My favorite Tool for Solo RPGs - A Deck of Cards (A Land in Peril) (Solo RPG) 

I remember a time years ago when I thought "gee, RU-vid has almost completely replaced TV for me." Today is the day that I thought "gee, the Dungeon Dive has almost completely replaced RU-vid for me." Love these videos.

I normally wait to finish a video before commenting, but I think defining A Land in Peril as a “solo game of questing and adventure” is a great way to get across what the game is about without scaring off people who may be intimidated by the words “solo rpg”.

There's definitely something magical about a simple deck of cards. Thanks for the video!

Really enjoyed this. I have a large, but much smaller than yours, collection of cards too. I think that cards are great for certain things, but dice and tables are better for others. The difficult thing is finding out which is which. It's a lot easier to make modifications to a table, combine tables than cards. Would be kinda interested in seeing how you decide which to use when, but I suspect you probably go towards the cards whenever possible :) My first use of cards in an RPG (not solo play) was in Savage Worlds Deadlands. I still think that's the coolest combat initiative system in all of tabletop gaming.

Sweet! Looking forward to this. I got a ton of Philp Reed's decks printed off locally and nice card stock (much cheaper since I am in Ireland and one big deck with delivery was more than getting several decks printed locally) just waiting on my paper guillotine to come.

This was a super cool overview! Thanks for the video.

I just started the video, but I am so excited to have this cozy chat about game tools. 100% LOVE LOVE LOVE long-form, low-stakes content.

thanks for the comprehensive look at your card collection! I got some good ideas for future purchases

Good refresher/ reminder on some of these card sets and then i also learned about some of these that haven't seen before. Very useful. I am reminded of cards i need to look into buying if i can still get them.

I really enjoyed seeing all your cards. I really like using cards in RPG's they are so helpful.

Great stuff! I never thought I'd like using cards in my games but after hearing Daniel talk about preferring cards in several of his videos I decided to give it a try. I am now a big fan of cards as adventuring tools :D. Right now I am especially fond of the Monster cards for 4AD. And thanks for the peek into A Land In Peril. I'd love to see you release the 'lite' version you were discussing.

Thanks for this! 😊 I really enjoyed a look at all these card sets as well as an insight into your design thoughts. I've got a lot of enjoyment out of using Everway's Fortune deck for context/resolution and Vision deck for prompts. Art rich in narrative suggestion goes a long way for me.

Yes! So good to see you back on land of peril! I’m at your call if you need anything! I’ll do specific things one at a time when you need, that way it’s easy to fit around life! Loving what you’re doing with it!

Card decks are my favorite tool for solo campaigns as well.

Great vid. I've not personally used any specialised cards, but some of these look really good and that they add alot to your gameplay. The cost of delivery to the UK for cards from Drivethru is sadly super expensive, so would need to hunt around 😥

I like the idea of a system agnostic design so that it's accessible. Speaking of the Dungeon Solitaire, the base game can be played with a standard deck, and in-fact I made a video recently on how I play it in-hand so I can take it on the go. I also made a "curses" variant that adds more choices but haven't figured out how to play that one in-hand.. yet. There's something really nice about a standard deck of cards - good amount of elements with numbers, suits, color, and court cards. And easy to take with you or find anywhere you go.

Great video as usual! Some here that I feel like I need to look into.

The only game that I have played that really made use of a standard deck of cards was Twilight 2000, GDW used the cards in NPC creation and the latest edition of the RPG has expanded it with random encounters.

The high sea cards would be great for miniatures generating different battle maps. If I run across those I will most likely pick them up.

Nothing beat the cards i made with my favorite most used tables from Mythic - Ironsworn and others. Thats becouse it is custom made from me to me xD. I use a phone app to easy shuffle them and play them.

Dungeon Solitaire can be played with a regular tarot deck (you said at 1:01:47 that the Dungeon Solitaire Tarot Card deck is required, but it is not). The special deck gives a few extra cards (for some optional rules), but is not required to play the regular game.

The charts should be playing card sized so I can carry them in my card box :-)

KRULL boomerang!

and I thought I had a huge card collection, you got me beat. LOL

Caaaaaaaaaardz!!

I bought all the land pocket cards and hardly use them as well. I find using magic the gathering cards as better land travel than those.

There is now a Pocket Lands' Frostlands' expansion.

Hi Daniel, Daniel here! Thanks for your great video on the tools/cards you use. I always love watching yours on those! I too have quite a selection of tools and cards, but I personally find that the major challenge is coming up with mechanics for my games that link together those tools in a clever and meaningful way. I especially enjoy mechanics, where the outcome of one tool has implications on another tool - leading to toolchains and redirecting your story into sometimes unexpected or exciting directions. The challenge and also the fun part as a gamer is putting the tools' results into context of your story. When thinking about the mechanics I want to interlink and incorporate into my game, I always find myself confronted with the same questions: 1.) How much freedom do you leave up to the player? 2.) How do you preserve some kind of game balancing? 3.) Is this tool a good fit for the intended purpose or do I know one that may be better suited for this specific aspect? 4.) How restrictive is the tool and does this comply with my initial thoughts on 1.)? 5.) When does a solo RPG become more of a board game? 6.) How much emphasis do you want to put onto invented, adapted or chained game mechanics? Those are the questions I find quite challenging. If it is really only about a good story, then you could argue, that you could also read a good book or maybe even a cyoa style book. More game mechanics and you could focus on a purchased adventure pack for your favourite RPG and use Mythic. When designing down my own game, I tend to use UML flow charts, as it is my personal favourite way of quickly adapting and understanding new game mechanics. I also created some diagrams and charts as a personal quick reference of various rule systems. At the same time I struggle with too many options (analysis paralysis to some degree) and narrowing down my choice of tools for a game. As I prefer science fiction over fantasy as my go-to genre/theme for solo RPG, this brings along the challenge of fewer tools and products available for purchase. Of course you may be able to adjust some fantasy settings related products to suit a futuristic theme, but it poses an additional obstacle, when solo RPG gaming already has a bunch of its own challenges. Keep on making those awesome videos! Daniel

I like dices. it is a pity that they are not used as creatively as possible.

I was also surprised to find that I didn’t use Pocket Lands, even though they look amazing. My conclusion was that it was because the cards just aren’t very exciting to draw. I fixed it by rolling a handful of dice before drawing a card. Because the cards have a number from 1-6, I ascribed different events to different colors of the dice. Then every die that matches the number means the card contains that thing. Something like this: BLUE - Social encounter BLACK - Loss or setback GREEN - Interesting location ORANGE - Dangerous location PURPLE - Favourable environment or good weather RED - Combat encounter WHITE - Gain or fortune YELLOW - Harsh environment or bad weather By rolling first and matching the card, drawing the card becomes more exciting. You could try that maybe.

I need to find the best book that has tables of stuff that uses a deck of cards

Have you ever tried the One Page Solo Engine? It uses a standard deck of cards to generate everything 🙂

You said the Hex Dek was Shieldice, but it is Philip Reed.

Oh man…remember those text based adventure games from the 80’s? I think it would be awesome to remake those but use chatGPI AI as a base behind it?