Soloing D&D Games?

[Norfleet]

It's rather difficult to run: The level of casualty-tolerance a single PC has is a little less than a group which can sustain multiple downed characters, as long as nobody has actually been fatally killed and the party still has medics. Padding out the group with redshirts doesn't quite make the same impression.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

I pretty much grew up on the solo gaming experience and I hope some of my suggestion will be useful though some of them will be “out there”


a) Have multiply PC this way if one of your peoples die your game isn’t a wash.

As in the above example the one person would have about 4-6 people to role-play and that’s allot of work…

b) Have the DM have PC in the group also this lowers the number of charatcers to players from 4-6 to 2-3. Everything good should be done via a random dice roll. as in who picks first from the spoils of battle, etc. etc. etc. Everything bad should be done as smartly as possible to avoid favoring your PCs. “Hey zombies would attack the closest character. Hey this creature hates magic and would attack the wizards.” If your honest with each other theirs no reason why you can’t DM your own character.

c) Rotate the Dming duties

d) have fun.


Note: this works very well with dungeon crawls and as we where young not all of it has been play tested in a more mental version…

 

[The Blue Elf]

Wizards Challange is sort of a solo game.

 

[Thanatos]

putting a pc in with the player pc is something I have also considered...I have done that before, in larger groups...and ran him as an NPC+...since I could never get anyone to EVER DM...and that worked well...may do that...as it will cut down just a little on the mortality level.

Thanks for all the suggestions, the product suggestions, tips and experiences you have shared..it is, as I have said previously...really appreciated...if it's any good..maybe I will write it up so you guys can see what we do...though I don't claim to be good at writing

 

[Darklone]

I've done that a lot too... loved it. I think it still left lingering in the back of my mind because I like to play my group games similar.

Some thoughts:

• Multiclassed chars rock: The heightened versatility increases your chances of survival.
• Don't go for traditional D&D games aka treasure tables, CRs, magic items per level. Example below.
• Don't plan campaigns/storylines, let the story evolve and adapt to it.

A friend of mine had one player, asked him what he planned to play. They agreed on a fighter. So the player wrote this nice little background about being a young and able member of the local city watch in the huge town.
Shortly after, the DM came up with gang wars, dock workers against warehouse owners, mafia stories, underground societies... and a HUGE list of old friends, family members and similar stuff. The swordbrother of his father was his partner in the city watch, an old guy of some renown who was respected everywhere. A poisoned bolt took him in. A childhood friend from next door acted as a contact, the typical slimy rogue guy with friends everywhere. Nearly every merchant in the town district where he patrolled was known by name and he knew their family. The young flowergirl on the bridge always had a smile for him... till the day when she vanished.

The DM didn't start the game as any D&D game... he simply gave the character some nice boosts. This meant that he knew noone in the area who was better with the sword. Perhaps except for the dukes bodyguard (the duke owned most of the warehouses) or the mafia bosses favorite killer.

Single player games can be a lot of fun, you never can put so many details in a groups adventure. Neither can you have such a nice time as one char.

 

[Voadam]

Single PC games can be a lot of fun.

Without worrying about other pcs getting bored the DM can go into serious details about what the PC sees and get into in-depth ongoing roleplay interactions.

Any class can work.

Multiclassing becomes very useful.

Fights should be against lower cr enounters. An equal level character is an appropriate CR for a four person party that would only take up some party resources but a 50 50 kill chance generally speaking against a solo PC. Also, the lack of synergy from other PCs really shows up in tough fights.

As a PC you can get more into character because you are not sharing the spotlight, you are always on.

 

[Voadam]

go with more one on one fights.

 

[Gith Galath]

I only play solo and (mostly) improvised games. I'm not saying I would never play with a group but it just did not happen since I started playing again in 2000. I haven't seen anybody from my old gaming group of the 80s since a least a decade. So I started over with a friend and for both of us it's been the most memorable RPG experience. We've started a campaign in Celestia and the Realms months ago and we're still enjoying it. My friend has a his character and I play usually one NPC. So far, battles have been pretty dangerous but I do allow him to max his player a bit, because I do not have the time to adapt published adventures for two players.

Also, we started taking turns DMing, so we play more than one campaign simultaneously (DnD, Ars Magica, maybe D20 Modern). Since there's only the two of us, it's easy to decide what kind of campaign we would like to play, to organize our schedule, to switch between campaigns.

Also, all our campaigns are improvised. We simply do not have the time to prepare games in advance. For my part, I have the general ideas in my head, but I do not prepare encounters and such. So we let the campaign evolve (as proposed by Darklone) and the player participates to the development of the storyline sometimes as much as the DM. This is very easy to do in solo improvised games, since you do not have to put up with a committee everytime you have a blank or you do not know exaclty where the storyline should go. Plus, solo improvised gaming is as much surprises to the DM as to the player.

As for the the type of game you should play, I don't think it really matters. Most published adventures we've played were drastically modified by the end to suit our playing style and the storyline of the campaign, but we did play classic adventures (i.e. Forge of Fury) and we had tremendous fun. For example, in FoF we were badly wounded during a first encounter with the orcs during our break-in. So we had to flee down in the forge and hide. We could not go out nor go deeper. So we hid for weeks down there trying to avoid orc scouting parties, troglodytes, etc... This would have been impossible with a group of four or more PCs. Luckily my NPC had some cleric levels (multiclassing is essential in solo games) so we had food, water, and healing. This is what we still remember the most vividly from our venture in the FoF (alongside the fight with the dragon). So it is possible to slightly modify classic door-monster-treasure dungeon crawls for the needs of solo adventuring and still have a great time.

G.G.

 

[Maraxle]

putting a pc in with the player pc is something I have also considered...I have done that before, in larger groups...and ran him as an NPC+...since I could never get anyone to EVER DM...and that worked well...may do that...as it will cut down just a little on the mortality level.

That's what we did. I was the DM, and also had an NPC-ish character that was essentially the main PC's sidekick. I played him as a quiet guy, which worked out well since he would never argue about the main PC's decisions. I was not afraid to put him in danger, though, as evidenced by the number of times the main PC ended up dragging his unconcious friend out of harm's way.

Occasionally, the other player would DM, allowing my quiet guy to take the lead on certain adventures. One such adventure was a rescue mission (the main PC had been captured), and the other dealt with my guy's background.

If you do decide to add in your own NPC+, it makes it easier if he's not a leader type, has skills that compliment the other PC, doesn't have an overbearing personality, and isn't afraid to get hurt or killed.