Itchy Bonez

I recently started playing solo D&D. I've been part of a new TTRPG group for half a year or so and really enjoying. The problem is, I can't play as often as I'd like to. Only every other week. I stumbled across a YouTube video about playing D&D on your own. I'd never heard of this and found it fascinating. After watching a few videos, and even buying The Solo Adventurer's Toolbox, I gave it a go.

The Party

Taking some suggestions from the videos I had watched, I created two 1st level characters that would adventure together. A female human Ranger called Nirih and a male half-elf Warlock called Krezen.

I wanted two characters to make this feel a little more like a party and give me more avenues for developing stories and adventures.

I didn't think too much about these characters beyond making an interesting combination that would have a good mix of abilities plenty of avenues to explore their backstories and develop their adventures. I could have played it safe with more standard classes but a Ranger and a Warlock immediately give some flavour to the characters.

Campaign Setting

Since getting back into D&D, I had wanted to explore more of the settings. The DM running the campaign for our group was using a homebrew setting and I wanted to base my solo adventuring in something more familiar and supported with lots of source material.

There are a lot of well established D&D campaign settings to choose from and I wasn't sure which to go for. I decided I would ask ChatGPT for some advice. I asked it the following.

"Write a short comparison of the most popular D&D settings"

This gave me a remarkably comprehensive summary of 6 different settings, including a break down of the tone/style, notable features and pros and cons.

After reading all the summaries, I decided The Forgotten Realms ticked the most boxes. But what are the best source books to use?

I asked ChatGPT again.

"What are the best books to learn about the forgotten realms setting?"

This gave me 7 different books with an explanation of their purpose, why they are useful and who they are best for.

I now had everything I needed to start building the world for my solo D&D party.

Initial Sessions

Playing D&D solo was a new experience so the first few sessions were mostly about learning how the mechanics are different and how it _felt_.

I was really pleased with how engaging it was and using tables and dice rolls to generate content worked well.

However, I soon realised there was a problem; it was hard to think of a purpose for the characters without some kind of overarching quest.

Creating An Epic Quest

To create an epic quest for my solo party, I decided to use the same question/answer mechanic from _The Solo Adventurer's Toolbox_. This mechanic had worked well for sessions so far.

I started off by writing down questions about the nature of the epic quest:

• Is it an invasion?
• Is it an ancient evil?
• Is it a cult or similar?
• Is it a natural disaster?
• Is it a mysterious illness?

My first set of rolls gave be nothing but No's so I just rolled them all again.

I got invasion, cult and natural disaster.

Next, I need to add some more structure so I wrote some more questions to ask about the invasion:

• Where is the invasion coming from?
• Is it monsters?

I roll "From the south" and "No, it's not monsters".

Then some questions about the cult:

• Is it a secret cult?
• Does it operate in multiple locations?
• Are they motivated by revenge?
• Are they motivated by power?
• Are they motivated by religeon?
• Are they motivated by wealth?

I got "No", "Yes", "No", "Yes", "No" and "Yes". So the cult is known, operates in multiple locations and is motivated by power and wealth.

Looking at the maps of the Sword Coast and Faerun in general, I found an interesting area to be the home of this cult and the source of the invasion; Anauroch.

So to summarise; the backdrop for my solo D&D campaign is an invasion from the eastern land of Anauroch being driven by a cult set on acquiring power and wealth.

My next tasks are to breathe some life into this cult and the invasion.

This my place for expressing my views and opinions on whatever subjects take my fancy. You might disagree with them and you might even find them offensive. You always have the option to stop reading and go somewhere else.

I don't care if you think I'm wrong and I don't care if you're offended. You might feel the need to tell me exactly how wrong and/or offensive I am. If you want to mail me about something, good or bad, go right ahead but I make no promises. I might read it. I might not. I might respond. I might not.

IB