The Conceit:
This will be a solo play-through of the classic 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons adventure, Tyranny of Dragons, using the Triple-O Player Character Emulator by Cezar Capacle.
I will create four PCs to start the adventure, but rather than 'play' the game solo (since I've read the book and know what happens), I will use Triple-O to predict what the characters will do, and I'll then respond as the DM.
My game sessions will be limited to playing one hour at a time, and I'll type up the results as an entry in an ongoing log. I intend to keep two separate logs: one of story entries and one of DM commentary - the latter might reveal things such as the drama of dice rolls, or tricky character decisions that I had to make 'on behalf of' the PCs, which might otherwise break up the flow of the action. This commentary log is more likely to contain spoilers, I suspect.
I'm also hoping to add some brief entries about what's inspired or interested me from the TTRPG hobby as a whole: like many "forever GM's" (although this is not entirely accurate in my case) I have a large range of other games systems in my collection, and in the average week come into contact with a lot of other things that inspire me on a regular basis. I feel that if you've made the decision to read this far, it's no longer self-indulgent of me to share what's , and I feel like I can get over the sense of self-on my mind.
Even with a 60 minute limit, I have absolutely no idea how long this will take! I'm starting with an assumption that actual 'play' will be much quicker than if there were four human players able to play consistently (as many people have pointed out, scheduling is a bigger BBEG than the five-headed Queen of Dragons, etc. etc.)
Why Tyranny of Dragons?
Short answer: DRAGONS!
Longer answer: Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat are the oldest official adventures for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons. In 2023 they were published together in a single volume as Tyranny of Dragons. The story follows a group of adventurers as they learn about the threat posed by an apocalyptic dragon cult, and try to marshal a range of disparate forces against it. This is, to my mind, as epic and sweeping as fantasy gets - and it's actually my favourite experience of reading an official adventure as a book.
ToD does have its detractors, of course. It's generally regarded as something of a 'railroad' - with some sections literally following a straight line from one important location to another - lacking opportunities for PCs to meaningfully impact the overall plot, and combat encounters which can wildly vary in terms of difficulty.
However, my plan to run it as a 'solo DM' can get around all of those problems. My four PCs will all want to save the realm, rather than trying to rob everyone blind; won't complain about being 'railroaded'; and if it turns out that they do want to go 'off piste', it's extremely easy for me to stop playing and figure out how that might work. The more roleplay-focused sections will likely run very differently than with 'real-life' players, true, but no-one's going to have to remember any long sections of faction lore, and as DM I'm not going to have to worry about the bleedin' bard rolling to seduce Lady Laeral Silverhand of the Lord's Alliance, during the Council of Waterdeep.
Plus, y'know, DRAGONS.
Next time:
I introduce the characters, and myself.
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