At first glance, roleplaying games would seem to be a poor subject for solo gaming - after all, roleplaying games, by their very nature, require a minium of two people: a player and a referee. However, solo roleplaying is certainly possible and can be accomplished with no more work than an average solo wargames campaign (and, after all, what is roleplaying but skirmish wargaming by another name?). There are three possible routes to solo roleplaying - and which you decide upon depends largely on how long you expect to be without other players.

First Route

The first route is to use published solo scenarios. There are over fifty Fighting Fantasy books to choose from, along with very many more impersonators - just check the teen book shelves in your local bookshop or WH Smiths. Alternatively, if you want some character continuity between adventures, you could try Tunnels & Trolls (from Flying Buffalo) - one of the first roleplaying games ever published and still going strong over twenty years later. Around thirty solo scenarios were published for Tunnels & Trolls, and over twenty of them are still available. The main disadvantage with using prepublished solos is that there are a limited number of options in each scenario and once you've exhausted those options you know the book too well to play it again. However, there are certainly enough of them to keep you going for some time.

Second Route

The second route is to design your own solo campaign. The Dungeon Master's Guide for the first edition of AD&D had a wide range of tables which allowed you to literally 'roll up' your dungeon as you progressed through it. It wouldn't be too difficult to draw up tables for your own preferred RPG fairly quickly. An alternative to this is to use a modular system of tiles, each with entrances and exits drawn to line up with any other tile in the series, and a table of possible encounters to be rolled on each time you enter a new tile. The tiles would be shuffled and placed face down, and would only be turned over when you wanted to move onto a new one, in much the same way as is done in the latest edition of Clue do. The main disadvantage of this route, of course, is that it becomes dull very quickly. Also, it's only really suited to a few types of roleplaying game.

Third Route

The third route I once heard called, rather disparagingly,'coffee-break-roleplaying'. Because of the boardless nature of roleplaying games, they are considerably more portable than solo board and war games, allowing you to carry the rules and other materials around with you and playing wherever you are - even at work, in your coffee-break or lunch-break (hence the name).

The campaign is best played on the basis of one (real) day equals one (game) day, and entering the character's actions in a diary or log (especially if you buy a bound one from a stationers to keep as a reminder of your campaign in later years - see Don Featherstone's Skirmish Wargaming for more about campaign diaries). This will require a little pre-planning, and careful choice of the setting used will be amply repaid. For example, in fantasy games, the best setting will be a city (AD&D's City of Greyhawk, Huzuz or Lankhmar are all perfectly good, but if you can get hold of it, the Thieve's World boxed set [based on the books of the same name] is the best for this purpose).

For science-fiction games, a travelling tramp starship is the best bet. This kind of campaign works best with characters who are masters of their own destinies - it is ill-suited to characters who are subordinates, or those who have to support a business. A merchant in a science-fiction game might make a good character, travelling among the stars, adventuring as he goes; but a merchant in a fantasy setting would be less fun to play - being too concerned with his business to get involved in any dangerous adventuring.

This option allows you to generate as much detail as you wish. Maps, sketches (for those blessed with that skill) and anything else that can add an element of flavour to your journal can all be created. It also gives you a feel for the problems that your character faces. All too often in roleplaying, wounds are shrugged off 'between adventures', or a long sea-journey is compressed into a brief description. Time hangs heavy when your character is recovering from wounds, or travelling far. For perhaps the first time, you will have an appreciation of how vast and complex your campaign world really is.

This is probably the best option of the three, especially for longer term soloists. The only real disadvantage is that, after about three or four weeks of playing in 'real time', you get the urge to increase the pace, especially if your character is travelling to somewhere else - resist the urge. It will only spoil the game.

Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition: Solitaire (LW134)