on Ironsworn, but it did also teach me that random tables are only as good as you let them be. I was trying to drive the story *through* the dice instead of collaborating *with* them. Finally I let go and said, ok, this is clearly not going where I'd planned, but it will be cool anyway. Then I started having more fun, and started finding organic ways to tie events together so it felt almost as if I *had* planned it.

[@TheDungeonDive]

One problem I had was over planning. Like ALWAYS! :)

[@BackwardLaser]

You could name the months after elements like earth fire wind water. Obviously you need 8 so perhaps supplement with lightning thunder wood spirit stars metal light and/or darkness? Developing it further, since the system is based in Asian mythology you could use google translate and use mandarin or Japanese words.

[@TheDungeonDive]

An Asian them would be cool. I was thinking of something using the first 8 numbers in Japanese.

[@patkelley8293]

I'm trying to do Solo RPG myself with Basic Fantasy and I'm still in the research phase getting some rules together. Scarlet Heroes is on my short list of rule/reference books I want. I have OSRIC coming this month.

[@windmark8040]

Enjoying the series! And nice standees. Where'd you get those?

[@TheDungeonDive]

Thanks! The ones shown here are mostly from Dungeon Universalis, with a couple from the Pathfinder Pawns 3 set.

[@arcubal]

I think the challenges of solo roleplay are on several levels. First off is the ratio of story building you want to do compared to the more mechanical gameplay, either with components (tactical event resolution) or without (simple dice roll or card draws). The fun of communal story building after all is the group dynamic, and there is a push and pull conflict there of its own. Between DM and players but also between players. Do you need to simulate that too or maybe not? Generating a story completely on your own could after all be akin to cheating in mechanical gameplay to the extent that that loses all appeal. Moving on. Second problem is story focus. How do you determine the story's acts or dramatic beats. Or is everything just random? It's the dilemma that for instance one-off, purely randomized dungeon crawlers have. Nothing makes a lot of overall sense and going through it feels like an endless string of small events. Maybe there are increasing categories of dramatic story elements and NPC strength that could be rolled from? So you end with a boss and a climax? Third is when to switch from scene construction to a skill check or an encounter that involves minis and a location tile. Maybe a fixed order of 'story paragraph -> skill check -> story outcome -> story paragraph -> encounter'? Or do you have a table of several of these structures that allows for variation in these orders? Finally (for now) what are the consequences of actions taken. Aka what feedback loops are in place to ensure that what you do solo actually affects the game state moving forward. RPGers often say that the game flourishes on failure. The best stories happen that way and often even bad rolls end up with the DM presenting a more interesting situation. When you're playing by yourself how do you prevent yourself from always knowing what to do and do it right all the time? There needs to be repercussions to bad rolls but also bad story choices that echo into new, even more epic situational prompts.

[@whitchens1161]

Some months: Frostyne Kindling Verdan Prospertyne Vineling Harvestyne Chillwind Reapertyne Emberling Everevening

[@mikelane4005]

Where did you get the pawns? They are awesome!

[@TheDungeonDive]

Dungeon Universalis and Pathfinder Pawns.

[@earlofdoncaster5018]

What's the spiral bound book with the miniatures?

[@TheDungeonDive]

Yeah, sorry, forgot to mention those. Those are the Loke Battlemats - Town and Taverns set. I'll cover them more in a future episode.

[@gabrielnorena]

What game is the scenario spiral bound book you are using here from?

[@TheDungeonDive]

Yeah, sorry, forgot to mention those. Those are the Loke Battlemats - Town and Taverns set. I'll cover them more in a future episode.

[@alexany4619]

Hi, instead of the map tiles you showed in the introduction video you now have suddenly that cool ring book map on the table. Please, which book is that? Looks like Gloomhaven? Many regards, Alex

[@TheDungeonDive]

Loke Battlemats.

[@alexpartenopei1021]

always begin a story 'in media res'

[@TheDungeonDive]

Does help.

[@johnr.lehman9954]

Where is the knight miniature that you are using from?

[@TheDungeonDive]

That's a miniature of me, I created using Hero Forge.

[@mr7oclock346]

you have to link me to that map binder

[@TheDungeonDive]

Those are from the Loke Battlemats. There are a few different sets for dungeons, towns, and wilderness.

[@Arczii1337]

Too much numbers for me. I prefer more narrative. I would like to watch fate core solo. Will you try?

[@TheDungeonDive]

Not sure.

[@solorpgguy]

Thanks for the shout out. My 2 cents, just start simple and develop as you go. As long as your having fun, your doing it right!

[@TheDungeonDive]

Well said!