Solo Crown and Skulls


#1

After watching the Q&A Friday and having a read through the rules, I totally agree that C&S really lends itself to solo play. It’s got so many cool random tables! I’m looking forward to jumping into it soon. I tend to use Mythic GM Emulator and supplement it with the NPC tables from Starforged.

Anyone else trying it yet? Any other solo tools people use?


#2

I have still an issue with solo DMing. It is exhausting. It very demanding in my experience, my imagination is not lacking but when I’m not think there is always another player to make things fresh or shake things up. In solo, I find myself relying only on my own imagination which is cool but I want to access to the other’s imagination and mix it up with my ideas.

So no, I didn’t try it but rock on ! I might try it some time but right now it is not my jam. :slight_smile:


#3

I’m planning on running it solo this weekend, provided I can read through the rules. I have Mythic GME 2.0 fwiw.


#4

I’m considering running solo to get a grasp for the game, too. Please let me know how your attempt went, and what insights you gleaned!


#5

I’ve been dipping my toes into solo roleplaying but I havent yet gotten my hands on Crown and Skulls. Let me know how did it work, I’m likely going to get the books anyway but I’d like to hear how well it could be used for solo play.


#6

With the Binary Roll in Crown & Skull, you can answer Yes/No questions, just like Mythic Game Master Emulator or Ironsworn Oracles or even the one I made D6 Oracle and Flavor Roll Table then you can solo the game.

Where something like Mythic Game Master Emulator (preferred) or Ironsworn come in superbly is using it to add unknown details using random results that you then interpret in the context of your setting, scene, and question. If you spend more than 2min on this, skip it and try again or use your expectations.

Soloing can be 100% random, but you should have some sort of expectation.


#7

It went pretty well! I just selected the Soldier template in the Player’s Guide. My opening scene was the Fire-Kin scene in the GM section (and that led to other shenanigans afterwards). Some observations based on my limited experience:

  1. Only having 1 phase as a solo player is tough. I stayed away from a party of PCs to start with. I think with only one character, there aren’t as many strategic options with choosing a phase. It seemed to me like you’d always want to go in phase 1, as there was no point to let enemies beat on ya first.

  2. Not having default skills is a bit rough for solo. For example, the Soldier template doesn’t have First Aid, so I had no way to heal flesh attrition, except by rest (or finding a temple or some other narrative way to heal).

  3. Action scenes did move pretty quickly and there was very little overhead for managing my PC and any baddies.

  4. It seems like there’s quite a bit of variability in combat (at least at low levels). For fun I fought the same battle twice and ended up with drastically different results, i.e. the first battle I won handedly, the second I got destroyed.

Overall, I had fun and will solo it again. One thing to note is that I didn’t get to engage with the mapless dungeon, hex rolls, or random encounters, which I think will be awesome for solo play. My short adventure was mainly confined to the city in which the Fire-Kin started burning down houses.

Hope that helps, and let me know if you decide to run it solo as well and any observations you might have. :grin:


#8

The Mapless Dungeons are almost like The Location Crafter by Word Mill Games. They also make the Mythic GM Emulator.


#9

I like the mapless dungeons - I think conceptually it lends itself well to solo.

I created a party of four and tried running Storm Point Asylum solo. Didn’t go as well as I’d hoped - mostly because I ran into Agni early and her 7 attack stat is brutal (assuming I’m doing the combat right) and I struggled to work out ways to get around her.

I really like the format of the adventure. It wouldn’t take much to turn it into a solo self guided adventure. Might has a play with creating a new adventure in that format.