Saturday, October 4, 2014

Party of one: Part 2

A few other discoveries since my last post on solo adventures. [Edit: briefly updated with a couple more finds.]


One of the strange things I've noticed about solo adventures is they aren't geared for level 1. Even the D&D X's challenge ones. It just seems to me that it'd be logical to do solo adventures with a new player  or new character in an OSR type game to give them a little XP and some treasure. Guess that's either not how people write these things or they just wrote one-on-one adventures to have one-on-one adventures, not to fill some need in how these are used or desired. Because it seems to me that having a wider range of levels for any given adventure would make them much more useful.Also, from what I've seen of the X's Challenge modules, its just kinda standard that the lone PC is likely to have a henchman or hireling. I guess that's one way to do it, but it seems a little... unsatisfying. Then again, many OSR games were designed for much bigger parties too: 4-10 is a bit more of the spread than the 4-6 that seems like the norm today. And some of the old school modules really want 5+ or 6+ PC more than just a group of four. Anyway, the new finds:

There's one-on-one adventurer guide for OSR games free on RPGnow from the same folk who did Red Tide (Sine Nomine Publishing) called Black Streams: Solo Heroes (the term solo keeps being used to mean one hero, but also the no-DM choose-your-own-adventure style thing just for added confusion. I keep trying to clarify it by using one-on-one but I can't change the name of someone else's product. Also, the plural seems disturbingly delicious there: solo heroes.). Its free, so you're probably picking it up now. But it's basically a set of simple modifications to OSR games to allow a solo PC to be competitive.




I ran across a review for one Dungeon adventureThe Ulrich Monastery, which doesn't get a very good review.  But if you want some ideas... maybe? Oddly, its for levels 5-6. This lead me to search more of the reviews. White Fang (Dungeon 20), Scepter of the Underworld (Dungeon 12),  and The Djinni's Ring (Dungeon 9) appear to be solo (not one-on-one) adventures. Tenfootpole.org doesn't really do much review for the last three, leading me to suspect they're really choose-your-own-adventures. But, not 100% sure, I'd have to take a closer look.


Sine Nomine also kickstarted an OSR one-on-one game itself: Scarlet Heroes! But I haven't picked up a copy to see if it does more than their Black Streams: Solo Heroes stuff. It looks like it might, but its also tied up with their Red Tide setting. 

2 comments:

  1. For some reason it didn’t post this last time, it must have been confusing with the last Anonymous post, I shall try again.

    It keeps deleting my comments WTF is going on there is nothing illegal in them?

    I hit the mother lode this time Dungeon Magazine has lots of solo adventures. Below are the ones I have downloaded and confirmed. I used this site http://www.patman.org/add/resources/dungeons.asp for reference, it has brief descriptions of the games.
    This site: http://www.freegamemanuals.com/pdfrpg/ has all the magazines.

    Note the first site only covers the first 71 of the 202 issues so there are probably many more solos in the other issues but I haven’t checked those.

    I did realise there was another page thanks but only after I had posted, I don’t think I doubled up on anything though apart from the Pathfinder Compendium.
    I am currently running one of the modules in the compendium as a pbp and converting L2: The Assassin’s Knot for another Pathfinder solo.
    I think with all of the ones below my search for more material is over, hopefully this list will prove useful to others.


    Issue #1: ELVEN HOME, THE D&D adventure, 1-4 characters of levels 1-3
    Issue #7:NIGHTSHADE AD&D adventure, 1-4 characters of levels 1-3
    Issue #12: AT THE SPOTTLE PARLOR D&D adventure, 1-3 characters of levels 2-4
    Issue #22: TOMB IT MAY CONCERN AD&D adventure, for a paladin of level 4-6
    Issue #28: NIGHT OF FEAR D&D adventure, for a single 1st-level character any class
    Issue #29 :MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD AD&D adventure, 1-6 characters of levels 1-4
    Issue #30: ELMINSTER'S BACK DOOR AD&D FORGOTTEN REALMS adventure, for characters of any level
    Issue #30: WRASTLE WITH BERTRUM, A AD&D adventure, 1-8 characters of levels 2+
    Issue #35:WHALE, THE AD&D SideTrek adventure, 1-4 characters of levels 1-3
    Issue #39 :FLOWFIRE AD&D SPELLJAMMER adventures, characters of levels 5-9 (any party size any class)
    Issue #39:ULRICH MONASTERY, THE AD&D adventure, one cleric PC of levels 5-6
    Issue #43: JACOB'S WELL AD&D adventure, one character of levels 2-4 (any class)
    Issue #45:GRITZEL'S GUIDANCE AD&D SideTrek adventure, one character of level 9+ (warrior or priest)
    Issue #47: WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT AD&D adventure, one priest PC of 1st level
    Issue #48: SLEEPING DRAGON* AD&D COUNCIL OF WYRMS adventure, one dragon PC
    Issue #49: HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW AD&D adventure, one PC fighter or rogue level 1
    Issue #51: NBOD'S ROOM* AD&D adventure, designed for one PC of level 4-5 (any class)
    Issue #53: SPELLBOOK MASQUERADE AD&D adventure, one wizard PC of levels 3-5
    Issue #54 : EYES OF THE ICEBORN AD&D SideTrek adventure, one wizard or priest PC of level 4-7
    Issue #58: BAD BATCH OF BROWNIES, A AD&D adventure, one druid PC of levels 1-3
    Issue #62: GHOST AT WIDDER SMITHER'S, THE AD&D adventure, for 1-4 characters of levels 1-3

    Solo only no DM Reqd:

    Issue #9:DJINNI'S RING, THE D&D Solo adventure, level 3 elf character
    Issue #12: SCEPTRE OF THE UNDERWORLD AD&D Solo adventure, level 12 human fighter
    Issue #20: WHITE FANG AD&D Solo adventure, level 10 human thief

    ReplyDelete
  2. For some reason it keeps deleting my replies, I did a comprehensive listing but perhaps this will stick? The following issues of Dungeon Magazine have confirmed solo/DM’s in them:

    1/7/12/22/28/29/30/30/35/39/39/43/45/47/48/49/51/53/54/58/62/

    Solo only no DM Reqd: 9/12/20/

    This site is a great reference: http://www.freegamemanuals.com/pdfrpg/
    This site has the magazines: http://www.patman.org/add/resources/dungeons.asp

    ReplyDelete