All Things Solo

Sources: How to Play Published Adventures Solo

1. Selective Reading Only read background story of the module and PC intro stories, if any. Then don't look at the book until your PC is in a map. Encounter pins in rooms will play a crucial role in this. Skim through only the first part of the module; 1. Title of the first part (Act 1) 2. Background story 3. GM speech bubbles in the intro (if any) 4. Everything else = Read ONLY when you don't understand something 5. Play the intro part (i.e: meeting in a tavern) in any mode with any number of PCs as you would normally 6. Read as little as possible for later pins / chapters. Problem = Go back to 4.

2. Fog of War in Maps Use Player Map instead of GM version. Settings should be as in the picture below: Righthand side in image below. * Image: Map Settings (Right Side) After you placed a map and set the options, place a token in the map and immediately click on it to remove map visibility. Second thing to do is to turn off pins (Show / Hide shortcuts). Otherwise, you see all the map in GM screen. Then place the rest of whatever necessary. As you see below, there is no party vision for immersion. (If you play 2+ PCs) * Image: Party Vision (If necessary) Turn Party Vision on/off: Right click on a character > Eye icon > Two guys with an eye in the mid to add any character to party vision. Normally, it's OFF by default and it's a Soloist's Quality of Life improvement. * Image: Party Vision Settings NOTE: When you double click on any token, map visibility comes back in GM client. When you click back any token, it returns to Player Vision. This might be a bit immersion breaker when you double click enemies on Combat Tracker. Click back any token in the map to see in their own vision.

Encounters When you enter a room, enable pins to see if there's an encounter there. Maybe roleplay a bit before that, so that you can get caught by surprise. Only pay attention to red pin picture and not the title of it. Then, play the encounter as you would normally.

Day / Night Cycle Pictures below show how to change day / night lightning but I will also write about how to use Time in creative ways later. Lighting * Image: Lighting Ambient Light * Image: Ambient light Presets * Image: Presets Back to Play mode * Image: Play

3. Use An Oracle With It "The module is a document in the possession of both you the player and your PC, but the information contained within it may not be "accurate." Thus, you do not have to pretend you don't know anything. For every new encounter, roll on the Mythic Fate Chart (or make up your own probabilities - it's pretty easy) to determine the likelihood that your advanced info was indeed true. If it was, follow the module. If it wasn't, use Mythic, the Creature Crafter, or some other instant idea generator to replace the encounter with something new and play it out. As certain kinds of encounters turn out to be "false," increase the likelihood that subsequent related encounters will also not be as they are described in the module. Keep track of the differences via a simple list. That list may well evolve the module into a very different adventure as you continue to play through it. Eventually, you will probably wind up replacing most of the final encounters to fit the previous changes that were made along the way. With this method, you don't need to do any extra prep in advance. You'll be "rewriting" the module as you go along." -John "Grippli Freebooter" Note: There is a whole part in the Mythic v2 module that explains HOW. There is even a section for Handling Complicated Campaigns with easy to follow methodology.

4. Use the Adventure as Inspiration You can simply take what you want from it and use it on your own adventure.

5. Default Behaviors Such as "Rogue : I always check for traps before entering a room." OR " Warrior : I'm always tactical and patient in fights." This list depends on the PC and his/her back story / class / personality. The importance of this is, whatever you do, you will read some spoilers eventually. And if you do, these behavior lists will anchor your immersion back to the game in case something breaks it. DM Yourself has a character sheet that has a list of such behaviors, but when you're writing yours, think in terms of Exploration (rooms, loot) - Combat - Roleplay.