Allow myself to DM... myself

[10 min read]

Earlier in the year I wrote a short post outlining ways to scratch the D&D itch between sessions, and running solo games was one of the more involved options I suggested. Over the last few weeks, I have been running a solo campaign through Lost Mine of Phandelver and am happy to say that it works! 

Who this is for:

• Players between sessions or without a group but still want to engage with D&D 
• DMs who are interested in learning an adventure from a first hand player experience

Recommended adventures: 

According to the author of DM Yourself , Tom Scutt:

The system works best (or, rather, works easiest) with linear and/or quest based adventures like The Lost Mines of Phandelver or Dragon of Icespire Peak. Big, open, sandbox campaigns like Curse of Strahd or Storm King’s Thunder are more of a challenge.

I started with Lost Mine of Phandelver since it is considered a 'starter' adventure for Fifth Edition and quite linear in approach. As far as I can tell, I am a little over two thirds of the way through it, and really enjoying it so far - it does feels like classic D&D, but is still missing some of the magic of playing with a Dungeon Master and other players.

Tools I use to run a solo game:

• Hard copies of the handouts in the appendix of DM Yourself to refer to as I play
• D&D Beyond to roll dice and track my characters
• AboveVTT to run the combats (including the official dungeon maps since I bought the adventure on Beyond D&D and it integrates with this system)
• Syrinscape for ambient sounds to help with immersion (they have soundtracks for official D&D adventures to use, and a free one month trial)
• Google docs to make notes on the adventure as I go (see those notes here, SPOILER WARNING for Lost Mine of Phandelver)

Moving between all these programs as you play can be at times cumbersome, so for a simpler experience you could use the paper character sheets from DM Yourself, theatre of the mind combat instead of a virtual tabletop, and no soundtrack. 

Adapting D&D 5th Edition to solo play:

Character Creation

DM Yourself recommends creating a character one level higher than the adventure suggests, with max hit points, and also a sidekick to round out some of the skills needed. For a main character, I chose a War Domain Cleric to have good survivability with heavy armour, healing and also decent damage output. For a sidekick, I chose to create a Rogue for not only the stealthy scouting options but also as the party's face given my main was not high in Charisma. At level 3 the Rogue became an Arcane Trickster for additional utility with Wizard spells. 

My first and only major divergence from the DM Yourself rules was to actually make the Rogue a full second character rather than a sidekick, and this was simply because my chosen online tool, D&D Beyond, does not have rules for sidekicks implemented in their system. It does mean more to keep track of, but as an experienced player, I think having a second character is more rewarding. In fact, through the campaign, because the Rogue was the face of the party, he didn't feel like a sidekick at all, but just as important as my main.

Reduced combat difficulty

Having only two characters, even levelled higher than the adventure, combat can be pretty lethal when D&D adventures are intended for 3-5 characters. DM Yourself balances combat in a few ways:

• Enemies have 75% of their normal hit points
• Enemies do not do critical damage
• Most enemies flee once less than 33% of their original HP
• Uses the optional Cleave rules, pushing excess damage when downing an enemy to a nearby enemy (something I forgot to use for almost all my battles)

In my play time, even with the rules above, battles were almost always tense in a way that a party of four does not feel, which made for an exhilarating experience!

Hero's Luck, Plot Armour and Hindsight

Whilst the combination of homebrew combat rules improves survivability, the line which the party walks between success and death is finer than a normal party. DM Yourself adds some extra features to help ensure that you not only don't total party kill, but also screw up the story and get stuck in a dead end. Hero's Luck is essentially the Lucky feat you can use on the main character or sidekick to potentially change the outcome of failed rolls, Plot Armour allows you to essentially rewrite the outcome of an encounter once per level, and Hindsight is an optional rule to go back and change what your character did after you have more information.

I never used Hindsight, and only used Plot Armour once in three levels when a key non-player character was killed in a mission and I wanted to avoid a dead end to the story. But Hero's Luck is invaluable and runs out quickly. It was so useful that at fourth level I gave my sidekick Rogue the Lucky feat just so I could essentially double my ability to change the outcome of die rolls.

Skim vs Deep Reading

So you've been reading so far and you think, great, I understand how I can play an adventure with only two characters and stand some chance of succeeding - but how do I actually play the game? Skim reading is a vital skill, one that I have not mastered in probably over 10 hours of playing solo. The ability to gloss over the details normally privy only to the DM, while recognising the key pieces of information you need to progress, is essential to playing solo. 

You need to skim read just enough to make decisions about how your characters will react to a scenario, but not too much where you have all the information to succeed, and thus spoiling the experience. Once you've committed to a course of action, you can go ahead and deep read the information that your characters will soon learn, and then hold yourself accountable to those choices as you play out the scenario. 

Binding Decisions and Default Behaviours

Even using the skim vs deep reading guidance that DM Yourself provides, you will inevitably run into spoilers. In order to keep you honest and have the player characters react naturally to a scenario placed before them, it is important to document personality traits and default characteristics that will guide how they respond. Default Behaviours include things like - does your character always listen at doors, stealth into new areas, search dead bodies, parley before a fight etc. You choose three of those at character creation. Couple these with the standard personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws from the Player's Handbook, and you have a blueprint for how your character would normally act. 

But an absolutely key part of running a solo adventure is making a Binding Decision when presented with new information. This is usually after entering a new location, reading the boxed text that describes the scene, and then making a commitment on what your party does next. This is often informed by your Default Behaviours and character traits, and not dissimilar to responding when you DM has provided some exposition, and then turns to you and asks 'so what do you do?'. 

The combination of the concepts above acts as sort of a moral compass, keeping you, the player/DM, honest as you decide what the characters do even if you have more information than they would.

Immersion Rolls

Solo play could devolve into a very mechanical experience - not just for combat but even exploration and social encounters - since it does not feel natural to 'roleplay' scenes with yourself. In order to get you in the mood and stimulate imagination, DM Yourself has you roll a 1d6 on an immersion table  at every new encounter to decide which sense (including the infamous 'sixth sense') you should indulge by describing the scene in more detail using it.

I used this about 50% of the time since although it does create more immersion, it did feel cumbersome at times, especially when I was eager to make progress. It also must be said that I was using Syrinscape for ambient sounds which was already doing a great job at immersing me in the scene.

Main Gameplay Loop

If, by now, you have read the above and are still interested in solo roleplaying, you might have questions on how the experience actually flows moment to moment. At this point I do suggest supporting the author of DM Yourself and purchasing the PDF, because it is 60+ pages that expand on on these concepts and help optimise your gameplay.

In summary though, the core loop revolves around revealing the location on the map, reading the boxed text from the adventure, immersing yourself in the scene, making Binding Decisions, and then playing those out using skill checks and combat until deciding what to do next.

My overall impressions

I've had a thoroughly enjoyable solo experience with the very straight forward Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure, even if this is a far cry from the traditional experience being around the table (physically or virtually) with a DM and a group of other players. 

As a way to scratch the D&D itch between sessions, it is a resounding success in my eyes. It is a great way to experience the official published adventures without waiting to find a group to run through them with. 

It also serves to help learn the game and the rules, since you come across many situations where need to adjudicate, and in that way is potentially a good new DM tool. This is especially useful if you plan to run those adventures for others, since you'll have been through the encounters first hand, and can then adapt them to the needs of your players with your own flavour.

Tips based on my experience:

Use ways to obscure maps that come with the adventures, like pieces of paper covering the areas you haven't been to yet if playing physically, or using the 'cover' features of virtual tabletops. Even if you have seen the full map, you'd be surprised how little you retain if you quickly cover unexplored areas.

Be disciplined with Binding Decisions and Default Behaviours - even if the consequences are grave - otherwise you'll find yourself naturally making the best choices in each circumstance.

Roleplay! It can feel a little strange, but acting out scenes with your characters makes for a closer experience to regular play, and heightens emotional attachment to the characters and NPCs in the game.

Use Hero's Luck liberally and don't hoard magical items. The margin for error is much smaller with only two characters so I used all potions and scrolls as I found them just to survive.

Make notes, as I did, because solo play lends itself to shorter, interrupted sessions, and with no DM to recap, referring to notes is a key way to keep track and stay immersed in the story.

Finally, don't beat yourself up if you make a mistake, and just roleplay your way through it. It is a lot to keep track of being a player of two characters and the DM, so naturally you will make mistakes. I forgot to use features that would have saved me in situations, or change the outcome more favourably. But these failures led to new, unexpected turns in the story which makes your experience unique. And if you really screwed up, there is always Plot Armour!

Enjoy.