glad to be aboard ! I wanted to see if there are other old school players like myself who play solitaire.
I've learned to play most of my older games solitaire ( I have kids who play along once in awhile, but they get drawn off from pencil&paper play for the Nintendo or computers. I've raised my kids up playing The Fantasy Trip - Melee & Wizard games then - In The Labyrinth RPG. - I grew up playing The Fantasy Trip, OD&D and AD&D and still have all of my original books and modules, (brand new copies of Melee & Wizard - Death Test my kids got me for fathers day to retire my tattered copies.)
over the years here in the "rust belt" of the US all of the people who played D&D back in the heyday, either moved away or view playing as kid's stuff. I guess I never really grew out of it, I've learned to play solitaire using oracles for the DM/GM side of things - questions that arise from play. it's pretty fun, no it'll never compare to having a large group of 10+ PC's but it gives me something to do in the hobby. I've built a few worlds and populate them with PC's and NPC's that I let the dice control them along with their background and character sheets.
I've used the back of my AD&D DM Guide in the Appendix as a starter in doing this Hobby within a Hobby ( back in the day - lot's of you old timers will remember) would generate a dungeon from the tables and populate the dungeon with the monsters, then run a party through it to see how your creation worked. it all came screaming back to me with Four Against Darkness - more of a board game than RPG , whilst playing 4AD I started using my old TFT Melee/Wizard to run the battles out for a visual slug&slash fest.
over the past couple of years I've found lots of different tools articles etc. to help me play out a game- and I have to say is really fun.
It ain't easy though , lots of book keeping and keeping track of all of my PCs and playing both part DM/GM I'm still learning how to play different scenarios. right now I'm starting off a whole new setup using only The Fantasy Trip. I've kept my other stuff generated with D&D ready to play another time. seems like the old school stuff is all I can handle though (probably because it's all I knew for decades) I've used Scarlet Heroes OSR for my D&D setting - has some cool tables in that book. and Mythic GM Emulator and a few others. I like the Scarlet Heroes setting so much that I've been re-mapping The Fantasy Trip's weapons over to Japanese and Oriental weapons to meld into that cool Red Tide setting. Pathfinder I tried too, but it's a bit too heavy for what I'm doing.
Most people say why don't I just pick up with video games , but I like the non linear free form that I get from it. it has generated some really cool stories with some of my PCs ( if they live long enough) and my wife and kids love to hear what their favorite characters are up to ( I'd rather them play along to get the story - then I wouldn't need to write so much) I wanted to ask if anyone else plays like this. I've tried to get groups together and if I do, we can never get the schedules right or (e.g.) once I posted at the local library ( we used to play there on weekends back in the late 70s early 80s) and just recently I got some people respond that freaked me the hell out ! - one couple claimed that they were real wizards and could cast spells- I thought (at first) they were just kidding - they were not.... oh boy ! back in the beginning we had some great people play , also everyone seemed to play, even teachers, it didn't matter what social class we were it was great.
so I guess what I'm doing is having a mid life crisis and trying to re-live some of those good old days. But I get a kick out of it, and end up with some fun stories to read later, or just spend some time creating settings and characters to keep an eye on and find out if they have any heroic potential. that or I'm just a crazy old goat !
hey!, thanks for letting me join up I enjoy the content here, and the Pundit's videos as well.