Playing a solo game

I love these moments between uni subjects because I can blog a bit more. - Andrew

I was short on gaming this month. My family wasn't keen to dungeon or dragon, and I had some other commitments that caused me to miss the PTA game for only the second time in four years. Woe is me! So I scratched that itch by trying D&D5e as a solo game.

The Dungeon Master's Guide comes with table after table of random generators. It seemed like good fodder for a solo game. I thought to combine a random dungeon with random monsters and random dungeon contents, all based on a simple proposition for a character. I play a monk in our home game, so sending him to retrieve an item previously stolen from the monastery was an easy macguffin.

The end result was generally positive. I had fun (the best criterion). My character had to struggle hard and use plenty of abilities. There were character rewards (experience and the lost artworks).

I knew that before I started it there would be no dialogue or character interaction. This was a tabletop video game and it worked just fine. The random tables produce truly random dungeon topologies, though. I recommend a dose of architectural common sense when you interpret some of the intersections between one branch and another.

Perhaps the nicest part of it were the random functions and details for rooms and structures. Layers of story appear as the randomiser does its job. A treasure vault has rooms for dignitaries to wait before they're shown through. Some structures have water sources, barracks, meal rooms, and so on. It's not quite Microscope, but you can feel the overlap.

And although it doesn't substitute for an actual game around a table with friends, I'd still do that again.