Dolmenwood Solo Gaming
Join Joremey Lockehorn and Co. on their first adventure!
Back in December, I announced my desire to start a solo role-playing game with the Dolmenwood system, and I’m happy to report that the game is afoot!
I rolled up three randos and decided to start them in Lankshorn. My player characters are Joremey Lockehorn, a human fighter who has some Breggle (goat-people) ancestry resulting in a foot that is a goat hoof; Obblehob Hungerslip, a woodgrue minstrel who believes all fairies are illusory; and a grimalkin thief named Lady Pouncemouse whose day job is performing stage magic for paying customers (whom she then proceeds to pickpocket after the show).
Joremey is a native of Lankshorn (a town in which human and breggle live together), a former baker who was scrawny and awkward as a kid, got teased a lot, and now wants to redeem himself in the eyes of the villagers by becoming a great fighter and adventurer. Obblehob (Obb to his friends) and Lady Pouncemouse have recently come to Lankshorn to entertain the residents therein, and Joremey has decided they’re just the sort of adventuresome travelers he needs to take up with. Obb, for his part, is determined to get Joremey to lighten up and party, whereas Lady Pouncemouse is mercurial and often does her own thing. Obb’s goal in life is control a human town; Lady’s is to build or buy her own skyship (seems appropriate for a cat… they like being situated as high up as possible…). All three are ready for some adventure, and Joremey’s been haunted by some very peculiar dreams of late…
I am relatively new to solo gaming. Before this attempt, I did a little bit of DCC RPG soloing with the funnel adventure from the core book, “Portal Under the Stars,” but I only made it as far as the first room of the dungeon. I think I ended up not continuing because I wasn’t sure if I was doing it “correctly.” As if, somehow, playing the adventure by myself was a failure. Tabletop RPGs are supposed to be communal experiences, and since childhood I’ve dreamed of playing a regular game with friends, so playing solo felt like a defeat, like a resignation.
I do occasionally play with friends, but these occasional forays are not enough to satisfy my RPG itch, which is why I decided to return to solo playing. Also, I’m seeing more and more bloggers, youtubers, Substackers, et al. detailing their solo games, so the stigma I once imposed on myself looks to be a mirage. Everyone’s playing solo now!
Because this is still a new thing for me, I decided to research exactly how solo RPGing is supposed to work, and the best explanation I could find was from a youtube video (and I’m sorry, I don’t remember which one! Whoever you are, thank you!!) that explained how the basic procedure is to ask questions, answer them, and roll dice if the answer is uncertain or there’s a risk of failure. All the other stuff — random tables, complex oracles, dungeon building tools, etc. — is just gravy.
Knowing that solo role-playing is simply a matter of asking and answering questions has demystified the process for me.
Dolmenwood, as a system, is great for soloing because of the mechanics around traveling, weather, camping, hunting, foraging, exploring, and dungeon crawling. Even in my first few sessions, where my party of adventurers traveled from Lankshorn to the hex where the burial mound is located, I’ve had a number of interesting choices to make about travel and resource management and the mechanics of the game have facilitated story beats and moments where I get to consider how my characters would react.
For instance, because Obb is a minstrel, he can’t wait to play his pan pipes when camping to try and inspire a good night’s sleep. And Joremey, with his background as a baker, has taken over cooking duties to make the meals more palatable (with mixed success, heh). The game itself opens up opportunities for these moments to be more than just flavor text. Obb’s performance matters for the Sleep rolls each character makes, as does Joremey’s cooking, as does the weather (which for my PCs is unfortunately bad… why did I pick the dead of winter for my adventure???).
Because I’m running “Winter’s Daughter,” I decided that Joremey would be the character instigating the adventure. Per the module’s suggestion, he’s been having dreams of a beautiful lady who is asking him to find the burial mound and recover a special ring for her. Joremey, my baker turned fighter with the goat-hoof foot, is insecure about himself, wanting to prove to the villagers of Lankshorn that he’s more than the scrawny kid he once was. The fact that a mysterious lady is visiting his dreams, choosing him to be her champion, is a lure too wonderful for him to resist.
My other two PCs, Obb and Lady Pouncemouse, are travelers who have stopped in Lankshorn while on their journeys. Joremey’s enticements and their own devil-may-care attitudes have led to their joining in his adventure. Lady is looking for treasure, and Obb is simply looking for a good. time, but they don’t have any particular loyalty to one another nor to Joremey. As the adventure continues and things get more difficult, I’m interested in seeing how this dynamic will play out.
On the whole, though, this trio is glad to be in each other’s company as they set out from Lankshorn on the day of Colly, first day of the week, in the month of Haggryme (equivalent to our February, I think), traveling west along Swallop Road to an old path that leads into the forest. I’ve located the burial mound of Sir Chyde in Hex 0609, which is “The Trothstone and the Owl Cave” hex. Because of Joremey’s plate armor, the group can only move at his travel pace, which is set at 4 points per day. This meant I could have them travel out of their starting hex and into 0609, finding the burial mound by the end of the day, if all went well.
To start things off, I rolled on the weather table and the result was “bitter and silent.” Despite the cold, this had no effect on travel, and a roll of 3 meant no wandering encounter. The roll for getting lost would come after the group left the road…
My trio walked through a patchwork of wheat fields and cow pastures typical of the High Wold, but other than groups of cattle huddled together on cold, muddy fields, there was not much to be seen in the farmland.
The eaves of the Wood loomed ahead as the old path they followed cut between the silent boughs. This track is different from a road (where there is no possibility of getting lost) and there is a 1-in-6 chance of getting lost.
Sadly, I rolled a 1: Lost!
(Later, when traveling “wild” in this part of the forest, I’ll be using the Terrain Type to determine x-in-6 for getting lost… the terrain for Hen 0609 is “Hilly Forest”: 2-in-6 Lost/Encounters.)
After passing the famous Trothstone while still on the path, my group then lost the trail and veered 45 degrees north-west, unaware of their lost direction. The Trothstone, according to the Campaign Book is a stone plinth “known to locals as the Troth-stone, and it is traditionally here that weddings of long-horn nobles take place” (256). A “pair of guardian monoliths” stand on either side of the plinth.
Despite heading in what they think is the right direction toward the burial mound, my trio finds nothing but a land filled with steep, bracken-clad mounds, boggy pools that have frozen over, and sluggish, semi-frozen rivulets. A deathly silence hangs over the gloomy winter woods, and eventually the day ends and my group must make camp.
This isn’t quite what they had in mind (I think Joremey was convinced they’d reach the burial mound before nightfall), and I’m starting to realize I didn’t pack enough rations for a journey that might take more than a day…
Nevertheless, as the day ends, it’s time to camp, and this is where Dolmenwood really shines and makes solo adventuring into a fun game of dice rolling and flavorful storytelling.
According to the camping rules, one PC must stay and clear the campsite, setting up tents, bedrolls, etc. Lady decided to do this, while Joremey and Obb went off to find firewood. I rolled for each PC and ended up gathering nine hours’ worth of wood, enough to keep a fire going through the night (very important for winter!!).
Because Joremey’s background is as a baker, I decided to grant him a +1 to his cooking roll, and it was a success, meaning I could add +1 to the CON check for getting a good night’s rest.
Obb, my resident minstrel, entertained the group with his pan pipes and that success added a further +1 to the CON check.
The rules stipulate that characters need six hours of sleep to avoid exhaustion, so that meant I had each PC take two hours to keep watch, while the last two hours of the night were without watch. First, Joremey kept watch, then Obb, then Lady, and they all took turns sleeping in Joremey’s bedroll, but to no avail! They all failed their sleep roles (partly because Sleep in Winter is classified as Moderate even with a bedroll and tent). The target for Ability Checks is 4, and even with the +2, I rolled snake-eyes for all three! Ugh.
Exhaustion set in the next day (-1 to attack and damage rolls), and the weather consisted of a cold wind and gloom, which made Obb and Lady reconsider their decision to accompany Joremey on this quixotic adventure. Joremey for his part wanted to press on to find the mound and the ring of his dream-lady…
Obb, however, thought it best to replenish their rations and forage for the day. Since my two characters were in conflict, I rolled dice to resolve the situation. Obb’s roll came out higher, so they spent the day foraging, which occasioned the use of Dolmenwood’s foraging procedures.
Lady and Joremey had no success, but Obb was able to find four fresh rations. I rolled on the foraging table and came up with a plant called Noosenuts: soft, hairy-shelled orange nuts about the size of an eyeball. They taste mild, with a milky flavor, and the lore around them states that they grow on ground where a criminal was once hanged. (Gotta love the world-building in Dolmenwood!!)
Obb, since he found them, kept two rations, while giving Joremey and Lady one apiece. However, that bit of foraging took the entire day, so it was time to roll for random encounters. And… I rolled a 2!
Random Encounter!
Since the hex had a possible encounter, I decided to roll to see whether the group encountered what was in the hex or if they met something from a Random Encounter table. Hex=odds, Random Encounter=evens.
I rolled a 4, so it was off to the Random Encounter table. I rolled a sentient creature, then rolled on another table to see which kind, and came up with a grimalkin. The roll on the reaction table said he was “indifferent, may negotiate,” and my surprise rolls indicated that both the adventuring party and the random grimalkin were surprised.
To add a bit of flavor and fun to the encounter, I decided my grimalkin (named Tabby Grimelgrime) would be imbibing some hallucinogenic mushrooms from the old Wormskin zine #1 table of psychedelic fungi. I rolled up “Polkadot Pig,” a spherical, spotted pink and yellow fungus that causes a mild psychedelic reaction, while also leading to creeping paranoia and the feeling of insects crawling on your scalp.
I figured Tabby was indifferent to the group’s presence since he was in the midst of getting high, and when Joremey asked his name, he replied, “Who wants to know?” (a bit paranoid, eh, mate?).
Lady, as a grimalkin herself, was suspicious of this gent and didn’t want to answer, but Obb, bless him, never misses a chance to make his name known. With a tip of his battered hat (stitched proudly with a stuffed swan’s head at the summit), he called out their names and asked the grimalkin if he knew the way to the mound of Sir Chyde.
Rolling to find out the answer, my dice told me “yes,” Tabby knows the way, but he won’t tell. He thinks they are giant toads trying to steal his stash of Polkadot Pigs (again, since he’s on drugs).
Obb considers that such drugs might make one hungry, so he offers Tabby a bit of his noosenuts, and Tabby indeed has the munchies, so he agrees to tell what he knows in order to get a bit of the nuts. After gobbling up a ration of noosenuts, Tabby tells the group where the path can be found and warns them that the Drune have been seen lurking about.
As my trio leaves, Tabby starts scratching his head furiously while complaining of fleas…
And thus came nightfall, another round of camping, and sadly another night where Joremey and Lady failed to get any rest (it didn’t help that Joremey burnt the noosenuts and Obb’s pan pipes kept squeaking due to the cold wind). Obb, luckily, slept like a wee babe, and woke up without exhaustion. Joremey and Lady, however, are now -2 to attack and damage rolls… Alas.
And what should happen as they awaken on the third day of Haggryme?
A roll on the weather table indicates… SNOWSTORM!!! (a 3-in-6 chance of getting lost).
And what should happen when I rolled the dice for getting lost?
Alas again, because the dice have not been my friends. I rolled a 3.
Will the trio find their way through the storm to the shelter of Sir Chyde’s tomb?
That’s for the dice to decide next time…
This solo gaming experience was somewhat similar to what happened when I played “Portal Under the Stars” solo using DCC RPG, but what felt different this time is that I had a better system for adjudicating PC decisions (asking questions, rolling dice, evens=yes, odds=no), and Dolmenwood itself has a lot of procedures that make simple things like camping and traveling into random rolls that generate interesting results. A few random tables, a few random rolls, and an entire world was conjured without me having to “fudge” things. It felt very “game-like” even though I was playing by myself without a GM.
I haven’t yet reached the location of the actual adventure module, so I’m not sure how that will go. Once the module kicks in, I won’t be rolling so much on random tables, so the “game-y” element I’ve been enjoying might be dampened. However, I’m still excited to see how my characters react, especially Joremey, to the encounters within the tomb.
Overall, I can see myself getting addicted to solo gaming, partly because there’s no scheduling required to get everyone together at the table (it’s just me!), and partly because I get to play in systems and worlds that I find interesting, no need to cajole my players into trying something new or different.
Is the desire to play solo a perverse one? Is it a betrayal of the TTRPG ethos? After all, TTRPGs began as a social hobby: people gathered around a table, rolling dice and having fun. Isn’t it a bit wrong to be rolling dice by myself?
If I could play with friends on the regular, and play games like Dolmenwood without friction, wouldn’t I prefer playing in a group? Yes, I think so. The energy and creativity of a table of players is (almost) always going to be more surprising and intense than playing solo.
But I do think solo-play has its place, whether it’s using a book like Lone Wolf RPG Adventure Books or playing with a more “normal” RPG system. Solo play works when I can’t find a group, when I need to scratch that RPG “itch,” and when I want a little quiet, contemplative time to imagine and play with much lower stakes and pressure than would be found in a group game. Solo gaming can’t replace group gaming, but it feels like a nice supplement to the hobby.
Solo RPG Resources and Sundry
For those interested in Dolmenwood RPG, go HERE.
And here are some solo RPGing resources I have used (or plan to use). Some of these are normal RPG systems, but they have a ton of random tables and/or procedures that would work in a solo game:
Dungeon Alphabet and Adventurer’s Almanac
I’m sure there are more solo tools, so drop a link in the comments if you have any to recommend.
And here’s a blog post about my plan to use DCC RPG for solo play (in a sandbox campaign using the old Emirates of Ylaruam Gazetteer).
That’s it for now. As always, thank you for reading!
And if you are looking for Arthurian fantasy, consider my novel, The Thirteen Treasures of Britain, or if you want a dash of nostalgic coming-of-age, 1990s-style, there’s Avalon Summer and its companion fantasy, Gates to Illvelion. Or you can check out my short stories HERE.
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