After a solid week and a half of setting up and running a Basic D&D (1983) game in Fellmyr, and having totally failed to do some actual solo play last Sunday, I was reflecting on what most appeals to me for solo play.

The reality is that I’m enjoying playing in Fellmyr… but that D&D is not my favourite set of rules. While it’s fun to run for the students at the school Games Club, and it’s also fun to run for adult friends, it’s not a game I hugely enjoy as a player. For that, on reflection, my go-to is GURPS.

Let’s pick up on that distinction first: there is a difference between running a game as GM and playing a game as a player. For the first, I can happily run the Basic/Expert D&D (1983) rules because frankly there’s not a lot to think about. It’s pretty barebones and certainly the most useful stuff lies in the procedural methodology of running dungeons and hexcrawls.

As a solo player, however, I like more grounded and somewhat more meaningful connections between the rules and the World of the game. For example, I find the Class framework, Levelling Up, and no skills in the system to be a little prosaic… it’s as if there’s not much to get my teeth into.

GURPS offers me total customisation power and options galore… even if I do aim to trim it all down and run on the minimums. But 3d6 roll low based on Attributes that actually do something, skills that help shape and define the role of the character, and combat mechanisms that feel more logical and realistic to me are all more appealing approaches.

Playing in Fellmyr is all about deepening the lore and discovering the World through play. This is interesting and engaging to me. That new information will arm me well for the games of D&D I am running but, ultimately, also provide an exciting opportunity to enjoy some play too.

The big question is how exactly I am going to emulate dungeon and hexploration fantasy without going full DFRPG.

Game on!