The Barnacled Dog
Leaving the dungeon and the bizarre creature they encountered, the trio decide to return to Barton to rest, recuperate, sell the treasure, and ponder their next steps.
I am currently up to 26 pages of journaled game sessions, if you are following along, I would love to know what you think.
Product I used this session:
ShadowDark RPG (link)
PDF version of the session:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vad5eDQvT_NKmbPe7NJ4Mnn6fL0CZLam/view?usp=sharing
Kord is captured by the fiendish bandits of Joraqua who plan to exchange him for a powerful ancient sorcerous relic, with this relic they will be able to slaughter the people of the valley. Can Kord break free of his bonds and save his newly adopted homeland?
Session six left me a little worried my pair may not survive, and what lies ahead worries me quite a bit! I feel like I have gotten into a groove with this session, the characters' personalities are fleshed out a little and I like the sort of 'journaling' / playing a game aspect that I have going right now. Hits both the writing and the gaming itch for me nicely. Also got me back to doing a map for this adventure too.
Product I used this session:
ShadowDark RPG (link)
SoloDark (link)
PDF version of the session:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_zzyQ2Oy3s4nLIW5fmJhJtyRt8TG63hy/view?usp=sharing
Session five!
I have changed up the way I plan on presenting these to you, primarily because I realized posting a write up on the blog was simply eating up too much of my time and frankly I was just not enjoying the time spent on this. I would rather be playing with the limited time I have. Also, I have decided to focus on MY enjoyment as my reason for playing the game rather than the enjoyment of others. Perhaps this is selfish from a certain point of view but at the core I am playing for me and posting here as a 'service' to those 'solocurious' and interested in how I apply the use of RPGs not designed specifically for solo play.
As such, I will not be doing a write up for each session and merely providing the PDF of the session. Here I am collecting sessions 1-5 in a single PDF before I move on to session 6.
Product I used this session:
ShadowDark RPG (link)
SoloDark (link)
PDF version of the session:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j2M7MNgi1H-SWIBmezkHORNo2nix6zpw/view?usp=sharing
Reed visits the infamous cesspool of Deadwood, filled with gambling halls, bordellos, and saloons in search of the man who murdered his friend. Reed will bring justice to Deadwood, even if he has to kill everyone standing in his way!
Session four, things start to get exciting and very dangerous! Let's go!
Product I used this session:
ShadowDark RPG (link)
SoloDark (link)
https://questingbeast.itch.io/knave-second-edition
The trio head out and have an on the trail encounter they opt to pass up. Here I grabbed the Knave 2e travel tables to get some interesting and I think, not atypical encounters. Midjourney also came up with some amazing visuals.
Continuing along they come to the first tower and discover that the last part of the journey is going to be more difficult than they expected...then I roll check for an encounter and things start to get dicey. Here I switched back to the ShadowDark encounter tables.
Ok, here goes. Here some solo peeps are going to cry foul, but oh well. I am running the game with two PCs, so I reduced the number of baddies encountered from the basic table. Why? While I want this challenging and interesting, I do not want to die constantly and repeatedly. I expect to play the PCs smartly and there will certainly be death, but I do not want to stack the deck against every single encounter. If I was DMing a small group and rolled this encounter, 3d6 - potentially 18 freaking hobgoblins - is a lot for a 2nd level party to take on and I would likely reduce that.
Anyway, it's my game, suck it.
Unfortunately these guys are not in the chatting mood and charge immediately (much to their leaders woe) the trio, and to top it off, the party is split!
I struggled here a little, I wanted a map to help visualize the situation and, as a mapper I wanted to draw one, but I wanted this to be quick and not get swept up in drawing a map and delay the game. So instead I hopped on Google and typed "topographic map" and then looked around until I found something with a ridge and some steep hills. Took all of five minutes to locate and drop into GoodNotes. I think it worked out great, helped visualize the area but looks pretty damn cool 'taped' into the page too. ;-)
I also wrote up our friend Gaspard as well.
The trio win initiative the first round but it dawns on me quickly that this could go badly. Luckily I had given Gaspard a bow so we have ranged attack ability besides just Silas' sling (which oddly is not listed as a weapon in ShadowDark...wtf???)
Just a quick side note: all of the remaining pages in this session were played while seated in a very crowded, and very delayed, American Airlines plane in the air. I used my iPad, the PDFs, and a die roller app on my phone. Worked perfectly in a small, crowded space.
The first round goes fairly well and we also win the second round of initiative. The second round goes just as well, heroes inflicting damage but receiving none!
The third round the trio loses initiative but luckily the bowmen are blind and unable to hit. The Hobgob leader though nails Rufus for 5 damage, a solid hit. The trio suddenly break the lines of Hobgobs and drop two of them, causing the remaining to fail their morale check. We they are on the run!
The fourth round we drop the last bowman and the leader, now realizing he is in deadly trouble, sprints for the ridge hoping to escape.
Round five, Rufus thinks a moment about sparing the leader, maybe questioning him, then changes his mind and drops him.
PDF version of the session:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gEg6T_-wArYhXv--sKDE6BTR9ZkI66Sl/view?usp=sharing
