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Leaving the door open to imagination is the main theme that runs throughout your content, and it's the single greatest take-away. Using whatever materials you have as a springboard, have confidence in your creative mind to do the rest. No need to wait until you acquire X resource... It is wholly feasible that one could create an entire campaign with no external props at all. What is the conflict in this story? Close your eyes, spin around, and open them--what's the first thing you see? A woodpecker on a tree... What could that mean? Environmental destruction jeopardizing a tribal nation's survival, flocks of giant ravenous birds suddenly descending upon a town, a forest of sorcerous treefolk with bird familiars plotting and scheming across an entire continent... There's no limit. If you're tentative and waiting until you feel ready, cut loose and start without your ducks in a row. Play it fast and loose and call it a "practice session". You'll be amazed by what's possible if you let your imagination off the chain.

Excellent general advice for setting up a plot rich story setting

Great stuff. My personal tip for Solo RPG is to remember everything in front of you (rule sets , dice , lore, map, character sheets) are tools to help you create story and gameplay. And like any tools, they are there to serve the users so don’t be afraid to use them in any way you see fit, even if it means modifying the tools. A large part of the Solo RPG fun for me is to discover how to use these tools more efficiently. I.e. an inventory sheet on its own is boring, how about introduce a rule so that you always have to risk your items when rolling a challenge, that way you will introduce tension and dilemma where inventory tracking itself becomes the tool to drive story forward. (A Torch in the Dark did that superbly if anyone is interested to see how to turn boring inventory tracking to an excellent story creating tool)

This is great, thank you! Hoping to explore more solo RPG stuff next year.

I definitely found these tips helpful, and realized that some of them I'd already been doing unconsciously in my Starforged play. Some of that might be due to the system itself - creating the "world" that the game is set in defines a setting that informs individual stories, and that in turn suggested to me what kind of character I wanted to use. Ultimately the group gained three new PCs, each had been a contact, "quest-giver" or even in one case someone originally designed as an obstacle to the main PC's goals. But the way the rolls went as play went on, each became more than just a supporting character and really took on the role of a central part of the story.

Great advice, as usual. Although I have and would use Forbidden Lands, I would follow your advice here with any system, as you mentioned it could be applied. I love solo play, as it really works my "author mind". Your advice here, for example, is a good mental exercise at plot building and character creation. Your approach of creating a setting with conflicts in play before creating and introducing characters makes sense and tickles my fancy to roll some dice!

Wonderful advice, as usual!

Hi! Twilight 2000 4th edition from free league publishing has included rules and concepts for solo play for the T2k setting, the rules are also useful for anyone wondering about how to set up such a game type for most any pen and paper rpg.

Thank you so much for making these videos!

great ideas and examples thank you!

Brilliant content as always.

Really nice advice video, thank you for making this!

Great video, and very useful insights - thank you for all your content :)

Great video. Full of useful Information. Look forward to every video you put out.

An excellent video and some really good advice. Thank you for sharing it.

Great video and advice - thank you for sharing your thoughts and learnings.

This is a wonderful video. Most of my solo play has been working through published adventures. This is very helpful to get started creating the adventure from scratch.

A really helpful video. Thanks so much.

I have two solo campaigns in planning, based on your videos: Scarlet Heroes, where a novice mage apprentice is searching for his late master’s Artefact, where it will be created in parallel with each mission; and Forbidden Lands, using the Organic Towns Kickstarter. Love your material!

Once again, thank you for another excellent (and informative) video. I'm really looking forward to getting more details about your upcoming solo RPG book! That sounds amazing!!

I am definitely getting Forbidden lands. I have had so much fun discovering all these different systems.

Such wonderful advice on character creation! Usually its create a character and then try to fit them into your world. This way a lot of the background work is already done making it so much easier to fill in the gaps. Seeing that map and the hexes I’m also getting ideas of using the D100 world builder as a tool for exploration and location development. Thanks so much for sharing 😊

Been running my own solo RPG for a few months now. I'm using the B/X ruleset along with the DMG and another tool to auto generate local settings. For example I generate a village with random buildings, characters and some random "drama" taking place. Then I generate a random quest or quests with objectives to defeat the baddies impacting the village. For the quest details I use the 1E DMG to generate a dungeon and trimmings. For all the rest of the role-play interactions, I just roll chance die for outcome. So far it has been working pretty well.

Any video from you is insta-watch. I love your channel! And your solo-tips are always interesting, I hope to overcome my nervousness and start it one day!

Great video! I am a long-time tabletop RPG player ( since 1980 ) and I have played solo off and on the whole time. I only recently discovered your channel searching for reviews etc. on Forbidden Lands. I have since bought the game and am now playing. Great game! Really enjoy your take on solo gaming, keep up the great work.

Great video. Have you looked at the steps of the hero’s journey (Joseph Campbell) - they have some great events (like appearance of a mentor etc) that could make for great steps for rpgers as they loook for the next step. These are the steps that happen in an adventure novel of course

Thank you so much for this video! I just purchased Forbidden Lands and want to play solo as well as with my son. The way you present the information and film the video it is so clear and concise. Great job and happy to have subscribed to you.

First to the comments!!…..love your content! Very informative about how to solo game and seeing various RPG games.

Great game system. I just ordered it after watching your video. Thanks.

This is so helpful. I would love you to do this exact same format for symbaroum. Take care and have a great day! Michael

I find this advice super helpful even for GMed gameplay, as I often try to plat more collaboratively. Awesome like every other video you produce! Tysm! You should also def check the Apocalypse Oracle solo engine! It pairs super well with ICRPG or Dungeon World and I would love to see you play/comment on the latter 💖

Sometimes my algorithm hides your new stuff from me for a bit. Always glad when you come back around (Gaming channels have same-name syndrome, and I am scatterbrained) you have a solid approach to the way you game and I appreciate seeing your methodology. Both helpful and interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Appreciate your tips and guides. I am just started getting into solo RPG and I am torn between Symbaroum (love the dark settings) and Forbidden Lands (solo friendly as mentioned). Which one is a good start ?

I've found that when using OSR rules, my characters die so easily that spending a bit less time on all of these steps and quickly thrusting them into a simple one-shot is the thing that keeps things moving. Too much back-story, too much lore, too much of anything... then they get wrecked by some dogs and I'm disheartened to start the process over. I guess what I'd say is that if you're using a more modern ruleset that is more forgiving in terms of HP and aims to foster growth, then it makes sense to do more world-building because you will see the characters move to higher levels. No idea if this will be helpful to anyone but honestly, less is more in a lot of cases (learned this from the Lazy Dungeon Master's Guide). I'm going to try your "environment first" approach next time :)

Do you document/journal your adventure? And if so what method do you use?

I wanna play solo the star wars games ... d6 , d20 e FFG , any insights ??? fantasy has so many tools to use , but sci-fi if has these tools i not aware , sorry , my english is not that good!!!

Seriously, when you are going to launch a brand line of crochet hooks as a channel merchandise? A crochet hook acts as a pointer, a movement tool, a measuring stick, a bookmark, a page turning assist and more.

Sounds like a lot of work and little payoff in terms of interaction.

All solo rpg tips videos are a waste of time. Just watch someone play an actual solo rpg session.