THE GAMING TABLE - BASIC FANTASY RPG

A behind the screen look at Basic Fantasy RPG, my (ongoing!) solo adventure, and the transition to (not so) short story

Three “chapters”, if you will, into The Sorcerer Of Ironmaw and the characters have barely begun their dungeon crawl. In hindsight it was a little foolhardy to use Basic Fantasy RPG for my Substack project, since compressing an entire delve by an adventuring party of four into a short story was not very achievable. I have to say, however, that I don’t regret it because I am really enjoying playing solo in a pure old school fashion. Some might say that it is a little sad that I am, on my own, attempting to replicate the feeling of playing with my friends during the 1980s. They’re probably right but I’m loving it all the same.

Last time, in The Gaming Table, I spoke about how playing one of my favourite games (Dragonbane) solo, even though it has its own solo rules, was not an enjoyable experience. This time around I shall be writing about how playing a game that was never really designed with solo play in mind is turning out to be a lot of fun. What I’m finding is that the most fulfilling solo play experiences are occurring when I run multiple characters … I fell into the trap of thinking that solo play meant solo adventurer. Not true!