Thank you for sharing! I remember being influenced by your other video around when one of my children were born! From there I went through character creation but haven’t done a solo game of Pendragon yet with that character, though I’ve played many other solo games. But I have listened to dozens of hours of The Esoteric Order of Roleplayers playing Pendragon. Their group has such a relaxed and natural feel! Thank you for your contributions into solo Pendragon and the resources you link!

4 stars! Great breakdown of your pendragon. Really debating just jumping back to 5.2 until 6th ed gets the next couple books out. lol

Thank you for adding your outline on how you play solo. I've been curious on your system for playing GPC, since your first video

For real wild magic? Dungeon Crawl Classics.

nice. hoping to run this module adapted to 5e at some point before too long. good tips.

Great video keeping coming back to this for inspo. The 6th edition core comes out tomorrow, going to run a game with my brother and friends in Harnworld. Haven’t tried it solo yet. Also like you, I feel like the feel and theme of pendragon is awesome, it just seems like a really fun game to run.

1. I like 100 roll under systems. If you have a 65% chance to succeed guess what you have to roll under for success. 2 I love spending experience to build skills, as opposed to just rigidly leveling up. 3.I like hit points being the average or total of the character's health and strength scores as opposed to arbitrary improving each level. 4. Magic is a skill that you can fail, fumble and have critical success. 5. Armour has to absorb damage yet makes you a little easeier to hit because it is encumbering. 6. Rules that inhibit min-maxing. Yup. those are my favourites. None of those rules are in Dungeons and dragons.

Super great video, friend! I really like the "Info, decision, journal" method. Imma give that a try. Thank you!

Hi, have you ever been able to post how to find the resources you mentioned? Word flow and things like that? Thanks for this information. I have watched the video several times to try and prepare my own solo playthrough

IMHO, this is the best rpg ever. From character creation to going insane from fumbling a passion roll!

I get the solo bit. But I'm not sure how you role play by yourself. Do you hold conversations with yourself, using different voices for the NPCs? For all that, you may as well just be playing a computer game. I would love to start gaming again - its been over thirty years - but I can't find a single gaming group in the area that is 1) close to my age and 2) not woke. Sorry, but I'm simply not going to sit there with babies who whine about pronouns because being an adult is just too difficult for them. That being said, I simply can't picture myself sitting at a table rolling die to randomize a dungeon, more die to randomize encounters and then lots and lots of die for combat. And, although I do typically spend too much time conversing with myself, unfortunately it isn't for role-playing purposes.

Solo RPGs seem to be choose your own adventure book.

You had me convinced 10 seconds in! 😂 I love rolling up my own stuff as much as the next guy but why reinvent the wheel?! 🤷‍♂ Great vid thanks! New sub! 🙌‍

This is the best intro to solo role playing I’ve come across. One big question it answered for me was how to go about running a module/campaign (Night Below for AD&D 2nd edition). And the rest of it is great too because it focuses on the steps you take various options and their pros and cons.

I recently picked up Dwarf Mine and my seven year old loves it. He is really good at it and mostly read the instructions and figured out a lot of the expansions himself. Another suggestion I have for starting kids young on RPGs are playing solo adventures together. When my oldest son was a little under five we would play solo adventures together. In particular I really liked the Pacesetter Games and Simulations solos as well as the ones from Gaming Ballistics. These series use BX D&D as the ruleset.

theres a new open world sandbox card/board game coming out next year called 'vantage' from stonemaier games that sounds like the rogue experience system youre describing

another piece of good advice i heard is to simply pause your story at times and jump into the narrative of another character - perhaps another character somewhere else in the town, world, or in a different time. then come back to the first character after playing your other characters - and this will give you more details about the world your first character is in that you didnt have before!

player should have lots of tables on hand to help with creativity and inspiration (artifacts, places in a town, types of characters, potion types, weapons, monsters, etc.)

I really want to make my own tyrpg that mixes starfinder combat with travler characters

But can you customize it? Not much practical use to most GMs if we can't get their Home-brew stuff in it. Neat though.

Thoughts on running this but the Cynidicean language is extinct? Too much to overcome? Perhaps introduce a NPC translator that the party needs to keep alive?

I see you rotated the first barrack. In the book it says: "Rooms must be built in the orientation shown." Is it possible to rotate the rooms like you did in the first level? The "Scouting room" was made to be used on every turn if I want? It makes me feel like an immortal because I can avoid difficult encounters every time. By the way, I really liked the game. I bought it today with its expansions!

Traveller, Mekton, Cyberpunk, and The Witcher are all known for their fantastic lifepath character creatiin systems.

Character creation killed me off, this game requires some serious dedication/autism

T5 data is nonsensical

Great review. Love your content! I've never played or run this one. I'm currently running OSE Advanced and would love to do this or The Lost City. Someday! Gotta get my players up to speed first.

*never puts it in the notes*

I still think the Medusa 'trap' in this module is a classic. I remember back in the early 80's as a kid she got my dad to take a peek. 😂

That a really helpful video on the topic, better than most other videos about solo ttrpg. The using an existing adventure and "oracle" some of your decisions is quite ingenious! Bad thing about modules, is typically they are made for several players, so playing solo typically there is a problem of lack of certain abilities or death in combat vs a too powerful enemy or group.

Sorry for late comment, but I wanted to mention the Humanity mechanic in Vampire: The Masquerade. I love it when the mechanics are deeply linked to the narrative.

I looooove the idea of a Gilded Age game. I don't know why I've never considered that before!

No need to apologize so profusely. People who play these games we must assume have the fortitude to read historical based content.

I'm a mic nerd and can't help myself whenever I come across a video with the blue yeti. I also have one. You don't need to place the mic in front of your face, much less your mouth, even. You can place it off to the side and it will still pick you up. The blue yeti is excellent, it could probably pick up people having a conversation in another room.

Hi!Since the party is level 3 when they meet Zargon I would like to know what stats did you use for him!

Crimson Escalation!

This is my favorite module of all time. I just started the video and I'm excited to see what you think. I'll add more to this comment once I've watched the video if I have more to add. After video thoughts: Interesting. There are somethings that I disagree with on how you ran it and I would do differently. 1. I think due to it being 5E you ended up with a much shorter campaign and I just generally don't like 5E. 2. How did someone join all three factions don't the War maidens and Brotherhood only accept one gender? Also they are all different alignments and since the leader of the brotherhood has a helm of telepathy he would know if someone is lying to him or is not Lawful and therefore would be forbidden from joining. Also they all have symbols some of which are obvious tattoos so you couldn't hide it from the others. It shouldn't be possible to join more than one faction, this isn't Skyrim. 3. My method of fleshing out the factions is giving them each a goal or a method they all want to use to restore their people. These also align with their beliefs from ehat their god represents. The Brotherhood of Gorm wants to bring Law back to the people and restore order. The War maidens of Madarua want to kill Zargon as he is a weed that is chocking the life out of the crop of their people. The Magi of Usamigaras believe they can cure the hallucinations cause by the mushrooms (its a plant on the island in the middle of the underground lake and it will work). All three solutions are viable by its up to the players who they side with and help or if they unite all or some of the factions. 4. The method I made to get the players to find the tomb of the king and queen is that I integrated it with the previous point. All three factions have recently ventured up into the pyramid to find the crowns and Scepter of the king and queen. They all want it and will all ask the players to help them retrieve them, whichever faction owns these artifacts has authority over the others. The party can split the artifacts to get them to all have equal power and force a negotiation. In any event Sirkinos is particularly interested in the sceptre because he knows its power and will attempt to use it to acquire the other artifacts and gain power, unless of course Kanadius is present in which case he will read Sirkinos mind and stop him before he can. Also generally Kanadius should just always be untrusting of Sirkinos(with good reason). 5. Zargon should be way harder than what it sounds like he was in your game, they shouldn't stand a chance at 3rd level at all. If it was BX this is a much higher level final battle. Also the War maidens and possibly even the magi and brotherhood should know you need to destroy the horn to permanently kill Zargon and they should all want the party to finish the job. Otherwise it sounds interesting the idea of using the cloak on another NPC is interesting. I am not sure what else to add but thanks for making this video and bringing attention to this module.

Now that I finally finished this, yeah, mechanically this is quite different from Delve, but thematically you are delving too deep in both games. I purchased the bundle and my brain is already thinking of hacks, but I'll play a few games first "as intended". Also, I kept yelling at the screen for you to name the most western barracks West Point, haha.

I am on a traveller youtube binge. I found this video by searching (traveller rpg astronomy). I was curious how much of our understanding of modern astronomy applies. I was planning a game centered around a very radioactive unstable red dwarf that is a ticking time bomb to explode and the team is racing against time to get the engines back online. anyway...thanks for the video

You were suggested to me in my feed so I figured I's sub and support a fellow subscriber.

Quick comment on the holy symbol of Zargon and the Paladin... Did the Paladin know that it was an evil symbol? Did he (and the player) know that it was against his vows? I would hesitate to punish the player over something his character would have known but the player didn't, especially a newer player.

I think B4 is supposed to be a BECMI module, not an AD&D one. That being said, I really liked the idea of different items being available from the different groups. It would make sense that the magi would not have much in the way of armor, for example. It also makes it more worthwhile to make nice with more than just one group.

Re: Staying alive Of course, if you are running a revolving cast of characters as they die like flies, the fragile nature of the PCs won't matter that much. However, if you like the players to form some emotional attachment to their characters, I don't think treating the characters as disposable and interchangeable is good. And since I personally want my campaign to actually be a story about these PCs becoming the big heroes, I adopted some house-rules to make it a bit harder to die: 1. Max HP at the first level. (Fighters are less likely to get one-shotted, and makes the step from 1st to 2nd level not quite so dramatic in HP.) 2. Zero HP is unconscious, not dead. 3. Negative HP is bleeding, -1 HP per round until first aid (1 round) is performed. Once you reach -CON value, the PC dies. 4. The intelligent monsters generally will take prisoners (ransom, food storage), thus giving a chance of ransom/escape/rescue.

Re: Starting poor I definitely recommend this too. Maybe start the fighters with a leather armor, a shield and a spear, the clerics with a leather armor and a staff, the thieves with a set of 4 daggers, and the magic-users with just a single dagger and maybe a bag of rocks (1d2). Furthermore, I would be inclined to lower the amount of gold and treasure they find. Sure, give them the full XP, but if the amount of treasure is like one tenth of what is in the module, you can stretch out the kitting phase longer. Especially if you make the armors cost more, too, especially the high-end ones. Plate mail costing 120 gp means it is seen more as high-end luxury rather than the default, when you control the flow of treasure more stringently. You might want to tweak the numbers of the enemies a bit, or at least give the PCs an initial surprise round when they enter the Caves; maybe there hasn't been any recent fighting and the guards have grown lax?

Using the factions: In the module, they act more as places where the PCs can rest and heal. Helping with logistics would be useful, too? Replenishing lamp oil, food, water. Obviously recruiting retainers amongst the factions ought to be possible only if the PCs have good relations with them, and if they have not made peace between the factions, I would only allow them recruiting a couple of retainers from each faction (they can't afford to lose members on a wild goose chase) and not the same time, either (since they would not work together). In the duet play (the other comment), I made a really big deal about how suspicious and hostile the factions were to one another, so it took some serious talking to and even a couple of fights for the PC to get through to the factions. She ended up taking the leaders to the outside of the pyramid to show that all three gods had equal billing, and that did the trick (as both the GM and the Player were getting tired of their bickering).

Nice review. I haven't had the pleasure of running this adventure for my group yet. Given that they are at a higher level already, I will have to up-level the adventure a bit, but I don't mind that: these grander storylines work better, IMHO, when it takes some Big Damn Heroes to solve them rather than first level novices. I did use this adventure as a base for some 1-player freeform, and I stole the possessing robe idea, implementing it on the crowns of the King and the Queen. They ended up possessing the (volunteering) leaders of the Brotherhood and the Sisterhood, respectively, and thus the King (a high-level fighter) and the Queen (a high-level cleric) joined the fight against Zargon. Needless to say, the royal couple was not altogether happy about the looting of their tombs by these outsiders, but they were horrified enough by Zargon and the cultists that they were willing to put their people first. Alexander the Great and Zenobia the Wise for the win! And yes, Zargon was defeated, although at the cost of King Alexander's life (having bonded with a living host, they both died, it wasn't a soul jar thing). Oh, and Sirkinos was a sniveling snake, using Charm Person to try and manipulate the party (the player character + the retainers) to becoming his own goon squad, beating first Sisterhood and then the Brotherhood and thus leaving him in charge. Once he was unmasked and defeated, the PC found out that Sirkinos had probably poisoned the previous officiant, and sent his potential rivals on suicide missions, while stunting the magical learning of his followers so that no one could rival his power. Which of course meant that he wasn't strong enough to take on the other factions with just his own faction.

Nice review. WizardDeadloss here on KZfaq is doing a solo play through some of the modules, and he is currently publishing B2 content. One thing that needs to be emphasized is that B2 packs a lot of info into a dense format, and it is necessary for the GM to read and reread the text carefully. Like whether or not the female monsters will fight, or how the wandering monsters work within the caves (something that tripped WizardDeadloss up momentarily). Speaking of wandering monsters, while there is a list of them in the middle pages, I couldn't find anywhere in the adventure where those wandering monsters were actually supposed to be rolled, only that encounters might happen if the PKs were encamped close to an encounter location? Leading me to speculate that they were intended more for completeness as a 'Starter', like you said. Something that came up in the WizardDeadloss' comments was the scale of the outside map and how glacial the movement speed is: 100 yard squares and 1 hour per 3 squares out in the open. We came to the conclusion of either making that 3 squares per turn (10 min) or scaling the map to be 500 yards per square instead, which would help to push the the Caves farther away in actual distance (the travel time would stay the same, around a day). The other thing I was planning for my own campaign (not quite there yet) was to separate the caves a bit more, so that their entrances are not right next to one another, except in cases where they need to be (such as the ogre). Given how hostile the different factions are, I think it is better if they are not all within arrow range of one another. Perhaps just using the same factor of 5 for the outside portion of the map, so 50' per square, between the different cave mouths and then just linking some caverns with a corridor if need be. In the Piazza, we talked B2 some too. One poster brought up a nice idea that the Caves had originally been for mining, but now abandoned. That would explain the numerous caves nicely, while explaining the road going right by it, too. Anyway, food for thought.

Nice tool to slip into one's GM binder. Is there a template page with no text so GMs can fill in their own in this style? Perhaps form fillable PDF? This would certainly work in other RPGs, even rumor board style at the local tavern.

I first played in 1980, and this was the module that the DM used. It remains my favorite module, so much so that I wrote a Fantasy Novel based around it, and narrated it on my channel. It's all in a Playlist. Hope you give it a listen and let me know what you think of it. I'd love to chat with you in the comments there. I just subscribed to your channel : )

Hi just discovered your channel, love the musical instruments on the wall too.

Your grail game sounds like fun. I'm not a fan of combat in RPG's, and I'd much rather play a game that focuses on discovery and exploration -- a "walking simulator" as they are sometimes called on Steam. I've not played it but I've heard good things about "Unwritten: Adventures in the Ages of MYST and Beyond" on DTRPG. It is based on Fate Core.