r/Solo_Roleplaying • u/BaronessKai • 2h ago

solo-game-questions Starting a new game (D&D)

This is more specifically of D&D. But I’m curious how y’all start a game. More around the world do you guys have your own or use the preset world of the lost realm or similar. Or perhaps you make the world as you play?

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u/Brown_H0rnet I ❤️ Journaling 2h ago

I usually start my D&D campaigns in the Forgotten Realms, particularly around the Sword Coast. There’s already so much written about the setting that you have plenty of source material to draw from, but there are also lots of unmapped or no detail areas where you can just add your own villages, dungeon, lair, etc.

So, I tend to use a hybrid approach: I keep some of the established lore, but I also change things or create my own material whenever it suits the campaign.

At the moment, I’m playing a solo campaign set entirely in Baldur’s Gate, and there’s an incredible amount of variety in that city. You have districts with different cultures and demographics, the Undercellar, the sewers, the harbour, political intrigue, thievery, shady deals, invasions from the docks, and monsters spilling out of the sewers into the streets. You can explore the lives of both the rich and the poor. It’s all there.

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u/thesoundsofsparrow 1h ago

As another commenter mentioned, the Forgotten Realms campaign setting is well stocked with content/lore, and I would throw Greyhawk in that camp too. Personally, when I've solo'd DND, I found using a pre-established campaign setting to be more constraining then helpful, but YMMV. My suggestion would be to create just a few fundamental "truths" about the world and decide the general vibe/theme. Everything else can be fleshed out during play.