Tap's solo fantasy worldbuilding

[Spinal Tap]

I have found myself playing more and more games solo and now only get a couple of games per month against real opponents.

Whilst really enjoying campaign’s such as those written for Frostgrave or Zona Alfa, I was finding a lack of oomph in campaign’s where I was in sole control of the narrative and direction.

Over the past 18 months I’ve been playing about with creating a system where much of this legwork is taken from me; not all, but enough to make my campaign’s interesting.

There have been a couple of false starts but my current campaign is going really well with a great narrative developing.

It can pretty much be adapted for any genre but seeing as how I primarily use it in Fantasy, I’ll post it here.

A couple of people have shown interest in this so here’s a walkthrough of how I’m running it.

I hope it's of some use to solo players to make their worlds a little less predictable.


Overview

I started with an outline map (numerous sites on the internet have open licence maps for people to use non-commercially), marked on the territories I wanted, namely Morayva, Alban, Pen Y Rhad and The Sassuun Steppes. I also marked on the main population centres, naming the cities and marking the towns, islands and (for Morayva) the Castles.

I also wrote a little about each region including it’s populations, terrain, weather although currently I’m only fleshing out Alban as that’s where the action is taking place.


20240821_165712 by markndebs, on Flickr


20250221_125849 by markndebs, on Flickr

20240927_120601 by markndebs, on Flickr







Seasons

Some solo books recommend charting daily weather and how this can effect travel but I preferred to just have standard travel rules for all but the winter (this may change as the world develops).

Since it’s still the start of summer in this world I’ve not yet thought about the rules!!!


I chose for this world to have 3 major seasons of 90 days split into 2 parts roughly looking like this.

45 Days of Lesser Aweaxe equates to early spring
45 Days of Greater Aweaxe is late spring/early summer

45 days of Lesser Haefest are late summer
45 days of Greater Haefest are autumn

Mamoram can also be spilt into two but most merely record the 90 Days in one go – this represents winter where the North is permanently under snow whilst the South has a less severe winter with only bouts of snow and ice.



Travel

On Good Roads between towns and cities horses can travel 20 miles per day whilst heavy pack animals, carts and on-foot adventurers can do 12 miles.

These distances reduce to 15 miles and 8 miles for poor roads between villages and farms and 6 miles for all but carts for off road/cross country excursions – carts cannot travel off road.

When travelling to a random quest generated in a location each days travel happens independently and is subject to some rules.

As an example my party were in Arlech following a successful job started in Odersfelt and were then looking for work in Arlech.

From the 3 quests available they chose to travel to the capitol, Umber.

Drawing the local map as much in scale with the overall map as possible, shows a journey of just over 5 days at 12 miles per day.

For each travel day where the party sleep outdoors there is a 1 in 6 chance of being waylaid (D6).

Use a dice roll to decide whether the attack comes as the party are travelling or when camped; this decides where the party start on the board, central if camped and to one edge if travelling.

If travelling they need to get off the opposite side of the board; if camped they have to fight until the enemy are defeated or fail their morale roll.

Random rolls also decide the foes and their numbers are given as per the base ruleset (in this case Sellswords and Spellslingers).

I will deal with the terrain in a separate section.

They will wake the next day and continue. For the map shown the party were waylaid on Day 1 at the 12 mile mark and reached the Guard Tower safely on Day 2 where they were offered a job but declined – this job will remain available whenever the party return.

Days 3,4 and 5 were uneventful – there were opportunities to travel to the farm, ruin or mines but no 6 was rolled at each junction so those places were not visited. Again they may roll a 6 next time of passing and the party travel there.

At the start of Day 6 the party arrive safely in Umber.


Here's the map:

20250221_132854 by markndebs, on Flickr


Traders

Cities have a variety of traders as shown in the picture whilst other settlements have only a small number.

To generate traders for a town the party, on reaching it for the first time, have a look round; towns can have an Inn, Blacksmith, Healer and General Store – roll a D6 for each type and if it shows a 4,5 or 6 then the town will have one.

Same for villagers but the only have access to Blacksmith and Healer.

I assign values to items at the start of a game and the adventurers can pick them up to sell at a later date – however the true value is rarely realised as traders are all looking for as much profit as possible.

If an item is sold at the appropriate trader eg. jewels at a Jeweller then the hero will receive 5 x D20 % of the posted value.

If an item is sold at a General Trader they will be offered 4 x D20 % of value.

If sold in an Inn then 3 x D20 % is the norm.


Adventurers do not have to take the offer and can try to sell the item elsewhere later – offers stand if the adventurer returns at any time.


20250221_125914 by markndebs, on Flickr


20250221_125948 by markndebs, on Flickr



Quests


Cities will always have 3 available quests, Towns 2 and Villages/Farms/Guard Towers etc. will have 1.

These are randomly generated by dice then applied to one of the books shown below, which contain 100’s of entries as well as NPC descriptions, all of which are great for adding variety. I paid about £2 each on Kindle.

If an entry does not easily generate a quest then I just move to the next.

So rolling 55 on Mountain Encounters 2 gives a quest – you will still have to either decide which village or nominate a few and dice roll – this can be handy as it has you travelling and gaining encounters if the village is more distant.

The adventurers always take a quest from cities and towns, randomly rolling for which to take (to avoid travelling loads and never getting quests) but only on a 6 for villages/farms etc.

Once a quest is embarked upon then it can be removed from the location quest list; revisiting that location will require generating another quest to take the number back to maximum for that location.

Screenshot_20250221_144643_Kindle by markndebs, on Flickr


Screenshot_20250221_144739_Kindle by markndebs, on Flickr


Screenshot_20250221_144941_Kindle by markndebs, on Flickr


Terrain generation


When drawing local travelling maps I first look at the main map; if it is fairly obvious what the terrain should be then that is drawn in.

If not I draw in the main features and then use Magic the Gathering terrain cards to guide my map.

I decide how many villages, farms, ruins, caves, mines, guard towers etc. an area requires then assign them different coloured dice. Thus an area’s terrain is developed with some randomness.

Terrain for encounters should roughly match that of the area map but randomly placed pieces can be placed as per the random dice drop.


Example below:


20250221_141612 by markndebs, on Flickr


20250221_141622 by markndebs, on Flickr


20250221_142038 by markndebs, on Flickr


20250221_142218 by markndebs, on Flickr


20250221_142532 by markndebs, on Flickr


20250221_125832 by markndebs, on Flickr


You might need more books if you run multiple parties in different parts of the same world but wouldn't it be great when they bump into each other in a tavern at the back end of nowhere?




In addition I use these random room and foe generation rules when searching buildings and sewers - would work well for dungeons and caves too.


https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=145596.msg1861390#msg1861390

[AndrewBeasley]

Bookmarked for a long study 

[eMills]

As a mostly solo player myself, I always find these efforts to be intriguing. I am looking forward to seeing more.

[Mikai]

Thanks for the writing down of your work! It gives an interesting input for new ideas.

[March Hare]

Love it. Great maps and procedurally generated play--what's not to like?

[anevilgiraffe]

nice

[The Golem]

Thanks for sharing your process!

Do you know if those random encounter books are available anywhere other than Amazon? I didn't find them on DriveThruRPG unfortunately.

[Spinal Tap]

Thanks for sharing your process!

Do you know if those random encounter books are available anywhere other than Amazon? I didn't find them on DriveThruRPG unfortunately.

Same guy has a Web page absolutely chock full of combat and non combat encounters in various settings, which are all free.

I bought some of his books just to pay him a little for such useful stuff.


https://litrpgreads.com/dnd-random-encounter-tables

[Dolnikan]

Oh wow. This is a really interesting concept and I'll probably have to read it again a couple of times. And I have to say, using Magic cards is a very interesting approach that I'll have to look at as well. Do you have an equal distribution of them or do you have different ratios for different areas?

[Spinal Tap]

Oh wow. This is a really interesting concept and I'll probably have to read it again a couple of times. And I have to say, using Magic cards is a very interesting approach that I'll have to look at as well. Do you have an equal distribution of them or do you have different ratios for different areas?

I use equal distribution if the overall map has no predetermined detail.

If there are, for example, mountains and a river on the large map, I would draw in the river, and use predominantly mountain and forest cards.

This would then suggest no farms, possibly logging settlements and fishermen, caves or a castle.

Random dice drop of these small settlements would snap to the nearest required feature, unless I could have a plausible reason for them to be oddly located.

Hope that helps.

[Dolnikan]

I use equal distribution if the overall map has no predetermined detail.

If there are, for example, mountains and a river on the large map, I would draw in the river, and use predominantly mountain and forest cards.

This would then suggest no farms, possibly logging settlements and fishermen, caves or a castle.

Random dice drop of these small settlements would snap to the nearest required feature, unless I could have a plausible reason for them to be oddly located.

Hope that helps.

Thank you! That makes it a lot clearer!