An Experiment
Since 2020, I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons (Fifth Edition) as a player with Playing Games with Strangers and as a Dungeon Master with a home game. While that may seem like a lot of game time – it is, really – the storytelling part of me continues to want more.
Originally this was another actual-play podcast centered around a game with my daughters, then it pivoted to being a way to keep track of a home game’s session notes while sharing it with the world. Now it’s taken a different route: a solo adventure. The actual podcast will have a different name, though, which you’ve probably seen by now.
I’ve wanted to write a novel for a long time, but always had a difficult time doing it. I had too many questions about world-building and that would always spin out into more and more granular subjects, which quickly became overwhelming. Most authors will tell you to “just write” and that’s only helpful to a degree. I wanted some tools to help me build things out and I wanted to have fun with it.
That brings me to this project, wherein I will be playing a solo tabletop role-playing game. Which game? Surprisingly… Dungeons & Dragons. Thanks to Paul Bimler’s The Solo Adventurer’s Tool Kit I’ve decided to stick with a system I know. Originally I had planned to use Ironsworn, which I may go to if this first solo adventure goes well.
The idea is simple, though, and I hope you’ll enjoy listening to me build out a world and a story. It’ll be a lot of work on my end, but it’ll be something fun to do for myself and might just lead to finally writing something to completion!