Solo DFX Shadows Over Garenport

A new small project underway for Shadows Over Garenport. I found, on accident, the Solo DM channel on YouTube, where she did about half of the Lost Mine of Phandelver. Maybe two thirds. It wasn’t ever finished. Maybe this is obvious; when I look at the views, the first video had 33k views, the final one that was done (number 6) had about 2.1k views, so talk about major dropoff. Maybe she thought it was too much effort for too little payoff. It’s kind of a shame, though, she left the PCs in a bit of a soap opera cliffhanger, and it was reasonably well done and enjoyable. Solo DMing, the activity, not the channel, is an odd thing. If you do it with a lot of randomization, it seems very little like any kind of roleplaying that I’ve ever seen. If you do it with a module, especially one of these modules that are designed specifically for solo DMing, it seems very similar if not almost identical to the old Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks and some of the similar projects from the 80s (The TolkienQuest series specifically allowed for being used as Solo GM modules for Middle-Earth Roleplaying, one of their flagship systems which was a D&D head to head competitor, in fact.) If you do it in your own setting with your own campaign, it’s very similar if not identical to just writing a book or podcast radio play or something like that.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks and TolkienQuest books back in the 80s, and I’ve enjoyed some radio drama style fantasy material based on D&D like the Rise of the Runelords by Pathfinder Legends which is on Spotify, and the aforementioned Solo DM stuff, which unfortunately left us hanging incomplete. So just because it doesn’t necessarily resemble the process of actually playing D&D with your friends as much as its sometimes billed doesn’t mean that it isn’t a pretty cool thing in its own right. (Also, I see that all three of the Pathfinder adventure paths that got this treatment are on Audible. Maybe I’ll have to redo Rise of the Runelords again, and then do the other two while I’m at it!)

Anyway, you can probably see where I’m going with this; I’m considering putting together something of my own like this based on my Shadows Over Garenport campaign. Now granted, I don’t have voice acting chops to really do this as well as Solo DM did, nor do I have my normal computer handy still, so depending on how long that takes me to recover and finish moving in, I won’t have ready access to sound effects or stuff like that either. I’m thinking of doing it less like an old radio play and more like an audiobook where it’s just me reading; except that it isn’t pre-written, I’m actually doing a hybrid of improvisational storytelling and rolling dice to give it some of the flavor of playing an RPG. Does this sound fun? I’m actually not sure. But right now, at least, I’m kind of motivated to give it a go.

But… I decided that I wanted new characters. My iconics aren’t right for this type of thing, I don’t think. Plus, I want this to feel a bit more game-like and less scripted storytelling like, so I rolled up new characters using actual rolls, and I also used some of the tables in Knave 2e to give them more details that were more randomized.

First character is Stilton Kingsfax. Although my system doesn’t have classes, because I made all of the class features a la carte abilities after I had already found that I was allowing customization to the point where that was effectively true anyway, Stilton is pretty much a classic fighter. In fact, given that I rolled randomly that his brief career before the game was as an acolyte, maybe he’s almost a paladin even. I also rolled that his personality traits were formal and can-do attitude. In a way, that’s almost not even interesting; it’s kind of cliché, even though it’s random. But I’ll see what I can do to make sure that his background, as it develops, is more interesting than “he went to church school for six months before picking up sword and handax to go fight evil more actively.” I also want him to still have good relations with the church generally, and not have him be disillusioned or cynical, because that’s an anti-Christian cliché amongst writers. Rather than being an acolyte in a traditional D&D sense, I’d rather interpret it as he grew up an orphan ward of the church, raised by Reverend Willes Garre, and he’s both grateful and appreciative of the church, as well as honestly believing in its mission and its doctrine. But it wasn’t actually ever his intention to make his career out of the church, it was more he was expected to work around the church as part of his upbringing. His formal personality should be interpreted more as a good old fashioned Southern politeness “yes sir, no ma’am” kinda stuff, translated into fantasy terms.

Bertram Hardmont is the next character, and he’s kind of a thiefish character, although I gave him the shadow sword feature, so he’s also a little bit mystical (plus it saves money on weapons when I went to equip him. Which is good; neither he nor Stilton rolled up a lot of money.) His randomized career was saboteur, which I’m not quite sure what to make of, but I’m going interpret it that he was part of an organized crime gang that also did mercenary work, and he was kind of on the fence whether he was more of an engineer for breaking into places, or a regular street criminal. His two character traits were love-struck and slacker. The latter is easy enough, but I have no idea who he’s love-struck for, so I’m going to interpret it as he tends to fall head over heels for every skirt that gives him a smile or a glance, kind of like Bingo Little from Jeeves & Wooster.

One possible target of his brief amorous obsessions might be the final “PC”, Tabitha Gamcott. I imagine her as gunning to become the Dark Fantasy X equivalent of a sorceress or whatever, once she can get her hands on some magic. In the meantime, she wields a quarterstaff and a bow, and will definitely focus on ranged attacks. Like most women (cf. Paris Olympics women’s boxing) she’s not as physically strong or capable in melee as the men, but I’ll find a way to make sure that she adds to the party, and not just in terms of looking pretty. Actually, the drama once she learns some magic will be pretty entertaining, I think. I kind of really like my magic system, which I can’t really take too much credit for, because the idea has been kicking around for a long time (I’ve had it ever since reading about WH40k psykers in the middle to late 90s, for instance. Five Torches Deep, Deathbringer, and Shadowdark all have roll to cast with mishaps on natural 1s too, although I’d already used the d20 Call of Cthulhu interpretation of it to come up with my own very similar interpretation).

Tabitha’s career was pirate, which I also found a little odd. I imagine that she was orphaned too, but part of a family affair of river pirates; a small boat with her uncle, some cousins, maybe a brother or two who had all turned to crime, and she was often the bait; pretty, innocent looking, etc. She hated this life, however, because she’s at heart not a bad person or a… well, y’know, a pirate by personality, so she bailed when she got the chance and left to explore the world. Curiously, even though she rolled up more money than the boys and has a free weapon, she still ended up literally completely broke; not a single copper penny to her name. She also has very few items of any kind; no way to catch food (other than her bow and arrows, I guess) and no way to cook it either. No bedroll or blanket to sleep in. No winter coat. Not even enough to buy some street food or a night at an inn. She’s financially kind of desperate as the game starts, which I think will make her kind of fun. Her two personality traits came up as gullible and humorless.

I’m actually looking forward to using her as a foil to the more straightforward antics of the boys. She may be capable in some ways, but her personality and situation look like drama waiting to happen. And, by purest coincidence of a bunch of d100 die rolls, some of it is pretty stereotypical female drama. I love it.