Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Solo
And Cargoth: Ruinous Edition is released! | This is The Lone Toad Newsletter November 2024
Welcome to the November 2024 Lone Toad Newsletter!
Dungeons and Dragons is the 800-lbs gorilla in the RPG scene and for a good reason. Not only did D&D start this whole roleplaying thing, but it continues to be the largest, best-selling, and most played RPG.
On top of that, D&D 2024 has released their first of the three Holy Tomes, the Players Handbook, with the DM Guide and Monster Manual coming over the next several months.
Dungeons and Dragons Solo
There are so many reasons to solo D&D.
Have you made a few characters you want to try out. (If you're like me, you’ve got a few dozen characters tucked away somewhere)
Has your group cancelled or postponed? Again. For the third time. This MONTH!
Want to learn a bit more about the rules, how things work and work on your DM skills?
Maybe your D&D group just is not enough for you. You need more of that sweet sweet dungeon delving.
Whatever your reason for wanting to dip into D&D solo, there are literally thousands of options for you to dive into. I couldn’t possibly cover all of them, but I’m going to highlight a few options for you to get stuck into.
All these products, barring the Old School Module, are built for 5E and should work with D&D 2024 with little modification!
Choose Your Own Adventure Style
Smashing their Kickstarter goal in 2022, The Wolves of Langston is a murder mystery adventure built to be used with 5th Edition D&D. Billed as a truly solo experience, Wolves can be considered a Gamebook or Choose Your Own Adventure book.
How does it work? Pretty simple really, you’ll read a passage, make a choice, maybe roll a test, and depending on if you are successful or not you go to a different section of the book to continue the story. You’ve probably played something like that as a kid or more recently.
What makes Wolves of Langston stand out? You can bring in any character you want, to give them a whirl and see how they solve the mystery. You get to earn unique items for your character. You don’t need anything but the book to play along either!
And once you play it solo, you can pick up the party version and run it for your group!
Something More Like a Traditional Adventure
The Death Knight’s Squire is a bridge between Choose Your Own Adventure-style games and more traditional play. It uses a map and token system, so you’ll be able to better visualise your adventurer as they traverse the environments.
This 2-4 hour adventure will easily keep you entertained and if you like it, guess what? It’s part of a whole series of solo adventures by 5E Solo Gamebooks. There are plenty of additional solo adventures to help you place your group when they flake out, again…
Dungeon Master Emulator
Alright, are you tired of all this guided adventure stuff? Are you ready to dive head-first into the world of D&D with nothing more than a character sheet and your imagination? Well hold on there partner, it’s dangerous out there. Take a GM emulator to keep safe and on track.
Solo Term
A GM or DM Emulator is a tool that helps structure and inspire your solo play. It commonly contains tools such as oracles that help determine situations, procedures for playing the game, and other tips for improving your solo experience.
There are tons of DM Emulators out there for 5E but I’ve gotten several recommendations for Elminster’s Guide as a solid tool that covers the core pillars of D&D well.
Old School Module
Dust off your copy of BASIC D&D and dive into this Old-School solo module, Ghost of Lion Castle. Lion Castle plays like a Choose Your Own Adventure but with a few cool additions:
The game is supposed to be dynamic. You are instructed to cross out items when you loot them and mark where your character dies in the castle.
Basic D&D combat with a chart to help you figure it out
A map to help you visualise where your character is in the Castle. It seems like a no-brainer but it was pretty new for these types of games in the 80s.
So be sure to grab this -checks notes- 40-year-old adventure. You’ll be sure to enjoy it.
Check out my post from last year about Basic D&D which came with a solo adventure over 40 years ago!
A 40-Year old Dungeons and Dragons solo Adventure
Welcome to the October Newsletter of The Lone Toad. October is a huge month for The Lone Toad. I’m heading to PAX Australia to check out cool new TTRPGs, I’m playing through my D&D Basic Campaign The Ancient Way on the blog, and (hopefully) releasing a game jam game. Huge stuff!
How do you play 5th Edition solo? Let me know in the comments!
Cargoth: Ruinous Edition released!
Cargoth: Ruinous Edition is released! Thanks to everyone who played the original version. Cargoth: Ruinous has a ton of content for your Ironsworn campaign. Enough to keep you going for session after session.
Cargoth: Ruinous Edition is an adventure to be used with Ironsworn. The game contains:
A 22-page fully designed adventure booklet.
An inciting incident to get your Ironsworn adventurer into the action.
An Extreme Vow to give you hours of gameplay.
Unique Pay the Price and Perils tables built for your journey through the Lost City
Individual exploration tables for the Lost City, The Ruins of the City and the Catacombs with over 30 evocative locations to explore.
A surprising twist that allows your Ironsworn adventurer the chance to make a decision that will affect the whole Ironlands.
8 potential foes and allies including beasts, the unnatural, and other adventurers.
Updated Content new to the Ruinous Edition Includes
Additional rules for traps and dangers
3 new storylines to provide hours of adventuring in the Lost City
Five 'assets' your character can use in future adventures.
Be sure to check out my other games here!
Crowd Funding Alert!
From time to time I may cover some solo RPG crowdfunding games that look cool!
ENDLING: a tarot-driven solo-journaling game
Endling is a solo-journaling game about the last living human. The endling is on a mission to fulfill one final promise. Using tarot cards to inspire your responses to the journaling prompts, you will tell the endling's story.
Storeys - A Solo Horror TTRPG
Storeys is a horror-themed RPG, with simple but robust rules, using a combination of d12 rolls and card pulls to help players generate their own story, within a growing narrative surrounding a series of cursed apartment buildings.
Other RPG Stuff
What RPG or solo RPG news do you think we should all be talking about?
Want to get started on Bluesky? Well
created an excellent starter pack with a ton of Solo RPG creators (including me!).The
just released a new OSR game. Subscribe to their newsletter to download it for free.I talk about overcoming Writers Block in my other newsletter. You don’t know I have another newsletter? I do. I also talk about a new game I’m working on.
Halloween may be behind us but it’s always in our hearts, isn’t it?
recommends a whole bunch of solo horror games.- writes about supporting your local Library as an indie RPG designer. So great tips. Give back to your community and grow awareness of your work!
- also writes a cool article about Dungeon!, the first adventure board game. I love that old TSR stuff. Seems like Dungeon! was ahead of it’s time.
- is straight-up melting characters in their OD&D campaign. You roll boxcars on the exploration table? You're about to meet a fucking dragon.
- writes about making licensed games.
As always I write this because you all read it. Please like this newsletter and share it with others who may be interested.
Up Next for The Lone Toad
Later this month on the Ribbiting Adventures (the mid-monthly deep dive into all stuff Solo RPGs) we are taking a cold hard look at the classic solo adventure, Ghost of Lion Castle!
The Load Toad has affiliate links. If you click a link you’ll be supporting the Lone Toad and it will cost you nothing.
There is another way to play and it is my favorite - PBtA way (Ironsworn).
Just roll 2 sets of dice. if both are success - it is full succes.
if only one - success with a price that moves story forward.
Both misses - total failure.
for me it is the only way to play.
this was a great read, solo rpgs from the start to present, i found it very interesting. thanks