My first solo session - Basic Fantasy RPG

 

 

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Delving Wolf!

In today's blog post I will tell you about my first approach both at solo TTRPGing and to playing an OSR game, and what I learned from the experience.

 

I decided to do this to learn more about OSR games before trying to be the referee for someone else, because I know the transition from 5e to old school games can be difficult and take a bit to adapt to, so I'd be able to help my future players in doing the same. Kevin Crawford's Black Streams: Solo Heroes allows me to play as just one beefed up character, and I chose Chris Gonnerman's Basic Fantasy RPG as my system of choice because, while I've not made a choice yet on which one to use for a future campaign, it seems like a good introduction; also because the dungeon I decided to run was from Chris Gonnerman's The Role-playing Game Primer and Old School Playbook and used Basic Fantasy stats natively: it would've been easy to convert it to another system, but it seemed more convenient this way.

In the book's example Chris tells the players to roll 3d6 per stat but then allows them to put them in their preferred order (although in the rulebook 3d6 in order is the main stat generation method, optional rules allow alternatives, including 4d6 discard the lowest and assign them), so I started rolling...

9 12 8 9 6 6

 

Ouch. That can definitely be classified as a hopeless character.

Ok, one of the options in the rulebook is to flip all the stats (subtracting them from 21), but to not make things "too easy" for me, I decided to then use them in order instead of assigning them; this gives me:

STR 12 INT 9 WIS 13 DEX 12 CON 15 CHA 15

 

Much more manageable. Checking the rulebook, with these stats I could choose any race or class, so I went with the first idea that popped in my mind: a Dwarf Cleric. Gorg was born!

Then I rolled HP...1. Great.

I read somewhere on Basic Fantasy's forum (or a blogpost) that Chris allows his level 1 characters to roll twice and keep the highest result, and it sounded like a good idea: 6, +1 from my CON modifier gives me 7 HP. Much much better.

For equipment, I used a Basic Fantasy supplement (on the website there's a ton of them, but for my first game I opted to not use most of them, this was my only concession) that lets players choose from pre-made equipment packs, picking a Basic Pack, a Cleric Pack 1 (giving me mace and shield, for a bit more defense) and both bonus packs thanks to a lucky extra gold roll.

 

This is where Gorg's adventure starts.

 

Gorg spent most of his life devoted to his deity (it doesn't need a name yet), but never received special powers unlike others near him, so he decided to go on a pilgrimage to test his faith.

On his journey he heard stories about an abandoned tower whose remains might hold danger and treasure, so he decided that would be his first trial.

He finds the tower, just a pile of rubble, but quickly notices a staircase going down. He descends it carefully (not careful enough, as he needs 1 on a d20 to notice the tripwire but rolled a 12, and a 1-4 on a d6 to not trigger it, and rolled a 1, alerting the goblins in room 1 of his presence).

The door at the bottom of the stairs is open, slowly and carefully he pushes it...to see six goblins waiting for him, spears in hand.

At least the surprise roll went well, with a 4, and Gorg won initiative in the first round with a 6 against the goblin's 1 and goblin leader's 5.

That's basically where the dice decided I had already had enough luck, as in the first turn I missed with my attack and, by rolling 1 on the fray die, I don't deal any damage with that either.

Gorg swung his mace at the goblins, but they duck it and, while their leader shouts orders in their language, four of them poke him with their spears, one of which manages to circumvent his shield and wound him. Gorg immediately retaliates, killing that same goblin and another one beside him (one from the mace attack and one from the fray die), but in doing so he exposed his flank, allowing one of the goblins to pierce his leather armor, seriously wounding him (while the leader and two of the other goblin missed their attack, the last one hit and, by rolling a 6 on the damage, took 2 HP from our hero...leaving him to 4).

The wound in his side causes Gorg to stagger for a moment, enough for the goblins to gang up on him and pierce through his armor in multiple spots, hitting his heart and putting an early end to his trial.

His deity was not on his side that day.

In the last turn the goblins won initiative and all attacked first, with three of them hitting for a total 4 damage, exactly what Gorg had left, thus ending my dungeon delve on the third round of the first combat.

It was short, but fun.

What did I learn from this experience?

Well, first of all that I entered this still with a 5e mindset, which is what caused my early demise: why charge into the room alone against a bunch of goblins when standing in the door would have allowed me to face two at a time? I only realized this after I finished the combat, when I tried to analyze what went wrong. This is the kind of thinking I need to train more, instead of the classic "There are enemies: roll initiative" that is the basis nowadays.

I didn't do a reaction roll for the goblins on purpose, nor a surprise roll, because having sprung the trap meant they had the advantage, and they would've only needed a morale check if I was able to swiftly cut down a few of them.

The dice were definitely not on my side, there's no denying that, but if I had been more tactical about it I peobably would've had a chance of survival, and an opportunity to see the rest of the dungeon. Oh, well.

This is certainly not the last we've seen from Gorg, despite spending like 30 seconds on his brief backstory I'd like to play him again: maybe in my next solo session, or maybe in the future, after I try some other system first. We'll see.

As I said before, I had fun even though it was a short session that didn't end well, and that's what matters, right?

This is all for this week, see you next Sunday for my next post!

 

May your dice never betray you,

Kirhon