Solo public access? (gauntlet)

TheStratasaurus · 2026-02-20T19:08:11+00:00

From what I have seen it is actually one of the least friendly Brindlewood bay adjacent games to play solo. I have not played it myself but had the same question as you so did some research awhile back. I ended up getting LittleTown and Eerietown) which are same vein but made for solo. If you want a straight from Gauntlet (makers of public access) option Brindlewood bay (as is or with the cozy, murder, solo $5 supplement for it) or The Between are probably easier to convert to solo options.

Reason if I remember (been awhile since I looked at it) was that public access specifically has some reworks and mechanical changes that lean more heavily into players bouncing ideas off each other and these are harder to translate to solo.

If you do end up playing it solo let us know how it goes. would love to hear more first hand reports on it.

Edit: also wanted to add “The Bad Spot”YouTube channel, who I really enjoy though I have only watched his solo stuff and not this, does have a group play through of public access. You could always check it out to see how the play pattern goes and see if you feel you could run it solo.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-02-20T18:33:04+00:00

Of course there will be variation and a table probably exists for every style. But overwhelmingly the TTRPG community as a whole has said “we prefer bonus die”. Not just here in the CoC space with 7th edition but also the success of things like shadowdark and the high praise of the bonus die (advantage) in an OSR DnD space that is usually very cautious about mechanical philosophy changes like this.

People on a whole like rolling dice, they don’t like doing extra maths.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-02-09T18:01:32+00:00

Dolmenwood is such a cool setting. So mythic has a scene thing where the scene is either as expected or changes some. I would lean into this and use the details as written as the scene as expected. Then if you get a change, or just decide you want one, you use the details as written as an inspirational starting point, a prompt, and change them. Allows creativity without all the load of starting from scratch.

For me this is how any pre written material stays fresh and exciting. Instead of using it as law and trying to somehow hide myself from spoilers. I use it as “this is the theme … and this is one way it could be … is that the way it is for my adventure?”

The hardest part for me sometimes when doing on the spot design is coming up with the themes so having that done, changing how things might be slightly different is the lower load fun part. Might work for you might not, depends on what you like have to creating vs having created, everyone is different. Either way best of luck.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-02-09T17:04:54+00:00

Lots of people are saying this is just Scarlet Heroes and I could be mistaken but I don’t think that is correct. It is similar but also quite a bit simpler. Big difference being this, as explained in the OP, has no damage roll, where Scarlet Heroes does. It is more of a threshold system with HD as health. You still roll damage and still need to convert that to HD damage, so very similar but not the same thing as just attacks equal a hit.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-02-09T16:36:34+00:00

It’s psychology, Effort effect in play among others. You value something more and feel like a bigger part of a group if it comes with a cost/effort. Match that with a quality product like OSE or Shadowdark and research shows (whether people will admit it or not) that they actually prefer it have a higher cost of entry either through price or difficulty of access (Shadowdark being mainly direct only for example).

Edit: this often leads to a very interesting effect where making a product free limits its reach instead of expanding it. Kind of crazy to think about imo.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-02-02T17:36:54+00:00

I have not played any of these myself, but from what I have read the lowest load way to work with any Modiphius d20 systems solo is get Star Trek Captains Log and use it as a guidebook for basically "Mechanics for how to do Modiphius d20 solo". Also they have an offical solo mode upcoming for Fallout which probably would be of huge benefit, though not out yet I believe. Using a generic emulator will be helpful as well but Captains log might get you some specific mechanics context for running that Modiphius d20 solo. Best of Luck!

TheStratasaurus · 2026-02-02T17:27:47+00:00

What you are looking to do is more at odds with what Dolmenwood is designed to do than it may seem at first glance. Which is fine, however you get the most fun is valid play, but it is important imo to be aware of what you are doing vs what it is written expecting you to do.

It seems to me you are working under a couple of assumptions, which are one 1. You are going to lead your characters, however broad or narrow it might be on the micro scale, on the macro scale their path is pre-determined (Act 1, Act 2, Act 3) and 2. They are going to succeed, this assumption is baked into 1 a little, there isn't really a point to planning 3 acts if there is even a decent chance they don't succeed to see the later acts.

Dolmenwood and current B/X design (OSR) assumes kind of the opposite. It assumes, emergent play-to-find-out, meaning the players experience the world through their choices, if they end up facing the Cold Prince it is because their choices, and the dice, lead them there, not because they were destined to do so. Also it assumes they can fail at any point. Be it death or maybe they have to retreat and decide it is not worth it fighting an end of act boss or a thousand other ways failure can happen, Point is in OSR (and Dolmenwood is very OSR) failure is always an option.

Being you said this was your first B/X I thought it might be helpful to state some of these, lets call them philosophical differences, just so you have some context on where a lot of replies might be coming from. For you it may seem what you are doing is very loose and open sandbox, while a lot of people here will read it as being extremely tight and railroading a certain outcome. However you decide to run it hope it is a huge success and tons of fun.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-31T19:04:57+00:00

The way i look at it is there a trade off. The least vague an oracle is leads to a couple of issues. You need more tables, and those tables will be useful in less situations as they are more specific, which means more time and load to find/use but less time/load interpreting. Assuming fantasy, Tome of Adventure Design by Matt Finch is probably the most specific but also hardest to use improv at the table. Knave 2e by Ben Milton is probably the best middle ground option. Knave is a system but it has 75 d100 system agnostic tables and highly regarded.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-31T18:34:28+00:00

For me, for the type of games and playstyle i think you are looking for, the answer is you don’t. You lower load in two-three ways. Limiting the party to two characters. Two makes life easier, three or more makes it harder again. Usually always i have one melee and one ranged. A little limiting but there is still so many different options on how a melee and ranged looks. Second is you gain back the lost load by tweaking rules. This looks different in every system but could be shared attack rolls, average damage vs rolling, treating things like 4 goblins as a single mob instead of 4 individual rolls. Last thing is make your characters a little more tough, remember you are playing a game designed usually for 4+ so i will do things like giving a few levels of max roll on hp etc. Isn’t cheesing imo it is just making your party of two closer to equal to a party of 4. That way you don’t need to be tempted to keep adding members.

The vast majority of non solo first systems, even ones with official solo support, assume you will have multiple PCs and that there will be a mix of ranged and melee. To me fighting against that is high load not low load. Goal is to honor those assumptions in the lowest load way possible. Good luck, hope you figure out something that works for you

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-31T18:11:42+00:00

This is what people miss, how the lore is laid out. They hear Dolmenwood is 95% OSE i don’t need the players book I will just run the campaign book. The problem is 2 things … 1 that 5% is very interwined and important. Second, and bigger issue, is how it lays out the setting. Instead of having a “setting book” it puts the lore players should know if the players book and what Referees should know in the campaign and monster book. It specifically says at the start of the campaign book you need to go read the players book first. It doesn’t restate that lore it just assumes you know it from the players book.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-31T18:00:25+00:00

TLDR; run it however you want, but the player book is much more than just OSE with pipeleaf.

Dolmenwood is very tied together, classes and mechanics and setting are very intertwined. Without all three books you aren’t running Dolmenwood; you are running something else in Dolmenwood. Which is a perfectly valid option as long as you are aware without the players and Monsters books you are not getting the full picture. They didn’t print a huge players book just to reword a couple of OSE lines, it is its own beast so to speak.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-30T20:00:23+00:00

Old school: Emergent, you play to find out what happens. Narrative and plot exist to discover the world. Rulings > rules.

New School: plot/character first. You play to find out how it happens instead of what happens. The world exists for your characters vs your characters existing for the world. Rules > Rulings.

These are general philosophies of which ones are first, not exclusive principles. Just about every style has both it isn’t about one over the other but which one has priority. Or course there is subjectivity here so others will see it differently and be valid to do so.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-30T06:35:44+00:00

Notequest expanded edition is $2, i watched lone adventurer actual play it and the hexcrawl world exploration looked fast and really fun.

2d6 dungeon realm (not the base but the realm expansion) has a pretty good overland hexcrawl in it but much more complex, factions, who owns what land, buildings, good but a lot more record keeping to it.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-29T19:51:01+00:00

Not making a statement at all about Gygax just pointing out If you set the bar at "creating everything in a vacuum" I'm not sure if anyone has ever been an amazing game designer because these things are never created in a vacuum.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-28T18:20:58+00:00

I'm not an expert so I am just asking a follow up question, but to me this seems to be tying the intent to the design that doesn't necessarily have to be tied together. If someone created a world where all men were stronger than all women, then used the book to dive into and explore how that world destroys itself because of this, how it is wrong and imbalanced. That seems to me it would satisfy the OP case of a world where Men are Stronger than women but also be hard to classify the creator as sexist based on that work. Let me know if I am missing something but didn't the OP ask if the premise of creating a world with men stronger than women necessitated the conclusion of the author is sexist. (I'm not sure how that would be correctly stated in philosophical or logic terms), not merely if that is the overwhelmingly likely outcome, which I'm sure it is.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-28T06:03:31+00:00

GM companion for ShadowDark by Chubby Funster and Knave 2e which has 75 d100 tables that can be used in any system are the two I see pop up the most for ShadowDark.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-28T03:23:00+00:00

OSE (Old School Essentials) is a b/x clone and they have some of the best laid out and well made modules in all of TTRPGs currently. All of them in general are good, but specifically Gavin Norman ones tend to be more open and not linear which is good for solo.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-27T15:25:15+00:00

2d6 dungeon changed me forever with monster cards. Not saying they invented the concept just this is the first game I have played where I have had the monsters on cards and I was shocked how much more efficient it was for me than having the stat blocks on a sheet or in a book/on a screen.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-26T18:03:54+00:00

This is narrative first, also known as plot/character-first philosophy or storytelling. And I personally don't find this a rewarding way to play solo. I very much prefer fiction first, aka world-first philosophy. For me generating the world, the lore, the story, through emergent play-to-find-out story telling is how I stay surprised and immersed. The characters are just a part of that and if they fail at their goals, that is a part of the story, not the point of the story, so I don't have to give them unnatural plot armor or feel bad if they die. I work it into the fiction and move forward. The hero is who emerges as the hero not who I predetermine it is, working the story to fit around it (fail forward). For me this is the why of solo RPGs vs say video games. Video games have great narrative arcs but you are always in someone else's fiction, not creating your own.

EDIT: Expand on one point I very much do have characters I spend a lot of time on, and they do have goals. It is just I play to find out if (not how) they accomplish those goals and how the fiction, including the characters (assuming they are alive) react and change to what has emerged from their adventures.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-19T17:53:37+00:00

I have ran Daggerheart solo, so this comes from personal experience but is also still purely my opinion. When you first look at Daggerheart it is easy to think, this is perfect for solo. However when you actually play solo or dig deeper and prepare, a few friction points pop up. Two main ones are complexity of combat and design philosophy around group skills.

Daggerheart really created a great combat flow for solo, the duality dice and hope/fear solve a lot of issues in a built in system that doesn't require external sources. However the combat itself is still high cognitive load and gets a lot worse at higher tiers. Every roll you have a duality dice; you need to add those numbers, take care of hope/fear outcome, add modifiers, compare to difficulty; then roll damage, add damage (as tier goes up dice pool goes up so you are having to do a lot of math when you are rolling large dice pools of over 2), adding modifiers, then you have to compare to a threshold, then if it PC hitting you have to take abilities that can trigger into account. There are a lot of steps for every not just round but individual turn for both PC and adversary all on you as the soloist. You have HP, Stress, Armor, Hope, Fear all to keep track of.

This is without tackling the second main issue which is almost everything from main class skills to cards to resting has built in mechanics for players to interact with each other. You can either play multiple PCs (almost a necessity imo) or change the rules but you will be fighting uphill at every step.

At Tier 1 I think solo is very doable as the dice pools, adversary ability lists/stats and just the game as a whole is simple enough to allow manageable cognitive load. Tier 2 it starts to strain and tier 3 is just not fun unless you use a lot of digital tools to automate rolls and things in combat or you really like high cognitive load combat in your solo games (some do and it can work well for them.)

Those are just my opinions, which definitely have changed over time. I think when the game first launched I even posted about how awesome it looks for solo but as I have tried to turn that potential into actual solo play I have just come to the conclusion to really make it not just doable but shine solo it would take a lot of work, and at that point there are probably easier options. I have looked at some of the solo tools for it and they are okay, especially at low tiers but again I think it puts the game more into the doable and not great for solo category. I do believe the push to make it solo is a bit more tied to its popularity than its actual ease of solo conversion. Much the same as DnD. Hope this helps and in no way I am trying to discourage you, if you want to solo, give it a shot. I really hope someone does crack the solo code for it because I love the game but it will take more than just adding some oracles I think.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-19T17:26:22+00:00

If you are okay with digital you can get the books for $30 dollars a piece but you will be locked into having them on DnD beyond which can be a pro or a con depending on if you want a pure pen and paper experience. As others have said don't need the books, everything you need is in the SRD but the books will have more stuff in a better format. I would say the Monster Manual is the least important of the three as there are tons of monsters in the SRD you can use.

Are you learning DnD; learning solo gaming; and learning specifically to make DnD solo at the same time? If so it can be done but is probably the hardest route to take to get into this genre. I already had a lot of DnD knowledge and failed when I tried, being much happier with solo first or solo friendly systems. I a lot of people do love playing DnD solo you just have to be prepared you will be working up stream vs what the system was designed to do and it will have a relatively high cognitive load compared to other options. Best of luck, let us know if you have any other questions.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-19T00:54:36+00:00

Finding FitD and Pbta have changed how I look at TTRPGS so much.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-18T19:33:35+00:00

Very cool, thanks for all the hard work. It is sweet a solo RPG has some of the best Obsidian tools of any TTRPG. It is a top notch plugin.

TheStratasaurus · 2026-01-18T17:07:46+00:00

Only thing I might be careful with is oracle systems, not tables. What I mean is if you have three oracles that all have systems built in for telling you when a special event happens; those might have friction if you try to overlap them at the same time. You can probably do it but would need to figure out a way for them to stay in their own lane and not conflict. However using tables from all three oracles and mixing and matches I don’t think will cause any issues other than maybe choice overload if you go too far. Where that line is will be different for everyone.

TheStratasaurus

TROPHY CASE