All Things Solo

There are 2 main ways for Exploration in Solo Play. Since this is the most preferred one for newcomers, I'll start with discovering a setting book. The other one is create-as-you-go from scratch.

# Discovering An Established Setting

Discovering setting lore as a player is one thing. But discovering the lore in the perspective of your PC is what makes the lore personal.

Remember when I briefly mentioned that you can use a setting book to discover it in gameplay instead of reading it as a book? This is the part that expands on it. In combination with Random Content Creation Methods, it can be a fun start for your first solo session.

• For this mode, you'll need a Setting Module of your ruleset. i.e: "Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide" for D&D 5E.

All you have to do is to decide your PC's starting point in your setting of choice. If you have knowledge on the setting, start from wherever you wish depending on your preferences. If the setting lore is new to you, you can briefly read about places in a wiki -without getting spoilers-, depending on what kind of story you want. For example, if you want intrigue, choose an appropriate location that is ripe for story threads for intriguing quests. You can simply search "intrigue, forgotten realms" in the web and only note the name of a place, for example.

You can also randomize your starting location that produces a starting quest with few questions. Your Freeform Association skills will play a huge role in this. Basically, you open the overland map of your setting in FGU, unlock it, then give it a grid overlay equal to dice numbers. In example, divide Sword Coast Map into 6 big grids and assign each grid a number. Roll 1d6 and there's your general starting area. Then zoom into the area and assign smaller grids until you triangulated a city or a town, or even an empty desert / forest.



Think about each part before you zoom in, to generate ideas that are associated with the region. This is where you'll find your PC a quest if they don't have one yet. In the video example, Marmusman's PC starts in the islands west of Sword Coast but his dwarf PC's quest is to learn info about Sword Coast. He has a conflict to solve! This conflict will keep him occupied to create content, such as randomly generated NPCs, scene goals before he reaches the mainland, and most importantly, pins on the map to read as his PC arrive those parts. You can even create an NPC or a journal for the story on-the-fly that tells YOUR CHARACTER'S story in that part of the map. This way, you'll discover the lore as you play, instead of reading it like a book in one go.

From there, you'll just use Content Creation Methods and explore the setting map.

We'll continue to delve deep into Exploration in Part II.