Solo play is something I’ve done off and on for a couple of years now. I’ve really enjoyed the experience, but my play time has been very sporadic. Most of my games only last a few sessions and rarely conclude before I get distracted, bored or anxiety takes control and I just stop.

The world is a pretty nasty place these days and things just keep getting worse. It’d be nice to have a place to retreat to when I’m feeling down or just need an escape from the world. That’s what this is. This is an attempt to give me an outlet and as a side benefit, a place to try all these supplements I’ve either created or collected over the years.

The Vague Setting

I was reading something this morning about Robin Hood that sort of peaked my interest. I don’t want to retell the story exactly, but I do find the idea of Monarchy/Royalty/Nobility vs The People rather compelling. So civil unrest should be a big deal here with a big emphasis on class disparity.

This is just the area where we’re going to start, however. Other areas of the world may vary rather greatly.

Key aspects:

• A ruler of some sort. I like the idea of this setting being largely a number of city states rather than larger countries. So let’s make this ruler a “Lord”.
• We need some nobles, yes-men, to the Lord.
• Prison and the gallows need to be prominent punishments.
• Multiple factions that play off each other. The nobility, the people, the church, the city guards and the military.

World Geography

For world generation we’re going to use the Pocket Lands Geomorph Cards. They provide a wealth of tools for generation of a world and they also provide a handy, and quite beautiful, map!

We always start a new world off with a “location” card. I have a table I’ve written up with the card number of every card with a location. Usually these locations, at least in my games, are town, cities or some other form of populous. I roll on this table and get card #37.

Fantastic first pick. We’ve got a road, a stream, a bridge, a town and it looks like we’re close to either a lake or ocean of some sort. This gives us lots of options for adventuring just in this one little location!

Now we need to populate this slice of the world with locations or sites of interest. I roll 1d6 and get a 5. This slice of the world is going to have 5 locations, plus the populous center. The Pocket Lands rules PDF has a great little d66 table for generating locations. We’ll also use the Ironsworn and Perilous Wilds name generators to give them a name. Rolling on this table five times generates:

• Farmstead (Grimbarrow Farmstead)
• Pilgrimage Place (The Spirit Den)
• Ruins (Forbidden Hall)
• Tomb (Andor’s Hollow)
• A Well (Fortress of Radek’s Banishment)
• While we’re at it, let’s name the town: Newhaven

Now to actually place these on the map. To do this I roll 2d6 for each of these locations. The two dice represent the X and Y coordinates on the map where these locations will exist. Re-roll any 6’s and no two locations can occupy the same space.

So what are these sites and locations? Honestly, it doesn’t matter right now. These are idea fodder for adventures, things to dwell on and shape as necessary. We don’t know what our first adventure is going to be yet, so lets keep these sites in the back of our mind and we can use them as adventure sites when appropriate.

Character Creation

Concept: I was heavily inspired by Robin Hood, so let’s delve into that a bit. Who doesn’t love the charismatic vigilante? Inspirations being Robin Hood of course, but also characters such as Zoro. However, let’s not start off as a vigilante, let’s grow into it via the inciting incident. We’ll start off as a hunter with a small background as a petty thief. Maybe he got in some minor trouble when he was younger.

Class: There are a lot of ways to go here, but what sounds fun is to play a dual class Ranger/Thief. This gives me a wide variety of skills to play with. I do love my skills in tabletop RPG’s!

That’s enough to get started! Without further ado…

Name: Harn

Race: Human

Class: Ranger/Thief

Level: 3

STR 12,** INT** 11, WIS 12, DEX 15, CON 11, CHA 14

AAC 13, HD 3,** AB** 0, SV D12 W13 P13 B15 S15

Weapons: Short Bow (1d6), Sword (1d8)

There are his stats anyway. We still need something about his personality, habits, etc. Personally, I like Savage World’s hindrances for this but I’ll call them “traits” here. In the context of OSE, in the right situation they may apply as modifiers (+ or - 1) to a given roll.

Traits: Reluctant Hero, Overconfident, Stubborn

As the game progresses and the character grows, more traits may be added and some may be removed.