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DM Yourselves

This book is not authorised by or affiliated with Wizards of the Coast LLC Cover illustration by Gary Noble (after David A. Trampier’s classic PHB frontispiece) Interior illustrations by Gary Noble and Tom Scutt All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this document or portions thereof in any form whatsoever Copyright © 2021 by Tom Scutt DriveThruRPG edition February 2022

Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 3 Why play GM-less? .................................................................................................................... 3 Why DM Yourselves? ................................................................................................................. 3 Character Creation (or, How to Prepare for GM-less Adventure) ............................................. 5 Extra Sidekicks (and Extra Players) ............................................................................................ 5 Non-Dungeon Default Behaviours and Binding Decisions ......................................................... 8 Extended Plot Armour Tables for Different Situations and Environments ................................ 9 Gold and Equipment for starting at Higher Levels................................................................... 11 Navigating the Scenario (or, How to Read a GM-less Adventure)........................................... 13 How to Read Other Styles of Adventure .................................................................................. 13 How to Structure Adventures for Solo, GM-less or No-Prep Play ........................................... 14 Playing Solo (or, How to Play a GM-less Adventure) ............................................................... 18 GM-less Duet (and general GM-less Play) ............................................................................... 18 Sidekick Emulator..................................................................................................................... 21 Quirk Table .................................................................................................................. 28 PC and Party Emulator ............................................................................................................. 28 Separating your GM and Player Role ....................................................................................... 32 Extended NPC Reaction Tables ................................................................................................ 34 Getting Started and Overcoming Blocks .................................................................................. 36 Enemy Combat AI Example ...................................................................................................... 39 Combat Development .............................................................................................................. 41 Experiments with Time and Space........................................................................................... 43 Viewpoints, Scenes and Other Film Techniques ...................................................................... 43 Montage ................................................................................................................................... 47 DM Yourselves Story Mode ...................................................................................................... 49 End of the Adventure............................................................................................................... 60 Appendicies ............................................................................................................................. 61 A Recap of the DM Yourself System ........................................................................................ 61 Tutorial DM Yourself Adventure .............................................................................................. 64 Adapting DM Yourself to Other Gaming Systems .................................................................... 71 A Guide to GMing Yourselves Through More Well-Known Adventures .................................. 74 Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden ...................................................................... 74 Waterdeep: Dragon Heist ........................................................................................... 78 The Scroll Thief ............................................................................................................ 81 DM Yourself Solo Character Sheet Add-On ............................................................................. 83 DM Yourself Emulator Sheets .................................................................................................. 83 DM Yourself Story Mode Sheet ............................................................................................... 83 DM Yourself Quick Reference .................................................................................................. 84 References and Further Reading ............................................................................................. 88 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. 88

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Introduction Welcome to DM Yourselves – a guide to how to play published roleplaying adventures/campaigns as close to the way they are written as possible, but solo or GM-less with friends. This book is a companion to DM Yourself, and like that book the aim is to allow players to enjoy adventures without a GM, with the minimum of preparation, work or additional rules, and maximum immersion. We’ve got an epic journey ahead, so let’s get started…

Why play GM-less? You might say, “It’s all very well having a system for playing solo if you’re on your own, but if there’s more than one of you, why go to all this bother – why not play normally with one person as GM and the other as the player?” There are a number of reasons why I think playing GM-less may be better: •

• • • •

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There’s no prep. Being a GM is normally a lot of work – you’ve got to read the entire adventure, read up on the monsters, get the maps ready, and so on and so on. Much better to avoid all that. Everyone can be a player. It’s very common for one person in the group to always end up as the GM and never get to play a character. GM-less, everyone gets to play a character. It’s a more casual, lower footprint experience. This means it’s quicker and more likely to get to the table. In fact, you don’t even need a table – we’ve played GM-less in the car. It’s more of a co-operative storytelling experience – you’re working together to create the narrative in a way that’s rather different to the asymmetrical dynamic of GM-and-players. You experience the story together, and solve the problems together. There can be genuinely surprising moments, and when navigating the adventure solo gets tricky it’s good to be able to bounce ideas off each other. You keep each other honest. When playing solo it can be very easy to convince yourself that “of course I would have searched for traps – I just didn’t write it down”. When you have a discussion about what you’re going to do next, it makes your decisions more binding.

Why DM Yourselves? I should start by saying that this book builds on the systems outlined in DM Yourself, but does not replace that book. Here you will find a recap of the bare bones of that system where necessary, and also lots of new stuff – but, full disclosure, if you want more details on how the basic systems work, and extended tables for things like Immersion and Monster AI Combat, it might be worth you investing in a copy of DM Yourself if you haven’t already. If you haven’t got that book, or want a reminder, the basics are covered in the Appendix on pg. 63. There are a number of ways to play RPGs solo or GM-less. There are game systems written specifically for solo/GM-less play, such as Ironsworn, or that give optional solo rules, like Scarlet Heroes. There’s a whole new genre of journaling games like Thousand Year Old Vampire, The Wretched, The Adventurer or Quill, short experiences like Alone Among the Stars or The Artefact, and random mapping dungeon-crawlers like Four Against Darkness or D100. I recommend giving all of these fantastic titles a try at least once!

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If you want to play more traditional RPGs like Fifth Edition (5e) solo or GM-less, there is a spectrum ranging from the constrained Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-style titles (such as Paul Bimler’s 5e Solo Gamebooks) at one end, through to completely freeform adventure generation and Oracle systems (such as Mythic, Solo Adventurer’s Toolbox or MUNE) at the other. DM Yourselves sits firmly in the middle of this spectrum – the story, whether it be linear or sandbox, is laid out in the published adventure rather than generated on the fly, and DM Yourselves gives you a set of tools for playing it solo. Oracles are only needed occasionally when using DM Yourself; when soloing published adventures there is almost always some signposting, framework or scaffolding provided by the adventure itself. On the rare occasions when you do need an oracle, you can use the simple one in the Appendix (pg. 87), or use one of the resources mentioned above. DM Yourself gave you a rule system for playing published 5e adventures, solo. This book extends those rules to allow you to play GM-less with more than one player, but also adds ways to get at the story – ways to help you start, ways to help you overcome blocks, ways to play with RPGs other than 5e, and ways of getting through the story faster with more immersion, more of the epic, cinematic set-pieces, and less dice rolling… This book gives you a variety of systems and game mechanics to help with your solo and GM-less play. You probably won’t use all of them, but I hope you will find a subset of the rules that work for you – and you may find that some of them are useful even when you are GMing non-solo sessions. The principles of the DM Yourselves system – Simplicity, Immersion, Narrative. (Just a note: if you’ve already read DM Yourself, it’s worth going back and reading it again now. You’ll have forgotten stuff… I know I certainly had!)

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Character Creation (or, How to Prepare for GM-less Adventure) DM Yourself pg. 5-12 dealt with the best way to re-balance adventures for a single PC and Sidekick. This was achieved in three ways: increasing the power of the PC; adding a mixture of safeguards and checks to help with the action economy and to provide a safety net against poor dice rolls etc.; and lowering the difficulty of the adventure slightly by reducing the monsters’ hp. It also described how to give your character a list of Default Behaviours as a summary of their usual actions when adventuring. There is a brief recap of all this in the Appendix pg. 61. In this section we look at how to balance the adventure for different numbers of PCs and Sidekicks, add new Default Behaviours, Binding Decisions and Plot Armour tables for non-dungeon situations, and work out how much treasure and how many magic items to give to a character starting at higher than first level. It should be noted that in a development since DM Yourself was written, there are now two official systems for 5e Sidekicks. The simpler of these is presented in the (now free) Essentials Kit rules and takes Sidekicks up to level 6, but the online adventures that came free with the Essentials Kit box give Sidekick rules up to 12th level. The rules that came with Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything are more complete (adding the Spellcaster: Prodigy class, with access to Warlock and Bard spells), and allow the Sidekick to be any creature with a challenge rating of ½ or lower, using its ability profile. However, while it’s fun occasionally to have a Wolf as a Sidekick, I find it does rather limit the banter! Either of the systems work, but personally, for my Sidekicks I now use a combination of the two systems, plus a bit of my own. I use the base attributes and hit points from the Essentials rules (which vary according to class), add the ability score increases and other racial traits from the PHB, and use Tasha’s rules for class abilities and progression. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything (pg. 139) also has some interesting suggestions on party formation and origin. Note: although Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything suggests you should count each Sidekick as a character for the purposes of balancing encounters, they are definitely not as powerful – I find that in play, a Sidekick is roughly equivalent to half or three-quarters of a character.

Extra Sidekicks (and Extra Players) The vast majority of published RPG adventures are designed for 4 to 6 player characters, and they will specify what PC level or range of levels they are aimed at or suggest an average party level (APL). The main issues with trying to play 4 to 6 PCs on your own are, first, that it’s easy to become overwhelmed by analysis paralysis as you try to work out the perfect combination of actions for those PCs from all the possible permutations. Second, it’s much more difficult to be immersed in and identify with any particular character when you’re playing a whole party. To solve these problems, DM Yourself suggested using a single PC and a Sidekick as the best way to play solo. This was my personal preference because it allowed me to get immersed in role-playing a single character, but still meant there was someone around for a bit of banter and to have my back if things went wrong. There were a number of changes suggested (in both character creation and gameplay) so that you could use this PC and Sidekick to play an adventure designed for 4 to 6 players. With DM Yourselves the situation is somewhat more complicated. You can have more than one player, each with their own PC, so there is less need for balancing. Also, because your PCs can talk

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and watch out for each other, you may decide to dispense with Sidekicks altogether. The table below sets out the most obvious combinations of PCs and Sidekicks based on the number of players, and suggests which character creation and gameplay balancing mechanisms you should use for each combination. The assumption here is that you’ll play the same number of PCs as you have players, so all you’ll need to do is choose how many Sidekicks to use in addition. However, as with all the suggestions in DM Yourselves, feel free to ignore or adapt these guidelines. If your personal preference is to play solo with 4 PCs, that’s totally up to you! PCs

Sidekicks

Level+1

Maximised HP

Hero’s Luck

Plot Armour

Adventure Changes

1 1      2 0      2 1 *     2 2 *    3 0 *    3 1   3 3  4+ 0  Let me briefly explain each of these columns in turn. For fuller explanations of each of these terms, and tables for Plot Armour stories and consequences, see DM Yourself pg. 5-8. • •

•

•

•

•

PCs: Simply the number of Player Characters in the party. This will usually be the same as the number of players, but some people may prefer to play with more than one PC. Sidekicks: The number of Sidekicks in the party. The options here are none, one Sidekick who is a ‘shared’ party resource, or one Sidekick per player. The basic Sidekick rules are in the 5e Essentials Kit box and are available for free in a downloadable pdf (link in the References section). The Sidekick rules given in the Essentials rulebook only cover levels 1 to 6, but rules for Sidekicks up to level 20 can be found in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything pg. 142-147. Optional rules for emulating Sidekicks can be found on pg. 21. Level+1: The PCs (and Sidekicks, if you’re using them) have their character level raised by a single level. For example, if the adventure was designed for a party of four level 1 characters, your characters and Sidekicks would instead start at level 2. If the adventure later says that at the end of a chapter you should advance to level 3, instead you should advance to level 4, and so on. Maximised HP: Maximise the hp for your PCs (and Sidekicks) – so if your character normally gets d8 plus their CON bonus each time they gain a level, instead they get 8 plus their CON bonus. A * in this column means max hp for levels 1 to 3 only, just to help characters through the ‘squishy’ early levels and give them a slight hp bonus that lasts the rest of their careers. Hero’s Luck: This is like the Lucky Feat (after you have made a roll, roll an extra d20 and choose if you want to use that result instead), with two changes: Hero’s Luck is an attribute of the player and its three uses each day can be shared between the PC and Sidekick, and the extra d20 can be used for death saving throws as well as normal ones, and for attack rolls (for the latter, rolls both by and against the PC and Sidekick can be subject to Hero’s Luck). Plot Armour: This is the failsafe. When your PC is about to die, or your party is about to be wiped out, they aren’t. However, it’s not that easy – there must always be a story to explain 6

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how you survived, and there must always be (usually dire) consequences. Plot Armour is an attribute of the party as a whole (rather than per player). It can only be used once per level, and no more than 5 times in total, ever. You should still record it on your DM Yourself character sheet, but if you have to use it to save the party from a TPK then every player marks off a use on their sheet. Adventure Changes: Minimal changes to the adventure and gameplay – mainly for balance, and to remove the effects of unlucky rolls, but also to speed up combat: o Enemies have ¾ of their normal (stat block) hit points, and most enemies will attempt to flee from combat if they are reduced to a third of the hit points they started the fight with (i.e. ¼ of their stat block hit points). o When you’re being attacked, instead of rolling for damage you take from successful attacks against you, just take the average damage shown in the monster stat block. o Enemies do not do double damage on a critical hit. o When you’re attacking, use the Cleave rules (DMG, pg. 272). If your melee attack reduces an enemy to 0 hp, excess damage from that attack carries over to an adjacent enemy within melee range (if your attack roll would have hit it). This also applies to ranged attacks with an enemy standing directly behind the original target. o If the adventure itself adjusts the difficulty of encounters and/or the number of monsters based on the size of the party, treat the number of players as 3. o Using a potion only takes a bonus action rather than a full action (administering a potion still takes a full action).

Hindsight was an optional rule in DM Yourself, allowing you to make a Binding Decision after you had read the full room description (so you could, say, loot that Ring of Regeneration even though you didn’t have “Loot dead enemies” as a Binding Decision or Default Behaviour) up to 3 times per long rest – this was to make the game a bit more forgiving. I now suggest that you should always use the Hindsight rule rather than it being optional, but you only get 1 use per long rest rather than 3. A note on treasure and XP: with more than one player you still split XP, treasure and items as evenly as you can (as described in DM Yourself pg. 43), but PCs get first choice of magic item before giving the Sidekicks similarly valued items if possible. Treasure is divided equally between all PCs and Sidekicks. The same is true of XP. Relationships The following rules for relationships between members of the party are optional. However, they will add to your roleplaying experience (at the expense of adding some complexity), and they are required if you plan to use the Sidekick or PC Emulator rules on pg. 21-32. For each pair of members of the party (except pairs where both are PCs), roll 2d10 on the table below. So, for example, if you had a party of 2 PCs and 2 Sidekicks you would roll 5 times – once for the relationship between the two Sidekicks, and once for each possible pairing of PC and Sidekick. For relationships involving a PC and Sidekick, the roll only determines how the Sidekick feels about the PC – it is up to the PC whether that feeling is reciprocal. Relationships between Sidekicks are usually symmetrical – so the feeling rolled goes both ways. However, for each relationship rolled you should also roll a symmetry d6 – on a 1, the relationship is asymmetrical, so roll again on the table below. For example, you roll an 18 for the relationship between Fitz and Zelda, indicating that they 7

are Best Friends, but you also roll a d6 which comes up 1… Rolling another 2d10 comes up with a 4 – so, although as far as Fitz is concerned they are best friends, Zelda secretly doesn’t like him at all! On a symmetry roll of 6 the pair are rivals – this may be a friendly rivalry (Legolas and Gimli) or a bitter one (Holmes and Moriarty), but it is a relationship of mutual respect where each character measures their success at least in part against the achievements of their rival. Also roll a d6 for family; on a 1 the pair of characters also have a family relationship – siblings, halfsiblings, cousins, parent and child – or are particularly familiar (though not necessarily friendly) for another reason – they belong to the same faction or guild, come from the same village etc. 2d10

Relationship

Description Open contempt, poorly-concealed loathing, or hidden, simmering resentment. Was this feeling already there when they joined the party, or has something triggered it during your adventures? And at what point, if any, will it turn into actual betrayal? Maybe it’s something in their manner that grates, maybe there’s no clear reason for it, but the characters just don’t get along. Although they won’t actively seek to do the other person harm, they may not put themselves in danger to help them.

2

Hatred

3–5

Dislike

6–10

Neutral

Work colleagues and nothing more. No strong feelings either way.

11–13

Friends

They get along pretty well and have each other’s backs in a fight.

14–16

Good Friends

17–19

Best Friends/ Platonic Love

20

Romantic Love

Some banter, some common interests, and some shared experiences. These friends will go out of their way to help and protect each other. The sort of friend that comes along just a few times in one’s life. They would put their lives on the line for each other. Lovers share secrets and goals. They value the other’s life above their own, and would risk anything to be together, though that doesn’t mean they always agree! However, this love may be unrequited.

The actual number rolled is also the loyalty value – make a note of it, as you will need it if you use the Sidekick emulation rules. If you want more details on your Sidekick you can use the Sidekick emulation rules on pg. 21 to determine your Sidekick’s alignment, some characteristics and default behaviours – you can do this to help round out your Sidekick’s character even if you don’t intend to use the emulation rules. If you want to add even more depth to your Sidekick (or your own PC!), I highly recommend using the “This is Your Life” tables and advice on pg. 61-73 of Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and/or the Designing NPC tables on DMG pg. 89-91.

Non-Dungeon Default Behaviours and Binding Decisions The original DM Yourself was oriented to classic dungeon crawls (or, at least, locations with rooms or defined areas). During playtesting in Rime of the Frostmaiden, however, I realised that I wasn’t adhering to Default Behaviours because the ones listed in DM Yourself weren’t really suited to the outdoor quests that featured in that adventure. This section suggests some Default Behaviours and Binding Decisions that might be useful for Wilderness and Urban adventures. Note that you’ll find 8

some additional examples if you browse the Default Behaviours suggested for emulating Sidekicks and PCs on pg. 22. Some examples of Town/Wilderness Default Behaviours: • • • • • • • • •

I will always check for shrines / taverns / job-boards / news / quests / thieves’ guild / factions I will always lodge at the first / cheapest / most expensive / central / busiest / quietest inn I will always look for an escape route / plan B before going to sleep I will always camp in the open / in sight of the road / before darkness and keep the fire burning / put the fire out / keep watch When in shops/taverns – I will talk to the keeper / ask about inn or shop name or features / Investigate anything specifically mentioned in the description / cast Detect Magic When taking a Short Rest I will… (typical amount of healing, spells prepared/spells cast) When taking a Long Rest I will… (preparations, spells prepared/cast – e.g. Mage Armor) I will always ask to perform at the tavern in exchange for free food and lodging I will always sleep outside or in the stables with my beast companion if they are not welcome at the inn

Note that these Default Behaviours are in addition to your ‘normal’ dungeon ones; you don’t have to choose between them. It will be clear from the context of your situation which set you will be using. Some examples of Town/Wilderness Binding Decisions: • • • • • • • • •

Steal some healing potions while your Sidekick talks to the shopkeeper Browse the items on sale at the armourer’s (having cast Detect Magic before you enter) Camp outside the walls of the fortified town while you wait for the gates to be opened Talk to the Townmaster’s clerk in the hopes of finding employment Hunt for game and pick mushrooms and berries in the forest Search the graveyard for a stone with a name that matches the letter you found Knock on the door of the decrepit house with six windows and talk to the owner Break in to the stone mansion that overlooks the town Ask the barmaid about the odd noises you heard outside last night

One final thing to note – if you’re using the optional Time logging rules from DM Yourself when you’re outside or doing social activities in towns or in the wilderness, add one hour per tick rather than 5 minutes per tick.

Extended Plot Armour Tables for Different Situations and Environments DM Yourself gave tables for the stories and consequences of Plot Armour effects (DMY, pg. 7-8), but these were very much geared to dungeon adventures. The extended tables here will give you more variety and add some situations that are more likely to occur in towns or the wilderness. As stated in DM Yourself, I strongly recommend that you make up your own story to fit the situation, but if you run out of inspiration you can roll a d8 on this table, adapting the details to fit your scenario and rerolling if the given story really doesn’t fit.

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D8 1 2 3

4

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Story One of the enemies betrays their allies to save you – but what will they want in return? Just when the battle seems lost, another faction appears and attacks your enemy (but they are not necessarily on your side, either). During the fight your money bag gets ripped open. Coins spill to the floor, sending the enemies scurrying to pick them up while you slip away in the confusion – lose 50g (or all your money if you have less than that) in addition to the other consequences. Sparks generated by a clash of weapon against armour or from a stray magic effect hit your opponent directly in the eye. Just for a few seconds they are blinded – not long enough for you to finish them off, but just long enough for you to get away (though not very far). The City Watch or Patrol is alerted by the sound of battle and approaches, chasing off your attackers (if you’re not in town, it could be an army patrol, a local vigilante group or another authority force that helps you)

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Whether by some powerful fae magic or hallucinatory intoxicant – it was all an illusion!

7

An environmental event – a rockfall, rolling mist, a dust cloud, smoke from a nearby fire – obscures the scene of battle long enough for you to slip away

8

All hope lost, you play dead. The enemy is arrogant or stupid enough to fall for it.

And here are some example consequences – as before, ideally you should make up your own, but if you are struggling, roll a d8 and adapt/reroll if necessary. D8

Consequence

1

You are lost. You have absolutely no idea where you are.

2

Time has passed. If you were knocked unconscious, it takes 3d12 hours before you properly awaken. If you are bound or imprisoned, it is 3d6 days before you can make your escape.

3

All you can do is watch in horror as one of your party (a Sidekick) is executed.

4

5

6

7

8

Due to physical or mental trauma or some magical effect, you have no memory of what has happened in the last 24 hours (and you cannot use any information gained during that time). Whether real or imagined, something bad happened during the fight which caused someone to question their loyalties. Randomly choose a Sidekick and roll a d6. On a 1-3, they simply get up and walk away from the party. On a 4-6, randomly choose another member of the party; that Sidekick now regards the other party member with Hatred (though they keep this a secret until a time comes when they can betray them). Although you do not realise it now (and may not for some time), your actions in the preceding fight have resulted in you making a powerful enemy. In the chaos you’ve become separated, inadvertently splitting the party! Try to split the party as evenly as possible (in terms of number of PCs and Sidekicks). If there is more than one way out of the location where the Plot-Armour-triggering encounter happened, send one half of the party down one exit and one down another. Alternatively, if you are in a multi-level dungeon, have one half drop down to the location below. Each half of the party must have at least one encounter before they can be reunited. The encounter you survived was a particularly rough one. For every potion owned by the party, roll a d6. On a 1-3, the potion is smashed. If the encounter took place against a firebreathing creature or in an environment where there is lava or fire, do this process for scrolls instead. If it was an acid-based environment, do it for each non-magical item of armour and weapon instead. 10

Gold and Equipment for starting at Higher Levels The original DM Yourself was mostly aimed at new characters starting out on their adventuring career, but even for a level 1 adventure your DM Yourself PC/Sidekick starts at level 2, so they should have extra stuff. This is even more true if you are playing higher-level adventures and need to create a new, levelled-up character. There is an official table for the starting equipment of higher-level PCs on pg. 38 of the DMG, but this is very miserly (for example, a 10th level character starts with around 600gp and no magic items!) compared to the suggestions for how well a party should be equipped at various levels as described on pg. 135 of Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. The system laid out below takes the suggestions from XGE and the more detailed tables from DMG pg. 133-139 to give suggestions for the amount of money/magic you (as a player) will start with for a particular level (plus your starting gold and equipment). The column headings show the Magic Item Table to roll on (from DMG pg. 144-149), and the number shows how many items you will get from that table. For each item, roll twice on the table and choose one of the rolls to keep. You must split the resulting money and items between your PC and Sidekick (if you are creating new higher-level characters to play GM-less with multiple players, each player should roll for their own PC and Sidekick). Note that because columns A to E mainly contain consumable items, the figures given here are much lower than those given in XGE to simulate that many of those items will have been used up during your adventures. Level 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Gold

A

B

50 100 200 300 450 650 900 1200 1500 2000 2500 3000 4000 6000 8000 11000 14000 17000 20000

1 2 4 6 8 10 10 10 8 8 8 8 6 6 6 4 4 4 4

1 1 2 3 4 6 8 10 10 10 8 8 8 6 6 6 4 4 4

C D E F – Starting Gold and Equipment – 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 2 1 0 0 3 2 0 0 3 2 0 0 4 3 0 0 5 3 1 0 6 4 1 0 7 5 1 0 8 6 2 0 8 7 3 0 8 8 3 0 8 9 4 0 8 10 4 1 8 8 5 2 8 8 6 2 8 6 7 3 8 6 9 4 8

G

H

I

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 3 4

Columns A, B, C, D and E are Minor items of Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare and Legendary rarity respectively – they are mainly consumable items such as potions and scrolls, utility items, and wearables such as Sending Stones, Bags of Holding, Wands of Magic Detection and Goggles of Night.

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Columns F, G, H and I are Major items of Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, and Legendary rarity respectively – these cover the full range of magic items such as weapons, armour, shields, rings, wands, tomes and all manner of wondrous items. Most of these require attunement by the owner. If you don’t have access to the DMG or just want to get started quicker, use the table below instead (but still use the table above to find the amount of gold you have). If you’re using a non-5e system, swap items mentioned for similar items of an equivalent power level in your system’s universe. In this table you get the stuff listed for your level and all the levels above it. If a choice is listed, you have to choose one or the other, not both. And again the reminder – you need to split items/gold with your Sidekick. Level 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Items Starting Gold and Equipment Potion of Healing, Uncommon Minor Wondrous Item Scroll (1st lvl), +1 Weapon Potion of Healing, Scroll (2nd lvl), Rare Potion, +1 Shield or Uncommon Wand Potion of Greater Healing, Bag of Holding, Scroll (3rd lvl), +1 Weapon or Uncommon Cloak 2xPotion of Healing, 2xUncommon Potion, Rare Minor Wondrous Item 3xPotion of Greater Healing, Scroll (3rd lvl), Adamantine Armour or Uncommon Boots/Gloves Uncommon Potion, Scroll (3rd lvl), Scroll (4th lvl), Uncommon Major Wondrous Item 2xUncommon Minor Wondrous Item, Very Rare Potion, +1 Weapon or Uncommon Staff/Ring Rare Potion or +2 Ammunition, Uncommon Major Wondrous Item, +2 Weapon or +1 Armour Rare Minor Wondrous Item, +1 Weapon or +1 Shield or Uncommon Wand/Staff/Rod/Cloak Rare Potion, Very Rare Potion, Rare Wand/Staff/Rod/ Ring Scroll (5th lvl), +3 Ammunition or Scroll (6th lvl), +3 Weapon or +2 Armour Rare Minor Wondrous Item, Rare Weapon/Armour/Shield Rare Potion, Scroll (7th lvl), +3 Weapon/Shield or Very Rare Wand/Staff/Rod/Ring Scroll (5th lvl) or +2 Ammunition, Scroll (8th lvl), Legendary Ring or Wondrous Item Very Rare Minor Wondrous Item, Legendary Potion, Very Rare Major Wondrous Item Very Rare Potion, Rare Major Wondrous Item, Legendary Weapon Scroll (8th lvl), Arrow of Slaying or Scroll (9th lvl), Very Rare Weapon/Armour, +3 Armour 2x Very Rare Potion, Scroll (9th lvl), Legendary Weapon or +3 Armour

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Navigating the Scenario (or, How to Read a GM-less Adventure) In DM Yourself pg. 13-18 we looked at various techniques to navigate standard 5e adventures so as to minimise spoilers, what parts to skip and what to read, reading at different levels for mechanisms, story and immersion, skim reading vs. deep reading, and how to use narrative techniques such as flashbacks to fix things if you miss stuff. There is a very brief summary of this in the Appendix pg. 62. Below, we examine how to read other styles of adventures and suggest techniques for writing adventures to make them more suitable for solo or GM-less play.

How to Read Other Styles of Adventure DM Yourself was based around the scenario format that is most often used for modern 5e adventures (using things like numbered maps, boxed location descriptions etc.), and was tested using the campaigns in the hardback books and boxed sets. What do you do if your adventure doesn’t fit that format? The 5e Adventure League scenarios can be a great choice if you want to play short, one-off adventures or a campaign made up of these. While their quality can be annoyingly inconsistent, being 5e-based, they do have a lot in common with the hardback campaigns. However, there are some differences and peculiarities that I’ll deal with here (and I go through one of these adventures, The Scroll Thief, in detail in the Appendix on pg. 81): •

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They are optimised for five characters and give an average party level. Obviously, if you’re using a single PC and Sidekick you will set their level to one higher than this. However, this gives you an equivalent of a four-player party, so you’re still slightly underpowered. My advice is to treat your party as Average strength, but if you find yourself struggling (or you just prefer a lower level of difficulty), treat your party strength as Weak when you see Adjusting the Encounter boxes. It’s safe to read the Introduction, which just gives guidance on the party level, adventure structure and play length. You can skip all the standard Adventurer’s League stuff (it’s worth reading once, but it’s pretty much the same for every adventure). If you want to play safe, skip the Adventure Background (the first half of it is usually spoiler-free, the last paragraph is often not…) and definitely skip the Adventure Overview. Choose an Adventure Hook that fits your situation/party. Throughout the adventure, you should read the Roleplaying before talking to them – they are usually spoiler-free. There are often big lists of information that NPCs will impart – try to play these out as conversations with your characters rather than just reading them, and watch out for DC checks that guard some of the dialogue. The adventures don’t have numbered locations on maps (although they will often have battle maps of individual rooms at the end of the quest, mission or adventure). This is a slightly different dynamic, proceeding encounter-by-encounter rather than room-by-room, but let the boxed text be your guide (even though they don’t necessarily correspond to a location) – each time you read some boxed text, make a Binding Decision about what you’re going to do next.

For older editions of the world’s greatest roleplaying game, or modern OSR systems, things can be more tricky (although Basic Fantasy is very good in its use of boxed location text, which makes things a lot easier). Some general advice: 13

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Even without boxed text, the first sentence or two of a room description is usually spoilerfree. You can often spot upcoming monster stats, attributes for checks, or spells or treasure in bold text in your peripheral vision. Stop reading and make a Binding Decision before continuing. Some adventures are very bad at having spoilers in the room titles themselves – “Wolf Lair”, “Ambush Area” etc. (This is great for the GM, not so good for the solo player!) If you find this is a recurring problem you can make your Binding Decision when you reveal a new room on the map, even before you look at the location text corresponding to the room’s number. If you then find there is a spoiler-free room title and first sentence, you can revise your decision, if necessary, before continuing.

As mentioned earlier, some adventures don’t have numbered locations on maps at all and may have a slightly different dynamic of working through the story. In general, if there is boxed text, let that be your guide, even if it doesn’t correspond to a location – each time you read some boxed text, make a Binding Decision about what you’re going to do next. Also, it’s worth noting that some adventures are almost completely free-form in their structure, with no numbered maps, no linear path through encounters, and no boxed text. If you don’t mind spoilers you can solo them, but there’s usually a lot of up-front reading to do and you’ll be spending more time as ‘GM’ than ‘Player’; in general I wouldn’t recommend this for a fun solo experience when there are so many easier options available.

How to Structure Adventures for Solo, GM-less or No-Prep Play This section gives some advice to writers on how to structure an adventure if you want it to be easy to play solo or GM-less (and also if you want your adventure to be suitable for no-prep conventional GMing!). I was going to say that if you’re only interested in playing solo you can safely skip this section, but actually I think this discussion of how information can be signalled and structured is also useful when you’re trying to navigate an adventure as a player. Most standard adventures are front-loaded with information – the first thing they do is give you the overview, the big picture, the real story. This is perfect for the multiplayer GM, but exactly what you don’t want as a solo player. DM Yourself gives techniques for how to avoid these sorts of spoilers when you’re playing solo, but if you were writing the adventure specifically for solo players the main thing is to: a) signpost them, and b) tell the player when they may safely go back and read them (e.g. “Warning – the following section contains spoilers, you may return here after you’ve...”). There’s no real need to front-load the adventure with story in the way most adventures do – it makes sense if you’re a GM who wants to run a sandbox adventure or whose players are likely to do something completely unexpected, but the adventure could certainly be written in a way that reveals the story on a need-to-know basis but without veering towards CYOA-style. To start with, there are a couple of solo-friendly features common to 5e adventures that are not always used elsewhere. First, boxed location text allows the player to safely read the ‘obvious’ information about the room and make a decision about what they’re going to do next before they venture into the ‘hidden’ information (about traps/secret doors/hidden treasure or enemies). Second, skill checks (or the equivalent) in 5e always have a “DC” (often in bold font), which makes it easy to pick them up when you’re skim reading, and allows you to make the test (e.g. Perception) and then skip the following chunk of text if you fail it. These could both be made more structured

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(for example, by putting a box around the DC skill check information to make it clearer what you need to skip if you fail the test). So, the main things are: parcelling up the story so it’s only revealed when necessary; and structuring and partitioning information and clearly signposting the content (and telling the solo player when they can go back to it). Let’s examine these ideas in more detail. The adventure should start with a spoiler-free overview of the story and its setting, character creation and/or adventure hooks, spoiler-free structure and an XP/progression flowchart. It should have page references to the ‘full’ story and overview at the back of the adventure, for GMs who are running it traditionally and want to know these things in advance. Each chapter should have a spoiler-free overview, including its structure and a map (including where to start etc.). This map can have ‘known’ location names (such as towns or forests) marked unless it’s important they remain secret. There are two ways of dealing with ‘Secret’ map locations – neither of them perfect. They can be marked with a dot and a page number that cross-references to the quest at that location (but the player has to be disciplined not to travel to these locations without a reason). Alternatively, the map can be hex-overlaid with numbered hexes. If a player travels to the location they can check a table to see if there’s a page number reference for that hex number – if there isn’t, there’s nothing of significance in that hex. Each Area/Dungeon/Town map needs: a non-spoiler overview of features/story (with a page number link to the full spoilered story for the GM, or to be read after the area is complete if playing solo); a clearly marked ‘’ in the starting room/area; and a player-friendly map with traps/secret doors unmarked (and only detailed in the full location description) or obfuscated (e.g. by having a faint passage that connects two rooms but having the ‘S’ marking the secret passage within the passage itself rather on the wall of the room). An interesting experiment would be to print the map in grey so it’s harder to catch accidental glimpses of the overall layout, but you can draw over it as you explore.

Secret doors marked in the corridors, grey map to be inked in as you explore Each location should have: a non-spoiler location title; boxed location description; structured full description; descriptions written in the order that features will most likely be encountered; important information (traps/enemies/secrets) highlighted and/or ‘guarded’ by a DC test (i.e. their presence in the text made obvious for easy avoidance of the details that follow); and highlighted triggers pointing to numbered/titled paragraphs to go and read (note that these are info boxes for additional information, not CYOA – you come back to this room description after reading).

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Use different fonts and/or shaded boxes for different elements, e.g.: Show the extent of a DC check in the text (so you can easily skip the rest of the relevant text block if you fail the test)

On a DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check the player notices that there is a strong draught coming from a crack at the back of the cave

Using a conditional test/trigger and an indicator to the relevant information block

? IF the party have made a deception or persuasion check on the King (regardless of success)  I29

As a numbered/titled information block (after which the player returns to the location description where they came here from)

I29 – The King’s Secret After observing/talking to the King for some time, you realise there is something rather feral about his expressions and movements 

At the conclusion of a location/encounter (if it needs one), so you can avoid reading this until you’ve cleared the room

As stillness falls over the room, the party becomes aware…

For hidden treasure/traps/doors etc.

$ THERE IS A SECRET DOOR IN THE NORTH WALL WHICH…

For timing/developments in the encounter

 START OF ROUND 3: Four more kobolds run in from…

Triggers or Tests go in the main text (clearly signalled), Secrets and Consequences at the back (or clearly boxed/signalled in the main text). Tests and Triggers are a very flexible system – they can use keywords typically associated with Default Behaviours and Binding Decisions – e.g. “? IF the party Searches…” or can be based on tokens denoting information or status that you may have defined elsewhere in the adventure (and told the players to take note of), e.g. “? IF the party knows The King’s Secret…”, or “? IF the party are Friends of Jakob…” or simply possession of an item: “? IF the party has Sparktooth…” If you want events to go one way if the party meets a certain condition and a different way if they don’t, you can use an ELSE clause. It’s recommended that you put this at the start of a new line so it’s easy for the reader to pick up that something else happens if they don’t meet the condition of the IF, and to easily skip over the rest of the IF consequences without having to scan them for the ELSE. For example: ? IF the party has Defeated the Wyvern, they are invited to the Crow Road Inn (L15) that evening ELSE they are escorted by the town guard and locked in the cell at the Townmaster’s Hall (L12) My advice is not to overuse the  indicator. Most of the time, for simple stuff like traps or magic item hidden in a room, leave the information in the room description and rely on the player being honest enough to skip the information if they shouldn’t be privy to it and accidentally see it. You don’t want the player to be continually having to skip backwards and forwards through the book, so save the  indicator and separate information blocks for when there’s a serious spoiler that you want to keep hidden from the player until they’ve legitimately earned that information.

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As well as the manner in which information is structured and signalled, there is also the issue of what type of adventure is best for solo play. Certainly the easiest to run are short adventures or completely on-rails, linear campaigns – but many players find these unsatisfying (although I tend not to be that bothered by it myself). The hardest to run are ones which have multiple behind-thescenes actors and interdependent plot elements (Curse of Strahd) or campaigns that are very sandbox in nature (Storm King’s Thunder). Personally, I find the sweet spot to be fairly short campaigns that are completely broken up into quests (Dragon of Icewind Spire), or a relatively linear main story with many side quests (Lost Mine of Phandelver). I feel that writing adventures in a solo-friendly style is a bit like an accessibility issue – like using icons as well as colours in a card game so that colour-blind players can easily differentiate them. You can play ‘normal’ adventures solo, and solo players may be only a small minority, but as a writer or publisher, why not make it easier for solo players if you are able to? In fact, as noted above, it’s great for low-prep non-solo too!

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Playing Solo (or, How to Play a GM-less Adventure) How to actually play an adventure solo was covered in DM Yourself pg. 19-44. A very brief summary covering the main gameplay loop and the basic tables for things like Combat AI and Immersion are given in the Appendix pg. 63. In this book, we look at how to extend that system for more than one player (but no GM), optional rules for emulating Sidekicks and Players and making enemies more unpredictable in combat, and some advice on things such as running combats and how to get past some of the blocks and problems that can arise when you’re playing solo.

GM-less Duet (and general GM-less Play) This section is about how to play solo together – for when nobody wants to GM or bother with prep. If there’s two of you, it may seem odd to use solo rules like those in DM Yourself. After all, one of you can act as GM and one as player – why not just do that? Well, that can work; there are adventures and websites that specifically support what is known as Duet play, and even the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure in the Essentials Kit had guidance on playing with a GM and a single player. However, while this style of Duet play can be fun, it does have its problems: while one of you gets to play, the other one will have to read the whole adventure, do the preparation and all the other work of GMing. Wouldn’t it be more fun just to play together as players and, as Samwise Gamgee might put it, “share the load”? Although it seemed a bit odd at first, we have found playtesting GM-less play an amazing experience. In some ways, it feels like it has more roleplaying than a standard GM-ed session. I think there are a number of reasons for this. The first, and possibly the most important, is that normally the GM knows the story and is in a position of power. Although there is roleplaying between party members and between players and NPCs, there is always an asymmetric relationship between the GM and the players. When you are playing without a GM you are discovering the story together and at the same time. The co-operative nature of trying to make sense of the adventure and make it work really adds to the roleplaying experience, and there is a joy in being in it together – in the roles of both player and GM – as the story unfolds. It feels like the difference between being an actor onstage with a director, and being part of an extended, unscripted improv performance – you have to think on your feet, and sometimes the whole thing can teeter on the edge of disaster, but when it works it’s amazing! However, you do have to be disciplined as well. When you’re playing solo it’s relatively easy to get into the step-by-step DM Yourself routine. When there’s more than one of you, and you’re constantly swapping roles, it’s easy to become very casual about the routines of making immersion rolls and committing to Binding Decisions. My advice is to have the step-by-step guide to hand and try to stick to it until it becomes second nature. While I mainly talk about two-player GM-less play in this section, the same rules pretty much apply to any number of players. I’ll point out where the differences are significant. When starting a GM-less adventure or campaign, the first thing you need to decide is how many Sidekicks you’re going to have. This was briefly discussed earlier in the section on character creation, but your basic decision is whether you’re going to have no Sidekicks, a Sidekick each, or a shared

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party Sidekick. The number of PCs/Sidekicks in the party will determine which balancing mechanisms you’ll need to use, as shown in the table on pg. 6. Decide which player is going to act as GM for this session or take it in turns, location-by-location. We found that the best method was somewhere between these two extremes: one player acted as GM for a single ‘chunk’ of the adventure – an area, quest or town – and then we swapped. There is often information (such as enemy movement) that requires knowledge of several locations, or the quest as a whole, which makes swapping the role of GM every location difficult to manage. Also, it is almost inevitable that you will see a few small spoilers as you flick between locations, so you might as well have this location spoiled for only one person rather than everyone (and gameplay-wise, this allows the rest of the party to make decisions unbiased by that hidden information). Overall, we found that staying with the same acting GM for a ‘chunk’ of the adventure gave a more coherent, less fractured experience, but there is no reason why you have to use the same method (for switching GM) every session. However, I do highly recommend you try sharing the duties of acting GM during the course of a session if possible – it shares the load of reading the adventure (and doing NPC voices etc.) and allows all of you to concentrate equally on roleplaying your characters. Having said that, if one of you really enjoys the GM role and the other(s) doesn’t, then it’s fine for one of you to play both the partial-GM and player roles and the other just to play their PC as they would in a normal GMed game. However, keep in mind that if one player ends up in the GM role all the time, there is a very real danger that they will become the actual GM and not spend any time playing. There are two possible methods for playing: •

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GM-less is pretty much same as solo DM Yourself. The player acting as GM (referred to from now on as the acting GM) should read any boxed location text aloud. The player(s) and acting GM should then discuss what they want to do, and make Binding Decisions. In solo play it is vitally important that you write down your Binding Decision or record it by some other method (such as using the Binding Decision card); when there is more than one of you it is still a good idea to write things down, but the important thing is you make your decision out loud and agree on it. This helps to keep everyone honest; it’s harder to accidentally ‘change your mind’ when there is more than one of you. Once the Binding Decisions have been made, the acting GM can carry on carefully reading the more detailed location description (after the boxed location text) using the methods described in detail in DM Yourself (full details on how to do this can be found in DMY pg. 1318, or a quick summary on pg. 61-63 in the Appendix here), and then play out the situation using the normal DM Yourself solo rules. GM-lite still involves taking turns but with a bit more GMing – basically, this is GMing without any of the prep and without having to make decisions for monsters/NPCs (though you can if you feel comfortable doing so), but with more license for room description and a bit more freedom on player action (i.e. you don’t have to stick as closely to the actions anticipated by the adventure). In terms of actual gameplay, this method follows the process described above for GM-less play until after the Binding Decisions have been made. At that point the acting GM reads the rest of the location’s description and functions as a ‘normal’ GM (as well as their PC and 19

Sidekick) while you are playing out that room. This involves describing the action as it unfolds, making adjudications and acting for NPCs and monsters etc., if you have decided to do that rather than using the automated systems in DM Yourself. We found that in actual play we tended to naturally shift between the two methods described above depending on the situation. In many ways a ‘middle way’ is best – one player reads the description but doesn’t act as GM (in terms of making decisions, running monsters in combat etc.) although they do have full knowledge of the room (so the other player makes the decisions about what the party will do). If you’re swapping acting GM duties, use a card or token to indicate who is currently in that role. The short wait while the acting GM is reading and processing the full location description can be quite distracting and fractured for the other player(s), so they should use this time to make the Immersion roll for the location. The acting GM should highlight any DC checks the party has to make, provide general feedback on what occurs in the room given the party’s Binding Decisions, and if it comes to combat, do the actual rolling of dice for monsters and make decisions about their movement (ideally based on combat AI tables). Remember that sometimes you’ll need to refer back to previous sections of the adventure to refresh your memory (e.g. if you find something relating to a previous quest) – this is fine. It's easy for the acting GM to fall into the trap of feeling like they’re locked into the location you’re currently at, but if you were playing solo you’d have no qualms about referring back to make sense of the quest. A note about Default Behaviours and Binding Decisions: each player will have their own set of Default Behaviours and can make their own Binding Decisions, but often you will want to make a group Binding Decision, e.g. “We go in and search the room for secret doors”. Obviously, there needs to be some coordination between the players – it’s fine for one to be “Searching for Traps” while the other “Searches for Treasure”, but “Stealth” or “Talk” are probably not going to work together with “Attack” (or, at least, you will need to decide on the details of exactly how you’re going to do both at the same time). If you are logging time, make sure you don’t sum up the ticks of the various players – they are happening in parallel, so the amount of time that has passed is simply the amount shown by the player with the highest number of ticks. Use of Hero’s Luck, Hindsight, and Easy Difficulty level adjustments such as Improved Resistance are also per player. The only DM Yourself safeguard that is per-party rather than per-player is Plot Armour – you should still record it on your DM Yourself character sheet, but if you have to use it to save the party from a TPK then every player marks off a use on their sheet. GM-less play works really well on car journeys (though please if you are driving, no acting as GM, pay attention to the road at all times and get someone else to make your dice rolls for you – or you can ask Siri or Google Assistant to do it – “Hey Siri, roll a d20”). It’s also fast – we averaged a quest an hour when we were playing Rime of the Frostmaiden. The main problem of being acting GM is the physical amount of information you have to juggle – character sheets, adventure, dice tray, maps, pens – without a table it can be tricky, but it’s certainly doable.

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Sidekick Emulator In DM Yourself (and, for that matter, in roleplaying generally) your Sidekick is really just an extension of your PC – they obey your every command, do whatever you want, and most of the time just mirror your behaviours. However, in real life your companions might not be quite so amenable or so predictable, and sometimes their behaviour might surprise you (in good ways or bad!). This section gives you a set of optional, simple tables and rules to give your Sidekicks a bit of depth, their own agendas and flashes of brilliance – “Watch this!”. They have their own alignments, secrets, goals, loyalties, suggestions, tricks, and moments of inspiration. This means that sometimes your Sidekick may not do exactly what you want (and other times they may do more than you thought possible) – just like having another player with you. You don’t have to use any of these rules – they are optional – but they will give a bit of life and depth to your Sidekicks. I’ve tried to construct the individual systems and tables in such a way that you don’t have to use all of it – you can pick and choose the parts that work for you. For example, if you find that tracking changing Loyalty is a bit too much work, but you like the way the Sidekick evolves over time using the Quirk system (described below), just use the latter. Even using these rules, most of the time your Sidekick will do exactly as you expect. The reasons for this are related to both narrative (if someone in your party was always doing their own thing and never sticking to the plan, you probably wouldn’t keep them in the party for long) and gameplay – in general you want to be immersed in the story as written and making rolls for Stealth checks and combat, rather than rolling to see what your Sidekick is doing every location. There are a number of existing player emulation systems; probably my favourite is Player Emulator (with Tags), which bases its system on the player’s Agenda/Moves, Personality and Focus (it also has the benefit of being free). If you want a full-blown system you could try the Motif Character Engine, although personally I found this a bit too much for my purposes. More minimal systems for NPCs rather than players are: the excellent UNE system (which defines the NPC in terms of Modifier, Noun and Motivations); Ray Otus’ Gygax75 challenge, which uses a small set of tags for the player’s ‘DNA’ (Distinguishing Trait/Feature, Need, Agenda/Asset); or YumDM’s similar ‘MAP’ method (Motivation, Appearance, Personality) in their d12 Monthly zine. What I wanted to achieve here was something that had a bit more to it than the minimal systems, but without the bookkeeping of the first two, more complex systems. I wanted a light-touch emulation system that you only needed to worry about occasionally, using as many of the existing DM Yourself rules as possible rather than inventing new ones, and which supported and enhanced the narrative of the adventure rather than overshadowing it. Sidekick Default Behaviours The table below lists some possible default behaviours for Sidekicks based on their class. These are just suggestions – you are absolutely at liberty to change any or all of these (just make sure to stick to the “no more than 3 time-consuming Default Behaviours” rule). Note also that these are for starting, low-level characters (and they assume you have made certain spell choices); as your Sidekick’s level increases and you gain more spells and abilities you will want to change some of these behaviours. The table is also a bit of a cheat – it’s mainly normal Default Behaviours, but with a

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few combat strategies thrown in. When you have decided on your Sidekick’s Default Behaviours, fill them in on the Emulator Sheet (appendix pg. 84). Sidekick Class Expert

Spellcaster: Mage

Spellcaster: Healer

Spellcaster: Prodigy

Warrior: Attacker

Warrior: Defender

Default Behaviours I will use Stealth when entering a room I will search for traps I will use Help whenever possible, and Cunning Action otherwise I will take anything that looks like it might be valuable I will keep an eye out for signs or members of the Thieves’ Guild in town I will cast Detect Magic after the ‘final’ room is cleared of enemies I will take anything that looks like it might be magical, especially spellbooks I will use Mage Hand to open anything that might be trapped I will deal with any matters to do with Investigation or the Arcane I will always look for Arcane colleges or libraries and magic/potion shops I will heal allies who are unconscious (on 0hp) if I can I will cast Bless at the start of a ‘big’ combat I will destroy any Undead that we encounter I will deal with any matters of Religion or Medicine I will always visit the temple/shrine if there’s one in town I will heal allies who are unconscious (on 0hp) if I can I will use Vicious Mockery on big targets and Eldritch Blast on everything else I will cast Hex at the start of a ‘big’ combat I will do my best to talk our way out of situations if I think it’s possible I will do the talking/listening in town – Persuasion/Insight where necessary I will attack first and ask questions later I will try to get between the enemies and the PC I will kick down closed doors to gain the element of surprise I will use Second Wind if I’m badly wounded (on less than half hit-points) I will look for the smithy/armourer in town, followed by the tavern I will always stay close to the PC I will try to get between the enemies and the PC I will use Second Wind if I’m badly wounded (on less than half hit-points) I will always listen at closed doors, to help us gain the element of surprise I will talk to the town guards, and use Intimidation where necessary

Random Sidekicks and Backstories You may well want to create your Sidekick from scratch using your own choices, but if you want to randomise your Sidekick (or PC), you can do so using the table below, rolling a d20 for each aspect of their character. Note that the Race probabilities in this table reflect (to some degree, at least) the demographics of the settings of 5e, and Alignment and Class tables are based on the relative popularity of those choices among its players. You don’t have to do all of this for your first session – it is quicker, and more realistic, not to know everything about your companion straight away. I would advise leaving Background and Alignment until you need to know those things. When you do choose/roll a Background for your Sidekick, it’s worth rolling on the Trait, Ideal, Bond and Flaw tables for that background, recording the results on your Sidekick’s character sheet – these will help to inform what your Sidekick does when they act independently, and will also provide useful information for campfire chats or the banter, jokes and memories that can occur as a result of a Social result on an Immersion roll. If you have access to Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, you might 22

also want to go through the Life Story (pg. 61-73) for yourself and your Sidekick – this will give you extra details about your family, background and class, as well as significant life events. Again, these will be useful for informing behaviours and conversations between party members. d20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Race Hill Dwarf Mountain Dwarf High Elf Wood Elf Dark Elf (Drow) Lightfoot Halfling Stout Halfling Human Human Human Human Human Dragonborn Forest Gnome Rock Gnome Half-Elf Half-Orc Tiefling Other, Humanoid Other, Non-humanoid

Alignment Lawful Good Lawful Good Neutral Good Neutral Good Neutral Good Neutral Good Chaotic Good Chaotic Good Chaotic Good Chaotic Good Lawful Neutral Lawful Neutral Neutral Neutral Chaotic Neutral Chaotic Neutral Chaotic Neutral Lawful Evil Neutral Evil Chaotic Evil

Background Acolyte Acolyte Charlatan Criminal Criminal Entertainer Folk Hero Folk Hero Guild Artisan Guild Artisan Hermit Noble Outlander Sage Sailor Sailor Soldier Soldier Urchin Urchin

PC Class Barbarian Bard Cleric Cleric Druid Fighter Fighter Fighter Monk Monk Paladin Paladin Ranger Ranger Rogue Rogue Sorcerer Warlock Wizard Wizard

Sidekick Class Expert Expert Expert Expert Expert Expert Spellcaster: Mage Spellcaster: Mage Spellcaster: Healer Spellcaster: Healer Spellcaster: Prodigy Spellcaster: Prodigy Warrior: Attacker Warrior: Attacker Warrior: Attacker Warrior: Attacker Warrior: Defender Warrior: Defender Warrior: Defender Warrior: Defender

Sidekick Combat AI If you wish, you can automate your Sidekick’s behaviour in combat using the table below – how to use a combat table is explained in full in DM Yourself pg. 38-40, or in the example here on pg. 39-41. Trigger1 If low hp2

On first round (or pre-combat)

Expert

Spellcaster

Warrior

Cunning Action to Disengage, Dash, move away If already within melee+ range, melee; otherwise move to optimal, ranged Move to nearest, melee

‘Escape’ spell, or Dash/Disengage then move away ‘Defence/Buff’ spell, with at least 1-min duration, move to optimal

Second Wind (and melee) else Dash/Disengage, move away Move towards enemy attacking PC. If possible, melee. If not, ranged

If within opponent’s melee, Misty Step/ Disengage, move away. Otherwise, move to optimal, ‘Damage’ spell

Move towards enemy attacking PC, melee.

If within melee+

If within ranged+

Move to cover, Cunning Action to Hide, ranged

Move to optimal, ‘Damage/De-buff’ spell

Move towards enemy attacking PC. If possible, use cover, ranged

1 Reactions/Bonus Actions: Spellcasters use a reaction to cast Shield (against attacks that hit but are less than 5 greater than the mage’s current AC) or Counterspell (against a spell – not a cantrip – that

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would damage the party or prevent its escape) if such spells are available. Warrior: Defenders will use their reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll of a creature within 5 feet of it whose target is someone else. Experts will use their bonus action to Help their PC’s attack action if possible, or will use Cunning Action to Dash if necessary for movement. Healers will always use their bonus action to cast Healing Word (if available) if a member of the party in range is on 0hp. 2

low hp: low hp only triggers if the party as a whole is escaping and/or the Sidekick has failed a morale/loyalty check, apart from the Warrior’s Second Wind which will always happen at low hp (if available) and be followed up by move and attack. In general, if you’re alone in melee against an enemy, do Dash rather than Disengage before moving away from the enemy and to cover if possible.

Melee+: this is the sum of the enemy’s speed and melee range (basically, can the enemy get close enough to carry out a melee attack this turn?). Ranged+: this is like melee+ but for ranged attacks, using the normal (not long) range (basically, can the enemy get close enough to carry out a ranged attack this turn?). Note that these could be physical or magical attacks (skip this trigger if this enemy has no ranged attacks it can use). Optimal: a position as far as possible from any enemies while still within normal (not long) range of the target. Given a choice of possible positions, choose the one that can target more than one enemy (for Breath Weapons and area of effect spells) and/or is behind cover. Other symbols: “/” means OR, “,” means AND THEN

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Interaction Within the Party The following table can be used whenever you take a short or long rest. It is not recommended that you use it every rest, as that would be too much of a load and would slow down the adventure; use it once a day at most (and, as with all these rules, you need not use it at all). The table offers some different interactions between party members as you sit around the campfire, or in the tavern, or hunkered down in a barricaded room to take a short break before continuing. Make a roll to randomly decide who’s talking (it’s up to you whether or not PCs are included in this roll; unlike Sidekicks you have agency, so obviously you can initiate whatever interaction you want, but sometimes it’s easier to let the dice decide) and who they’re talking to (although for some results it’s obvious the target is the whole party). Try to imagine the conversation and play out the interaction – I’ve suggested some possible consequences, but there may be others depending on how things go. Roll a d20, with Advantage if the Loyalty between speaker and target is 14 or greater, or with Disadvantage if it’s 5 or less. d20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Interaction Running off (into/out of the dungeon) – use bribes, promises, persuasion, etc. to dissuade Argument – roll d6: 1) money, 2) treasure, 3) morals, 4) choices, 5) incidents, 6) things said Criticism – “I don’t think you should have done that…” Doubts – “I don’t think we should do what we’re planning on doing…” Hindsight – “If only we’d done that differently…” (may give a Token if you’re stuck) Loud talking/shouting – may alert or draw the attention of something nearby Discussion of healing/buffs and other resources – demands use now, or refusal of use later Personality – drawing on Quirks/Traits/Ideals/Flaws etc. Roll them if you haven’t already Memories – shared experiences of previous adventures, or a personal insight into them Secrets – “I’ve never told anyone this before, promise you’ll keep it to yourself…” Backstory – drawing on Background/Bonds etc. Roll them if you haven’t already Find or notice something – in the room you’re in or on an item you’ve found (gain a Token) Insights – “Hang on, what about…” (gain a Token that can be used for a puzzle or map layout) Plans – “I think we should do this…” Discussion of what you’re going to do next Tactics – discussion of combat plans, formation, etc. One free Help action in the next fight Inspiring speech – “Together, we can do this!” Gain one extra use of Hero’s Luck Songs – ballads of love or death, stirring war songs, bawdy shanties or dirty limericks Jokes and banter – puns, childish gags, dirty jokes, banter about a random party member Reinforcement – “What you did was amazing – we wouldn’t have made it without you…” Flirting – risky! Roll a d20; if it’s lower than morale it will raise it, if it’s higher it will lower it

Loyalty Checks It’s hard to meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same; extremes of fortune can bring out the best and worst in people, and this is when you may become aware of previously unknown aspects of your companion’s personality. If a Sidekick’s attack, ability/skill check or saving throw comes up a natural 1 or natural 20, this may trigger a Loyalty Check. It’s important that you only count rolls that actually used – i.e. ignore those on the unused dice in a roll with Advantage or Disadvantage, ones that are rerolled with Hero’s Luck etc. Make a tally mark in the Nat 1 or Nat 20 box on the Sidekick’s character sheet. If this is the third mark in the box, then make a Loyalty Check by rolling a d20 and comparing to the Loyalty between this Sidekick and a target party member – this may be obvious based on the context of the situation,

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or roll for a random PC or Sidekick if not. If the roll is equal to or lower than the Loyalty, then the check has passed, otherwise the check has failed. What happens next depends on what caused the check and what the result was – it may cause a Behaviour Check (described below): •

•

Disaster – If the check was made because of a natural 1 and the Loyalty Check failed Make a Behaviour Check – there may also be further consequences depending on the result of this check, but the target of the Loyalty Check gets Disadvantage on their next roll. The Loyalty from Sidekick to target (not the other way round) is lowered by one. Triumph – If the check was made because of a natural 20 and the Loyalty Check passed Make a Behaviour Check – there may also be further consequences depending on the result of this check, but the target of the Loyalty Check gets Advantage on their next roll. The Loyalty from Sidekick to target (not the other way round) is raised by one.

Note: it may seem that changes to Loyalty are completely random, given that in theory your chances of natural 1s and 20s are identical. However, in practice they are not the same. If your Sidekick is making a lot of rolls with Advantage, they will roll more natural 20s; similarly with Disadvantage and natural 1s. This means that the more things are going well and the party is in advantageous positions, the more loyal its members will tend to become, whereas when times are tough and you’re constantly fighting against the odds, tempers will become frayed and loyalties will be tested. Behaviour Checks Roll a d20 to see what the Sidekick does. On a 1 to 10, they follow that Default Behaviour if possible (the behaviour slots on the Emulator Sheet on pg. 84 are labelled on the sheet – 1-2 for the first behaviour, 3-4 for the second etc.). If you roll a number greater than 10, see if a Quirk has been filled in for that numbered cell in the table. If it has, behave in the manner of that Quirk if you can. If it has not been filled in, roll on the personality Quirk table (below), fill in that Quirk in the Sidekick’s Emulator Sheet table, and then behave in a manner suggested by that Quirk if possible in the current situation. Be as liberal as you can in your interpretation of these Default Behaviours and Quirks, and go by the spirit of the behaviour rather than its exact description. For example, if there are no doors nearby, “I will always kick open closed doors” could be interpreted as smashing open a locked chest or kicking over a table during a fight, while “Competitive” could lead to a drinking competition in a tavern or switching enemy to deal the killing blow in a fight. As with Immersion rolls, think yourself into the scene and try to come up with an interpretation that works (and, ideally, adds to the drama and narrative). If you haven’t thought of anything after 10 seconds, let it go. For any of these Behaviour Checks, if you cannot think of a way to apply the behaviour/Quirk in the current context, then the Sidekick just behaves as they would normally (i.e. under your control).

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Quirk Table To use the Quirk table below (split into four tables so as to fit on two pages), roll a d20 for the column, then a d20 for the row. If the character is Lawful, make the column roll with Disadvantage (roll 2d20 and take the lower result); if the character is Chaotic, make the column roll with Advantage (roll 2d20 and take the higher result). If the character is Good, make the row roll with Disadvantage; if the character is Evil, make the column roll with Advantage. d20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

1 Pious Moral Assertive Content Idealistic Meticulous Conformist Rigid Devoted Dignified Dependable Aloof Forthright Devout Focused Solemn Unemotional Zealous Insensitive Ruthless

2 Compassionate Considerate Righteous Honest Sensible Logical Methodical Passionate Proper Prim Responsible Hard-working Habitual Compliant Banal Blunt Judgemental Cold Abrasive Aggressive

3 Likable Loyal Unselfish Careful Serene Level-headed Stubborn Stoic Neat Reserved Refined Serious Scholarly Sombre Studious Rational Overbearing Callous Greedy Lecherous

4 Kind Lovable Composed Grave World-weary Confused Expert Cool Effete Cunning Quiet Bossy Fussy Quick-witted Idle Grouchy Petty Unctuous Disdainful Malicious

5 Happy Loving Amiable Cultured Discontented Determined Detached Drained Elated Enraged Exhilarated Fearful Sorrowful Funny Docile Ecstatic Heartbroken Venal Threatening Murderous

d20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

6 Humble Friendly Hopeful Haunting Imaginative Anxious Ambitious Admiring Insightful Irritated Lazy Calm Inclusive Melancholy Mindless Needy Petulant Argumentative Insidious Traitorous

7 Dashing Delightful Courageous Indecisive Enlightened Inventive Keen Inquisitive Lucid Leading Interested Intelligent Inexperienced Inept Humorous Hardy Unhelpful Unfeeling Angry Arrogant

8 Empathic Peacemaker Fatalistic Numb Overwhelmed Forceful Intimidated Exhausted Psychic Lethargic Gloomy Lonely Scared Modest Smart Strange Surprised Vengeful Annoyed Cruel

9 Generous Pleasant Terrifying Touched Calculating Unrealistic Violent Cautious Jubilant Worried Uncouth Weird Witty Tireless Touchy Messy Resentful Sly Antisocial Wicked

10 Reputable Harmonious Sentimental Shy Slow Mysterious Miserable Merciful Timid Painful Gambler Moody Lustful Meek Guilty Gifted Frustrated Invested Nefarious Backstabber

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d20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

11 Gentle Thoughtful Contemplative Vigilant Hesitant Intellectual Excited Envious Competitive Simple Hopeless Hyperaware Suspicious Stressed Clever Cranky Loud Disagreeable Belligerent Heartless

12 Blissful Respectful Attentive Defensive Cooperative Crushed Despondent Disappointed Distressed Entitled Adventurous Nervous Able Aggravated Amused Addicted Alluring Indifferent Miserly Narcissist

13 Truthful Cheerful Self-confident Relentless Prying Proud Pragmatic Popular Pitiful Phobic Paranoid Over-confident Optimistic Obsessed Nostalgic Naive Merciless Mellow Bullying Brooding

14 Patient Helpful Forgetful Apathetic Bawdy Enthralled Embarrassed Brave Disgusted Brawler Depressed Defective Curious Cowardly Confident Commanding Clumsy Grim Scheming Brutal

15 Peaceful Joyful Obnoxious Flirty Pessimistic Revolting Sassy Privileged Rejected Romantic Laid-back Emotional Subtle Tactless Troublesome Thankful Coarse Crass Selfish Neglectful

d20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

16 Trustful Polite Successful Chatty Fascinated Fancy Skilled Bright Energetic Empowered Sad Desolate Dainty Creative Conceited Grumpy Uncivilized Demanding Hostile Deranged

17 Sympathetic Sensitive Charming Busy Unbalanced Hyper Casual Catty Uneducated Distinctive Silly Restless Drunken Shrewd Slippery Manic Tense Corrupt Foreboding Predatory

18 Jolly Gleeful Whimsical Panicky Impulsive Untrained Wilful Wild Joker Fiery Excitable Prankster Hedonistic Temperamental Inattentive Hot-headed Inconsiderate Spiteful Amoral Deceitful

19 Warm Tender Light-hearted Playful Liberated Easy-going Lively Independent Eager Oblivious Plucky Absentminded Pushy Reckless Foolish Unconcerned Unreasonable Sinful Frivolous Cynical

20 Welcoming Bubbly Vivacious Dreamer Bold Careless Childish Daring Defiant Giddy Addicted Dramatic Mischievous Quick-tempered Fickle Unreliable Dishonest Unstable Fanatic Psychotic

PC and Party Emulator If you want to use DM Yourself as a way to practice your GM skills, you can even go one step further and emulate the PCs as well as the Sidekicks. You can do this in conjunction with the DM Yourself rules as a way of running through an adventure and exploring the story without having to make any decisions yourself. 28

However, you can also use Player (and Sidekick) emulation as the basis for a completely different way of playing solo, where you play the conventional role of GM – reading through the story in advance, preparing and running the encounters etc. – but then emulate the activity of the party. This is more like DM Yourself in reverse (Party Yourself?) – you’re running the game, but without the need for other players. At its heart, PC emulation is very similar to Sidekick emulation. Your PCs will have a number of Default Behaviours which they will use to determine what they do in general. You will also have a set of Party Default Behaviours, and other information that can be used to inform the party’s choices. However, it’s worth noting here that the rules in this section are, of necessity, somewhat loose and open to interpretation. Completely and perfectly emulating the behaviour of a party under all circumstances would require a whole book or a whole computer programme (in fact, it would be beyond the capabilities of any currently available AI). The best I can do here is to give some guidelines, enabling you to join the dots and fill the gaps as necessary. PC Default Behaviours and Combat AI As with the Sidekick’s Default Behaviours and AI Combat, the tables below are purely to get you started – feel free to add, ignore or change things as you see fit. Also as with Sidekicks, you will need to update references to spells and abilities as you level up. Unlike Sidekicks, however, PC Classes also have sub-classes that can dramatically change both the abilities that the PC has access to and the fundamental behaviour of the class, so you will also have to take that into account once you get to third level (or even earlier for Clerics and Wizards) – to be honest, it’s impossible to capture all the possible tactics of a higher-level PC in a simple table like this, but it’s better than nothing. Finally, these Binding Decisions and Combat AI tables reflect my style of play – yours may be very different, so feel free to amend accordingly. PC Class Default Behaviours Barbarian I will Rage at the start of each combat. I will always charge into every fight without stopping to plan first. I will Recklessly Attack at all times – I can’t help myself. I’m suspicious of the arcane and I would rather rely on my strength than your magic. I always burst through doors in dungeons – if they don’t open first try, I’ll kick them in. Bard I will use Bardic Inspiration for any allies who are in trouble or vulnerable. I will use Vicious Mockery on enemies at range. I will heal allies who are unconscious (on 0hp). I will always ask to perform at the tavern in exchange for free food and lodging. I will never make Insight checks on people I think are attractive – the beautiful don’t lie! I will always look to gather local news and gossip whenever I arrive at a new location. Cleric I will cast Bless at the start of combat. I will use Sacred Flame on enemies at range. I will heal allies who are unconscious (on 0hp). I will always visit the local place of worship straight away when entering a new location. I will never show mercy to the undead, even if they are sentient and appear friendly. I will put my allies before myself and will always look to heal them first. Druid I will use Wild Shape if I’m badly wounded (on less than half hit-points). I will use Shillelagh in melee combat. I will heal allies who are unconscious (on 0hp). I will never willingly deal lethal damage to a beast unless I deem it to be a mercy. I will only use Wild Shape around people I trust, as I’m scared of what others may think. I will give priority to quests and missions that involve bringing balance back to nature. 29

Fighter

Monk

Paladin

Ranger

Rogue

Sorcerer

Warlock

Wizard

I will use Action Surge when fighting a ‘big’ enemy. I will use Second Wind if I’m badly wounded (on less than half hit-points). I will always try to position myself in combat to get between the enemy and my allies. I will always look for a blacksmith before anything else, upon entering a new town, I will not sneak up on enemies and ambush them – everyone deserves a fair fight. I will get into melee with the closest enemy. I will always save 1 Ki point to get away if needed. I will use Flurry of Blows when fighting a ‘big’ enemy. I will eagerly take any opportunity to show off my acrobatics. I will look for a peaceful spot to meditate before anything else when entering a town. I will always try to avoid conflict through discussion if possible. I will use Smite at every opportunity. I will try to get in the best position to protect my allies. I will Lay on Hands to heal allies who are unconscious (on 0hp) I will try to save 5 points of Lay on Hands just in case someone is poisoned or diseased. I will use my Fighting Style whenever possible. I will always abide by my oath, even at the cost of abiding by the law. I will use Hunter’s Mark at the start of combat. I will always go after my Favoured Enemies, given a choice. I refuse to stay anywhere my companion isn’t welcome – if they sleep outside, so do I. I will always restock arrows whenever they’re available. Taking watch while my party rests is a job I take very seriously; I stay alert and watchful. I will Hide at the end of each turn when in combat. I will always check for traps when moving into a new location. I will use Stealth when moving into a location where there may be enemies. I will always check for treasure before anything else, when entering a new room. I always put aside some money for gambling when we next return to town. I will contact the Thieves’ Guild in a new town to exchange information and illicit goods. I will use Misty Step (or run!) to save myself if the enemy gets too close. I will use Fire Bolt, Burning Hands and Fireball whenever I can – I like to see things burn. I will always stir things up and do the unexpected – it’s boring doing the same thing. I will target the enemy I think is closest to death – I love the thrill of killing with magic. I don’t understand why Wizards seem to avoid me, so I’ll go out of my way to find them. I will use Hex at the start of combat, and Eldritch Blast when at range. I will always look to gather new information on my patron when I enter a new location. I will keep my Patron a secret from the party, for now at least. I will always choose to Intimidate instead of persuading when interacting with people. I avoid entering typical places of worship at all costs. I will use Misty Step or another escape spell (or run!) if the enemy gets too close. I will always search for arcane secrets, scrolls, potions, magical tomes and artefacts. I will go to the library when entering a new town – I value knowledge above all else. I see the party’s tank as my vessel for testing new buffing spells, e.g. Haste, Enlarge. I have a natural dislike of Sorcerers and will avoid interacting with them if possible.

The PC AI combat tables that follow are slightly different to the ones you’re used to. They have an extra trigger that happens immediately before combat starts (if the party knew combat was about to happen) or on the first round (if they didn’t). It doesn’t have an ‘Otherwise’ trigger for if the PC is outside ranged weapon range. If this is the case, assume that the PC will move as fast as possible towards an optimal ranged position.

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Trigger11

Barbarian

Bard

Cleric

Unless Raging: Dash/ Disengage, move away Move toward nearest, Rage, melee/ranged Move to nearest, Reckless Attack, melee Move toward nearest, ranged/Dash

Dash/Disengage, move away Bardic Inspiration, move to optimal, ranged Disengage, move to optimal Move to optimal, ranged offensive spell (Vicious Mockery, Sleep etc.)

Dash/Disengage, move away Bless on allies / Bane on enemy Move to nearest, melee Move to optimal, cast Sacred Flame

Druid

Fighter

Monk

If within ranged+

Wild Shape for more hp, melee Move to optimal, Wild Shape3/Faerie Fire Wild Shape3/Shillelagh, move to nearest, melee Move to optimal, ranged (Frostbite, Thorn Whip)

Second Wind, melee (Action Surge: melee) Move toward nearest, melee/ranged Move to nearest, melee (Action Surge3: melee) Move to optimal, ranged

Step of the Wind, Dash, move away Move toward nearest, melee/ranged Move to nearest, melee, Flurry of Blows Move to optimal, ranged

Trigger11

Paladin

Ranger

Rogue

If within ranged+

Dash/Disengage, move away Move to optimal, Bless3 / towards nearest, melee Move to nearest, Divine Smite3, melee Move towards nearest, ranged

Dash/Disengage, move away Move to optimal, Hunter’s Mark, ranged If within Melee: melee / move to optimal, ranged Move to optimal, ranged

Disengage, Dash, move to cover Move to optimal, Hide, Sneak Attack4 Disengage, move to optimal, Sneak Attack4 Move to optimal, Hide, Sneak Attack4

Trigger11

Sorcerer

Warlock

Wizard

Disengage, Expeditious Retreat, move away Mage Armor3, move to optimal Shocking Grasp, move to optimal Move to optimal, Fire Bolt/Chromatic Orb/Thunderwave

Disengage, Expeditious Retreat, move away Hex, move to optimal, Eldritch Blast Armor of Agathys3, Booming Blade, melee Move to optimal, Eldritch Blast

Misty Step, Dash, move away Mage Armor3, move to optimal Shocking Grasp, move to optimal Move to optimal, Ray of Frost/Magic Missile /Burning Hands/Sleep

If low hp2 On first round (or pre-combat) If within melee+ If within ranged+

Trigger1 If low hp2 On first round (or pre-combat) If within melee+

If low hp2 On first round (or pre-combat) If within melee+

If low hp2 On first round (or pre-combat) If within melee+ If within ranged+ 1,2

See pg. 23-24 for explanation

3

Only for big/boss combats

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4

If not possible, then melee/ranged

Party Default Behaviours and Other Information You will need to record some information for the party itself: • •

•

Party Leader – this PC’s Default Behaviours take precedence (though the leader may change) Formation – for single file and two abreast (and for wilderness if different to dungeon) Key Roles – it’s worth considering which PC/Sidekick fills each of these roles. It’s possible that the same party member might act as more than one of these: o The Tank: Draws the attacks and damage of the enemy – needs high AC and HP o The Damage: Deals devastating attacks from behind, close up or from a distance o The Support: Heals, revives or buffs teammates, controls or debuffs the enemy o The Scout: Searches ahead, looking for information, traps and secrets o The Face: Talks to NPCs and persuades, deceives or intimidates as required Default Behaviours – these are behaviours for the party as a whole and serve two functions – to act as a ‘moral compass’ for the party over and above the desires of any particular member, and to automatically deal with situations that commonly arise. It’s possible that some of these may duplicate individual Default Behaviours, but it’s still useful to have them in case that member leaves or dies. It’s worth having a few of these to get started, but be prepared to add more as you encounter situations that aren’t covered by your existing set. Some examples: o When faced with a number of exits and no information on which to choose, go left o Underground, the Support will keep a torch or Light spell going at all times o Underground, the Scout will always Stealth 30 feet ahead of the party, in darkness o In town, when we go to the tavern the Face will talk to locals to find news/rumours o In the wilderness, when we sleep we will keep watch in this order… o We will do anything we can to avoid innocent bystanders being hurt o We will never destroy a religious site or artefact unless we know it to be evil o In combat, we will focus all our attacks on one enemy before moving on to the next o In combat, we will take out the minions before moving onto the big bad o Given the choice of a number of quests, we value welfare and justice over treasure o We will take every quest we discover or are given (as long as it is not evil in nature)

With this information you have enough to get started on your adventure. Play by the normal DM Yourself rules, but when you would normally make a Binding Decision, use the Default Behaviours of the party and/or the leader to decide what to do. If neither of those provide any guidance, then look to other party members’ Default Behaviours. If that still doesn’t provide an answer, then either make the choice yourself or use the oracle to make the decision – either way, if you can it is worth trying to generalise that decision and write it down as a new party Default Behaviour for future use.

Separating your GM and Player Role This section explores more ways to separate your roles as GM and player and to keep yourself honest when dealing with spoilers and hidden information. Always write down your Binding Decisions. You don’t want this to become a chore so stick to one line, but try to give as many details as possible – this will help you if there are any unexpected discoveries or developments in the location. I often use shorthand – e.g. Loc 14: lstn @ dr, clr rm, srch 4 tr$. If you really can’t get into the habit of writing them down, use the Binding Decision card. 32

What you shouldn’t rely on is just ‘remembering’ your Binding Decision – memory can be very selective, especially when you forgot to Stealth and ran into a big group of monsters, or when you read about a nice magic item when you forgot to specify that you’d search for treasure! If possible, incorporate your Binding Decision into your mental image of what you’re doing when you imagine yourself in the scene after your Immersion roll – this will help you to lock the action in place (obviously this will depend on the nature of your Binding Decision and the Immersion roll, so it may not always be possible). If you find that your approach to locations is usually the same, you can make a “Binding Decision until further notice”. However, if you find yourself doing this a lot, it’s probably worth converting that Binding Decision into one of your character’s Default Behaviours. Consider using your GM “Are you ready?” or call-to-action phrase to prompt your Binding Decision. For instance, if my players are dawdling after I give them a location description, I’ll often say “What do you want to do now?” I sometimes find it useful to say this to myself (in my head) after reading the location description and making an Immersion Roll, as a prompt to make my Binding Decision. Hero’s Luck, Plot Armour and Hindsight are meant to serve the role of a friendly GM protecting you from OP situations, bad luck and oversight, so use them to navigate difficult situations rather than fudging rolls (as you might do when non-solo GMing) or retroactively changing your mind on Binding Decisions. The DM Yourself gameplay balancing mechanisms are your safety rails, so you don’t need to give in to the temptation to cheat. Be careful not to fall into the trap of treating them as a toogood-to-use resource – they are there to be used, and to make your adventures fun and survivable! Make the big moments significant; find ways of signifying key events so you fully imagine them. In our household we have totally adopted Matt Mercer’s catchphrase from Critical Role when a big monster is reduced to zero hit points: “How do you want to do this?” Take the time to immerse yourself in the moment of the killing blow or spell – where does it land, what was the effect, what’s the expression on the monster’s face (assuming it still has one!), what about the faces of the PC that struck the blow and the onlookers? The same goes for other big moments – when you finally find the item that is the goal of your quest, or the moment you realise it is forever beyond your reach. Take the time to think these moments through – and as always, make an Immersion roll if you think it will help to place you in the scene. No matter how careful you are, there will always be spoilers – some big (the identity of the main villain), some small (the chest is trapped). Separate out what you know as GM from what you know as Player – and remember that if the player doesn’t know about something they can’t act on it. If you don’t know how a PC would have acted in the absence of this knowledge, look at their Binding Decision, Default Behaviours or other background or trait information. If you still don’t know, use the minimal DC Oracle (described in full in DM Yourself pg. 45, summarised in this book on pg. 87). The GM’s role is to provide the narrative, the colour, to make sure the game is entertaining. The Player’s primary objective is to explore, survive and level up (though obviously the player wants to also play their part in making the game entertaining!). It’s worth being conscious of these differences as you switch between roles – e.g. it is not your duty as GM to make sure the party

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survives the fight, but it is your duty to make the fight epic and fun. Your GM side and Player side are not working together to “win”; rather, they are collaborating to entertain and create a great story. Having said that, there are times when the roles need to merge and overlap – e.g. when you make an Immersion roll you are both describing the scene as GM and experiencing it as player. As GM, make sure the gameplay has texture and variation in tempo and intensity – you want to avoid a monotone, monospaced adventure, and there should be highs and lows. Of course, this advice applies to GMing in general, but it can be a particularly easy trap to fall into when playing solo where the temptation might be to just read the adventure and roll the dice… Remember that it’s really okay to only find half the treasure! This happens all the time in non-solo games, it’s just that the players don’t realise. It’s very tempting to fudge rolls and/or retroactively make Binding Decisions so that you can sweep up all the magic items you now know about, but that takes away the challenge and potentially unbalances the game. Remember, if you miss a really great item you can always use your one daily attempt at Hindsight to have at least a chance of finding it. DM Yourself how you’d GM normally. We all have our own styles – of course I’m not telling you how strict or lenient to be, but I find the best way to judge whether you’re being fair and impartial is to measure your solo GMing up against the way you GM non-solo games. If you don’t normally GM games yourself, then you can try to use the standards of your favourite GM as your benchmark. Making things exciting for you as the player means jeopardy, consequences for your actions and barely surviving against the odds. There must be a threat of failure and death or the game loses its edge, and a lot of the fun and enjoyment are lost.

Extended NPC Reaction Tables A few readers noted that these were a bit lacking in the first DM Yourself. In general, a published adventure should give you information on the appearance and demeanour of any significant NPC you’re likely to meet, along with the information that they can impart (and the conditions required, if any, for them to part with that information). However, this is not always the case; sometimes those details are missing, and sometimes you may want to go beyond the obvious questions – although keep in mind that details actually specified in the adventure always take precedence (e.g. no rolling for a Guard’s reaction if you’re told in the adventure that he’s hostile and won’t let the party pass under any circumstances). To deal with such situations, this section gives methods 34

for weaving together the information given in the scenario with additional tables to flesh out the characters and reactions of NPCs you meet. It also introduces the concept of tokens, which, in combination with the hindsight system, is a way of using information gained from NPCs to handle spoilers. If you’ve got the DMG, you want add some detail to an NPC and you have a fair chunk of time, then you can’t do better than the tables on pg. 89-91. If you want something quicker, you could use the Sight (Enemy/NPC) table on pg. 48 of DM Yourself for a significant detail of the NPC’s appearance, the Quirk table on pg. 27-28 of this book, and the following simple reaction table. This is very loosely based on the 1st Edition reaction table – although unlike that table, this one isn’t affected by the PC’s Charisma; our table here shows only the NPC’s base reaction. d20

Reaction

1

Violently hostile. Make DC checks with Disadvantage. Immediate attack on failed check.

2-4

Hostile. Make DC checks with Disadvantage. Immediate negative action on failed check.

5-7

Uncertain, but leaning towards negative.

8-11

Neutral, uninterested, uncertain.

12-15 Uncertain, but leaning towards positive. 16-19 Friendly. Make DC checks with Advantage. Immediate positive action on successful check. Enthusiastically friendly. Make DC checks with Advantage. Immediate acceptance and positive action on successful check.

20

The original Persuade/Intimidate/Deceive table from DM Yourself is reproduced here in the Appendix on pg. 87. In the absence of any guidance from the adventure, you can use this table as a way of working out the DC rating of these social interaction checks based on either the difficulty of the thing you’re asking of them or the risk/sacrifice involved (or the average of these two factors if you know both). I’m not going to reproduce all the NPC rules from DM Yourself here, but the summary is: talk through the start of the interaction; decide if it counts as Persuasion, Intimidation or Deception; work out the DC for the roll; decide if you get Advantage or Disadvantage (potentially based on the reaction roll, but also due to other situational factors, bribes, etc.); depending on the success/failure and scale thereof, play out the rest of the conversation. If you have a successful conversation DC check with an NPC and there isn’t a Rumour table or similar in the adventure that explicitly tells you what information you’ve learned, you can instead make a note that you have an information token from that character (I normally just note this down as “Token:” followed by the NPC’s name). You can use this later in the adventure in two ways: •

To convert a piece of meta-knowledge from a spoiler into actual knowledge. For example, you accidently spot in the text that the Chancellor is the traitor, but normally your party could not act on this knowledge in-game (because it’s meta-knowledge that they don’t have). However, if you have Token: Royal Guard written on your character sheet from an 35

•

earlier interaction, you could now assume that the guard passed on his concerns about the Chancellor’s behaviour, and your party now legitimately knows the information from the spoiler. You have ‘used up’ the token – make sure you cross it off your character sheet. To give you a use of Hindsight in addition to the usual once-per-day. For example, after reading the boxed location text in a subterranean temple you forget to include “Search Altar” in your Binding Decision (note: remember, folks, always search the altar), and the full room description mentions that it can be moved, revealing some hidden stairs. Luckily you have a Token: Innkeeper from your visit to the nearby village the previous day. Normally this might seem like a stretch, but it did mention in the adventure that the Innkeeper had been there a long time and enjoyed talking to adventurers. Now you come to think of it, you recall that he mentioned the altar hid a secret… he must have heard about it from a previous explorer. Using the Hindsight rules you can now make a Perception check to try and find the stairs…

This is a rather neat system for dealing with at least some of the spoilers and hidden information you’ll inevitably come across when playing solo – basically, “How do I know this? Because someone told me about it previously”. However, it is also open to abuse, so you have to be disciplined about using it: • • • •

The system is only for situations where the adventure doesn’t already provide you with a Rumour table or similar. It only works in situations where it makes sense that the NPC you spoke to might have known about the information. You can never have more than one token from the same NPC, or more than three tokens in total at any one time. Each token is one-use only, and must be removed from your character sheet after use.

Getting Started and Overcoming Blocks It can be so difficult to actually pull the trigger and start an adventure – even playing solo there’s a lot of preparation to be done in terms of creating characters, and it can feel like a big undertaking. Even if you’ve already started an adventure, sometimes a difficult encounter can derail you and stop you from getting back to it for weeks or months, or might even cause you to abandon the adventure altogether. For example, I got blocked for several months while playing Rime of the Frostmaiden due to failing a single Stealth check on approaching a Duergar Outpost. I couldn’t work out what the guard would do, or how we were going to get into the fortress once the alarm had been raised – and also, having accidentally spotted spoilers for one of the rooms while I was trying to decide what the guards would do, I feared a TPK was looming… This section discusses this sort of problem and offers some techniques for getting past them. My day-job is as a video game designer, and there are some concepts from modern video games that can be useful in a discussion of how to get started on an adventure and how to continue with that adventure after a break. The first of these is the idea of the On-Ramp. This is the amount of time and effort it takes to get the game started – also known as “the Starbucks test”, or “Have I got time for a meaningful interaction in the time it takes the barista to make my macchiato?” For mobile games this means looking at the 36

loading time, how long the loading ‘splash screen’ is shown for, the time spent looking at the screen and choosing the particular mode you’re going to play in, that sort of thing. Solo roleplayers are not standing in a Starbucks queue so they may be a bit more forgiving, but it can still be off-putting if you know it’s going to take 15 minutes to find your dice, your dry-wipe map, the rulebooks, the adventure, and character sheets, and you can double that time if you’re using miniatures and terrain – you need to find all the right ones for your adventure, especially given that when you’re playing solo you may not know what’s coming up, so the temptation is to get lots of possible options prepared just in case. If your heart sinks at the prospect of finding all your solo RPG kit, it’s not surprising that you never play. So here are some tips to speed up your on-ramp: •

•

Keep everything (and I mean everything) together in one place. Resist the temptation to put your adventure back on the bookshelf, the dice you’ve been using back in your huge box of dice (everyone has one of these, right?). I fold up the character sheets and use them as a bookmark in my notebook. I put the notebook, the folded dry-wipe battle map and the adventure all together, along with DM Yourself, in a folder, with the dice bag on top. If you want to use minis, always keep your PC/Sidekick minis with your solo notebook and adventure. If you know something about the location you’re about to go into, or have an idea what enemies you’re likely to face, keep those minis in the same place too – do this at the end of the session in preparation for the next one rather than doing it at the start.

Another concept from video games is the idea of Session Length – how long, on average, a player plays the game for in one session. In many ways, though, it’s not the actual session length itself that’s important; rather, it’s the session-length promise – that is, “What is the minimum time in which I can have a meaningful game of this?” Many of the most successful mobile games have a very short session-length promise. A game of Candy Crush or my current personal favourite mobile game Brawl Stars can be over in literally two minutes. However, that short possible session-length – the promise – doesn’t mean that I only spend two minutes playing Brawl Stars; on the contrary, I can lose hours to it (sadly, the same is true of social media). The reason this is important is that at the beginning of an evening, with several hours of free time ahead of you, it can be difficult to make the decision in advance to spend all that time on one thing when nowadays we have so many things competing for our attention. My average session length for solo-roleplaying is two or three hours. In that time I could bingewatch several episodes of something on Netflix, or watch a film (or, more likely and much more sadly, fritter the evening away on social media or casual mobile games). Making the commitment to spend that time solo role-playing is a small but significant hurdle to get over. It’s not that I don’t want to do it, but it can feel like a big commitment to make at the start of the evening if I’m not entirely sure. This is where the promise of session-length comes in. It may well be that I spend the entire evening playing multiple games of a casual mobile game that only lasts a few minutes each – I’ve spent the same amount of time in total as I would have done on a solo-roleplaying session or watching a film, but it was the promise of a short session-length at the beginning of the evening that caught me.

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A quick on-ramp and the promise of a short session-length means that I am more likely to decide to get my dice out and spend some time solo roleplaying, rather than all the other alternate entertainment choices that vie for my attention. So now we’re going to look at ways of making the session-length promise more appealing. This doesn’t mean you can’t or won’t spend an entire evening solo roleplaying, but we want to be able to say you don’t have to and make it as easy as possible to commit to just a short session, even if you do sometimes end up playing for a long time. • •

•

Start the session just planning to do one encounter and/or location. If that first encounter/location is not a big finale or boss fight, try using the Story mode rules on pg. 49-60 – this means you may well be able to deal with an entire encounter in under ten minutes, so you’ll have plenty of time to move on to the next location and play that. At that point you can decide to stay in Story mode, or go back to ‘normal’ play. Put a time limit on things (and actually use a timer). Plan to play for half an hour; you may play for a lot longer, but you can make that decision when the timer goes off. You don’t need to make it at the start of play.

I cannot over-emphasise how important this promise of session-length is – it makes such a difference, and you will play solo so much more often if you believe that you don’t have to play for several hours (even if you do sometimes end up doing so!). The next video game concept is to attend to your Off-Ramp. When you pack away at the end of the last session there are various things you can do to prepare yourself for the next session to ensure that you start quickly and get straight into the adventure: •

•

Use bookmarks. Really, use lots of bookmarks. Bookmark where you are in your notebook/journal, if you’re about to have a fight leave a bookmark at the relevant page of the monster manual – but most importantly, make sure that you bookmark exactly where you are in the adventure (both location text and map), and then make a note, either on the bookmark itself or in your solo roleplaying notebook/journal, exactly what location you are at, what the situation is, what just happened and what you plan to do next. You want to be able to open your role-playing kit, get your books out, read those four lines and roll a dice. From start to finish you should be up and playing within a couple of minutes. Keep all your stuff for solo play together, as described in the section on the on-ramp.

One final video game concept is the Return Hook. This is the equivalent of the old saying “Never go to bed angry”. There are several things you can do here: •

• •

The first is to give yourself something to look forward to on your return, rather than leaving yourself a difficult situation to come back to (like my earlier example from RotFM). Leave the game at an exciting cliffhanger – it’s great to start a new session with an Initiative roll! If you’re levelling up, leave that exciting reward as an incentive for the start of the next session. Always know how you are going to start the next session, and write that down on your bookmark and/or in your notebook. To borrow another term from video games, you can use an appointment mechanic: give yourself a point of inspiration if you play again within a week – or, even better, make a note

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on your calendar of when you’re next playing, just as you might do with your non-solo roleplaying group. Oh, and the block on Rime of the Frostmaiden I mentioned at the start of this section? I decided to just plough through to at least the next room, no matter what. The guard took a shot (he just missed) and sounded the alarm. That meant the main doors were closed, but we found another way in. The big fight was close, but we just about avoided a TPK (and we could have used Plot Armour even if it had happened). Afterwards, I wondered why it had taken me so long, and realised that it had been the thought of having to work through it, rather than the actual solo play (which is always fun once you get going).

Enemy Combat AI Example Some readers of DM Yourself asked for a more detailed example of the AI system and how to use the combat tables from the first book. In this example we’re going to go through a combat with our PC (Fidel) and Sidekick (Drumm), who have walked into a room with eight Kobolds. Normally, if no detailed description is given in the adventure we assume that the enemies are in the centre of the location, but in this example we’re going to treat the position of the enemies as shown on the map. F and D show the positions of Fidel and Drumm. Ka, Kb, etc. show the positions of the Kobolds when the combat starts. We’re going to assume that the Kobolds have got the highest initiative roll. Trigger

General

If low hp

Disengage/Dash, move away

If within melee+ If within ranged+ Otherwise

Move to nearest, melee Move to optimal, ranged Dash, move towards

There are AI combat tables with behaviours for over 35 different monsters in the Appendix of DM Yourself. This book has the basic AI combat table on pg. 87, and the general AI column is reproduced on this page for ease of reference. Each round, on each enemy’s Initiative you start at the top of the Trigger column and go down until the ‘trigger’ is true. Then, read across to the appropriate column to see what the enemy does that turn. If multiple triggers are true for an enemy, only act on the first one.

Note: see pg. 24 for explanation of melee+, ranged+, optimal. “/” means OR, “,” means AND THEN Some things to remember: if you’re using only one or two PCs and a single Sidekick, the adventure difficulty is reduced. This means that enemies have ¾ of their normal (stat block) hit points (rounded up), and enemies count as having “low hp” when they are reduced to a third or less of the hp they started the fight with. This means our Kobolds have 4hp, and are “low hp” when they only have 1hp! Normally you would work your way down the Trigger column for each enemy, one at a time. However, when dealing a lot of identical enemies it is quicker to go down the Trigger column once, and for each trigger check which enemies in the group that trigger is true for. That’s what we do in this example.

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Round 1: No Kobolds are injured yet, so we can ignore the first trigger, “If low hp”. The next trigger is “If within melee+”. This is true for four of the Kobolds – i.e. they can move close enough to carry out a melee attack. We read across to see what the enemy does: “Move to nearest, melee”. So, Kobolds Ka and Kb move to attack Fidel, while Kc and Kd attack Drumm. I find it is quicker when handling multiple attacks form identical enemies against the same target to roll all of them at once. So, I roll two d20 for the melee attacks against Fidel (one hits for 4 points – always use the enemies’ average damage rather than rolling) and two for the attacks against Drumm (both miss). We move down to the next trigger, “If within ranged+” – this is true for six of the Kobolds, but Ka, Kb, Kc, and Kd have already acted on a trigger so we ignore them and just deal with the other two. Reading across, they “Move to optimal, ranged”. Ke and Kf are not within ranged weapon range yet, so they move until they are and get behind the cover offered by the tables. “Ranged” means they shoot at Fidel and Drumm respectively – and both hit. We go down to the final trigger “Otherwise” – this applies to any enemy for which none of the other triggers are true, in this case Kg and Kh. They “Dash, move towards”, which means they move 60’ towards the party. Now our heroes fight back: Fidel’s attack misses, but Drumm hits, killing Kc and cleaving into Kd, reducing it to a single hitpoint. Round 2: Each round we start again at the top of the triggers. “If low hp” is true for Kd, so he Disengages and moves away as far as possible from Drumm (if he hadn’t been engaged with an enemy he would have Dashed and moved away instead). All the other Kobolds are now within melee+ range, so they will move (if necessary) into melee range and attack. Fidel now has four Kobolds on him, Drumm has two… things are looking serious! We’ll leave the example at this point. The remaining Kobolds are all within melee+ range, so they will fight until they die or run away (or defeat the party). Enemies using the basic AI combat rules aren’t 40

particularly intelligent or distinctive, but it gets the job done (and means you don’t have to make time-consuming or possibly biased decisions about what the enemies will do). The full combat AI tables in DM Yourself give much more characterful and interesting behaviour (e.g. Kobolds are more cowardly and only melee attack in swarms), but are still predictable. However, if you do want your combat to have a few more surprises, you can use the optional rules in the next section…

Combat Development I have tried to make the combat AI as light-touch as possible – partly because I don’t want to mess with adventures as written, but also because I don’t want to add yet more rolls to combat resolution. However, I do realise that the DM Yourself combat AI is completely deterministic, which can make enemies feel too predictable – so here are some optional rules you can use if you want your combat to have a few more surprises (warning: this does also make combat more ‘swingy’ and potentially more deadly). I’m not going to give random tactics for the entire fight, because usually the adventure will specify how enemies will generally react. Instead, these rules offer unexpected developments during the combat. At the start of each combat round, roll a d20. If you roll equal to or less than the number of enemies in the combat or roll a natural 20, there is a Combat Development. If your roll was equal to or less than the number of enemies, the number determines the individual enemy that behaves differently to normal – work out a numbering system for the enemies (e.g. left-to-right, top-to-bottom of the map; it doesn’t matter what your system is as long as you’re consistent). If you rolled a natural 20 a whole group of enemies behaves differently (a ‘group’ is basically all the enemies of one type in the combat). If there is more than one group in the combat, randomly determine which one is affected. Put a marker on the battle-map to remind you which individual or group is affected. When it comes to their turn to act in initiative order, they do something different as rolled on the table below – if it’s a group, you roll once on the table below and they all do that thing. Roll a d20: d20

Viewpoint

Description

1

Flee Forever

Leave the room if able, and never come back

2

Flee for Help

Leave the room if able, and return with nearby allies (if any)

3

Flee to Cover

Flee to find cover nearby, and Hide if possible

4-5

Fire from Ranged

Move to range (optimal if possible), use best ranged attack/spell

6-7

Go Hand-to-Hand

Move to nearest opponent, use best melee attack/spell

8

Grapple

Move to nearest opponent, grapple them

9

Use the Environment

Push opponent off cliff, cut rope bridge, roll rocks down, etc.

10-11 Help Ally

Use the Help action to aid nearest, most powerful ally

12-13 Crowd Control

Use a spell or ability that has an area of effect, or multiple targets

14

Kill the Tank

Attack nearest Barbarian/Fighter/Paladin/Warrior

15

Kill the Healer

Attack nearest Cleric/Druid/Bard/Spellcaster:Healer

16-17 Kill the Magic-User 18

Kill the Scout

19-20 Kill the Weakest

Attack nearest Sorcerer/Warlock/Wizard/Spellcaster:non-Healer Attack nearest Ranger/Rogue/Monk/Expert Attack the opponent with the least hp, including those on zero 41

Some notes on the table: •

•

•

•

Enemies that aren’t subject to a Combat Development behave normally according to the combat AI rules. The same is true for enemies that can’t carry out the behaviour listed (e.g. because there’s no nearby enemy to Help, they don’t have a weapon to attack from the stated range, there’s nothing in the environment they can use to hurt the party, or they don’t have an area-of-effect or multiple target spell or ability). An enemy carrying out a Combat Development behaviour does that instead of its usual action for this round. Ignore Flee results for ‘bosses’, enemies that never flee normally, like Undead or Elementals, and enemies that haven’t been damaged yet. Enemies that do Flee will Disengage if they need to and can do so as a bonus action; otherwise they will just move away (potentially suffering an Attack of Opportunity) and Dash to get as far away as possible (or into cover if that result was rolled). Unless the ‘Flee Forever’ result was rolled, the enemy will behave normally in future turns once they have found what they were looking for (allies or cover). Enemies that are currently in melee combat and are moving to a new range or target will Disengage if they need to and can do so as a bonus action; otherwise they will just move away (potentially suffering an Attack of Opportunity) and then attack from their new position. If performing one of the “Kill the…” behaviours, they will use either a ranged or melee attack depending on which does more damage and whether they can get there. If you are using the Sidekick and/or PC Emulation rules, you can also make a Combat Development d20 roll for your party. In this case, only count emulated party members when making the roll, and if you get a natural 20 all emulated party members are considered to be part of the same group. For “Kill the…” behaviours you will have to make a judgement as to which enemies best fit each category. Party members that ‘Flee Forever’ using these rules return after the end of combat.

Combat Efficiency Three tips on making combat more efficient: •

•

•

For simpler, small-scale battles, if you have a fine-tipped dry-wipe pen and a clear acetate or plastic sheet, you can place the sheet over the map in the adventure itself and mark the positions of the party and enemies directly on that, rather than having to copy out the room onto a battle map (put a sheet of paper over the acetate when you close the book, to protect the facing page). If you’re using a computer, my new favourite VTT is owlbear.rodeo – it’s just so quick and easy to use compared to other systems. It may not have as many flashy features, but if all you want to do is load up a scenario map, move some markers about to track player/enemy positions, roll some dice and keep track of hit points etc., as you would on a dry-wipe map, it’s perfect. Top tip: in settings, set Fog Edit Opacity to 95%, then use the fog tool to cover the entire map. Enable Fog Cutting and then use the Fog Polygon or Rectangle tool to uncover the map as you explore. Also, for simple battles you can just use theatre of the mind. All you need to keep track of is how far away the enemies are (and, optionally, cover), rather than worrying about exact positions. Though this technique is not so useful if combat involves area-of-effect spells

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and/or breath-weapons, there is some excellent advice that covers this, and theatre of the mind play in general, in Sly Flourish’s Guide to Narrative Combat. If you really want to speed up combat, you can use the system described on pg. 49-60.

Experiments with Time and Space In this section we look at ways of playing with the conventional viewpoints and timings of RPGs to give a more varied, cinematic feel to encounters and to change the pacing so as to emphasise the exciting, epic highlights and skip over the dull bits in between.

Viewpoints, Scenes and Other Film Techniques When you play a roleplaying game, are you looking out of your character’s eyes? I talk a lot about immersion and getting inside the head of your character, and instinctively it feels like the best (only?) way to be truly immersed in a character is to be inside their head and see things through their eyes. However, the superiority of the first-person perspective is not as clear-cut as it might seem. Let’s forget RPGs for a moment and think about other storytelling media. The majority of novels are written in the third person rather than the first, and yet this can be an incredibly immersive medium (I would argue more so than any other), where you can have great insight into the thoughts of the main character and see the world from their perspective. Some authors switch between viewpoints, although this takes some skill – fantasy author Joe Abercrombie sometimes fluidly switches between third- and first-person in the same paragraph! Video games sometimes use the first-person perspective, but this is almost exclusively in the genre of First-Person Shooters (there are a handful of non-shooter first-person games, but often the character you are playing in such games is a cypher without any obvious character to speak of – e.g. Portal, Witness). In TV and film the first-person perspective (also called point-of-view – POV – or subjective camera) is almost unheard of; Peep Show is an exception that proves the rule here (the wonderful original UK version, that is, not the astonishingly awful US remake). So why is the use of first-person generally so unusual, when we’re so keen to get inside characters’ heads and it’s such an effective storytelling technique? I think there are two reasons. First, when reading/watching an exciting narrative it is often useful to have knowledge above and beyond what the main character knows – we know that the killer is waiting in the cellar, but our hero is ignorant of the fact, and that knowledge adds to the tension and excitement as we watch the scene unfold. Second, seeing the character (or, in a novel, having the character’s appearance or expression described to us) gives us a sense of that character. In real life we know who we are (to some extent at least!) and we inhabit our character by being them, but in fiction we inhabit a character by seeing them. When playing an RPG, how often do you think about what your character looks like? If you’re not careful to pay attention to this sort of thing, your character can end up being little more than a collection of stats.

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It is unsurprising that the over-the-shoulder third-person perspective has become the most common view in modern video games. We see the world in front of our character, and see what they see, but we also see our character in that world. We are reminded of what they look like, what they’re wearing and what equipment they’re using – and when they get better armour and weapons as we level up, we see those changes too. Your use of the Viewpoint table presented here is optional. You may not want to do it in every location, but it is a very useful technique to make scenes memorable, adding dynamism and drama to your adventure, so I’d recommend doing it every few locations and certainly for the big setpieces. As with the Immersion Table, using the Viewpoint table is an exercise in mindfulness – by considering the viewpoint and focussing on an aspect of the scene, you force yourself to be present at the scene rather than falling into the all-too-easy trap of just reading location descriptions and rolling dice. The best and most memorable stories are emergent rather than told in big text-block chunks of narrative. Roll a d20 for Viewpoint. By default, the subject and focus of attention is you and/or your party, but if you want to randomise things, roll a d6 – 1/2 it’s you, 3/4 it’s your Sidekick, 5/6 it’s an enemy/NPC. d20 Viewpoint

Description

1-2

First Person/ Point-of-View

The view through a character’s eyes.

3-4

Extreme Close-Up

Just the face, or even just a part of the face (or hands or an object)

5-6

Cowboy Shot

From the top of the head to below the hips – faces and weapons

7-8

Full Shot

From head to toe – single character, or the whole party

9-10 Over-the-Shoulder

Video-game viewpoint – the subject and the scene in front of them

11

High Angle

Looking down on the scene from high behind the subject

12

Low Angle/ Ground Level

Looking up at the subject from a low or ground-level viewpoint

13

Overhead

Looking directly down on the whole scene – the VTT view

14

Establishing Shot

The empty stage – the location before the party enters

15

Long/Wide/ Extreme Wide Shot

The party against the backdrop of the entire dramatic location

16

Deep Focus

Something or someone in the background is significant…

17

Tracking

Following the subject as they move through the environment

18

Symmetry

A moment of symmetry caught in time, or an architectural feature

19

Three-Colour Palette

The scene reduced to just three colours – but what three?

20

Special Effects

Light and magic – a scene frozen in time or by evocative lighting

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First Person/Point-of-View – this is the view through a character’s eyes. In some ways this is the most immersive view; you’ll see your hands and the items you’re holding and whatever you’re looking at in the scene beyond. Bear in mind that you’ll see only what your character can see – your vision may well be restricted if you’re wearing a helmet, and your viewpoint might be considerably lower (if you’re a Halfling or Gnome) or higher (if you’re a Goliath) than you’re used to. Most of the time, this will be the first-person view from your character, but it may also be ‘first-person peripheral’ – i.e. the view through the eyes of a Sidekick, NPC or enemy (probably looking at you but possibly looking at, say, the trap that you’re about to walk into). Seeing the main character through the eyes of an unknown, hidden observer is also a common TV/cinema trope, but it can be used to good effect when you’ve accidentally spotted in the full location description text that you’re about to face some enemies in combat, but you don’t know their details yet (especially if you’ve just failed a Stealth or Perception check!). Extreme Close-Up – rather than the scene itself, this viewpoint focusses on a person’s face and their reaction to the scene (the end of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly). It will usually be your PC’s face, but could be the face of your Sidekick or a significant NPC or enemy. With an extreme close-up, you are looking just at the anger, fear or bewilderment in a character’s eyes (often used in Tarantino films) or their mouth as they utter profanities or profundities (the famous “Rosebud” scene in Citizen Kane). It’s worth really leaning into this viewpoint – we all know what an Orc looks like in the Monster Manual or as a miniature, but what do Orag Axebiter’s eyes look like as they flash anger? We know he has fangs, but how does his lip curl in disdain? Does he have stubble, pox-marks, laughlines? For your own character or Sidekick, this is a chance to fill in details: you know their race, class and gender, you know what armour they’re wearing and what weapons they’re carrying, you probably know their height and hair colour, but have you thought about the shape of their nose or chin, the expressiveness (or lack thereof) of their face, their complexion and eye-colour? Close-ups don’t have to be just faces – again, Tarantino uses them a lot for significant actions or items. For our purposes, this might be might be the gloved hand going for the hilt of a poisoned dagger, the glint of a gemstone on a magical ring, or the intricate movements of a Bard’s fingers as she casts Sleep. Cowboy Shot – taking its name from the view commonly used in Westerns, this viewpoint goes from the top of the character’s head to just below the hips. Basically, we want to see the faces and weapons (Pulp Fiction), fists (Fight Club, Batman) or super-powers (just about every DC/Marvel film ever) of our hero. This is a great heroic viewpoint for roleplaying too, especially for combat situations – you’re close enough to see the emotion in the character’s face (or faces if you’ve got the whole party in shot or you’re looking at an Ettin), but far enough away to see the action. Full Shot – this is a full-body shot, from head to toe, of the character, Sidekick, NPC or enemy. It’s also good for a group shot, and it’s great for visualising full-body action for feats of acrobatics or athletics, high-speed moves or combat. However, it’s not so good for capturing the participants’ faces or emotions. Over-the-Shoulder – this is the typical video game third-person view, and is so popular for the reasons outlined earlier – you get to see both your character and the view that they see in front of them. It’s a bit more personal than the high-angle view, but you don’t get such a strategic sense of the scene.

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High Angle – many role-players I’ve talked to say this (or the Overhead view described below) is their default viewpoint when imagining themselves in a scene. I think this comes from using a battle map and miniatures – although we may visualise a much more complete scene than the battle map shows, filling in details from the location description, nevertheless we are still using the same viewpoint that we have when looking at the map and miniatures on the tabletop. The trouble is, this is not a very immersive viewpoint – to some extent you are detached and floating above the scene rather than being in it. However, it can be very useful to get a strategic sense of the movement and ebb and flow of a large combat. Low Angle/Ground Shot – in cinema these are usually seen as empowering shots, looking up at the heroic character from a low vantage point. However, we can also use them to highlight something significant in the foreground – the trapped flagstone that awaits the unobservant PC, the twitching finger of the ‘corpse’ on the floor. Overhead – this is like High Angle above, only more so. The viewer is looking directly down on the scene, with the party and enemies like pieces on a board. This is even less immersive that the High Angle viewpoint, but is easy to fall back on if you’re not engaged with the scene. Establishing Shot – an Establishing Shot basically sets the scene for what is to follow – for solo roleplaying, this is usually the (possibly empty) room where the action is about to take place. It gives you a chance to visualise the room in isolation – water dripping from the ceiling, dusty cobwebs and undisturbed tombs, or if it’s a ‘working’ dungeon then maybe there are guards relaxing, laughing and arguing over a game of dice – before the players enter and all hell breaks loose. Long/Wide/Extreme Wide Shot – shows the character and the location around them – basically, the whole scene in one shot. Although it’s not great for immersion, because we can’t really see the details of the characters’ faces, this is a useful viewpoint for scenes where the location itself is the star of the show. Extreme Wide Shots are used to show the heroes dwarfed by their environment, usually shot from high up – the scenes in Lord of the Rings after the Fellowship leaves Rivendell, and again as they try to go over the pass of Caradhras in the Misty Mountains; or the vehicles next to the endless wall of dust cloud in Mad Max: Fury Road. This is generally not a useful shot for interior scenes, but is great for wilderness adventures (and can work in urban environments, too). Deep Focus – much used in Citizen Kane. While our attention is on the main players in the foreground something significant or interesting is happening in the background, behind the main focus of the scene. It may just be that stray Zombie who looks a bit like your aunt, the one Bugbear at the back that has a look of fear in his eyes rather than focussed rage, the lone Kobold who runs for help while the rest pelt you with slingstones. Or it might be something in the environment itself – the portcullis closing, sealing you in; the door opening to admit more enemies; the magical glow of a significant weapon in the Dragon’s treasure hoard; the huge cracked stalactite in the cavern’s roof above its head. Tracking Shot – this is where the viewpoint follows a particular character as they travel through the scene, either from behind (in a sort of dynamic over-the-shoulder view) or in parallel with them from the side. This can be a great way of conveying a sense of movement – a Ranger running through the forest tracking a group of Goblins, a Monk darting from enemy to enemy making unarmed strikes and deflecting missiles. 46

Symmetry – much loved by Wes Anderson, or if you want a less arty reference, Aragorn throwing open the doors as he enters Helm’s Deep. Perhaps it is the view from behind your tiny Halfling Rogue, dagger in each hand, looking up at an Ogre framed in silhouette in the doorway, or you and your Sidekick back-to-back fighting against a tide of Skeletons, or an altar bearing a single glowing arcane light illuminating the grand architecture of a forgotten temple. The symmetry of a scene, whether it is momentary or timeless, can make it more interesting and memorable. Three-Colour Palette – I must admit I’ve been a bit obsessed with this one since I started using it. It first came to me when I was writing an adventure set in a stretch of secluded snowbound woodland, and I realised that in my mind’s eye the scene was reduced to just three colours – the white of the snow drifts and the snow-laden skies, the black of the winter trees, and the red of the berries and the blood in the snow. It’s a way of making a simple scene individual, evocative and vivid, and is not as restrictive as it may first seem. A farming village, surrounded by wheatfields in the golden-hour of an autumn sunset: brown, orange and yellow. A moorland and rolling hills on a glorious, cloudless summer’s day: green, purple and blue. Special Effects – this could be a Matrix-style freeze frame, complete darkness or spectacular coloured lighting and shadows from a big spell effect, or any one of a number of lighting effects – ‘god rays’ (known as Volumetric Lighting in video games), dust motes, sparkles on moving water, black and white monochromatic moonlight, etc.

Montage Another technique we can borrow from film as a way of breaking away from always being in linear time is the montage. In film, a montage is a series of images edited together to create a continuous sequence that conveys a large amount of information and/or a long timescale in a short span of time. Some great examples are the training montage in Rocky, PC Angel’s backstory in Hot Fuzz, and the ‘planning’ sequence in Shaun of the Dead. Sometimes when roleplaying you want to skip the tedious details and just get the highlights. Personally, I find this can be particularly true for certain aspects of adventuring: travelling, killing time in town, and exploring locations where you find yourself in a “maze of twisty little passages, all alike”. These examples are, of course, just my own personal bugbears – the things that I find tedious. If you enjoy hexmapping your journey and rolling every few hours for a random encounter, don’t let me stop you – but if you find that these situations can distract from the story (or if you have your own equivalent parts of play that you’d like to avoid), here are some ideas for how to do it. The summary is the same for all situations: think of between 3 and 5 important scenes (the highlights) for the time-period you want to cover with your montage, and then for each of those scenes make an Immersion roll, Ability (Skill) DC check and/or Oracle roll. Use Immersion rolls to set the scene and give life to your narrative, Oracle rolls for situations where you don’t know the outcome, and Ability/Skill checks for known challenges to be overcome or ones revealed by the Oracle roll. At least one of your scenes will be the ‘start’ and one the ‘end’. The number and nature of the scenes in between will depend on context. Let’s look at some examples. The DMG does devote half a page to the idea of a travel montage (pg. 106), and this is certainly worth reading, but it is really about how to produce evocative description as a GM rather than any rules on how to actually play out the montage. 47

Using our montage system here, we would have one scene at the start for setting out, and one scene at the end for arriving at our destination. If we were leaving and arriving at safe towns during daylight, we would probably only make Immersion rolls for the beginning and end of our journey. If we were leaving the city as fugitives, say, then we’d use an Oracle roll to see if we were recognised and challenged on our way out. If were arriving at a fortified border town where we knew we’d have to scale the walls to get in, then we’d have to make a suitable DC Athletics or Acrobatics check at our journey’s end. As for the number and nature of the scenes along the way, this largely depends on how the journey or region is described in the adventure. If it’s a long hazardous journey through bandit territory and along icy, precipitous mountain paths, you’ll probably need three scenes along the way – one for an environmental hazard, one for a combat encounter, and one for an interaction with an interesting location or NPC. Note that your adventure will probably tell you the likelihood of such encounters (and this may be 100%, in which case you can dispense with the Oracle and play out the encounter in full), and it may also give you details of the sorts of things you will find, but you will still probably need to fill in the odd gap. The important thing here is that you end up with an interesting, immersive narrative montage with a few rolls that takes ten to twenty minutes to work through, rather than a tedious journey that eats up a whole session. Downtime while waiting for something to happen or between quests and ‘uninteresting’ exploration (a throwaway ‘the players search the cave system for the missing children’ without any map being shown in the adventure) can be handled in a similar way. Work out the scenes that mark the beginning and end of your time, work out one to three scenes in between, then make a few rolls and form a narrative that links the montage together. In the example with the children mentioned above, if the adventure mentions that caves are full of spiders and perilous drops, you might include scenes involving an Oracle roll for the first – “Do we encounter the spiders?” – and a DC 10 group Athletics/Acrobatics check for the second, then another Oracle roll for “Do we find the children?”. The adventure is likely to give you pointers on how likely it is that you encounter the spiders and/or find the children, and you can use these as factors to give yourself advantage/disadvantage/bonuses on the rolls. However, while montage can give us a way of cutting out some of the more uninteresting bits of the adventure, it’s really combat that takes up the time. If only there was some way of shortening that…

Illustration adapted from Windsor McCay’s Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend (1905)

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DM Yourselves Story Mode Sometimes you want the story but without playing out every scene turn-by-turn. This section suggests a way to play in a more casual, zoomed-out mode by dropping the detailed combat and using only a few dice rolls to resolve each room. You can drop in and out of Story Mode whenever you like – but the general idea is that you use the system described here for running combats, and play the rest of the game as normal. I wanted to create this fast combat mode for a couple of reasons: partly out of frustration that, even though solo is quicker than ‘normal’ roleplaying, it could still easily take an hour to resolve a complex combat encounter in DM Yourself; and partly because of wanting to more fully explore some of the concepts from ‘casual’ video games discussed earlier. Although there are supposed to be three pillars of adventuring in 5e – exploration, social interaction, and combat – I find that in ‘normal’ (i.e. non-solo) play the time spent on (and xp rewards for) the three pillars splits roughly 15% exploration, 35% social and 50% combat. In solo play the situation is even more unbalanced – because of the reduced role of social interaction and in-party banter, and the overhead of managing both the GM role and multiple characters, combat takes up at least 75% of the total play-time. For this reason, Story Mode concentrates on massively speeding up combat, so that you can spend more time focussing on immersion and narrative. There are (at least) five ways you can use Story Mode: 1. Use it for every combat in your game. Like a casual game on your phone, this means you can have a meaningful solo play session in 15 to 20 minutes. I find that using Story Mode reduces play-time by 65-75%, so an adventure that would normally take 3 to 4 hours can be completed in under an hour, and a campaign that might otherwise be played out over several months can be finished in a few weeks instead. 2. You want to play normally most of the time, but avoid the ‘boring’ combats. You know the sort of thing I mean – when you’ve finished the big quest, but your heart sinks when your roll shows a wilderness encounter on your journey home, and then sinks further when it shows a group of a dozen Orcs. You know you’ll win the fight, but it’s going to add another half-hour to your session just when you thought you were done. (Note that if you were actually GMing this for a group of players, you’d fudge the roll at this point – nothing ruins the climactic ending of a quest like having to fight some random trash mobs on the way home. There’s a reason why the army of Sauron just falls into a big hole as soon as he is defeated!) The trouble is, when playing solo it can feel like cheating if you ignore the result of a roll, no matter how tedious that result might be. However, you should feel free to skip this sort of random encounter entirely if it makes for a better story. Even if you don’t skip it, using Story Mode means you can resolve the combat in a couple of minutes rather than half an hour. 3. You want to play in Story Mode most of the time, as a way of getting through the story quickly, but you don’t want to miss out on the epic stuff, so you switch back to normal play mode for the big set-pieces and boss fights. You could even just play out just the encounters that look particularly interesting after reading the boxed location description. 4. You are having difficulty getting started or are stuck/blocked (pg. 36-39) on an encounter because you’re not sure how to play it out solo. In this situation Story Mode can be really 49

useful to speed through that opening sequence or difficult encounter and get the adventure moving again. 5. You want to level a character up quickly (a lot of people, like me, prefer not to just start a character at high level – this system gives you a way of racing through their earlier career).

In this mode’s zoomed-out play we take a step or two back from the usual RPG timescales, grain-size magnification and viewpoint. Using this system an entire combat encounter can be resolved in just a few rolls. Obviously, in doing this we lose a lot of the fine detail and control that we would normally have, but in return we get a system that’s perfect for playing an adventure as an interactive narrative – the equivalent of a video game’s easy or story difficulty level. We may not experience every swing of the sword, every Fire Bolt or Perception check, but we do get the edited highlights – basically all the story beats you’d include if you were recounting your adventures in the tavern afterwards. The difference here is in the level of detail. We still need highlights and narrative – the epic fights are a huge part of an adventure story – so we want to know what happened in the combat rather than just whether we won or lost. However, we don’t need the detail of normal RPG play, where the narrative is literally blow-by-blow (like a combat in a Joe Abercrombie novel). Our zoomed-out system is at the tavern/campfire story level – we only describe the events that make a difference – for example, killing blows, critical hits/successes and misses/fails, big moves, big spells, special attacks and near-death experiences. Here’s a summary of how the Story Mode system works, before we move on to the details: Instead of playing out a combat encounter, you make a series of modified death saving throws, where you roll a d20 and need to score 10 or more to succeed. Three successes means you have defeated the enemies; three failures means your party is defeated. However, unlike a normal death saving throw, you can add modifiers to your d20 roll. You have a number of Moves representing your best abilities and spells – five that renew on a Short Rest and give a +1 bonus, and five that renew on a Long Rest and give +3. You also have five consumable magic slots for items such as potions and scrolls that give +2. You may specify one Move before you roll the d20 (this is called a planned move) and one Move after the d20 roll, once you have seen the result (this is called an improvised move). You may also use one consumable magic item before the roll and one after – the items are, of course, used up. There are also other factors, which will be discussed later, that may give Advantage or Disadvantage on this roll (or, possibly, on every roll in the encounter). Bonuses from Moves don’t improve as you level up. This is because the system relies on one important assumption: you are playing level-appropriate adventures, where the challenge rating of encounters is suitable for your party. The system assumes that a level 5 party in a level 5 adventure is going to have roughly the same chance of survival as a level 15 party in a level 15 adventure. You should still use all the normal DM Yourself rules as you go through the dungeon– i.e. still read the boxed location text, make Binding Decisions, make Immersion rolls, use Hero’s Luck or Plot Armour if you need to, make DC skill checks as mentioned in the adventure, and so on. When I talk about “staying in Story Mode” I mean that you’re playing normally but using this system for combat. 50

Story Mode Moves are an abstraction – they do not directly represent the amount of damage caused or healed by a particular spell or ability. Rather, they represent the significant influence that spell or ability has on the course of the encounter. Also, there must always be a justification or narrative for how the Move could possibly affect the encounter – if you can’t come up with one, you can’t make that Move! The system given here uses a couple of concepts from 5th Edition, so I will summarise them here in case you’re not familiar with them. •

•

Death Saving Throw – at the start of a combat turn when you have 0 hp or below, roll a d20. If the result is 10 or higher you succeed, otherwise you fail. On the third success you stabilise and are out of danger, on the third failure you are dead – either way, you stop making death saving throws. These successes or failures do not have to be consecutive, and do not cancel each other out, so you will never have to make more than five rolls. Advantage and Disadvantage – if you have Advantage on a roll, you roll two dice and take the higher as your result. If you have Disadvantage on a roll, you roll two dice and take the lower as your result. Advantage and Disadvantage cancel each other out (even if you have more factors giving you Advantage than Disadvantage or vice versa). The Advantage system is incredibly flexible and is one of the best mechanisms in 5e. However, if you’re strictly old school and don’t approve of rolling more than one d20, instead you can roll a single d20 and add +5 if you’ve got Advantage and -5 if you’ve got Disadvantage.

Rules for Story Mode Play Setup Copy the Story Mode play sheet in the appendix pg. 85 – it is highly recommended that you make a laminated copy of this sheet and use counters or a dry-wipe marker to indicate used Moves, or, failing that, use a pencil to fill in a paper copy. You will be making a lot of alterations to this sheet. You won’t be needing the dry-wipe combat map or minis, so you can put those away – Story Mode is strictly theatre of the mind. Used Bonus Short Rest Moves

+1 +1 +1 +1 +1 No. Location (Immersion Roll)

Used Bonus Long Rest Moves

Used Bonus Consumable Magic

+3 +3 +3 +3 +3

+2 +2 +2 +2 +2

Binding Decision (Notes)

Successes/Fails

 /   /   /   /   / 

1 2 3 4 5 Story Mode Moves and Magic Sheet

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This sheet is shared by the whole party. For each of the five Short Rest moves fill in an attack, trait, ability or spell that might be used in combat – normally these will be things that would refresh on a Short Rest (this makes bookkeeping easier if you’re switching back and forth between Story and normal play modes), but this is not essential. For example, it’s fine to add your main melee attack weapon here. Now do the same with Long Rest moves. It’s okay to have a Move listed more than once if you have several uses of that spell or ability – e.g. Bardic Inspiration or Rage. Finally, fill in up to five consumable magic items – such as potions or scrolls, or charges on a limited-use magic item such as a Necklace of Fireballs – that could be used in a combat situation. These items must be of a rarity suitable for the party tier (DMG: pg. 36-38) or greater, as follows: Tier 1 (levels 1-4) Common; Tier 2 (levels 5-10) Uncommon; Tier 3 (levels 11-16) Rare; Tier 4 (levels 17-20) Very Rare. Story Mode is only for combat – whether you choose to record the Location, Immersion Roll, Binding Decision and Notes on the sheet is entirely optional, but it does provide you with a useful summary of what happened, and will help a great deal if you want to write it up afterwards. However, only the successes and fails are necessary for resolving the encounter. Here’s an example of what the completed table might look like during the course of play: Used Bonus Short Rest Moves

  

+1 +1 +1 +1 +1



Vicious Mockery Mace of Disruption Longbow Second Wind Savage Attacks

No. Location (Immersion Roll)

1 2 3 4 5

Campsite (5) Night Encounter (2) Raging River (4) Temple Statue Room (2)

Used Bonus Long Rest Moves

  

+3 +3 +3 +3 +3

Bardic Inspiration Bardic Inspiration Hellish Rebuke Faerie Fire Relentless Endur.

Used Bonus Consumable Magic

 

+2 +2 +2 +2 +2

Potion of Healing Potion of Healing Potion of Speed Scroll of Fireball

Binding Decision (Notes)

Successes/Fails

Attack (Stone Warriors, 3 lucky rolls) Camp, Watch, Long Rest (Single Warrior – easy) Cross Bridge (Fail! Crocodiles! Healed afterward) Examine Statues (Surprised by Ghouls!)

 /   /   /   /   / 

There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s go through some obvious questions. •

If all Short Rest Moves give +1, why even bother filling in what attack, ability or spell they represent? Two reasons: first, it gives you a narrative for your highlight – you know it was, say, your Savage Attacks that drove the enemies back; and second, you need to know exactly what spell or ability you use because it’s possible your, say, Fireball will give you advantage (against a Mummy) or can’t be used at all (against a Red Dragon).

•

I use my Mace of Disruption for every attack normally, so why can I only use its bonus once per Short Rest? The bonus for your magic weapon (or any other item or ability) is an indication of the amount of influence it has in a fight. Remember, a roll in Story Mode is not an attack roll – it is a summary of the highlights of the actions of all party members over the course of several rounds. However, it’s worth remembering with weapons like these that they might give you Advantage on the roll where you use them as your Move (in this case, if the opponent was vulnerable to radiant damage), and if you really want to you can list the weapon attack more than once on your Moves list.

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•

We have a whole party attacking, how come we can only do one or two Moves per roll? This is similar to the answer above. It may seem odd that you only make one or two Moves per roll – after all, every member of the party will be fighting, shooting or firing off spells – but all those things go into the base d20 roll itself. The Move signifies the one action that really made the difference – the critical hit with maximum damage, the Fireball where all the enemies failed their Dexterity saving throws.

•

Bless lasts for the whole encounter – why does it only give me a bonus on one roll? As with the answer to the question above – Bless may be active all the time, but the Move indicates the rounds or the part of the combat where it really made a difference (turning misses into hits, and failed saves into successful ones).

•

I’m a Warlock and get my spells back after a short rest, what do I put as my Long Moves? You can still put those spells on your Long Move list. The spell’s presence on that list represents the time you cast it and rolled a critical, or maximum damage, or all enemies failed their saves. In fact, it’s fine for the same Move appear on both the Short and Long Rest Move lists, but if a move is on the Long Rest Move list you can only refresh it on that list after a Long Rest, even if the spell would normally refresh after a Short Rest. However, if you have a lot of spells on your Move lists, make sure you don’t exceed your number of spell slots.

•

I’m not playing 5e – how do I use Story Mode if the system I’m using doesn’t have Long and Short Rests? Assign five weaker spells/abilities as Short Rest Moves, and five stronger spells/abilities as Long Rest Moves. Twice per day you can refresh your Short Rest Moves.

Encounter You should have done this already when you entered the location and read the boxed text, but if you haven’t done so, make a Binding Decision and Immersion roll now. The combat encounter is played out like an extended death saving throw sequence. You roll the d20 a number of times. If you roll a 10 or more, that’s a success. If you roll less than 10, that’s a failure. Three successes in total and you’ve succeeded at the encounter and beaten your enemies. Three failures means your party has been defeated. The difference between these rolls and death saving throws is that here the d20 roll can be modified and is possibly subject to Advantage/Disadvantage. Before each roll, decide what Move, if any, you’re going to make before you actually roll the d20. The party can make at most one Short or Long Rest Move before the roll – this is called a planned move. Roll a d20 and add the bonus from the chosen Move (if any). If you have equalled or exceeded a value of 10, you can mark off a success. If you haven’t yet reached a value of 10 or greater, you can either mark off a failure or you can use an improvised Short or Long Rest Move to add a bonus after the roll, in order to bring the total to 10 or above. Consumable magic items can also be used to add bonuses before and/or after the roll in addition to other moves (a maximum of one before the roll and one after). In theory this means that the maximum you could add to a roll is +10, using a Long Rest Move and a consumable item before the roll and a Long Rest Move and consumable item after the roll. However, this would not be sensible for two reasons: 1) you need to reach a score of 10, and a roll of 1 is an automatic failure regardless of bonuses, so the most it’s ever worth adding is +8; and 2) if you use this number of Long Rest Moves and items on a single roll, you’re going to run out very quickly! 53

Be sure to tick off used Moves to show that they can’t be used again until your next Short or Long Rest. For magic consumables it’s a good idea to also cross them out to remind yourself that they have been used up and should be removed from your character sheet. Success and Failure A single success doesn’t have any real meaning other than signifying that you damaged your enemies – fill in a success ‘blob’ for this encounter on the Story Mode play sheet. Of course, the Move(s) used gives you the narrative of how the success was achieved! Three successes (remember that’s three in total, it doesn’t have to be three in a row) mean you have defeated the enemies and you can now loot the bodies, search the room etc. as dictated by your Binding Decision and Default Behaviours. Failure on a single roll means the fight is going against you – fill in a failure ‘blob’ for this encounter on the Story Mode play sheet, showing you’ve lost a third of your party’s total rested hitpoints. Depending on the description of the encounter or monster, failure on a single roll might mean more than this. For example, if the encounter talks about one of the enemies trying to steal and run off with a valuable magic item in the chaos of the fight, you might decide that even a single failed roll means they succeed in taking the item. If you are fighting a Basilisk or Cockatrice, a single fail might mean that one of your party (roll to randomly determine who) is petrified. Total failure – when you fail three rolls in the encounter, this means a Total Party Kill (TPK). At this point you will want to use your Plot Armour (assuming you have it available) and come up with a story for how you survived and what the consequences were (pg. 10, DMY pg. 6-8). Note that if your party went into the encounter on low hitpoints (because of a previous encounter or damage from, say, a trap) then a TPK may result from two or even a single failed roll. Just like in death saving throws, rolls of natural 1 or natural 20 are significant in this system. If you roll a 1 on the d20 the roll automatically fails, regardless of bonuses, and counts as two failures; if you roll a 20 on the d20 you automatically succeed at the entire encounter. It is worth noting that you can ignore a natural 1 if you have Advantage, and you must ignore a natural 20 if you have Disadvantage (unless, of course, you roll the same result on both dice). After the Encounter If you are staying in Story Mode, there’s no immediate need to update your character sheet. Unless you are taking damage, healing or using spells between combat encounters, you can reduce bookkeeping by just using the Story Mode sheet to keep a record of your current status. Unless you’re healing up straight after the fight, it’s worth copying your fail blobs to the next encounter down – that way you’ll remember you’re on less than full hit-points and can only take one or two more fails when you have your next combat. Alternatively, you can use Ongoing Fails at the top of the sheet to record the party’s current status. Either way, remember to erase them if you use healing between combats. Between combat encounters, if you take damage or need to use a spell or ability that appears on your Story Mode Moves lists, then you may need to transfer information from your Story Mode sheet to your character sheets or vice versa. For example, if you have had two failed rolls, then 54

reduce the party’s total hitpoints to one third the usual value (it’s up to you how you distribute this damage); or if you use your, say, Shapechanger ability between combat encounters, make sure to tick it as used if it’s on your Move list – or swap it with another ability. Similarly, if you have spells or abilities that can only be used a certain number of times per Long Rest, if they’ve been ticked as used on your Move list make sure to update your character sheet to show that spell or ability has been used when you drop out of Story Mode. Spells that consume material components still consume them when you use the spell as a Move. Don’t forget to use healing spells/abilities between combats – remember, each failed roll consumes one third of your party’s total rested hitpoints, so unless you heal/rest between encounters, three failed rolls will kill you even if the rolls are not all in the same encounter! You don’t get hitpoints back from healing spells or abilities used as Moves – the healing effect is considered to be what contributes the bonus for that roll. You can take no more than two Short Rests per day – although this is only a recommendation in the DMG (pg. 84), it’s a hard-and-fast rule here (and remember to roll for possible discovery by ‘wandering monsters’ if you don’t rest in a safe place). If you’re finding Story Mode too easy for you, only allow one Short Rest per day, and a natural 20 scores two successes instead of automatically beating the encounter. If you’re finding it too hard, you may make up to two planned Moves before the d20 roll and take up to three Short Rests a day. You can use Hero’s Luck to affect your roll, rolling an extra d20 after your initial roll has been made and using it in place of (one of) the initially rolled dice. This gives you some protection against unlucky rolls (particularly natural 1s). Remember, though, at normal difficulty level you only have three uses of Hero’s Luck per day. Sometimes you’ll want to change the Moves or items you have listed on your sheet. This might be because you gained new, exciting abilities when you levelled up, or it may be a tactical change – you think there might be Salamanders in the room ahead, so you swap out your fire damage spells for cold ones (because Salamanders are vulnerable to cold damage, you could give yourself Advantage on rolls where you use such spells). There are a number of situations when you can change the Moves/items listed on your sheet: •

•

• •

During down-time between quests/adventures, when you level up, or when you take a Long Rest, you may freely swap out all Moves/items (as well as unticking all uses of Long and Short Rest Moves, of course). When you take a Short Rest you can freely swap out Short Rest Moves (as well as unticking all uses of Short Rest Moves) and/or items, and swap out unused Long Rest Moves for other Long Rest Moves. Between encounters you can swap unused Moves for other Moves at the same level, or swap items. During an encounter – when you make a roll you can ‘spend’ a (planned or improvised) Move to instead swap out a single unused Move for another Move at the same level, or swap a single item.

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The most important thing to remember is that whatever swaps you do, you can never use more than five Long Rest Moves between Long Rests or five Short Rest Moves between Short Rests. Escaping Sometimes it’s clear the fight’s not going to go your way. Let’s say you’ve failed the first two rolls of the encounter. You may decide – before you roll the d20 – that you are going to try and escape combat. This roll has the normal rules to do with Advantage and Disadvantage – e.g. if you’re in the middle of an magical, caged arena you’d roll with Disadvantage (indeed, here there would be an argument for saying that you can’t attempt to escape at all, unless you can come up with a very compelling narrative for how you do it); on the other hand if you use Teleport as one of your Moves for the escape roll, you’d roll with Advantage. If you succeed, you escape the encounter. Escaping may have consequences – you do not gain xp or any treasure from the enemies in the room, and they are likely to pursue you and/or raise the alarm. If you fail the escape, you count it as a normal failure roll. Advantage and Disadvantage There are some strict rules to this, and some that are more open to interpretation. The strict rules are as follows: • • •

•

•

•

If you surprise the enemy, you have Advantage on the first roll of the encounter If you are surprised by the enemy, you have Disadvantage on the first roll of the encounter If you use a planned Move that is particularly effective against your opponent – usually because of their Vulnerability, e.g. a bludgeoning attack on a Skeleton or Burning Hands on a Twig Blight – then you make that roll with Advantage You can’t use a Move at all if the enemy is resistant, invulnerable or ineligible to that move, or if it makes no sense given the situation – e.g. you couldn’t use Charm Person on a Manticore, Fireball a Red Dragon, use any spells inside an Antimagic Field or Control Weather if you’re underground If the encounter is trivially easy (e.g. a couple of Goblins) apply Advantage to every roll; if the encounter is in a particularly advantageous situation – e.g. you’ve had time to prepare an ambush, you have the advantage of higher ground and you’ve laid traps on the path or similar – give yourself Advantage for the first two or three rolls. If the encounter is a particularly hard enemy, they are in their lair, or it is the final battle of a dungeon or adventure, apply Disadvantage to every roll. This may seem like it makes boss fights ridiculously hard, but remember you can cancel out Disadvantage on a roll if your Move would give you Advantage.

You’ll need to apply some interpretation if the adventure describes the encounter developing in some way – e.g. if reinforcements arrive or the building is on fire. Some other examples of where you might need to give Advantage or Disadvantage during the encounter are: •

You fall from a bridge into the river below, where some crocodiles await: it seems pretty obvious that you’re going to be at Disadvantage for the first throw. If the water is deep and the river is wide, you’ll be at Disadvantage for the whole encounter.

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There are two groups of enemies in the encounter – one right next to you, the other about 100 feet away (armed only with melee weapons). In this case the second roll might be at Disadvantage as the second group joins the fight. You are told that if there are prolonged sounds of combat, a large group of enemies on the floor above will arrive after 30 seconds. In this case, you might apply Disadvantage on the fourth and fifth rolls (if the encounter isn’t over by then).

A reminder – fights are to the death unless you have made a Binding Decision before the fight to only do non-lethal damage and/or try to keep one of the enemies alive. The only things you need to know about the monsters you face are: • •

•

What do they look like? For the purposes of immersion and narrative, you need to know this before you choose your Move and make the first roll. What are their immunities, resistances and vulnerabilities? Ideally you should look this up between choosing your first Move and making the first roll, but it’s only important if you’re using magical attacks to which the enemy may have resistance or vulnerability – resulting in you gaining Advantage or Disadvantage for that roll – or immunity, in which case you can’t use that Move at all. What are their big attacks and signature moves? This is mainly for immersion and narrative – you want to know what your enemy is doing during the fight. As a secondary reason, it’s possible the enemy will gain Advantage or Disadvantage because it is using attacks to which you are resistant or vulnerable (either for the whole encounter, or on a particular roll because of the Move you have chosen).

If you are facing a commonly encountered enemy, or you have a good knowledge of monsters’ abilities, you might not need to refer to the monster’s stat block at all – you don’t need to know its hitpoints, AC, hit bonus or damage. Ideally, though, for the purposes of imagery and immersion you will want to know what the enemy looks like and what attacks it is making. However, looking things up in the Monster Manual or equivalent takes time; as long as you know what, say, a Ghast looks (and smells!) like, you have most of the information you need. Ideally you’d also know about its resistances and immunities and the fact that its attacks can cause paralysis, but unless you are doing Moves that cause poison or necrotic damage, or you are resistant to paralysis damage, these things aren’t important. For the sake of realism and narrative it’s nice to get them right, but if the process of looking them up is doubling the length of the combats, then just make a best guess instead. Note that enemies don’t use the AI Combat tables under Story Mode rules (e.g. they don’t run off when on low hp) but you can use their tactics to inform your narrative when you describe the fight. If you’ve suffered at least one fail roll, for the sake of immersion and narrative it really helps to be able to imagine what kind of attack caused the damage – this will usually be the enemy’s most powerful attack, ability or spell. If you’ve failed more than one roll, you should ideally choose a different attack as the cause for each. Once the encounter is over, it’s worth writing a single-sentence highlight description of the combat, including at least one of the moves you made (probably the biggest one). If you won with no fails it might be something like: “We finished the orcs quickly – Fidel dispatched their leader with a perfect rapier strike through the heart.” For a combat with some failure rolls, you’d need to talk about what 57

the enemy did as well, and possibly include factors that gave Dis/Advantage: “We fell from the bridge and the crocodiles caught us by surprise, ripping into us, but together we overcame them, Drumm pushing them back with savage attacks until they slunk away into the murky waters.” It may take a little while to set up your Moves list, but on the plus side, even when you’re not using Story Mode to speed combat up, it also acts as a really good reminder of all your party’s best abilities and spells (remembering these can become an issue as you reach higher levels and have a lot to choose from). As with the immersion table, it’s best if you can come up with spontaneous narrative interpretations of your Moves as you make them, but if you’re lost for inspiration roll a d6 and use this table to help. d6 Result 1

Critical

2

Teamwork

3

Skill

4

Environment

5

Luck

6

Emotions

Examples This usually means a critical hit, a perfectly-placed strike that pierces a heart or crushes a skull. But it can also be a critical miss, a moment of good fortune for you as an opponent stumbles and drops their weapon. A perfectly timed piece of teamwork – your opponent lifts their shield to parry your Sidekick’s blow, and you use that opportunity to bury your sword. A sublime virtuoso moment: you dart forwards, ducking one blow, sidestepping another and sweeping your enemy’s legs out from under them. Your opponent staggers as you push them back, tripping on the rough ground before tumbling into the crevasse behind them. The first blow doubles you over in pain, meaning that the second blow, which should have taken your head from your shoulders, instead connects with an assassin who was behind you, about to stab you in the back. The fight seems lost, but somehow amid the frenzy and the blood a moment of perfect calm, almost serenity, descends upon you. Time seems to slow, and every one of your strikes hits with sublime precision and force.

A few other things worth noting: •

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•

If you are planning on writing up your encounters but don’t want to break the flow of play, you could number your encounter death saving throws in sequence and use those numbers instead of ticks to mark off used Moves. This will help you to remember what Moves were used in which encounter, so you can write them up during your next break or Short Rest. Story Mode can even be used to quickly resolve a combat encounter in non-solo play. Just remember to cross out any Moves you’ve already made before you start the encounter, and record used Moves and lost hitpoints after the encounter. Although Story Mode is intended for handling combat encounters you can, if you wish, try using the same basic system to speed up complex non-combat situations, such as chases or prolonged negotiations: best of five death saving throws; use relevant Short or Long Rest abilities or spells to give you bonuses using the normal rules and restrictions (there’s no point making an actual Moves list for non-combat abilities and spells unless you find yourself using this system a lot for non-combat situations); and apply Advantage or Disadvantage depending on the situation and/or the spell or ability used. Obviously in this case failed rolls don’t inflict damage; rather, they reflect that the chase or negotiations are going badly, but overall success or failure will have consequences for the party (and the comparative number of successful or failed rolls might give a clue to just how well or badly things went). 58

Step-by-step Story Mode combat encounter summary 1. If you’ve come from normal mode, make sure to fill in failure blobs for damage your party has taken, and cross off any moves/items used, since you were last in Story Mode. 2. The usual stuff: read boxed location text; make Immersion Roll; make Binding Decision. 3. Do you get Advantage or Disadvantage on the whole encounter (every roll)? 4. Do you get Advantage or Disadvantage on the first roll (because of surprise)? 5. Make the encounter rolls: a. Choose a planned Move (if any) – check whether this gives you Advantage on the roll b. You may use a consumable magic item if you want c. Make the roll and add the bonuses from the planned Move and/or consumable magic d. Choose an improvised Move (if any) and add it to the total e. You may use a consumable magic item if you want (if you do, add its bonus to the total) f. If your total is 10 or higher, you have succeeded; otherwise you have failed. Mark this g. If you have 3 successes marked or 3 fails marked, the encounter is over. Otherwise, go back to step a. 6. Make sure you have ticked off (and crossed out in the case of consumable items) any Moves you have made during this encounter. If you are staying in Story Mode, make sure to add any failures to the next encounter and/or Ongoing Fails (if you’ve got 3 or more, that will be a TPK unless you use Plot Armour). If you’re going back to normal mode, make sure to reduce hit points for any failures, mark off uses of abilities or spells, and cross off used magic items. Roll-by-roll, Move-by-Move example In the previous area, it said that unless we approached stealthily the enemies in this area would be hiding among the statues, prepared to surprise us. Having read this, it is too late to make a Binding Decision to use Stealth (obviously if one of our Default Behaviours had been to always approach using Stealth, that would be different). The description reads that there are stairs leading up to a narrow room full of stone statues, lit by flickering torches on the wall. The Immersion roll was a 2 (sound) – we are in a temple, so I imagine we can hear wailing and chanting coming from a nearby location. We enter the room cautiously, weapons drawn, prepared to fight. There are six Ghouls in the room. Because they have surprise, we will make the first roll with Disadvantage. I decide to use Faerie Fire as a planned Move to give me a +3 on the roll. I roll two d20 and take the lower result – a 2. Together with the +3 I now have a total of 5. I could at this point use another one of my Long Rest Moves (as an improvised Move) to give me another +3 and use a consumable magic item to give me a further +2 – this would bring me up to the required value of 10+ to succeed, but I decide not to waste so many resources on a single roll. Concealed by the statues, the Ghouls caught us by completely by surprise; raked by powerful claws, Fidel was briefly paralysed, a look of horror frozen on his face, and we were lucky to survive the initial onslaught. We mark off one failure. For the next roll I realise that my Mace of Disruption probably qualifies me to roll with Advantage (it gives a big bonus to damage versus Undead), so I use that as my planned Move. In hindsight, it would have been better to use it on the first roll to cancel out the Disadvantage, but too late to worry about that now. The roll, with Advantage, results in 15 + 1 from the planned Move = 16. The ghouls cower as Drumm smashes into them with his Mace of Disruption, the flash of radiant light sending long shadows from the statues dancing across the room. We mark off one success. 59

Feeling confident, I decide to try the next roll without a planned Move. I roll a 9. I choose Savage Attacks to give me +1. Drumm roars as the Ghouls pin him back against the wall and he rains savage blows down upon them – a second success. Overconfident now, I try the same trick again. This time I roll a 3. I decide to use my Hero’s Luck and roll again – a 6. This shows the dangers of not using a planned Move – I can’t make two improvised Moves, so the only way I can turn this into a success is to make a Long Rest Move (Relentless Endurance, +3) and use up a valuable consumable magic item (Scroll of Fireball, +2). Fidel and Drumm got tired and careless as the combat wore on – they were making mistakes – and Fidel looked on in terror as Drumm dropped to the floor under the furious attacks of three of the Ghouls. For a moment he thought all was lost, but he should not have doubted the Relentless Endurance of the Half-Orc. Drumm jumped to his feet with a roar, scattering the Ghouls and rushing for cover behind one of the statues as Fidel read his Scroll of Fireball. Light and shadow spun across the room before a wave of sound and heat washed over them – leaving behind the smoking corpses of the remaining Ghouls. This is our third and final success. The encounter is successfully completed, and we may now search the room or whatever our default behaviours suggest. We check that we have ticked off all the Moves used in the encounter and crossed through the Scroll of Fireball; this is all we need to do if we are staying in Story Mode. If we’re going back to normal mode then we’ll need to lower each character’s hit points by one third (for the single failed roll) and mark which actions and abilities we’ve used on our character sheets, as well as removing the Scroll of Fireball that was used.

End of the Adventure Congratulations! You have finished the DM Yourselves adventure and gained enough XP to level up! Whether you’re playing 5e or some other RPG, alone or playing GM-less with friends, I hope that in this book you’ve found ideas, systems, rules and tables that will add depth and immersion to your roleplaying experience and help you enjoy the many thrilling adventures that await you. Don’t forget to check out all the exciting extras in the Appendices. Have fun with the system, and good luck! 60

Appendices A Recap of the DM Yourself System If you haven’t got a copy of DM Yourself, or just want a quick recap of the rules, here’s a summary. Character Creation This step-by-step guide describes the character creation process for a single player. If there’s more than one player, you will need to leave some of these steps out according to the table on pg. 6. • •

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Create a PC and Sidekick as normal. For a Sidekick, use either the basic Essentials Kit rules – available for free – or the full rules from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything (pg. 142-147), which allow for Sidekicks of any creature type and lets them level up all the way to level 20 (or combine the two, as described on pg. 5). Level both PC and Sidekick up to one level higher than the recommended level for the adventure you’re playing. So, if it’s an adventure for 1st level characters, level both up to level 2. Maximize the hit points of the PC and Sidekick. This means instead of rolling their hit dice when you level up, just add the highest number possible on that dice (and don’t forget to add their CON modifier). For example, a Fighter gets 1d10 hit points per level. If that Fighter has a CON of 14, they will have 2 x (10 + 2) = 24 hp at 2nd level At the top of your add-on character sheet (the one in the back of the book), note that you have 3 Hero’s Luck (per day), 1 Hindsight (per day) and 1 remaining Plot Armour. If you want to make things a bit easier on yourself (recommended for your first game at least), also give yourself 1 Improved Resistance (per day) Sort out the Default Behaviours for your character. These are things like “I will always check for traps” or “I will always re-cast Mage Armor on myself whenever it wears off”. Summary: tick 3 of the time-consuming behaviours on the add-on sheet. Then fill in the details for the other behaviours. Try to add at least a few other (alignment and/or personality-based) behaviours. Choose (or roll) your PC’s traits/bonds/ideals/flaws. Draw a picture or find a suitable one online (or use HeroForge and take a screenshot). Ideally, do the same for your Sidekick. Hero’s Luck – 3/day – roll extra d20 and choose which to use after seeing the result of the roll made by you (or Sidekick) or against you (or Sidekick) for attack, save, ability check, death save. Plot Armour – 1/level (max 5 times ever) – cheat death but with major consequences. Fade to black – make a roll on the Plot Armour Story and Consequences tables to see what happened. Hindsight – 1/day – retrospectively make/change your Binding Decision. If the action would normally require an ability check, roll with Disadvantage. If the action would not normally require an ability check, make a DC10 check using the most appropriate ability.

Lowering the Adventure Difficulty I want to avoid changing the actual adventure itself in any substantive way. Instead, DM Yourself makes some very quick and easy changes to combat and monster stats that can help to rebalance the action economy and improve player survivability. •

In general, if the adventure says something like “there are three times as many Orcs as there are characters”, or if the adventure adjusts the difficulty of encounters depending on the size of the party, treat the number of player characters as three. 61

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When attacking, use a slightly modified version of the Cleave rules (DMG, pg. 272). If a melee attack reduces an enemy to 0 hp, any excess damage from that attack carries over to another enemy within melee range (if the original attack roll would have hit it). If that enemy is also reduced to 0 hp, repeat the process. This can also apply to ranged attacks if there is another enemy standing directly behind the original target. When you’re being attacked, instead of rolling for damage you take from successful attacks against you, you just take the average damage shown in the monster stat block. Enemies do not do double damage on a critical hit. Enemies have ¾ of their normal (stat block) hit points, and most enemies will attempt to flee from combat if they are reduced to a third of the hit points they started the fight with (i.e. ¼ of their stat block hit points). Using a potion only takes a bonus action (administering a potion still takes a full action).

Difficulty Levels The Character Creation, Gameplay and Adventure Difficulty changes outlined above constitute what could be called DM Yourself’s Normal difficulty. If you find playing with the Normal set of rules either too challenging or not challenging enough, you could try these ‘difficulty levels’ instead: •

•

Easy: in addition to all the Normal changes you get the following: o Improved Initiative (your PC and Sidekick gain Advantage on Initiative rolls) o Improved Resistance (if your PC fails a saving throw, they can choose to succeed instead. They can do this a number of times per day equal to their half their proficiency bonus) o Improved Healing (maximise hit points recovered by PC and Sidekick from Short Rests, Potions and Healing spells and effects) o Improved Plot Armour (you can still only use Plot Armour once per level, but there is no other limit to the total number of times you can use it) o Improved Quaffing (administering a potion only takes a bonus action) Hard: play with the Normal changes with the following exceptions: o One-Use Plot Armour (your character gets to use Plot Armour once, ever) o Like a Party of Four (if an adventure scales encounters depending on the number of PCs, treat it as if you had a party of 4 PCs) o Standard Enemy Hitpoints (enemies have their normal hp values rather than reduced)

Navigating the Scenario Document • You never read the scenario like a novel – instead you’ll jump around as needed, reading the parts of it necessary to make the adventure work and relevant to the location that you’re in. • Start by skim reading the start of the scenario or adventure – read fast and light, scanning down the text using your peripheral vision to try to spot spoilers before you read them fully. The Introduction and Adventure Background tend to be full of spoilers, but it’s good to try and read the first few sentences if you can, just to get a sense for the story – you can always come back to them later. The other thing to watch out for when skim reading are DC checks – these often ‘guard’ the next sentence, so only read it if you successfully make the required ability check. • Use deep reading if you get to a passage that you know is safe – particularly boxed or italicised location text, which is the part the GM will normally read aloud to the player. Once you have read that boxed location, make an Immersion roll (which helps to place yourself in the scene as a character rather than just reading a room description) and then make a decision about what 62

•

•

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you’re going to do there. You can skim read the rest of the location looking for details that you’ll need to know to play out the encounter, like what enemies are present in the room. When you first enter a dungeon (or other place with a map of numbered locations), use sticky notes (or, if you’re using a computer use fog) to cover up most of the map, only revealing the location you’re in. You can’t always avoid spoilers, and that’s really okay. They’re annoying, but it’s something you learn to live with and it needn’t affect your enjoyment of the scenario (in fact, it can add a certain pathos to the subsequent adventure – like the TV/film trope where you as a viewer know things that the main characters are blithely unaware of). The main thing is that you must not act upon information that you’ve learned from the spoiler until your character learns it. Because you’re skipping parts of the adventure, it may be that later on you realise there are plot holes where things should (or shouldn’t!) have happened earlier. In this case you can play through a ‘flashback’ scene or a ‘quick rewind’ in order to fix things.

Playing Solo The main play loop is as follows: • • • •

•

Decide what location you’re going to next, and how you’re going to approach it, and reveal that part of the map. Now read the boxed or italicised location text; imagine yourself in the scene, make a roll on the Immersion Table (pg. 88) and think about what you experience based on the result. Make a Binding Decision on what you plan to do in the location (say it out loud or write it down), then read the rest of the location text to see what’s actually in the room. Deal with the contents of the location based on your Default Behaviours/Binding Decision. Play out the combat (if there are enemies), talk to NPCs (if any), if there are traps, secret doors or treasure make checks to see if you find them (but only if you were searching for them). Repeat.

For combat, use the example on pg. 39 and the table on pg. 87. If you talk to an NPC where their reaction is not covered in the adventure, decide what approach you’re going to use and what you’re going to say to them, then use the Persuade/Intimidate/Deceive table on pg. 87 to calculate the DC for the test – if the difficulty and risk/sacrifice are different, take an average of the two. If situations occur where you want to do or ask about things that are not mentioned in the adventure, or judge an NPC’s answers in a conversation where a simple Persuade roll doesn’t give the level of detail you require, you can use the Minimal DC Oracle on pg. 87. You can also use the Oracle when you’re really not sure what the DC should be for a task – again, take minor and major factors into account, and then roll to see what the DC is for the roll. The main thing is to accept that gameplay won’t be perfect and you’ll make mistakes (especially for your first few games), and just get on and try it. Your first few games will feel awkward as you get used to the system and have to look things up, but after a while you’ll get used to them and feel much more comfortable playing through adventures solo. You’ll still make mistakes, but that’s fine – just like with non-solo roleplaying, you create your own story! Note: if you want a test scenario to practise the DM Yourself techniques, you could try the excellent free adventure, The Scroll Thief – see pg. 81-82 for a guided walkthrough.

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Tutorial DM Yourself Adventure This tutorial consists of a very short non-solo adventure – Death Metal – laid out in traditional 5e format, with a step-by-step guide on how to solo it using the DM Yourself system. The main text below is the adventure as written, the sidebar on the left gives tips on how to play it solo.

Death Metal Character Creation Use the Character Creation rules on pg. 5-12. This adventure is designed for level 1 characters, so if you’re playing solo, you’ll need to create a level 2 PC and Sidekick. Introduction Skim read the introduction. You may need to stop reading if it’s clear there are spoilers. In this adventure, it looks like you’re safe to read it all.

First Location and Map Cover up locations on the map with Post-Its/sticky notes, revealing only the starting location. Read the boxed location text. Make an Immersion and/or Viewpoint roll and imagine yourself in the scene. Make a Binding Decision about what you plan to do in this location. Enemies and DCs Don’t look up enemy stats until you actually get into combat. When you see DC stop reading until you’ve made the check. DC checks often hide information that you shouldn’t know about (though not in this case) Secret/Hidden Information There was no easy way to avoid this secret/hidden information when reading. But your character cannot act on this information

This adventure is designed for three to six characters, levels 1 or 2, and is optimised for five characters with an average party level (APL) of 1. The map is at the end of the adventure. Introduction It is midwinter. A small cluster of mining and farming villages sits on the wooded southern slopes of the Spine of the World. Snow lies heavy on the ground. You have heard rumours of a secluded cave in the foothills, stories of a neighbouring village that grew rich from the mines, then sickened and died. Of whispers in the dark, of adventurers who sought to uncover the mysteries and the riches, but never came back. But now, having walked through the rotted remains of the village, you stand in the snow in front of a cave. From outside the cave looks like nothing special, but who knows what lies within? 1. The Cave The cave entrance is roughly ten foot across, and long icicles hang from the top of the opening. Bright light spills in from the outside, and it takes your eyes a moment to adjust. Numerous large bones are strewn across the floor of this large cave. The damp floor slopes downwards into darkness and cobwebs at the back of the chamber. A strong animal scent pervades the cave, and no wonder – in the middle of the cavern, a large brown bear slumbers, its huge chest slowly rising and falling. The brown bear is hibernating for the winter and will not easily awaken unless the party make a lot of noise. It is, however, lying in the middle of the chamber and the party will need to make a group DC12 Dexterity (Stealth) check to get past the bear without waking it up. The exit to the north of the cave is a narrow, cobwebbed opening that descends into darkness. It is naturally hidden within the crags and shadows in the gloom at the back of the cave and requires a DC15 Wisdom (Perception) check to find. The party can make multiple attempts to find this entrance, but each failed perception check requires that individual to 64

unless they make the necessary DC check to find the hidden entrance. Initiating Combat There are rules in DM Yourself for how to setup/initiate combat, but if, as here, the adventure specifies how to run certain aspects of the combat then the adventure takes precedence. Because combat with the bear is optional, we’ll leave the combat tutorial until later in this adventure. Choose an Exit Normally you would choose an exit, but there’s only one here.

make another DC12 Dexterity (Stealth) check to avoid waking the bear as they stumble around on the slippery, uneven stone. The party may, of course, choose to attack the bear while it is still asleep. In this case the party automatically gets a Surprise round, the first attack roll against the bear has Advantage, and if the attack hits it counts as a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the bear. If the party wakes the bear by accident, neither side gets surprise. There is nothing of interest in the cavern, though there are a lot of bones on the cave floor – clearly the bear has lived here for many years. On examination the bones mostly appear to be from deer, goats or sheep – but there are a few that look suspiciously human. 2. The L-Tiled Door

Boxed Location Text Reveal the location on the map. Read the boxed location text. Make a Binding Decision about what to do next. Make an Immersion/Viewpoint roll and imagine yourself in the scene.

A narrow winding crack in the rock leads down to this small natural cavern. For the most part the small cavern is natural rock, its walls lined with narrow seams of quartz and the occasional metallic glint from small, grey, cubic crystals of galena. However, the far western wall of the cave is a blocked, blank archway of dressed stone. The top of the arch has a carved inscription, while a square space in the middle of the arch is a grid of carved letters and five raised, black tiles. Scattered on the floor below the arch are five L-shaped tiles, each with a large circular hole at the angle of the L.

Skim Read, and Be Prepared!

This room is in total darkness, so players will need Darkvision or a light-source. The carving above the archway says: “Say the Word Uncovered”. The black square tiles on the grid cannot be moved. The L-shaped tiles on the floor are made of thick, dark-grey slate and can be rotated or flipped. If placed on the grid they stay put, but they can be removed and moved if so desired. The entire grid (apart from the black squares) is recessed, so the L-shaped tiles must be placed completely within the grid and cannot overlap the edge or the black squares. Once placed on the grid, the circular hole at the angle of each L-shaped tile reveals the letter on the square behind it. You may wish to give the players a copy of the grid that they can draw on to help solve the puzzle.

This is starting to look very much like a puzzle/riddle, which means that there will be a solution given in the text. You need to skim read very carefully and be prepared to stop at any moment. Ideally, what you really want is to read enough information that you can attempt to solve the puzzle, without actually reading the solution…

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The grid on the blank archway Avoid Spoilers and Solve Puzzle …and there it is! You should stop reading as soon as you see the word Solution. Do your best to solve the puzzle, make a Binding Decision on what you’re going to do, and then come back to the solution afterwards. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt if necessary – e.g. if you solved the grid puzzle but didn’t specify that you’d say the word aloud. In a non-solo game you would have discovered this by trial and error. Boxed Location Text Reveal the location on the map. Read the boxed location text. Make a Binding Decision about what to do next. Make an Immersion/Viewpoint roll and imagine yourself in the scene. Dealing with Traps You will know whether you are actively looking for traps from your Binding Decision/Default Behaviours. Remember you can change your Binding Decision if new, non-hidden information becomes available in the full location description (e.g. you can decide to deactivate the traps if you spot them).

The L-shaped tiles scattered on the floor

Solution: There is only one way that all the tiles can be fitted into the grid. When this is done, the letters MINED are the only ones left revealed. If the word “mined” is spoken within 10 feet of the door, the blank stone blocking the arch slides away to reveal a doorway. If the party gets stuck on this puzzle for more than 10 minutes, you can allow each party member a DC 20 Intelligence (Investigation) check to work it out. A Knock spell will also open the archway. 3. The Cold Hall The archway leads into a small hallway, ten feet across and twenty-five feet long. The floor, walls and ceiling are covered in blue and white tiles. The effect was probably once rather grand, but there are many gaps where tiles have come loose and lie smashed on the floor. Clusters of icicles hang from these holes. Unlit torch sconces line the walls. The room is cold and dark, and at the far end is a closed stone door. Towards the far end of the hall lies a skeletal body dressed in ruined leather armour. On a DC 15 passive Wisdom (Perception) check (or roll with Advantage if the party is actively looking for traps), the lead character in the party will spot the trap 10 feet into the room – a pressure-plate the width of the room that causes the stone archway the players have just come through to slide shut, and water to pour through several holes in the ceiling, soaking the players. The room starts to rapidly fill with water… If the trap is spotted in advance, it can be deactivated with a DC 12 Dexterity check using thieves’ tools (a result of 5 or less sets off the trap) or jumped over with a DC 12 Dexterity (Acrobatics) or Strength (Acrobatics) check. 66

Ongoing Situations Often the situation in a location will develop in ways you couldn’t possibly have predicted from the location description. As with disabling the traps, it’s fine to change your intended actions in the light of such events (e.g. on reading the location description you make a Binding Decision to check out the corpse – you do not have to carry on with that when the room is filling with water having triggered a trap!). Hero’s Luck Don’t forget to use Hero’s Luck (and/or Improved Resistance if on easy mode) if you need to. Next-Location Spoilers A location will often mention enemies in neighbouring rooms. There’s not much you can do about these mini-spoilers, and often it’s important you do know about them (such as them coming to investigate if, as in this case, you trigger a trap). The problem is, of course, that if you don’t trigger the trap, you now have knowledge about the enemies in the next room that you shouldn’t have. Remember, you know this, your PC doesn’t! Treasure If you have a Default Behaviour to loot bodies or pick up valuable items that you find, you will automatically collect non-hidden treasure (as long as it is obviously valuable). Hidden treasure will only be found if you had a Default Behaviour/Binding Decision to search for it. Boxed Location Text You know the drill by now. Reveal on map. Read boxed text. Binding Decision. Immersion roll.

However, the room filling with water may well cause the party to rush for the far exit, but before they get there they will hit the second pressure plate 20 feet into the room. Rolls to spot/disable/jump this trap are as above, but if the first trap has been triggered and room has started filling with water, make these rolls with Disadvantage. Whether or not the second trap is tripped, the water from the first trap stops when it’s about a foot deep. If the second trap is triggered the hallway is swept with a freezing wave of arcane frost. Players failing a DC 13 Constitution save take 2D6 Cold damage (half damage on a successful save). If the players also set off the previous trap, they take an extra 1d6 Cold damage because of being soaked from the previous trap, and any player failing a DC 13 Strength (Athletics) check is Immobilised (their speed is reduced to zero) due to their feet being frozen in the ice. A player that fails this Strength check can retake it at the end of each of their turns until they succeed. Once freed from the ice a player can move normally, but the frozen floor counts as difficult terrain. The turn after the arcane cold trap triggers, the doors at both ends of the hall open, and the turn after that, the skeletons from the next area, The Ruined Crypt, will enter to attack the players. If the stone door at the far end of the room has not already been opened by the frost trap, it can be pushed open by making a DC 13 Strength (Athletics) check (one player can Help another with this check). Treasure: The skeletal body lies between the first and second traps – a previous explorer, killed by the traps in this room. A quick search of the body reveals a Potion of Healing and a purse containing 17gp, 25sp and a small red gem worth 10gp. Their armour and weapons are rotted and corroded beyond use. 4. The Ruined Crypt This was clearly once a crypt belonging to a rich family, with walls of dark, polished stone shot through with quartz. But now, some great natural or unnatural force has caused large gaping cracks to rend the walls from top to bottom. The stone alcoves have collapsed and the leaden coffins have spilled onto the uneven, cracked floor of the crypt. In the wall between the alcoves is an ornate stone door.

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Running Melee Combat Normally we would start enemies in the centre of the location as per the DM Yourself rules. However, the adventure specifies that either the skeletons start on the coffins (which we can see on the map) or just inside the door. Remember that enemies have ¾ their normal stat-block hp (so, 12 hp for these skeletons), they do average damage (instead of rolling) and never do criticals. If you have the DM Yourself book, you can find the combat AI for Undead on pg. 52; otherwise just use the default Basic AI Combat Tactics table (pg. 87) with the difference that Undead enemies never flee (i.e. they never trigger the low hp condition). Basically, they just move towards the nearest enemy and attack them once they’re within melee range. Hidden Treasure This treasure is hidden, so will only be found if the party has a Default Behaviour/Binding Decision to search the room. However, in this case no Perception DC is given to find the treasure, and the room is potentially a dead-end without the key, so be kind to yourself! Boxed Location Text The usual: reveal on map. Read boxed text. Binding Decision. Immersion Roll. There are no more rooms, and you’re in a Throneroom. This all points to this being the final room of the adventure – let’s make it an epic, memorable experience. Make another Immersion and/or viewpoint roll – really imagine yourself in the scene. What are the NPC’s gestures and expressions? Don’t just read the speech – say it in your head or out loud.

As the players enter this room (unless they have already encountered the skeletons in the previous room due to setting off the frost trap), four Leadbone Skeletons rise from their coffins (if the players took multiple attempts to open the door into this room, the skeletons are instead waiting to attack just inside the door). Leadbone Skeletons are like regular skeletons, but lead from the surrounding ore and the coffins themselves have leached into their bones, replacing the calcium. This gives the skeletons a dark grey appearance, and their heavier, less brittle bones result in the following changes from the regular Skeleton stat block. They carry no weapons but instead attack with mace-like, leaden fists: AC: 11 (armour scraps), Dex: 10 (+0), Con: 16 (+3), Hit Points: 15 (2d8 + 6), Speed: 20ft, Damage Vulnerabilities: None Actions: Lead Fist. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) bludgeoning damage. The stone doorway is locked, and can only be opened using the brass key in one of the coffins, a DC 20 Dexterity check using thieves’ tools, or a Knock spell. Treasure: A quick search of the lead coffins reveals 8gp, 2d6 5gp pearls and an ornate brass key. 5. The Leaden Throne It is not clear whether this room is a small throne room or a mausoleum. Perhaps it is both. Empty torch sconces line the cracked, polished stone walls. At the far end of the room a dark skeletal figure sits on a throne of lead, though it wears a simple, dull metal circlet rather than a crown. The grand effect is somewhat spoiled by the chamber’s broken and buckled floor, resulting in the throne tilting to one side. As you enter the room, the figure slowly looks up and begins to speak… The players may attack immediately (in which case simply roll Initiative – the figure is not surprised), or they can wait and listen to the following speech – the figure’s voice is deep, quiet, slow and unutterably sad: “Ah… how long, how long? I, Bradda, at first a simple miner, then a village chief with pretentions of grandeur. Redsoil, my humble village, becoming fat and rich, mining the grey fruit of the earth… smiled upon by the old, old gods of the forest… 68

those few heady, leady years of plenty; only to sicken, succumbing to madness, hating and sneering at each other even as we buried our new-borns. To live such a life laden with leaden glory… to live such a life…” With his right hand the figure gestures to his left arm, which is immobile, having fused long years past to the soft metal of the throne; the fingers of his left hand twitch feebly. “…and to awaken in death. To this… Can you imagine? To sit just so for a hundred years or more? To never sleep… to be ever awake in a world where nothing happens? Every waking moment a torment… an eternity of moments. Oh, Galena!” As if awakening from a dream, suddenly Chief Bradda looks up at the party. “Oh, salvation! My bringers of sleep… would that I could welcome you with open arms…” Obeying Binding Decisions If a DC check is optional, and that option was apparent from the boxed location text, then you cannot do it unless it is a Default Behaviour/Binding Decision (i.e. in this case it would be too late to decide you want to talk to Bradda even if you realise that it might have been a good idea). Running Magical Combat Again, the adventure specifies where Bradda is (on his ‘throne’) – and with a Speed of 0, he’s not going anywhere! Unlike the basic Skeletons, Bradda has several spells at his disposal. If you have the DM Yourself book, you can find the combat AI for Mages and Spellcasters on pg. 51; otherwise just use the Ranged/Magic User column of the default Basic AI Combat Tactics table (pg. 87). He will use his highest-level spells first – Bane, then Arms of Hadar. Only once all those are used up will he start using Ray of Frost (unless the players are within melee range, in which case he will use his lead fists). He will cast Hellish Rebuke as a reaction the first time he is damaged by an attack.

The party have two choices now – they can: •

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try to talk to Bradda and make a DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) check to let them permanently destroy him without a fight. A failed Persuasion check or attempts at Intimidation or Deception lead straight to combat. attack, in which case roll Initiative.

Chief Bradda has the stats of a Leadbone Skeleton with the following changes: Wis: 16 (+3), Hit Points: 30 (4d8 + 12), Speed: 0ft (he is fused to the throne and therefore immobile) Actions: Innate Spellcasting: Chief Bradda’s innate spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save DC 13). He can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components: At will: Ray of Frost 1/day each: Bane, Arms of Hadar, Hellish Rebuke (via the Circlet of Rebuke) Lead Fist: Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) bludgeoning damage. Bradda wants to goad the players into destroying him, and will put up a convincing fight using everything at his disposal, but if he is too strong for the party and it gets to the stage where there’s only one of them left standing, he will stop fighting and say simply: “I am done. Finish me.”

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If Bradda doesn’t fight back and lets the party destroy him (either because of a successful Persuasion check or because he overpowered the party and has stopped fighting) there is still a 50% chance each time he is damaged that he will cast Hellish Rebuke (via the Circlet of Rebuke) as a reflex reaction (unless he has already used it). As the fight ends and Bradda is destroyed, you hear his final words: “Ah, to return to dust, to be unmade. Beneath the earth. Out of sight, out of mind... Thank you...” Treasure: Chief Bradda wears what appears to be a simple, valueless circlet made of dull lead – it is actually a Circlet of Rebuke. Without using Detect Magic (or witnessing the Circlet being used in combat) there is no reason to think that it is magical. There are five onyx gem stones (worth 10gp each) inlaid in the throne. Using Hindsight The adventure makes it clear that you won’t view the circlet as treasure unless you use Detect Magic or see it in action. This might be a good time to use Hindsight (pg. 7) if you missed it! Gaining XP and Treasure If you’re using a single PC and Sidekick, you each gain 1.5x the shown XP reward (450 XP each). Don’t forget to split all gold and magic items with your Sidekick.

Circlet of Rebuke Wondrous item, uncommon While wearing this circlet, you can use a reaction to cast the Hellish Rebuke spell with it. Use DC 13 for the target’s Dexterity saving throw. The circlet can’t be used this way again until the next dawn. Conclusion Players each gain 300 XP for completing the adventure. Note: if the players didn’t fight the bear on their way in and have found the adventure too easy, feel free to have it awaken as they make their way out of the caves!

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Adapting DM Yourself to Other Gaming Systems Note: some of this text on playing with older editions of the world’s greatest roleplaying game or other OSR systems was originally published in the DriveThruRPG version of DM Yourself. Here we widen it to include systems like Pathfinder, Starfinder, Call of Cthulhu and Savage Worlds DM Yourself was originally written for 5e, since that’s the system I play the most and, as discussed in DM Yourself, there are certain aspects of 5e that make it particularly suitable for solo play. However, this doesn’t mean that DM Yourself can’t be used with other systems. It all depends on how close the other system is to 5e – if you want to play Dungeon World or Fiasco, then DM Yourself is not going to be much use to you, but for older editions or OSR titles like Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC), Basic Fantasy or Old-School Essentials, DM Yourself is still going to be a great tool for playing published scenarios. About 80% of DM Yourself will be applicable straight off, and most of the rest can be relatively easily adapted. Let’s look at some of those adaptations, starting with older editions of the world’s greatest roleplaying game and other OSR systems: •

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DM Yourself is designed to replace the normal 4-5 PC party with a single PC and a Sidekick. Obviously, there are no explicit sidekick rules for OSR systems, so instead you should create 2 PCs (buffed according to the DM Yourself Character Creation rules) and then define one of these as your main character and the other as the Sidekick. The relative simplicity of OSR characters compared to 5e means that you won’t be overwhelmed by the complexity of dealing with two player characters, but it’s still important to decide from the outset which one is the main and which is the Sidekick, both for running the DM Yourself rules and for immersion purposes. Following the DM Yourself rules means you’ll need to use Advantage/Disadvantage in some places – i.e. rolling two dice and taking the better (for Advantage) or worse (for Disadvantage) result. This works just fine for OSR games as well, but if it feels just a bit too 5e for you, instead of Advantage/Disadvantage you could add +5/-5 to a d20 roll, +1/-1 to a d6 roll, or +25/-25 to a d100 roll. The difficulty level of OSR adventures can be pretty brutal, so if you’re finding it tough going I would suggest using DM Yourself’s optional rules for playing on Easy difficulty. Most OSR systems/adventures don’t have DC skill checks (DCC being a notable exception). When reading 5e adventures the “DC” makes an easy marker for spotting spoilers, and DC checks mean you have to do less on-the-fly decision-making in your role as GM (making such decisions is one of the mainstays of OSR GMing, but is something to be avoided where possible in solo play). However, this is nothing that you can’t work around with a bit of imagination. For situations where your system defines skill check values (e.g. opening locks, searching for secret doors) you should obviously use the rules given. If there are situations that aren’t covered in your system’s rules, then you can make a judgement about the difficulty of the task and roll on this table (a d20 if the situation is a task you have some background in or is something that anyone OSR Task Difficulty could reasonably attempt, a d10 if it’s Task DC Task DC something that requires training but you Trivial 0 Hard 15 have no experience of – e.g. hoisting a Easy 5 Very Hard 20 mainsail if you’ve never been a sailor) and Moderate 10 Near Impossible 25 add the most relevant ability modifier. 71

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The use of boxed and/or italicised texts for location descriptions is a bit hit-and-miss in OSR adventures – some do it well, some don’t do it at all. I’m not going to lie – it does make soloing harder if there’s no clear location description. You’ll need to make a Binding Decision before you start reading the location details, and then possibly change that decision as you go along in the light of new (but not hidden!) information.

For Pathfinder or Starfinder, use the DM Yourself rules with the following adaptations: •

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There are no Sidekicks, so you’ll need to run two PCs, both one level higher than that suggested by the module – choose one to be your main and the other your Sidekick. The rules and character abilities are definitely a bit on the ‘crunchier’ side with Path/Starfinder compared to 5e, so there will be more overhead in running two characters. Use the other balancing mechanisms such as Maximised HP (obviously in 2E they’re maximised anyway), Hero’s Luck (instead of Hero Points), Hindsight and Plot Armour as normal. Following the DM Yourself rules means you’ll need to use Advantage/Disadvantage in some places – i.e. rolling two dice and taking the better (for Advantage) or worse (for Disadvantage) result. This works just fine for Path/Starfinder as well, but if it feels just a bit too 5e for you, instead of Advantage/Disadvantage you could add +5/-5 to a d20 roll. On the plus side, Paizo modules are well laid out with clearly marked location text to be read out. They also usually give clear tactics and behaviours for the enemies you meet, which means you can use these instead of the AI combat tables given in DM Yourself. On the down side, many more features and abilities in Path/Starfinder are dependent on exact grid positioning (e.g. Flanking), so use the AI Combat tables for general positioning but also use logic and tactics to dictate how the monsters move on the grid to maximise their advantage.

For Call of Cthulhu, use the DM Yourself rules, keeping in mind the following advice and adaptations: •

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Choose your investigators – there are no Cthulhu Sidekicks, but your character sheet in Call of Cthulhu is simpler than 5e (especially after you’ve levelled up a few times), so it’s not such a big deal having multiple characters. Either create three investigators as normal or have one normal investigator as ‘Sidekick’, and for your main create a character with two occupations (this latter idea is a variant from Paul Bimler’s excellent Solo Investigator’s Handbook, which I thoroughly recommend investing in if you end up doing much solo Cthulhu). Use the other DM Yourself balancing mechanisms such as Hero’s Luck, Hindsight and Plot Armour as normal. I also recommend using the optional Spending Luck rules (Call of Cthulhu: Keeper Rulebook, pg. 99), which will add to your investigator’s chances of survival… Following the DM Yourself rules means you’ll need to use Advantage/Disadvantage in some places – treat these as a Bonus dice (for Advantage) or Penalty dice (for Disadvantage), i.e. just roll an additional “tens” dice and take the one with the lower (for Advantage) or higher (for Disadvantage) result. Some tables in DM Yourself give a result as a DC value. For Call of Cthulhu a DC of 5 or 10 requires a regular success, 15 or 20 requires a hard success and 25 or 30 an extreme success. Take it slow – partly to try and avoid spoilers (though they will happen, and it really doesn’t matter if they do) but mainly to soak up the atmosphere and become immersed in the story. In general, Chaosium adventures are not as well laid out for solo play as 5e adventures. There are big blocks of text with few ‘signposts’ to help avoid spoilers, and it can be hard to 72

navigate the adventure (i.e. work out where to go next). Cthulhu is more about atmosphere and information than fighting, so make Immersion rolls and take the time to visualise yourself in the scene – and even more than with 5e, really think about how your character feels. In general the Immersion Table works well for Call of Cthulhu, but if you get a result that seems odd or want to add a bit more horror, try using this Fear table as well/instead: 1 2 3 4 5 6 d6 Smell Sound Sight Skin Social/Self Sense Whispers, or Reflections, Eyes dilated, Losing grip 1 Fresh blood Skin crawling sighing half seen crazed on reality Yourself, as Scratching of Shadows, cast A breath on Movement Sudden temp2 raw meat rats, insects? by what? your face jerky/erratic erature drop Tapping, on Suddenly, the A hand on Uncontrolled Change in air 3 Mould, decay window, walls lights go out your shoulder trembling pressure Floorboards In the corner Cobwebs on Slurred Is this a dream 4 Rotting meat creaking of your eye… your face speech or is it reality? Perfume, Distant piping Perceptual Bead of sweat Shaking head, Your heart 5 flowers or chanting distortions runs down… backing away racing, so fast Incense, Unhuman Something Dry mouth A phrase Nausea, fight 6 smoke voices looks wrong and lips repeated… or flight •

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Keep your information organised – keep a journal and/or a mystery board (miro.com is a great online tool for this sort of thing) where you can keep track of all the clues you’ve found, all the people you’ve met and all the information you’ve learned. This is really important for three reasons: first, you don’t have a Keeper on hand to remind you if you forget something your characters should know; second, Call of Cthulhu relies a great deal on mystery solving, so you really need to be able manipulate your clues and see how they relate; and third, it helps you separate out knowledge your characters have from metaknowledge that you have (from spoilers you’ve seen while navigating the document) – your characters can only act on the former! Practice your solo skills – try running The Haunting, the excellent adventure in the free Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Quick-Start Rules, and The Lightless Beacon, also free from Chaosium, before you embark on Masks of Nyarlathotep! If you’re finding it difficult to use the DM Yourself rules, try out the Alone Against series of CYOA-style adventures as a great alternative way of getting your solo Call of Cthulhu fix.

For Savage Worlds, use the DM Yourself rules with some or all of the following adaptations (I’m not very experienced with the system, so I’m not sure of the perfect difficulty re-balancing to a single character – you may need to experiment a bit to find the right level for you): •

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Create a Savage Worlds PC as normal, but at one rank higher than that suggested by the module (take the minimum number of advances to reach that rank). There are no official Sidekicks in Savage Worlds so you’ll need to create either: o a second PC to be your ‘Sidekick’, or o one or two Allies – Savage Worlds Adventure Edition Core Rulebook (SWCR) pg. 111 Either way, advance your ‘Sidekick(s)’ to the same level as your main PC. If you want to make things easier, you can also take one or two Fanatics, SWCR pg. 138.

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Use the other DM Yourself balancing mechanisms such as Hindsight and Plot Armour as normal. Instead of its normal re-rolls, Hero’s Luck gives you three extra Bennies per session which are shared by your PC and Sidekick. Your heroes have can take five wounds rather than the usual three. The first two wounds taken don’t inflict a -1 modifier – i.e. no negative effects until you take a third wound. From the Setting Rules, SWCR pg. 136-141, use Wound Cap, Fast Healing and Dumb Luck. You can also use Born a Hero, but if you do, that replaces Plot Armour – you can’t have both! Enemies roll damage dice (instead of DM Yourself’s usual average damage from enemies), but can get a maximum of only one ace reroll from all damage dice (including bonus) – if more than one damage dice aces, use the highest one. Following the DM Yourself rules means using Advantage/Disadvantage in some places – i.e. rolling two dice and taking the better (Advantage) or worse (Disadvantage) result. Some tables in DM Yourself give a result as a DC value. You have two choices for how to handle these for Savage Worlds – either: o make a single skill roll – the DC converts to a modifier as follows DC 5 = 0, DC 10 = -2, DC 15 = -4, DC 20 = -6, DC 25 = -8 and DC 30 = -10; or o convert it into a Chase (SWCR pg. 113), Dramatic Task (pg. 122), Networking (pg. 133) or Social Combat (pg. 143) if the challenge fits one of those categories. If it’s a Dramatic Task, treat DC10 or less as challenging, DC20 or less as difficult and anything higher as complex.

A Guide to GMing Yourselves Through More Well-Known Adventures First, a few disclaimers: •

• • •

In the adventures that follow, by trying to steer you round the worst of the spoilers I will inevitably have to have to spoil some things. Only read the guide as you’re playing – don’t read through the whole thing beforehand. I’m showing you one possible route through the adventure. There may be other, better routes, but this will give you at least a guide if you want one. I only have space here to give you the headline stuff – consider these a set of high-level pointers rather than detailed, step-by-step guides. In general, play though locations using the standard DMY rules unless stated otherwise.

These guides are for Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and The Scroll Thief. The first two are big hardback campaigns, both of which are challenging to play solo for a variety of reasons. The Scroll Thief is an excellent freely available adventure that can act as a great way of practicing your solo play skills using DM Yourself before embarking on a big campaign. Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden First, a few general pointers. There are many more quests in this book than you’ll be able to do, and even a couple of the chapters are potentially optional depending on how things play out – so be prepared for the fact that you’ll only see maybe half the book. Also, some of it is very challenging, both in terms of difficulty and in terms of solo play. However, there’s so much good stuff, it’s worth persevering. There’s some great artwork, so don’t forget to look at the pictures, and I feel this particular adventure is really enhanced by using a soundtrack (try Googling: ghelfi icewind playlist). Let’s get started… 74

Read the first three paragraphs under Welcome to the North, then skip the Adventure Summary. Read Using the Maps. The poster map is spoiler-free – use it all the time, it’s great for giving a sense of place and how Ten-Towns fits together. Read The Forgotten Realms, but skip Adventure Flow. You can refer to the Adventure Flowchart on pg. 9 whenever you want, but only to see what level you should be (and remember, if you’re using the Level +1 difficulty balancing, you should always be one level higher than that shown) – do not read the text descriptions of each chapter given there. Read all of Wilderness Survival and bookmark it – you will need to refer back to it often. Also, make sure you’ve recorded your default single-file marching order – this may be important if there’s an avalanche! Read Character Creation, ideally using the Character Hooks Tied to Background. Roll a d20 (rerolling 18-20) and use that to choose your character’s secret from Appendix B. You also need to read the description for it on pg. 14-15. Your Sidekick has a secret, too, but roll for it later in the campaign (between Chapters 1 and 2) and then wait for the best dramatic moment for it to come to light. Chapter 1: It’s worth knowing the background to this chapter and how it’s intended to run, even if you end up doing it differently. You can read all the information at the start of Ten-Towns, pg. 17-21 (except obviously don’t read the Starting Town’s quest descriptions or the Ten-Towns Rumours unless you get stuck later on, in which case make a d10 roll and check the table). Read the text under Cold Open. You now have to make a choice about how you’re going to choose and run quests. This adventure has been criticised for poor challenge balancing in its quests; I actually think this would be fine with a GM to nudge the players away from the really dangerous stuff and/or adjust difficulty as appropriate, but for solo players these difficulty bumps can be lethal. Chapter 1 is a sandbox – it’s a dangerous place, so be careful and run away if necessary, and/or don’t go into combat head-on – sneak or think! Choosing a starting quest and town at random seems a bit daft given the difference in difficulty between the quests, so here’s some advice on which quests to do first to get through those early squishy levels (if you’d rather, of course you can just go ahead and choose at random, so I’ve put the advice in a spoiler box so you can skip it if required). Minor SPOILER – Recommended Quests for Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden – Chapter 1: Starter Quest – if you like things easier/whimsical, choose Nature Spirits, but Cold-Hearted Killer is my recommendation. Don’t try to complete it until you’ve gained at least one, probably two, levels. Town Quests – start with Bremen or Bryn Shander (or both), then Termalaine, Targos, Caer-Konig, Easthaven in roughly that order (possibly with a return to Lonelywood once you’re level 4 or 5). When going into a new town, look at the town map. Read the description under the town name including … in a Nutshell and Overland Travel. Don’t read the locations yet; only do that when you visit them on the map. Treat all the towns as ‘safe’ (DM Yourself, pg. 41-42) so you can freely visit any locations you want, but plan your day’s exploration on the map, read the descriptions and, potentially, talk to the inhabitants as you visit each place, rather than just reading through the descriptions one after another. Read the first paragraph of the town’s quest description. This is usually safe to read, and describes how/when the characters can pick up the quest. When those conditions are met, and if you want to do the quest, read Getting the Quest and from then on use the usual DM Yourself techniques to play 75

it out. Remember to level up after completing your first, third and fifth quests in Chapter 1 – after the fifth quest you should consider moving onto Chapter 2. You may do more quests in this chapter, but you will gain no more levels (though if you do extra quests, each allows a Tall Tales table roll mentioned below). Chapter 2: Read the whole of the first page, pg. 101, then roll three times (rerolling duplicates) on the Tall Tales in Ten-Towns table (pg. 102 – skip the rest of pg. 102-104). These are rumours that you’ve picked up during your time in Ten-Towns. If you wish you can use the guide below and allow yourself a reroll or two if you didn’t get any of the recommended quests (though most of the quests in this chapter are pretty good, so you can’t go far wrong). Minor SPOILER – Recommended Quests for Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden – Chapter 2: Recommended Quests – Lost Spire of Netheril, Black Cabin, Dark Duchess. Whimsical Quest You’ll Love or Hate: Id Ascendant Not Recommended: Reghed Tribe Camp Choose which one you’re going to tackle first and plot your route on the map, working out how many days travel it’ll take. Read the left-hand column of Wilderness Encounters. Personally, I get annoyed with too many random encounters, so I changed the Number of Wilderness Encounters table so a 6 was No Encounter (instead of Two) and ran most of the combat-based encounters using this book’s Story Mode rules. For now you can skip the rest of pg. 105-112, only referring to them as required by any encounters you have. When you’ve reached the location of your quest, turn to its page and read the first paragraph under the title. Skip paragraphs titled Tale of…, Story of…, Secret of… or Not-so-Dead… and move on to read the parts titled Approaching… and then the quest’s …Locations (covering the map first to reveal just the starting location). Proceed through the quest using the DM Yourself techniques. If you’re doing the quest Id Ascendant, skip straight to The Crash Site but you may need to refer back to the skipped text on Roleplaying… (and accept some spoilers) once you meet the named monsters/NPCs. Advancement is strange in Chapter 2 – there are no hard-and-fast rules given, and you do a few quests in Chapter 2 then go off to Chapters 3 and 4, and then come back. So, I recommend that you complete two quests in this chapter and gain a level. After completing your third quest, go to Chapter 3 and come back here later. Chapter 3: Skip everything before Speaker’s Quest, then on the next page skip Trouble in the Fortress and Character Advancement because spoilers (come back here if/when you’ve finished the fortress). Read Finding the Fortress, and make your way there using the Mountain Travel rules on pg. 11. Read Approaching the Fortress, Difficult Decision boxed text and the text following it. Make your big decision! Depending on your decision, you will now be heading to Chapter 4 or staying here. If you’re still here, cover up the map apart from X1 and work your way through the fortress using standard DM Yourself techniques. Note that you need to record the passage of time in this chapter, either using the time logging rules in DM Yourself or roughly by keeping track of the number of rests and rooms entered. Whenever you enter a room that says “If Xardorok Sunblight is here…” roll a d4 – on a 1 he’s there, otherwise he’s not (unless you’ve already rolled at three previous occasions, in which case he is definitely at the fourth). Once you have finished with the fortress, check Character 76

Advancement (pg. 172) to see if you’ve gained any levels (remembering that if you’re using the Level +1 difficulty balancing you can advance to a maximum of 7th level rather than 6th). Chapter 4: This chapter is tricky to run solo, so bear with me. Read pg. 187 – there are some minor spoilers, but nothing you won’t already have worked out or would have done soon. When you’ve read the text box following Return to Ten-Towns, answer the following questions with Binding Decisions before continuing: “Where are we going to in Ten-Towns, and what’s the plan B if that town is already destroyed? Do we stay and help, or do we immediately head to another town (and if so, which one)? What do we do when we find the dragon?” Write down your answers, and continue reading. When you get to Dragon Scourge, before continuing work out how long in total has elapsed since you saw the dragon emerge from the fortress – i.e. the amount of time you spent in the fortress (if any) plus your travel time to get to your destination town. Now you have a grisly task: make a list and keep a running total of the first flight time and the length of time it took to destroy target 1, then add the next flight and target town destruction time to the running total, and repeat until you equal or exceed the amount of elapsed time since you left the fortress (that you wrote down earlier). For each destroyed town, read through the Casualties (so you know how guilty to feel) and keep a running total of the Dragon Damage (if any). Now you can work out whether the town you’ve arrived at is destroyed (if it’s already been added to the list), untouched (if it hasn’t appeared in your list), or you’ve arrived at the same time as the dragon (if it’s the last addition to the list that caused it to equal or exceed your fortress-plus-travel time). Why on earth WotC didn’t make things easy and put the town destruction time and a running total in the Flight Times Table, I don’t know! If the town you’ve arrived at is already destroyed, carry out the Plan B in your Binding Decision – if you decided to stay and help, make a roll or two on the Town in Chaos table, pg. 192. If the town is untouched, wait until the dragon arrives – work out how long this takes using the Flight Times Table, and the havoc it wreaks when it gets there using the target town information. When the dragon arrives, or if it was there when you arrived, go to Showdown! on pg. 190, and also read Weather Conditions and NPC Support on pg. 191. Remember that the dragon only has ¾ its normal hp if you’re using the Adventure Adjustment difficulty balancing rules, and don’t forget to apply the running total of damage inflicted by the towns it has visited already. After the dragon is driven off or destroyed, you might choose to hang around and help the town (d3 rolls on the Town in Chaos table). Afterwards, read Vellynne’s Quest, pg. 194-195. Chapter 5: A general note for this chapter – it’s impossible to avoid spoilers entirely (and I might have to give small spoilers here to help you avoid bigger spoilers in the adventure!). Read the text under Auril’s Abode, then skip Running This Chapter and Character Advancement (for now – you can, of course, come back here later). Read Sea of Moving Ice and Island of Solstice, stopping when you get to Island Locations. Then play out your trek across the island using the normal DM Yourself rules (don’t read the Shipwreck Discovery table unless you explore them, and then only the entry for the number rolled).

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When you get to Grimskalle, immediately after reading the boxed text work out, decide or roll for what time it is when you start your climb up the stairs. It will take a couple of hours to complete the climb; you should keep track of time, at least roughly, throughout this chapter. Now continue reading (including Fortress Features), cover up the Grimskalle map on pg. 205 (note the scale of 1 square = 10 ft) and then explore, starting at G1. A note on the Tests (G16-G19): for each one, when you get to The Test Begins, read the first few paragraphs (stop if you get to “To pass the test…”), then make a Binding Decision on what you’re going to do before continuing. It doesn’t say it in the adventure, but I made a GM decision to remove all exhaustion after returning from the G17 test. When/if you do meet Auril, read her description on pg. 274-275 and First Form on pg. 276. Only read the rest of that page (and pg. 277) once Auril has been reduced to 0 hp (and remember that Auril has ¾ hp if you’re using the Adventure Adjustment difficulty balancing rules). Don’t forget to read Wrapping Up (pg. 213) and do Character Advancement (pg.197) when you’ve finished this chapter. If you’ve defeated Auril, you could decide to end the adventure here, and go to the Epilogue – but if she’s still alive, Vellynne Harper will urge you to carry on (to Chapters 6 and 7). Chapter 6: You should only be here if you have the Rime. You can read pg. 215-216. Bookmark the Psychic Hauntings table, you will need it later. Skip Tekeli-li for now – during the adventure, if it says “Tekeli-li. If Tekeli-li is hiding…”, and Tekeli-li has not been killed yet, roll a d6. On a 1, Tekeli-li is hiding there; refer back to pg. 217 and read his full description and what happens at that location. Cover up the map and start at H1 – go through the sprawling Caves of Hunger using normal DM Yourself rules. If you make it to the end, read Wrapping Up pg. 229 and level up. Chapter 7: The final chapter is another one that’s difficult to navigate spoiler-free. Start reading at pg. 231, but stop after you’ve read Character Advancement (there are some minor spoilers in here, but seeing as you can level up multiple times during this chapter, you need to be aware of this) and skip the rest of the page (you should bookmark and come back and read about Iriolarthas when you encounter him), and start reading again at Necropolis of Ythryn on the next page. You can skip Denizens of the Necropolis for now, but bookmark it – after each hour you spend exploring the city (you need to track time throughout your stay), come back and roll on the Ythryn Encounters table. Read Magical Effects, but only come back and read Arcane Blight once you’ve been in the city for 12 hours. Similarly, you should read the first part of Dealing with the Arcane Brotherhood on pg. 259 now, but only read Avarice’s Arrival, pg. 259-260, when you reach the 12-hour mark. If Auril is still alive, read Auril’s Wrath, pg. 260, once you’ve been in the city for 24 hours. There are several ways this chapter can end – when you’ve finished with the city, or it has finished with you, read the Epilogue. Epilogue: There are a number of possible endings to the adventure – read the one(s) that apply to you, then feel free to go back and read all the other bits of the book you missed. Congratulations! Waterdeep: Dragon Heist This is an unusual adventure. Over half the book (Chapters 5 to 9) is optional or background material, and some of the content in the remaining chapters is different depending on which of the four possible villains you’re facing, so when you’re playing the adventure you’ll probably only use a third of the book. Let’s start at the beginning…

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You can read the Introduction on pg. 5, but stop when you get to Story Overview. On pg. 6 you have two choices – your first is which of the four villains you are going to face, and your second is whether you make the first choice now or later. Your choice of villain doesn’t have an effect on the story until Chapter 4, so the only reason to do it now is that it gives you the seasonal setting for when you’re imagining scenes in the earlier chapters. Because of minor spoilers, I have hidden advice on how to choose your villain at the end of this section – so you can either do that now, or when you get to the end of Chapter 3. Read the text under Choose Your Villain, but don’t read the actual villain descriptions. Take note of the line “As another unusual feature of this adventure, the villains aren’t meant to be killed, nor are they out to kill the player characters” (if, later on, you would suffer a TPK at the hands of the main villain or their minions, find the villain description on pg. 6-7 and read from halfway down, and use that to work out the story and consequence for your Plot Armour escape). Read the description for your selected season on pg. 7. Read Life in Waterdeep, Breaking the Law and Arresting Characters on pg. 10 and 12, then Character Creation and Character Advancement (remembering that if your party is a single PC and Sidekick, your level should always be one higher that the level shown here). If your character comes from, or is familiar with, Waterdeep, then feel free to read as much or as little as you want of Volo’s Waterdeep Enchiridion, pg. 163-188. Skip Factions in Waterdeep for now (we will return to it later), have fun with the illustration on pg. 1819, then turn to pg. 20 and read the text block under The Yawning Portal. Choose an NPC from the Appendix C handout to be your friendly acquaintance (if you want to, you could even use this NPC as your Sidekick). Don’t read their full character description on pg. 20 just yet – some of them have secrets or minor spoilers, so read it later in the adventure when you have got to know them. Chapter 1, pg. 21 – skip the opening two paragraphs and start at Where to Start and keep going. Don’t forget to make an Immersion roll after reading the Tavern Brawl boxed text. Run the rest of the encounters in the Yawning Portal. When you get to pg. 23, skip What Happened That Night? and (probably after a Short or Long Rest) continue with the encounters under Finding Floon. On pg. 24, Zhentarim Hideout, read the first one-and-a-half paragraphs (up to, and including, “the building’s three points of entry”), then stop and make a Binding Decision on where and how you’re going to try to gain entry. Z1 – you need to read the text before the boxed text. It’s safe to read all of Z2 once you’ve found it. Play the rest of the locations as normal. On pg. 27 read The Watch Arrives, skipping the third paragraph. On pg. 28, Xanathar’s Guild Hideout, skip the block of text under the title – the only info you need to know is that all the doors in the hideout are unlocked – and go straight to Q1 and play through the hideout using the DM Yourself rules. Most locations – here and throughout the adventure – don’t have boxed text, so make your Binding Decision once you’ve decided which location you’re going to next on the map, even before you’ve read the location title. If the room does turn out to have boxed location text you can revise your Binding Decision after reading it. SPOILER: Read this once you’ve begun the encounter in Q7. No two ways about it, this fight is potentially OP. Don’t forget all the balancing mechanisms you have at your disposal, including Plot Armour if necessary. The ID targets your Sidekick – you can always get a new one if necessary – and runs after its master when on low hp. If everything goes badly wrong, after you complete the quest Ranaer can use his connections to get someone restored, just this once.

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It’s okay to read everything in Completing Volo’s Quest – don’t forget to advance your level (if you’re playing with a single PC and Sidekick they will now be level 3). Chapter 2, pg. 31 – read until you get to the end of the second paragraph of Spirit on Tap. Make a Binding Decision on whether you’ll appease or destroy before continuing. Treat the rest of Trollskull Alley as a safe location (see DM Yourself pg. 41) – decide where you are going next, then read the shop location in full (all of pg. 32-33 is safe to read). Read the text on Joining Factions at the top of pg. 34. There’s no easy way of doing this solo – my suggestion is to read the start of the intro (and boxed, if present) text for each faction and then choose one whose requirements you meet. Once you’ve made that choice you can read the rest of the information for your chosen faction (both here and on pg. 14-17) and the first of their Missions (if you are playing with a single PC and Sidekick, your level will, of course, be one higher than the given party level). There is also no easy way to run Open for Business on pg.41-42, so I advise dealing with it as a montage and/or using the DM Yourselves NPC rules, making Persuasion/Deception/Intimidation checks where necessary and doing your best to calculate the business’ profit or loss. Deal with your business rival as best you can (again, a montage of Emmek’s plans can work here) then do Level Advancement (and, if you want, you could do your next faction mission after this before moving on to the next chapter). Chapter 3, pg. 43 – read the left-hand column but not What’s Happening Here? (although if your investigation stalls you may need to come back to this section using Unravelling the Plot for guidance) and continue with The Crime Scene on pg. 44. You can work carefully through this section and After the Blast – the pieces of information you are not meant to know are well signposted, so they are easy to avoid (and you may read most of them anyway if you make the Persuasion or Perception check). Talk to the witnesses, but avoid reading the paragraph after Fala Lefaliir’s boxed text. If you are Speaking with the Victims on pg. 46, read only the first paragraph and then make a Binding Decision on who you are talking to and what questions you’re going to ask before continuing (and try to read only the answers that match your choices!). The chances of any player, even in a non-solo game, making the necessary ‘logical’ connections to uncover Nim’s Secret seem ridiculously slim, so we’re going to make a GM’s lucky-roll-behind-thescreen and say that you do. Work through Nim’s Secret on pg. 46-47. When you get to Finding Nim’s Creation, make a list of the order in which you’re going to search the wards of Waterdeep (if you haven’t got the map to hand, the wards are Field, Sea, North, Castle, Trade, Dock, Southern). Each ward will take a day to search on foot or an hour if you’ve got a griffon (it’s unlikely you’ll be eligible to do this, but read the first two paragraphs after Finding Nim’s Creation if you want to try). Look at the order of your list of wards – the nimblewright you are seeking is in Gralhund Villa in North Ward, but if Dock Ward is higher than North Ward in your list, you’ll first have to work through Dock Ward Distraction, pg. 48-49. After finding out where the escaped nimblewright is, but before going after him, the party gets a visit from Renaer Neverember – What Renaer Knows, pg. 49. Skip all the text after Gralhund Villa, pg. 50, until you get to Should They or Shouldn’t They. Read that paragraph and choose one of the two options. If you choose Let the Watch Handle It, read everything in that section apart from the final paragraph, then skip to pg. 56; otherwise skip to the Overview on pg. 52, decide how you’re going to get in, and play through the encounters in the villa as best you can using the DM Yourself 80

guidelines. This is a complicated location with a lot going on and it’s likely you will see some spoilers, but none of them are major. Once you have finished in the villa, go through the Aftermath, pg. 55, and then go through the relevant parts of Loose Ends, pg. 56 and do Level Advancement. Chapter 4 – if you haven’t already chosen your villain, do it now. From now on your chosen villain and accompanying season will completely define the order and details of the encounter. Look out for phrases of the form : (e.g. Street Chase: Spring), Encounter Chain, or If is the villain… to indicate which bit of the encounter text you should be reading. Read the Chapter 4 intro paragraph, skip Setting the Stage, read Finding the Nimblewright and play through it. Read the text block under Encounter Chains, pg. 58, then the paragraph under Encounter Chain, then skip the Summary and read the Season Effects. Look at the Encounter Chains by Season, pg. 59, to confirm the first encounter for your season/villain (you can always come back to refer to this page if your adventure gets derailed). As a general rule for these encounters, first look at the information under : – there will be spoilers here so it’s good to write down a general high-level Binding Decision for the encounter before you read it, e.g. “We will search Mistshore for Grinda, keeping a low profile”. Then, keeping the season-dependent information in mind, play out the encounter using the map and location descriptions following the standard DM Yourself guidelines. When the party finally obtains the Stone of Golorr, read the box on pg. 58; “…earlier than expected” here means before the sixth encounter in the chain (but in any case it probably makes for a better story to play out the rest of the encounters). If the villain gets the stone, read the box on pg. 60. Once you have the stone and have finished the encounter chain, you’ll have all the information (from the Stone of Golorr text box) you need to find the vault keys. Take on the vault and complete the adventure. Don’t forget Leaving the Vault, pg. 97, when you do leave, and when you’re out of the vault (or dead!) read Adventure Conclusion, pg. 98. Minor SPOILER – Choice of Villain for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist: To choose a villain you can simply roll a d4, or just choose which season you’d prefer to play in: 1: Xanathar/Spring, 2: The Cassalanters/Summer, 3: Jarlaxle Baenre/Autumn, 4: Manshoon/Winter Alternatively, you can base your choice on this spectrum depending on how you like your stories: FUN/SILLY Xanathar – Jarlaxle Baenre – Manshoon – The Cassalanters DARK/SERIOUS

The Scroll Thief It can take some time to get into solo roleplaying, and it can be intimidating to start with a big campaign. I’ve been asked a few times to recommend a good standalone adventure on which to practice the techniques of DM Yourself. Although it is quite old – dating back to when 5e was first released – The Scroll Thief can be played as a fun, standalone adventure (although in fact it is one of fourteen scenarios that made up the Tyranny of Dragons Adventure League campaign), and it is also available for free download from those lovely people at Wizards of the Coast (see References, pg. 88)

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Read the Introduction – “optimized for five 2nd level characters” means that if you’re playing using DM Yourself difficulty adjustments with a single PC and Sidekick, they should both be 3rd level. You can read or skip the rest of the standard Adventure League stuff as you see fit. Skip the Adventure Background and Overview on pg. 5, and choose either the first or last of the Adventure Hooks. Throughout this adventure you can ignore the Adjusting the Encounter boxes (unless you want a more laid-back easier time, in which case use the Weak Party adjustments), but you should always read the Roleplaying boxes before you talk to them. This adventure makes XP awards as you go along – you and your Sidekick will each gain 1.5x the XP shown. As always, try to make an Immersion roll every time you read boxed text describing a location or event. Part 1: work through the encounters on pg. 7-12. You should roleplay these encounters as your players talking to the NPCs rather than just reading them, and make sure you only read the parts guarded by a DC check if you actually succeed at the check. Once you have investigated all three thefts, as you leave the third location go to Ambush Alley on pg. 12 (not much you can do about that spoiler!). After reading the boxed text at the top of pg. 13, make a Binding Decision about what you’re going to do next before continuing. Depending on what you decide to do, read the relevant parts of the rest of the page. After the fight is over, carefully read down Developments, doing your best to skip over information you shouldn’t know (because you don’t meet the conditions for it), and avoiding the last paragraph in the left-hand column. Part 2: skip the first paragraph after the title on pg. 15, then work through the encounters. In each case, before you talk to the NPC decide what you’re going to say to them and what your approach will be. Skip the first two paragraphs of Blood and Books on pg. 16. Follow the instructions on pg. 17, as usual only reading paragraphs guarded by a DC check if you succeed at the check. Try to avoid reading the sentence immediately following the boxed text that begins “An ear-splitting…” (don’t worry if you do read the spoiler – you’ve probably guessed it already, and if you hadn’t you’ll know soon enough). Once you reach the Archives, you need to be disciplined about making your Binding Decision as soon as you’ve read each location’s boxed description. I’m not saying there’s going to be any combat(!), but don’t forget to reduce the monsters’ starting hp, and remember you can take a Short Rest if needed. Skip the first paragraph after Sewers of Phlan on pg. 19. After the encounter, read the Developments and note that the next part of the adventure is half a day’s ride away – I encourage you to have at least a Short Rest. Part 3: after reading all of pg. 21, including the Roleplaying notes, make a Binding Decision about what your approach is going to be and then talk to the NPCs. If/when things turn into a fight, make sure to read the notes on how the enemies behave and the Lair Actions. It’s a tough fight – don’t forget to use your Hero’s Luck and, if all goes wrong, Plot Armour. Conclusion and Rewards: make sure to read the conclusion (and if you want you can now go back and read any of the other parts of the adventure you skipped). Split the Combat Awards XP (multiplied by 1.5) between you and your Sidekick. You should already have gained the Non-Combat Awards as you went along. Split any gold and items gained evenly between your PC and Sidekick.

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DM Yourself Solo Character Sheet Add-On

PC NAME Time-consuming Behaviours

Hero’s Luck

Hindsight

3/DAY

1/DAY

Improved Plot Armour Resistance Remaining Used? PROFICIENCY/2 (EASY MODE)

5

X

Other Behaviours

........................ is the weapon I have equipped by default  Listen at closed doors  Search a room for secret doors ........................ goes first in the marching order (in single file) after it is cleared ........................ goes on the right (when walking abreast)  Search a room for treasure ........................ usually speaks for the party in social encounters after it is cleared ........................ is our default approach in social encounters  Loot the bodies of my enemies  Re-search dead-ends for secret ........................ is used for lighting when it’s dark doors Your Personal Behaviours  Search for traps before entering a room or corridor   Use Stealth when entering a  room  Take anything I can carry that  looks like it might be  valuable/magical   Search chests for traps, and only open them once the trap  (if any) is disabled   Explore every corridor/room that I find 

SIDEKICK NAME AC

HP

Speed

PP

STR DEX CON INT Saves

Action/Attack NAME

Role, Racial Traits, Languages, etc. Action/Attack

TO HIT

DAMAGE

TO HIT

DAMAGE

Action/Attack NAME

WIS CHA Class Race Level

NAME

TO HIT

DAMAGE

TO HIT

DAMAGE

Action/Attack NAME

Features/Spells

Equipment/Magical Items/Treasure/Gold

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DM Yourself Emulator Sheets

SIDEKICK/PC NAME

1-2 3-4

Loyalty Check Tally

NATURAL 1 Name

Default Behaviours + Quirks (Roll d20 for random)

NATURAL 20

Relationship

Loyalty

5-6 7-8 9-10 11

16

12

17

13

18

14

19

15

20

AI Combat Trigger

AI Combat Behaviour

If low hp On first round (or pre-combat) If within melee+ If within ranged+

PARTY NAME Leader

Tank

Damage

Support

Scout

Face

Single File

Party Default Behaviours

Two Abreast

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DM Yourself Story Mode Sheet Use dry-wipe marker or counters to keep track of party damage (current fails) between encounters Used Bonus

Short Rest Moves



Long Rest Moves

Used Bonus

Current Fails



Used Bonus

Consumable Magic

+1

+3

+2

+1

+3

+2

+1

+3

+2

+1

+3

+2

+1

+3

+2

No. Location (Immersion)

Binding Decision (Notes)

Successes/Fails

 /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   / 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

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DM Yourself Quick Reference Main Gameplay Loop (DM Yourself pg. 19-32) • Reveal the location you are entering on the map • Read the boxed/italicised location description • Imagine yourself in the scene and make an Immersion roll • Make a Binding Decision about what you are going to do in the location • Read the rest of the location text and carry out your Binding Decision and Default Behaviours as best you can while dealing with any combat/encounters/traps etc. • Make a Binding Decision on where you’re going next Combat/Enemies (DM Yourself pg. 8, 36-40) • Starting the Encounter – if not stated in or obvious from the location text or situation: o Enemies are in the centre of the room/area if indoors o Enemies are 2d10x10ft away if outdoors o (Optional) When you attack an enemy roll d12: 10-11 it’s in ½ cover, 12 it’s in ¾ cover o (Optional) Roll d12, 1 enemies surprised, 2 enemies roll Initiative with Disadvantage, 11 PCs roll Initiative with Disadvantage, 12 PCs surprised • Enemies have ¾ of the normal stat-block hp (in bold because it’s very easy to forget this!) • Enemies do not do critical damage • Enemies do average (not rolled) damage • Use AI Combat tables to decide what the enemies do each round • Most enemies flee once they are on less than 33% of their original hp • Excess damage left over after killing an enemy can be applied to another enemy within melee range (or within range and standing behind the original target for ranged attacks) if the original attack roll would have hit that other enemy Things to Remember (DM Yourself pg. 6-8, 17-18, 32) • Character Creation – Create PC and Sidekick at specified adventure level+1, maximised hp, choose 3 Default Behaviours and 5+ Personality/Alignment Behaviours • Hero’s Luck – 3/day – roll extra d20 and choose which to use after seeing result of roll made by you (or Sidekick) or against you (or Sidekick) for attack, save, ability check, death save • Plot Armour – 1/level (max 5 times ever) – cheat death but with major consequences • Using a potion only takes a bonus action • Use Flashbacks if required to patch story or if some important plot point is missed • Hindsight – 1/day – retrospectively make/change your Binding Decision. If the action would normally require an ability check, roll with Disadvantage. If the action would not normally require an ability check, make a DC10 check using the most appropriate ability Logging Time (optional) (DM Yourself pg. 33-34) • Add ticks after each location from time-consuming Default Behaviours and Binding Decisions • 1 tick = 5 minutes; after an hour has passed (12 ticks) make a Time Passes check – roll d20 • 1-15 no effect, 16-18 Disadvantage on next surprise check, 19-20 wandering monsters • Remember, a Short Rest in a location not specified as safe will cause a Time Passes check

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DM Yourself Quick Reference Basic AI Combat Tactics (DMY pg. 38-39 for keywords/attacks, pg. 51-55 for extended AI) (melee+ is move + melee range, ranged+ is move + normal physical or magical ranged attack range) Trigger

General

Melee Specialist

Ranged/Magic-User

If low hp

Disengage/Dash, move away

Disengage/Dash, move away

Disengage/Dash, move away

If within melee+

Move to nearest, melee

Move to nearest, melee

If already within melee range, melee; otherwise move to optimal, ranged

If within ranged+

Move to optimal, ranged

n/a

Move to optimal, ranged

Otherwise

Dash, move towards

Dash, move towards

Move to cover, ready ranged

Persuade/Intimidate/Deceive (DM Yourself pg. 41-43) (only use if DC not given in adventure – give Advantage/Disadvantage depending on situation) Difficulty

DC

Risk/Sacrifice

Trivial

5

None, and task is beneficial to listener

Easy

10

No risk or sacrifice

Moderate

15

Trivial risk or sacrifice

Hard

20

Minor risk or sacrifice

Very Hard

25

Major risk or sacrifice

Nearly Impossible

30

Very high chance of death (or worse)

Minimal DC Oracle (DM Yourself pg. 45-46) (Minor factors add Advantage/Disadvantage dice, Major factors add +1/-1 to final result) d6 1 (or less) 2

Result

Examples

Task DC

No, and...

You don’t get what you wanted, and things are worse than you imagined

30 (Nearly Impossible)

No

You don’t get what you wanted

25 (Very Hard)

You don’t get what you want, but there’s a consolation You get what you wanted, but there’s a complication or a price to pay

3

No, but…

4

Yes, but…

5

Yes

You get what you wanted

10 (Easy)

Yes, and…

You get what you wanted, and it’s even better than you’d hoped

5 (Trivial)

6 (or more)

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20 (Hard) 15 (Moderate)

Immersion Table (see DM Yourself pg. 19-24 for more on how to use basic table, pg. 46-50 for extended tables) d6

Result

1

Smell

2

Sound

3

Sight

4

Skin

5

Social

6

Sense

Examples Location (moss, decay, rust, damp, food, incense) or personal (blood, body odour) Location (splashes, creaking, barking) or action (swords clashing, heavy breathing) Distinctive or unusual visible feature of environment, NPC or enemy Touching wood, stone, metal etc. Rain, sweat, blood on face, cobwebs in hair Speech, facial expression, or emote from you, Sidekick, NPC or enemy. Sixth, temperature, atmosphere, memory, mood, emotion

References and Further Reading Essentials Kit Rulebook (including Sidekick rules): https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/dnd_essentials_rulebook.pdf DnD Duet: https://dndduet.com/, Crystalline Curse Trilogy (DMsGuild) Motif Character Engine: Matthew Peter Casey (DrivethruRPG) Player Emulator with Tags: Tam H https://katamoiran.itch.io/pet UNE, The Universal NPC Emulator: Zach Best (DrivethruRPG) Gygax75 Challenge: Ray Otus https://rayotus.itch.io/gygax75 YumDM’s d12 Monthly: https://yumdm.com/zines/ Guide to Narrative Combat: Sly Flourish https://slyflourish.com/guide_to_narrative_combat.html The Scroll Thief: https://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/DDEX16_TheScrollThief.pdf The Pyramid of Game Design: Nicholas Lovell (CRC Press) Solo Investigator’s Handbook: Paul Bimler (DrivethruRPG)

Acknowledgements Many thanks to Gary Noble for the illustrations, Louise Maskill for editing and proofreading, and Molly, Owen and Caitlin Scutt for suggestions, research, and helping to populate some of the tables. Thanks to Nelson Bispo, Mat Cresswell, Shane Freshwater, Garth Jones and for all your input on using DM Yourself with other systems, and to all the playtesters: Jessica Butt, Matt Blackstock, Charles Wilson, James Shruga, Justin Lee Schmidt, Mike Puckett, Glen Gorman, and Timothy Arthur. A big thank you to Paul Bimler for suggesting the Fear table, for all his amazing 5e solo books and for setting up and running the Dungeons & Dragons Solo Adventures Facebook group – a great place to hang out with an inspiring group of people. All my love to Louise, Molly, Owen and Caitlin for your emotional support and putting up with all this yet again – I promise not to do another Kickstarter next year unless I’ve already written it! Finally, special thanks to all the 1,013 Kickstarter backers for your enthusiasm, your boundless patience and your help in bringing the project to life.

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