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Post by scalydemon on Nov 13, 2013 23:38:58 GMT -6
Sometimes there just ain't anyone around to kick it with..
I have a few solitaire wargames I really enjoy, Soviet Dawn and Ottoman Sunset.
For solo RPG action I purchased a copy of Ruins of the Undercity but have not had a chance to give it a whirl yet.
Anyone else tried any solo gaming of any sort that they enjoy? I have heard of some people somehow playing solitaire D&D via the tables in the back of the 1e DMG but don't know exactly how that might work?
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Post by grodog on Nov 13, 2013 23:59:21 GMT -6
I've done solo play using the DMG tables, and there's some slightly different info about how to do this in the original SR article, IIRC (I may be remembering wrong, though). I've played some solo adventures for CoC here and there, but not any of the T&T solo modules or RQ solo modules. You could always try blogofholding.com/dungeonrobber/ too, if you haven't checked it out yet, Scott
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Post by krusader74 on Nov 14, 2013 4:41:52 GMT -6
There were four D&D B/X solo adventures that I know of... Unfortunately I don't think any of these are available yet as PDFs on dndclassics.com - M1 (or MSOLO1): Blizzard Pass by David Cook (1983) - The first D&D solo adventure AFAIK... for a Thief level 1-3
- MSOLO2: Maze of the Riddling Minotaur by Jeff Grubb (1983) - Any PC class, level 1-10
- BSOLO: Ghost of Lion Castle by Merle Rasmussen (1984)
- XSOLO: Lathan's Gold by Merle Rasmussen (1984)
There were also some solos published in Dragon magazine, detailed here.Myriador is a company that made d20 conversions of the Fighting Fantasy game books, starting with the Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Unfortunately, I think they're out-of-business. There are plenty of solo adventures for Tunnels and Trolls. These are great. Start here or here. Many free T&T solos in the free TrollZine fan magazine at DTRPG. You can play the first solo, Buffalo Castle, online. Lots of Fighting Fantasy game books. I'd also include interactive fiction (the Zork series, for example) into my list of favorite solo adventures. Many free online at the IF Archive. The computer games Rogue (1980) and NetHack (1987) took their inspiration of D&D. PCs have 6 abilities, etc. The dungeon is randomly generated. Updated variants use 2D or 3D graphic tiles rather than ASCII graphics. I've spent many hours blissfully playing NetHack. I'd rather play NetHack or IF games than 99.9% of modern console games or iOS/Android game apps. NetHack has a genuine old-school-gaming feel. This blog used to review game books, but hasn't been updated in a long time. Demian's Gamebook Web Page catalogs virtually every known game book ever, dating all the way back to 1929. It's a great resource for finding more solo adventures.
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Post by makofan on Nov 14, 2013 8:53:59 GMT -6
SPI produced many solo scifi/fantasy games, including Death Maze, Citadel of Blood, and the SS Pandora systems
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Post by talysman on Nov 14, 2013 11:55:05 GMT -6
I've done GURPS solo adventures (like T&T solo adventures, or Choose Your Own Adventure) and D&D solo adventures using the DMG tables. I also tried writing my own "solo roguelike" and played through that. These were all OK, but haven't quite hit the feel that I am looking for.
I recently picked up Ruins of the Undercity, but haven't tried it yet. It's basically the DMG tables plus some tweaks/filler to create a tailored experience. If you are having trouble figuring out how to use the DMG tables for solo gaming, this should help. It tells you everything you need to do.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2013 17:07:38 GMT -6
I've read a good deal of interactive fiction, but much of it is either CYOAs, Infocom stuff or visual novels, none of which are mechanically RPG-like.
If you want IF that is similar mechanically to RPGs, I recommend the online game "Sryth", plus the LW gamebooks (most especially the Grey Star series).
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Post by archersix on Nov 17, 2013 20:10:38 GMT -6
I'll second that Dungeon robber game being a lot of fun. It's supposedly based on the DMG random dungeon tables. Pretty darn hard on the hard setting too.
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Post by sulldawga on Nov 18, 2013 11:13:11 GMT -6
Myriador is a company that made d20 conversions of the Fighting Fantasy game books, starting with the Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Unfortunately, I think they're out-of-business. There's an iPhone/iPad app for the Fighting Fantasy books. I have The Warlock of Firetop Mountain on my phone right now. I also have Steve Jackson's Sorcery on my phone. Specifically, The Shamutanti Hills.
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Post by scottenkainen on Nov 18, 2013 15:28:55 GMT -6
My solo method of choice, lately, has been to make a group of characters, choose classic D&D modules, and assume my PCs are going through them room-by-room. If the room description says there are 4 orcs inside and a bag of 50 gp, I would roll a d4 to see how many orcs the PCs defeat. If it's less than 4, I assume the PCs had to flee (maybe reinforcements were heard coming) and could not collect the treasure. If the room is cleared out, I also roll randomly to see how much of the treasure they took. I take notes for each room until I've filled up a sheet of paper. At the end of the adventure/sheet of paper, I roll randomly on a range equal to each PC's max hp. If I roll that exact number, the PC died in that adventure.
It may not be much, but for a time-crunched gamer, it means a lot to me that I can get through modules G-3 and D1-3 in one hour each.
~Scott "-enkainen" Casper
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Post by krusader74 on Nov 18, 2013 21:17:28 GMT -6
Myriador is a company that made d20 conversions of the Fighting Fantasy game books, starting with the Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Unfortunately, I think they're out-of-business. There's an iPhone/iPad app for the Fighting Fantasy books. I have The Warlock of Firetop Mountain on my phone right now. I also have Steve Jackson's Sorcery on my phone. Specifically, The Shamutanti Hills. What Myriador did is to convert the Fighting Fantasy titles over to d20. They replaced the original FF mechanics with d20 mechanics, adding a seventh "Luck" ability to the other six, along with its own set of rules. I liked these add-on rules a lot. Myriador printed these books and also sold PDF versions on DTRPG. They were about 40 pages each. Here's one review of Myriador's conversion of the Warlock of Firetop Mountain on rpg.net. Though Myriador no longer seems to be around, the original FF gamebooks are still available in print and in app form, as you pointed out. I've enjoyed playing a few of the Fighting Fantasy titles for Amazon Kindle by Worldweaver: - No. 1 - The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
- No. 2 - The Citadel of Chaos
- No. 5 - City of Thieves
- No. 6 - Deathtrap Dungeon
- No. 10 - House of Hell
- No. 24 - Creature of Havoc
Most of these titles are also available for iPad/iPhone by Big Blue Bubble, but I don't have an iOS device, so I can't offer an opinion. Tin Man Games also makes a few FF titles for both iOS and Android. I haven't tried these either. As you pointed out, Steve Jackson's (b. 1951 UK) Sorcery! saga is being released for iPad/iPhone by Inkle: - The Shamutani Hills
- Khare: Cityport of Traps
- The Seven Serpents (not published yet)
- The Crown of Kings (not published yet)
Sorcery! adds a spell casting mechanic to Fighting Fantasy. I never played any of these gamebooks, and I don't have an iPhone/iPad to try out these apps, but the info and screenshots on the publisher's web page look really good. What's your opinion of the iPad/iPhone conversions of the FF gamebooks?
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Post by krusader74 on Nov 18, 2013 21:55:11 GMT -6
I've done solo play using the DMG tables, and there's some slightly different info about how to do this in the original SR article, IIRC (I may be remembering wrong, though). I've played some solo adventures for CoC here and there, but not any of the T&T solo modules or RQ solo modules. You could always try blogofholding.com/dungeonrobber/ too, if you haven't checked it out yet, Scott What solo CoC adventures have you played and where did you get them? Were they any good? The Dungeon Robber game is really neat. I tried it on my PC last night and had a blast. The only drawback is that it seems to be written as an Adobe Flash app, and I'm wondering if that means it wouldn't work for people with an iPad/iPhone? I'd like to see more dungeoncrawls like this, perhaps written as HTML5/CSS/JavaScript single-page applications that could be used on any device.
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Post by krusader74 on Nov 18, 2013 22:46:57 GMT -6
My solo method of choice, lately, has been to make a group of characters, choose classic D&D modules, and assume my PCs are going through them room-by-room. If the room description says there are 4 orcs inside and a bag of 50 gp, I would roll a d4 to see how many orcs the PCs defeat. If it's less than 4, I assume the PCs had to flee (maybe reinforcements were heard coming) and could not collect the treasure. If the room is cleared out, I also roll randomly to see how much of the treasure they took. I take notes for each room until I've filled up a sheet of paper. At the end of the adventure/sheet of paper, I roll randomly on a range equal to each PC's max hp. If I roll that exact number, the PC died in that adventure. It may not be much, but for a time-crunched gamer, it means a lot to me that I can get through modules G-3 and D1-3 in one hour each. ~Scott "-enkainen" Casper Your idea for running a classic D&D module as a solo is really cool!!! I like how you've compressed combat into one dice roll. I think I'm going to try this, but I might tweak it as follows: A Veteran encounters 4 Orcs. Instead of rolling 1d4 to see how many Orcs are killed, I first refer to WotE's table of calculated probabilities in the post on A Veteran's Odds for a Veteran to defeat an Orc. Assume the Veteran has AC=4, then the probability is about 63.61% to defeat one Orc. I could do 4 separate rolls on percentile dice: d100 <= 64 defeats one Orc. Or I could do 1 roll on percentile dice to see how many Orcs I defeat, using the binomial distribution with parameters n=4 and p=0.6361. See my post here for an explanation how this distribution works. For example, in this case, there's a 16.73% chance of defeating all 4 Orcs. So I would attempt: d100 <= 17 to clear the room. This simplifies an entire combat encounter to just one dice roll, but preserves the probabilities from OD&D. To get the requisite probabilities, there's the table in the aforementioned post by WotE. There's also a Perl script to calculate the odds of a 1-1 slugfest. And there's also a nifty NetLogo simulation of OD&D combat that will actually pit multiple Fighting Men off against a multiplicity of up to 2 kinds of monsters. Screenshots here and there.
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Valandil
Level 2 Seer
Master Of Dungeons
Posts: 44
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Post by Valandil on Nov 19, 2013 17:03:34 GMT -6
Well, I've been pretty busy lately with my own "DnD setting sim". I posted it here too. It is inspired in the How To Host a Dungeon game by Tony Dowler (which is another great game, by the way).
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