Tales of the Valiant as a Solo Game?

Playing 5E solo is actually not that hard. I can solo 5E much easier than a game like Pathfinder 2E, as that game requires each player to be a "master of their class" and know a lot about powers and actions, but that game was more built for groups to play than solo players. It is a far stronger game to play as a group, since if you know your class extremely well, you will shine as a player and be on top of everything. Pathfinder 2 is a lot like high-level World of Warcraft raiding, where you need to specialize and know your class, but the "fun level" is amazingly high with mastery and a group of specialized players.

5E is an easier game, and playing a party of 3-4 with one person is not too bad, even with all the action types the game throws at you. I recommend a good character sheet and online character designer, which, for some 5E variants, can be very tough to find. For Tales of the Valiant, I use the Shard tabletop, and the Tales of the Valiant (they call it Black Flag) character sheet can be printed and converted to a PDF using Windows' "print to PDF" feature.

Shard, as a solo-play system, is also solid if you want to go that route. The VTT is 5E-only, and it has some good features, especially for adding custom 5E content to your games.

While we are talking 5E, Shadowdark is also another strong 5E game for solo play, but today we are focusing on more "full-featured" 5E rulesets.

But why Tales of the Valiant and not D&D 2024? For me, the OGL thing they did still hurts, and while it was a needed break from Wizards-dependence, I dislike how Wizards is tying your digital books to their online service. I disagree with the "digital first" and AI direction that Wizards of the Coast D&D is taking, and I still believe in tabletop over the hydra of online-only or AI-assisted play.

Yes, I know, AI-assisted play is huge when playing solo, but if I use AI, it will be on my AI system of choice, and it is not required to play the game. I have ethical concerns in this area, and I want to be free to choose my own provider. I also want the power to say "this is a no AI game" and play unplugged.

In a few years, Wizards will likely announce "AI games" that will work insanely well and draw everyone in. You won't know if you are playing with real people or AI bots. AI bots will fill out roles in the party. Any NPC can join the party and play as a complete player. I don't want that type of future. While solo play is similar to AI-play, I have control over the solo experience.

Tales of the Valiant is also designed to be a learnable system first, with plenty of ease-of-use tools and summaries on character creation intended to get you playing quickly. I love games designed to teach, and even though I know how to play these games, the ones that still take the time to hold my hand and slowly walk through a rule or system to ensure I'm doing things correctly make me smile. Care shown is care returned.

The Game Master's Guide in Tales of the Valiant is also one of the best in gaming, easily a 10/10 book. This helps immeasurably when playing solo, and it is also an idea generation machine.

Tales of the Valiant uses a player-driven "luck" system instead of D&D's inspiration mechanic, meaning you do not need a referee to drive that part of the game, granting inspiration. Luck works according to a defined set of rules based on missed rolls, and players spend it as needed. This is an ideal solo-play improvement to the game, and it removes a referee dependency.

ToV is a great game, a worthy replacement for D&D 2014, and compatible with all past and current D&D adventures and expansions. This is the game that got me back into 5E, and it has some of the best class and subclass designs in the hobby right now, with soft "roleplaying" powers that preserve the mechanical crunch 5E is known for. It is a great system; you can own your PDFs, and the VTT play options are solid and well-supported.

Palladium Games as Solo Games

Percentage-based systems always make great solo-play games. Primarily, when used with a system like Mythic Game Master Emulator, your percentile dice are always out, and you are making rolls with the identical dice used for your skill checks. And a system with a lot of percentage-based skills will be much easier to solo, since your skills will give you ideas for situations to make rolls for them in.

Palladium Gamemaster's Pack, Sample Character, Page 50

If you look at the above, that is the skill list of a 4th-level ranger in Palladium Fantasy. Now, compare this to a D&D 2024 ranger at level four.

Palladium Fantasy has more skills, and they are a lot more specific than the D&D skills. While some of the Palladium skills could be grouped under one D&D skill, such as D&D's survival skill covering Palladium's Wilderness Survival, Tracking, Trapping, Skinning, Navigation, Plants, and Cooking skills, I like the longer list of skills with specific uses far better than D&D's simplified list. Where in D&D I may never think of skinning hides or identifying plants (which could be D&D's Nature skill), in Palladium, I have them; they tell me exactly what I can do, and I have more to choose from.

A lot of my D&D skills feel "dead" in that I am not proficient in them, so why bother even trying to use deception or persuasion? Since Palladium is more old-school, if I want to persuade or deceive an NPC, I just roleplay it, or I can roll under one of my ability scores on a d20 if I want an easy way to handle it. Palladium does not have social RP skills, so you are free to adjudicate them however you want, and most tables will just roleplay it out, and if the player does a good job, they will just succeed.

While having terrible skills on my character sheet tells me I am awful at them, they end up being negative reinforcement, and I never even try. Even a DC 15 skill with a -1 modifier is still a 25% chance of success, but I can't remember a time when I even bothered to roll for one. Someone else in the adventuring party always picked it up, and I never honestly attempted those. This negative reinforcement is the most significant design flaw of D&D 2024's skill list.

Games with percentage-based skills are premium solo-play games. I am also not "guessing at a DC" like I am in D&D, since my chance to do something is right there on my character sheet. In D&D, how difficult is it to identify that plant? DC 10? DC 15? DC 20? In Palladium, my chance is right there on my character sheet, 55%, and while I could modify for difficulty, I don't need to in most cases.

Palladium Gamemaster's Pack, Sample Character, Page 52

This makes thief-type characters very fun to play solo, since all the sneaky things I can do as my character are listed right there on my character sheet. The above is a level 3 thief from the same GM pack. And as I level up, my skills improve, and I have more fun. I can also modify the chance: say I successfully distract my target and they are unaware of the pickpocket attempt, I can apply a +20% chance to the roll.

The more skills my character possesses, the more fun I have.

Palladium Fantasy and any Palladium system game are excellent solo-play games with plenty of crunch and depth to keep you gaming. Most of them are single-book games, too, so all you need to play is one book, some paper, a pencil, and dice.

And, of course, your imagination.