No D&D group? Try solo play! 

this feels like a guided version of literally just being a kid and playing with toys?? i love that so much as a kid it's so easy to pick up some toys and come up with some whole elaborate story and play with them for hours, and it's a lot harder to do that as an adult, so this feels like a way to get some of that wonder back

Not d&d, but I've had a blast playing 1000 Year Old Vampire. A solo journalling experience where you become a vampire and make your way through a setting of your choice. Story of love, loss, and forgotten identity. Above all else, the book itself is gorgeous.

Oddly, this style of gameplay reminds me of playing with action figures as a kid. Sometimes you were playing on your own, but you had multiple characters that you were playing as having conversations back and forth, fighting, etc.

It’s so comforting after 33 years of only solo roleplaying and getting made fun of by everyone in the 80s because I only played Solo RPG. It is comforting and humbling to see that this video, about Solo RPG, is your Number One most popular video.

Hi Ginny!!! Thank you so much for the kind review. You totally *get* the Solo Adventurer's Toolbox, and your playthrough demonstrates the tools exceptionally well. I love your story too... and great NPC voices :) As an indie author you have no idea what this has done for me… made my year!

The way Ginny said “noooooo” at the beginning sounded like when a kid gets threatened with timeout.

This sounds so fun omg, as someone who's too shy to roleplay in a group of people, doing this alone sounds like the perfect way to do it

This actually feels like a good tool for writing. Would make for easy writer's block breaking.

As someone who has a LOT of story ideas but a lot of trouble developing the actual plot, this seems like an EXCELLENT way to help actually get around to writing.

The DM can use solo play for their players main antagonist . This might be preferable for some DM's that want to speed up the planning for their campaign.

This video changed my life! I have chronic illnesses that make it impossible for me to be reliable for campaign play, so I gave up on learning how. Then I watched this video, bought the first book, and almost immediately ordered the second. Thank you!!

I'm a 56 year old who played D&D with a strong group back in the 1980's. Every Saturday we'd meet up at the local Y and play all day. D&D, traveller, Tunnels and Trolls, Runequest. Now that whole group have moved on. years ago I went to an event and was perhaps 15 years older than anyone else there and 30 years older than the average. It was not welcoming. I didn't want to come across as a creep so I left after an hour. I'd love to play D&D but it's unlikely I'll ever find a group so solo play is my only option. This is a great vid to get me thinking. Cheers :)

This looks great for playing as a couple too, without needing one of us to GM. Great for people who want to teach an S.O. or friend how to play without having to find a group or commit to a campaign.

Ginny honestly has some of the best scripting, pacing, and delivery of content creators on RU-vid.

I'm a teen, I'm currently struggling with loneliness. Even when I finally find a group I always have to be the DM because obviously it's everyone's first time. So thank you Ginny, this video is life saving for me ❤️

I recently found being a DM In a solo adventure it something ChatGPT is actually good at. It shows it's read too many make-your-own-adventure books by offering you two choices at the end of each answer, but if you go off the rails and do something creative, it is able to roll with it and adapt. It's quite fun actually, if not in a traditional role playing sense.

You could honestly make that solo game into a mini series for your channel. It was interesting to watch and does the best job of selling the concept, I was ever so slightly hesitant due to your intro and the idea of solo D&D in general, but seeing the actual gameplay with somewhat familiar characters was both engaging to see and enticing to play.

"She's hot but she's really religious." had me rolling. I may have to try this at some point. Also, your DM screen is fire. Thanks for the upload, Ginny!

Im 23 and have been interested in D&D for a while. For some reason, her talking gives me nostalgic-deja-vu of something I haven't actually experienced, comforting in a way. I love the way she is explaining everything as well!

LOL, shit I actually got chills from the storytelling slowly revealing plot points and twists and turns in your solo play. This seems a lot cooler than I originally thought as it combines more story writing techniques, but still with surprises to us, the DM/player. Very cool.

Nymwen and Nakrasha weren't a pairing I'd ever expect, but they bounce off eachother so well! Fussy nerd and lesbian jock are always a killer combination 👌 and all the closeups of the dnd accessories were so well-shot and pleasing to look at, it made the setting look very cozy and gave me a lot of dice tray envy lol

I feel like these books could be pretty easily adapted to a "DM-less" campaign as well. Sometimes, a group can form but nobody is comfortable or willing to be the DM, and so nothing happens. The concepts and mechanics of these books could make it possible for the party to skirt that issue, and perhaps even give someone a better opportunity to grow into the role of being the DM more naturally, rather than having to do it out of necessity, or arrogance. What do you all think? Has it been notably common for anyone to find people who want to play, but nobody who wants to DM?

7 months later, still rewatching this video cuz I enjoyed the characterization and the writing style so much! Incredible Video Ginny

Both as writer and as introvert RPG fan I did not know I needed this in my life but DAMN did I need this. Thank you

The intro caught me so off guard I’m- actually crying-

The oracle answering the "did this guy kill the queen??" question with "yes, and...!" was priceless! I could do nothing but imagine the Scooby Doo quote of "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!" 😂

This feels like a wonderful way as a DM to make the campaign I play with my players feel more alive. Having maybe a rival party, my solo party, exist in the same time as their party.

Thank you for showing that a party of two can work! So often solo players play one PC only. I also have difficulty coming up with parties of 4 who would have good synergy, but I very often think of pairs of characters whom I want to see fit together.

Ginny: "What is a Nilbog?" Me: "YESSSSS!!!!!" Truly one of silliest creations in D&D, but also very fun to watch when others encounter it.

I love how you point out that its not a replacement for group D&D... like, I have a group that meets once a week, but that is simply not enough D&D for me. If I had it my way, I would be playing D&D every waking hour. This book allows you to play as much D&D as you want. *IN ADDITION TO* your group games. And, it facilitates play for people with social anxiety / people in isolated locations / forever DMs to play when they want as well. No doubt solo play has its detractors ("tHiS iS JuSt cAlLeD wRiTiNg a BoOk"), but their concerns are vastly outweighed by the positives that systems such as this provide.

Nilbogs are pretty funny. When they were first introduced back in the AD&D era, the damage reversal was automatic - the only way to hurt them was with healing magic, making them basically a "puzzle monster" that you just needed to know the right trick to defeat. I think the modern version is more interesting.

Just wanted to thank you for this video, in December I was craving dnd but everyone was busy with holiday plays, so I run ran my characters against some monsters and had a surprising amount of fun putting them through a gauntlet of monsters!

I feel SO vindicated for this video! I do solo play ALL THE TIME. It started out as me guiltily wanting to continue my own character's story after a game fizzled out whilst also practicing my first time homebrewing classes. But it evolved into multiple longrunning (several hundred thousand words) games of me writing out the stories as both GM and player, and I've had some amazing fun. Yes, it acts as a means to test out content, characters, settings, ideas, story hooks, magic items, classes and builds, etc. but it's also really fun, helps me feel connected to characters, is good practice in writing and becoming emotionally invested in those characters, as well as good practice telling stories and building these worlds. Not to mention I now have a ton of different places and characters that I have ready to slap into an actual group game too! This has been really really FUN for me and you'd be surprised that I have had some pretty epic and at times (somehow) even surprising elements. Just makin' it up as I go. So I am SO happy to hear you talk about it Ginny Di! And also REALLY excited to learn about these books and I can't wait to try them! I feel like much less of a weirdo now XD

I heard from The Internet solo d&d was pointless, if not straight impossible. A heartbreaking note for one as me, too severely mentally ill to socialize yet craving to try this game. Thank you for making this video Ginni. I might just give this a shot. I may have a character sheet at the ready in the "this will never be used, *sad sigh here*" folder of my laptop.

Lol those opening jokes were way too good XD. You are easily one of my favorite D&D content creators!

This seems absolutely perfect. Ordering the book and some other things right now. I don’t have any good friends that live near me and even if they did D&D would be a hard to organize. I have never played but I’ve been playing RPG video games, watching fantasy, and reading fantasy my whole life so I always wanted to get into it. Being able to play solo for me is going to be fantastic. Going to sit down the same time every week with a couple of drinks while I dive into a fantasy world in my own head.

Everything about Ginny's D&D setup is just so visually pleasing to look at. The notebook, the quill, her handwriting, the custom DM screen, the dice trays and *especially* those brilliantly crafted math rocks! They looked like expertly cut gemstones!

There are many awesome Solo RPG channels: Me, Myself & Die - Dungeon Dive - Wilona’s Cave - Geek Gamers - Solo RPG Guy - Mel Li and more

I used to do the fighting fantasy books with dad when I was younger. He would read while I draw out the map and throw the dice for encounters. Even though it was made for solo play it was so much fun deciding what to do together. I remember The Warlock of Firetop Mountain quite fondly. I highly reccomend this if your kids are interested in role-playing games because it can be a good bonding experience without putting too much commitment into it.

Your explanations of game mechanics is clear and concise. Very refreshing.

As somebody who doesn't have a lot of friends and no friends that want to play d&d, this sound really good. I always wanted to play the game but had no group. Actually I think that this could be even better for me than playing in a group because I'm just not a very social person.

I actually used to do this when I was a tween, I'd make turn-based strategy games on my bed using counters or paperclip as characters. I even had currency systems with 1p and 2p coins! I would draw maps and write lore, and had detailed info on all the characters. I'd never considered that D&D was a thing that you could do, or have fun with. Its nice to see that I wasn't alone

These books sound like a great resource :) I've been trying solo-d&d with the random tables in the dungeon masters guide recently. It's been fun, but I do make up a loose plot beforehand, which makes the story that develops a bit less surprising then what it would be with that oracle/keyword system. Really nice vid, I enjoy your character voices!

Honestly it sounds like this could also be really useful to help flesh out a world quickly in group play if the players go in a direction you completely weren’t expecting and haven’t prepped for

This hits the spot. D&d fans love a happy ending, even if theres a little death along the way

This is like a structured version of the awesome adventures we had with figurines as kids. I love it!

Love this!! This is so cool and not something I ever even thought was made possible! I cannot wait to start some solo adventures

Thank you for this video. I am glad it found me. I found an old character sheet of a session zero I fell in love with. It was really fun to build a character for my sister and play with her. This will be a really fun way for us to get practice or just play alone together

I did an actual spit take during your opening puns. Even funnier, my son was at the table listening to this and my partner said " what the hell is that all about?".... after the fun ... great post , thank you.

An electronic version of this game would be awesome, right in between a tabletop rpg and a videogame since your imagination and roleplaying still are the center of attention

Honestly that was so much fun to watch lol it reminded me of when I was a very young kid playing with my action figures lol you're awesome. I'm definitely going to check out more of your content because that was so wholesome it made my day better.

I solo dnd for world building and to test home brew spells/abilities. I now have an arsenal of NPC’s, rival adventuring groups, and BBEG’s.

This reminds me of my brother, who runs a very detailed campaign of the unofficial pokemon ttrpg. He has two groups of players and each player has a rival in another group of npcs, that follow roughly the same journey of collecting pokemon and leveling up. In between sessions he solo-plays with the npc groups to determine what happens to them when they're not directly involved, which pokemons they catch, what skills they learn, etc. It takes a lot of his time but it adds so much to the npcs when the players encounter them in-game.

The info on the system was cool, but watching your actual solo play was AMAZING! It was super fun seeing you weave whatever the randomness threw at you into a vibrant, cohesive narrative. I (and many others I’m sure) would be THRILLED if you could turn your solo play into a series!

Thank you for this! I've been looking for a way to solo play that isn't a pure dungeon crawl (Which is what I have been doing). This combines my love of play with my love of writing with a pen. I'm quite a bit into my first adventure and I'm having so much fun!

I love this, Ive been having a really hard time finding a beginner group or a group of people my age, thank you for making this.

I love how the concepts are vague enough that your brain will naturally fill in the gaps in a way that will make the story interesting to yourself.

This can be used for couples too! I got this today and tried it out with my husband and it was a lot of fun! We can't wait to continue our shared story of teens breaking through a seige to find help.

In the old Traveler RPG, there were tables to create entire sectors and characters´ past was a story itself, determined by dice and tables. The idea to to a randomized story flow is very intesting.

As my group got rid if me, I am grateful for this video, so much. Thank you.

I've been making a solo DnD podcast for over 2 years now. I would never have thought a solo game could work, but it really, really does. You can use a GME (Mythic, Ironsworn) or not & just roll with your ideas. It's (surprisingly) a much richer game than the typical table experience, and hey, no scheduling conflicts.

Great resource for writers! I'm more interested in writing than Dnd, but I decided to try doing a solo game to familiarize myself with how the book works. It was easier than I thought, and now I'm a scary lizardman with a hat that shrouds me in darkness and makes my eyes glow red! Dope.

So great! I liked when you role-played, it sounded so good and actually had intrigue!

This would be an amazing tool to use for new DM's to start a home brew campaign for their friends. It sounds like it would be a great way to increase creativity for those that are a little less creative normally. Incredible review! thank you!

If you are ever stuck for a video idea, your abridged solo play was very entertaining! You could always play one-shots in this manner. You could even use a stream or your Patrons to generate a character or scenario, and then play it out with the solo play books.

For anyone interested, the Me,Myself and Die youtube channel is a FANTASTIC solo roleplay show. Trevor’s voice acting is on par with Critical Role (apparently he and Mercer are good friends).

I think this is the perfect thing for new DM's . Just roll some dice and dictate your players' encounters while still playing as the rule moderator by being able to choose what monsters or characters pop into narrative when you want them to.

I'm currently writing a book and am an aspiring voice actor/narrator. This feels like an amazing hobby to not only have some fun but also practice voice acting and help break writers block. Imma try this, thank you for uploading this video

"I could catch your brain in a thimble" is the best way I have ever heard someone be called an idiot in my entire life and I am stealing that for use with future characters and/or when people are being dumb at work. Thank you for this unexpected gift. Also I am definitely buying this. I have been STRUGGLING with my D&D group getting together, and this seems like a great way to get my dice roll story time.

As someone who started off as a writer and got into DnD for the story-telling aspect, this sounds like it was made for me!

This is lifechanging! I wondered for years why I couldn't play solo, and only didn't because I had been told for ages that you couldn't solo adventure because it would be like playing chess with yourself, or that I might as well just write a story. This makes it look like so much fun, and a great way for me to try out a new character I've been working on (a half-gnome half-halfling) and getting practice as DM since I've never had the chance to be one.

Your videos are so high quality and informative!

The way you narrated the story for us was really awesome, thank you for that extra bit of story telling! This makes solo play actually seem really fun. I have a duo of characters from a mini 3 session campaign that I played a while back, but I don't want to let them go and it isn't often you get to play 2 characters at once. This seems like the perfect way to still use them, and I'm gonna have to pick these books up sometime!

Me: my family's in the room so imma turn on some nice wholesome ginny di&di content. Ginny in the first 5 seconds: "how to play with yourself 🙂"

These solo sessions are underrated. Not only you can make your MC a big-dick solo badass, your bond is strengthened fast with your DM and you can also play like it’s 6 v 100 chess with other characters you made. I have made different characters over the years and some of them grouped up with my main, as if they are Taskforce 141.

This is actually so freaking cool. I'm absolutely going to be doing solo campaigns.

Dear Ginny; THANK YOU for introducing me to this. I got the bundle and I can finally say I have played some kind of Dnd. My cleric and paladin’s very first outing turned into finding a burned out village, discovering that the village was desperate to unseat the owner of the lands, found and defeated this butthead and delivered him alive to the Soldier who hired them. Yea it took a bit of flipping back and forth in the books but I had so much fun and now I’m going to write more story to flesh the characters out. As someone who lives in the middle of nowhere and is paranoid about playing with people I don’t know, this is as close as I’m ever going to get to real Dnd.

The narrative you put to the short game you played; surely I'm not the only one who'd love a short campaign series in this format? Was a great listen!

So, after getting very frustrated with the local live party I tried to play with, I watched this video and then purchased the Toolbox...and oh, man did I have a great time! I just took two characters through an adventure to rescue kidnaped a young girl from a cult that wanted to sacrifice her and summon their demon master! There were twists and turns, discoveries and treasure, wilderness and underground temple dungeons - it was a blast! Ginny, this video modeling the transformation of roles and table results into embellished RPG language was actually pretty inspiring and helped sell and then make the experience work! Also, I started out just taking notes, but that quickly evolved into writing out more robust descriptions of action and events, which did of course turn into full story writing! I finished with a 15 page short story of the adventure that I read to my kids! Unfortunately they were not as enthusiastic as I was! 😂 Thanks for the recommendation and guidance.

This looks surprisingly fun ♡ im sure much of what I would do here would make it into an actual campaign at some point too, when those happened!

This solo interaction can play well with a 2-player run. I can see this format playing like a small-form D&D adventure spanning one-shots to a long-played campaign. Can even be a good way to warm someone to the world of D&D as a newbie just starting TTRPGs. I have so many other friends who would love to play a campaign but are too shy and introverted with crowds or simply do not have any time and this style and format could be the perfect one for them.

I gotta say, I was skeptical at first but your little example session sold me on it. I'm a forever DM and I tend to get burnt out constantly session prepping. I think this might be a good tool to get a little play in for myself as well as possibly add some emergent storytelling elements for my players that might help give campaigns fresh direction.

This is great. I'm brand new to D&D and was looking for solo games as my friends aren't always available. Thanks so much for this!

As someone who has NEVER played a game nor been introduced to anything, this is just awesome honestly. I have had the urge to play and try out for so long but I was too scared to ask friends or didn't know where to start, I didn't have a group or anything and honestly thought it was hopeless... but this an awesome way to start and het comfortabnle I think :) thank you

I just started watching Me, Myself and Die! yesterday. So the timing of this is impeccable.

Honestly I'd watch you do solo ttrpg adventures forever, this was so entertaining.

Thank you! After I moved away from my home town, I wasn't able to play pen'paper games anymore, not even online. I don't have friends near by to play in a live session, but I'd like to come back to DnD and other systems. This is a great way to start a new adventure and continue old stories that have never been told to the end.

This is really late but I appreciate this video. A few years ago I tried making a solo homebrew game using only the DND 5E supplements and it was fun for a while, but I had some serious burn out literally in the middle of the game when it came to the roleplaying. It was kind of an ambitious campaign idea that relied on a lot of RP, but these systems I feel like are what I needed.

I'll be honest, when I read the title, I wasn't really sold on the idea of solo play, but the way you explained it, and the demonstration the end has really sold me on it. Great work, Ginny!

I love Solo Board games but after watching how solo D&D is played, it just doesn't seem as fun. Looks like too much rolling, looking up tables, self generated stuff etc. Others may find it fun and hey, each to their own. What it does look good for is coming up with ideas for writing a story, a fictional novel, a D&D campaign, script for a short skit/film. It's a great cure for writer's block.

Did my first "session?" tonight. As an otr driver this is a great option to get to play and keep the imagination strong.

Thank you! ❤❤I have an old character and a new one but dont have a group to play with. My current group campaign is still starting and we all have crazy schedules!!

I've never heard of this so thank you for introducing this to me! I love making characters and this will be wonderful for learning new class/race abilities before I play characters in proper campaigns

I can't be the only one who kind of now want a series of Nymwen's and Nakrasha's adventures through Ginni Di's solo play?

This is EPIC VALIDATION!!! Thank you!!!

Thank you. I’ve been so nervous about starting

As the only person in my friend group who is as die hard for d&d as I am, this rocks! This would be so fun to pre-play a campaign for backstory stuff too, man this is fun!!!

That looks like a lot of fun^^ I once played an encounter by myself with a character from my novel series, because I wanted him to fight some wolves in the wilderness and thought dice rolls would make the fight more dynamic. He almost died, but actually, that was what made the scene great in the end when I wrote it 😅

I bought the books after watching this, they have a way to make travel feel exciting and interesting with the wilderness encounters and how they rolled the 6d 12 every mile, I've never been able to find anything to make the in-between fun as well, well worth the money! Thanks for this video

love the intro. Glad Josh was such a good sport. thank you for showing us how to play with ourselves.