by Ugavine

An item RPG Item: Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space – The Roleplaying Game (11th Doctor) has been added to the geeklist Solo RPGs on Your Table - December 2025

by Mycroft Stout

The 'Interest Check' thread will help you find a PbF people want to play, or at least try, that you are excited to GM yourself.

Read thru others OOC and IC threads. See what kind of structure works for PbF.

Expect a drop out rate, especially a few weeks in as players decide whether or not your style, and the gerne are really right for them.

Have fun, even if that means being a bit loose with the RAW.

by KatharinaKuo

Author: Christopher Smith Adair
Playing time: 4-6 hours
Genre/Style: Dungeon
Pre-made characters: No (but the anthology contains general example characters)
Number of pages: 23 pages
Location: Providence, Rhode Island
Time: 1920s
Mythos reference: the characters explore the dwelling of a sorcerer of the Serpentfolk, ghasts and Nachkos (deformed humans) also appear in the dungeon
Introduction: A friend invites the characters to his home because he has discovered “something incredible” in his recently inherited estate
Review basis: I ran the adventure based on the German version of the scenario published by Pegasus Spiele.

What it's about:
Beneath the city of Providence are caves and passages once created by the Serpentfolk, where the serpent wizard S'syaa-H'risss waits for the time when the Serpentfolk will rule the earth once more. In the 18th century, slave trader Elijah Winscott discovered one of the passages leading from the Providence River directly to his estate. When laws against the slave trade were enacted, he wanted to use this tunnel to continue bringing slaves into the city. But the plan ended in disaster: the slaves were torn apart by ghasts or dragged further into the depths, prompting Elijah to quickly close off the tunnel entrance. Now, some 150 years later, Josh Winscott has inherited the estate of his ancestor Elijah and stumbled upon the tunnel. Together with the investigators, he wants to explore it. But before that happens, he embarks on a solo expedition into the depths, from which he does not return. If the investigators want to help their friend, they must also descend into the underground of Providence, where they encounter ghasts, deformed former slaves (“Nachkos”) and S'syaa-H'risss.

Criticism:

Content:
The Darkness Beneath the Hill is a dungeon adventure of the kind more familiar from D&D and other classic fantasy systems: the investigators gradually explore the individual rooms, facing challenges (climbing down, traps) and having to contend with terrifying creatures. I was quite skeptical beforehand as to whether a dungeon adventure with Cthulhu could work, but I was pleasantly surprised: exploring strange rooms and the constant threat of attacks by terrifying creatures create an eerie atmosphere that suits Cthulhu perfectly. The adventure also offers a refreshing change from the typical, more investigative adventures.

However, I was less convinced by the implementation itself, as some ideas are more silly than original. For example, there is a “Hall of Music,” a grotto containing a kind of organ made of bronze and brass, which has howling skulls instead of pipes. What particularly bothered me, however, was that the descriptions of the dungeon and the rooms do not fit with a complex of corridors built by the serpent people millions of years ago. I think a lot of potential has been wasted here by populating a run-of-the-mill dungeon with mythical creatures instead of thinking about how members of the ≈ live: Why, for example, does S'syaa-H'risss have a work chair that fits the anatomy of humans perfectly?

On the positive side, I found that the individual challenges can be approached in very different ways. There is not just one correct solution; instead, players are challenged to be creative. At the same time, there are also different ways in which the adventure can end, although the ideal scenario, in which Josh Winscott is rescued and all the investigators can escape, is rather difficult to achieve and requires players who do not capitulate in the face of the overpowering snake sorcerer, but instead find creative solutions.

Presentation and preparation:
In terms of form, the same applies as for all other adventures in the anthology: there is a lot of text. The essential information is presented together with a multitude of atmospheric, but ultimately irrelevant, descriptive texts. As far as I understand, this was a conscious decision on the part of the editors, as this anthology is aimed at beginners. However, I don't know if it's particularly easy for beginners to have to constantly flip through the pages while running the game.
I made an A4 overview of the individual rooms and the most important features for myself and then ran the game mainly based on this “cheat sheet.” I would have liked to have had such an overview in the adventure to save the GM preparation time. At the same time, however, it must be said in the adventure's favor that the presentation is really very clear. There are useful subheadings, highlights in the text, and text boxes on specific topics, which meant I was always able to find the information I was looking for quickly.

The (few) handouts are, as is usually the case with Cthulhu, very nicely done. However, I'd rather not comment on the illustrations in the adventure—they are simply completely inappropriate.

Since I was dissatisfied with some details that I felt did not fit with the Serpentfolk, I first read Lovecraft's “The Nameless City,” a story in which an explorer investigates a former city of the Serpentfolk. Here it becomes clear that Lovecraft gave much more thought to the architecture and way of life of the Serpentfolk than the adventure author did. At the same time, however, much remains unclear in Lovecraft's work, as always. I couldn't glean much concrete information for the adventure from the short story, so I came up with a few ideas of my own:
* Instead of the organ, there were several holes in the walls of the music hall, several meters above the floor, with skins stretched across them. These skins were drummed by Nachkos, but the characters couldn't see them, and due to the ultra-low frequencies, they perceived the rhythm itself primarily as a vibration in the air. As far as they could guess, the drumming was a disturbing rhythm that did not correspond to any known rhythm, but was at least vaguely reminiscent of traditional Caribbean and African music.
* Armchairs and stairs were removed, books were replaced with parchments.
* I kept the room height the same (Lovecraft's protagonist, on the other hand, has to crawl constantly due to the low ceiling), but I planned for there to be smaller passages at higher levels that can be reached by climbing up stalactites.

I also streamlined the beginning: when the investigators first arrived at the estate, Josh had already descended into the dungeon. The version provided in the book, in which the investigators arrive in the evening, agree to start the next morning, but Josh descends into the depths alone at night, seemed too risky to me: Why don't the friends stay overnight at Josh's estate? What if the investigators want to descend that evening? Won't the players feel patronized if an NPC commits such stupidity without good reason? Against this background, I preferred to let the players find the empty estate right away, so that they could decide for themselves what they wanted to do from the very first minute, instead of having a schedule imposed on them. I placed the handout about the slave tunnel, which can actually be found in the library, on Josh's kitchen table alongside other books about the history of the estate, as it seemed more likely to me that Josh would be interested in the history of the estate than that the characters would go to the library to do research when their friend had disappeared.

Conclusion
If you want to play a Cthulhu dungeon, Darkness Under the Hill offers some interesting and eerie locations. However, I recommend modifying some rooms so that the whole thing doesn't seem silly. With a little work, the adventure can turn into an exciting and atmospheric game night. The adventure can also be used as a source of ideas, for example when the investigators come across a Snakefolk's dwelling in the course of another adventure.

by bryce0lynch

By Morgan Davie
Taleturn
Moldvay
Levels 1-3

Atop a lonely sheer-sided plateau stands a Keep, an outpost against the chaos that creeps in nearby caves. Few know that another fortress lies abandoned and hidden within the stony mount itself. Strange wonders and forgotten treasures lie within, waiting to be claimed by brave adventurers. Dare YOU enter the hidden halls?.

This twenty page adventure features a four level dungeon with about eighty rooms that is entered through BELOW the Keep on the Borderlands. Coinage is abstracted and the writing is not evocative. There’s an interesting concept or two, but otherwise this is cramped and bland.

Looks like the guildhall in the Keep on the Borderlands has a secret. Literally. They’ve found a secret door in their basement. For 10% of the take they’ll let you through it. Inside you find four levels of underground dungeon with about 20-25 rooms per level. Turns out this place used to be a fortress of chaos!

Oh, hey, you’re not finding treasure though. I mean, you’re not finding treasure you can level with. You’ll find a potion or scroll or something here or there. But, as for that sweet sweet lucre that drives all adventurers and the level titles they want, well: “22. Secret store. Behind this secret door is a small treasure hoard: three potions of healing, two potions of invisibility, two sacks worth of silver coins, and two gems.” Yeah. Two sacks worth of silver coins and two gems. No values. Not anywhere. It’s all abstracted away like that.

I find this super puzzling. This IS the core of Moldvay. Gold=XP. Maybe B/X and 1e, both learn hard core to the GAME side of the spectrum. You ARE looking for gold so that you can level. It’s you against the game world with the DM as judge. You win D&D every time you don’t die and get some more progress towards your next level. It’s a fucking GAME and the points are laid in Gold, literally. You can roleplay. You can have fun. You SHOULD do those things. But the gold’s the thing. That’s a core reason I like B/X, the more game-like and carefree nature of it. It might be similar to a 5e adventure that pays TOO much attention to coinage. Hey, that’s not what you do in 5e. Gold is a plot device. If you need a lot of it then I would expect it, but, otherwise, what is core to B/X becomes part of a victorian laundry list in 5e. It’s just so jarring to see the main point being abstracted here. “Put in some treasure.” Uh. Ok. Isn’t that the designers job? DOn’t they have the chore of putting smaller treasures in and then locating the larger treasures in lairs? Don’t they have the job of not putting the hoard in the first room? Of making the layout of the map make sense in relation to the contents of the map? Fuck it man. Who cares anymore, I guess.

Let us, however, ignore the rather small and simplistic maps. Forward! To adventure!


What you’re looking at is nearly a column of text describing room one in the dungeon. This is the basement room of the guildhall and the entrance to the hidden halls. And it’s got trap and door porn in it. This is nearly a column of text to handle two secret doors in a room with a basin. Which are also bland in description if not in effect. Shaking their fists, magical blade, that’s great. I’m not sure, though, that this is the sort of entrance to the mythic underworld I was looking for.


Never fear though, we follow that up with rooms three and four. Rotted. Fungus. Beetle-men. No, I don’t know what they look like. “Stats as fire beetles.” So, yeah. I’d like to point out at this point that B2 was not the end all be all of design. It’s been fifty years. I think we can do a little better. There is a huge place in D&D for “monster wants to eat you, better stab it.” And there’s no place in D&D for an overwrought encounter. But there is a place in the middle where everything works together, the encounter, hack or no, has enough in it for the DM to riff on, both in creature and environment. “Fungus and wrecked doors” does not a description make. Nor does “fire-beetle men”, presumably just standing there waiting to die and have their glands ripped out? Hmmm, come to think of it, I love the idea of giant throbbing diamond-forehead men. Enough diamonds growing out of their foreheads to level. Sitting in a circle playing games and singing songs. “How the fuck did these dudes live even this long?!” As your DM I make no judgment upon you, PC’s, but simply delight in glee at the reaction to the situation.

Ok, so, anyway. Here’s a trap: “The area in front of the false door is a drop-away floor (a dungeon trap). When triggered, everyone within ten feet of the door is dropped into a chute that deposits them into the pool in level two area 14.” It’s a trap? Yeah, it’s a trap. As delighted as I am to see a reappearance of a chute trap (Only desperate Angband players can realize the full horror of a chute trap) I think it could be handled better. And room title. I like room titles. I think they provide a good framing for the room ahead, getting the DMs head in the right place for the description to come. When they are done well. But not when done blandly. “Safe room” “hidden treasure” “old shapes.” These are somewhat abstracted summaries of the room. Rather, provide a vibe for the room. But not here.

It’s not the worse thing ever written. It’s just bland, minimalistic, and padded out all at the same time.

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $3.50. There is no preview. Sucker.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/537478/mb1-into-the-...

by bryce0lynch

By Morgan Davie
Taleturn
Moldvay
Level 1

The great lands of Law do not march forever. At the great wall of tall, steep hills, Law’s reach fades, and beyond flickers the uneasy influence of Chaos. Between the two, amongst foothills and thick forest, beneath strange purple sunsets, is the Borderlands. Here waits adventure.

This sixteen page regional supplement presents a small area in and around B1 and B2 with several adventuring sites. I’m not sure how it even got to sixteen pages given the lack of things in it and the lack of detail in those things. It’s written like someone is describing an adventure to someone else.

Moldvay always gets reviewed and this is a Moldvay supplement. It’s meant to be a small region in and around the Keep on the Borderlands. It also locates B1 in its area, and tries to expand the adventuring sites, villages, and dungeons in the area. The usual “yes, but what’s past the hermit’s kitty cat?” stuff from B2. The issue here is both in density and specificity. There’s not much past the lizard men, either literally or figuratively.

First, there’s no map. No regional map. I find this strange. If you’re doing a region, especially one with both B1 and B2 in it, outlying villages, small adventuring sites and so on, then where are they, in relation to each other? How do I get from here to there? I don’t want to make it seem like I absolutely HAVE to have a map every time, but, in many cases, yes, a map would help. There’s some adventuring site here in this, a tower, that overlooks both the lands of law and the lands of chaos. That’s a great idea. Get an idea of the Valley of Chaos, ie: the caves. That would be a great lead in to much intrigue, watching the comings and goings. And, perhaps, meeting an orc band or something like that who is also doing the same thing to the keep. I just can’t help thinking that having a map SHOWING all of that, the adventuring sites, the villages, roads and relationship of the smaller sites to the larger ones, would help. Plus, there’s the wanderers table. How do you run a decent wanderer without knowing the distance to travel? I mean, they are based on time, which is based on distance and terrain. Why include a wanderer table if there’s no time/distance to wander? It’s a curious decision, to not include one. But not necessarily fatal.


The density here is another issue. I don’t know what exactly is going on, but the things FEELS so sparse. Overview of the lands, village, rumors, retainers, minor sites, NPC parties, events … I don’t think it should feel sparse, but it does. It just all feels a little bland and uninteresting. Maybe, kind of like those adventures that just pull a wanderer table straight out of a DMG. No embellishment. Here’s a list of retainers. Just stat blocks and a name. Well, sure, Ready Ref. Here’s a village. We gave it a fifth of a page. It doesn’t say anything more than Ready Ref did. Just kind of bland content. “Costs 1d10sp between each adventure” says the first bullet point of the village. Ok, so, upkeep costs. That’s fun. Mechanics oriented, just the facts. Which I kind of admire about Ready Ref. That thing was DENSE. The language of pure adventure support. But, I think the idea that you are going to support the region comes with an implicit expectation that there will be COLOR in the region. And there’s not any in that village. And very little in the rest. Angry owlbear with a hornet singer in its ass also gets six or so sentences, to no effect beyond “angry owlbear with a stinger in its ass. So while there are sixteen pages here and a few “adventure site” one pagers, the density here, the ratio of interesting content to padding and blandness, is quite off.


The content, proper, can feel abstracted. Not as if an encounter is being listed, but rather as if someone were describing an encounter, much in the same way that I do in a review. A ghostly warrior who is you defeat will point to a gravesite containing the same sword and armor we wore and also a chest of gold. How much gold? Deets on the armor and sword? Nope. That’s it. It’s more of a seed, an idea of an encounter rather than encounter. And much of this feels that way. It’s tax day in town! That’s really all you’re getting. I get that some of these are meant to be ideas, but they seem longer than a seed, an idea but lacking the specificity that one might expect to be able to really launch them in to something, something to riff on. “Artillery – A mounted heavy crossbow is aimed along the western passage and sentries always keep watch for visitors. Most kobolds sleep here, on piles of wrecked gnomish loot.” It’s an idea. There ARE kobolds here, sentries at the least, yes? I don’t understand why its written this way. It’s like there’s an allergy to the specifics. And, yet, sometimes you’ll get paid 2sp by someone to do something. It’s maddening, the seemingly random way in which sometimes minor and meaningless trivia is included and yet the meat of what should be in the adventure is not.

There’s another adventure in this series. While this is a kind of regional setting the other adventure appears to be an actual dungeon. I’m going to review that one next and see if, perhaps, this is all a symptom of being a setting-like place? In any event, I can’t see much value here.

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $3.50. There is no preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/537471/mb0-morgue-s-...

by bryce0lynch

By Zzarchov Kowolski
Self Published
NGR/OSR
Level Any/1

A dead body found clutching a map is found at a major crossroads with an arrow in his back. He wear simple clothing, leather armor, a sheathed sword, and carries a backpack with three torches, 50; of rope, an empty wineskin and a flask of oil. The map shows the crossroads and leads to a tower labelled “treasure” in beautiful handwriting, apparently only half an hour into the forest.

This twelve page digest adventure features a five room tower. It’s a cross between a Fuck You and a kind of hook for a larger campaign thread, much like the advice in Broodmother.It can’t be denied that Zzarchov knows their shit. A brief little thing stretched out.

This describes a five room dungeon in a tower. It’s a roach motel for humans. Humans go in, find treasure, spend it and, low and behold, the coins are a slow poison. Which, theoretically, sow discord and rebellion among the wealthy and powerful as coinage circulates upwards and the power vacuum from deaths foment unrest and rebellion. The bent is toward the elves doing this, but, obviously, it’s whatever baddies you want in the campaign. If it’s lotFP then, obviously, aliens, since everything in LotFP is aliens, but, whoever you want.

The suggestion is that he DM drop the tower in to the players game. They find a map at the crossroads. It leads to a nearby tower. Off you go. But, also, it’s suggested that as the campaign progresses, the characters start to hear rumors about other people who have been to other towers. This is a hint to a larger conspiracy going on in the game world and thus, an initial adventure hook is actually the hook for a larger campaign arc, etc. All undetailed here, but it’s an interesting idea.

The whole tower takes three or four pages to describe. It’s five rooms. A Five Room Dungeon. Sound familiar? The Entrance, The Puzzle. The Red Herring. The Climactic Battle. The Reward. Zzarchov is not afraid to go tell the Bad D&D Advice people to fuck off, implicitly anyway. He takes the common bad advice trotted out for pay per word views and mocks it in fine style. And this, the Roach Motel of adventures, is the perfect place to do that in. It walks the line well. Roach Motel for Humans by Elves. Mocking the bad advice prevalent on the internet for adventures. This could be mean-spirited. Instead it simply shows you the absurdity of these ideas as implemented and leverages them in to the beginning of a nice campaign arc. After all, isn’t the first adventure SUPPOSED to lead to the last one?

Each room of the five tower rooms looks like a normal dungeon room. A room, dominate by a large wooden throne. Seated on it a skeleton with gemstones for eyes in a suit of ancient bronze armor with a horned helmet. An echoing inhuman voice “I vow to slay all violators who have defined my tower!” But, the ancient armor shows no signs of rust. No one ever wears horned helmets. The throne isn’t aged at all, just stained a dark color, as are the wooden doors. There’s a ladder propped up nearby to reach the trapdoor in the ceiling to the roof level. The chest on the roof is dark stained balsa wood, identical to the one on the first floor. And so on and so on. Looking just a little beyond the surface shows that something is quite off, in every room, from every standpoint. The build, the aging, the tower isn’t even is there to defend anything, being out of place.

Each room calls these things out in detail. There’s a little description, sometimes a column long for the longer rooms, and another section of “Clues Something is off …” The riddle room accepts any answer as an answer “Hrm, a worthy answer that I fid accept, the curse on the bars has been lifted.” Any basic inspection of anything, beyond the surface level, will reveal something isn’t quite right here.

This is a gimmick adventure. Essentially a hook for a larger campaign. For what it is it’s fine. Perhaps a little obvious in places, like the balsa wood, but the vast majority of it is subtle enough to make it through a first glance unless one digs deeper. Perhaps a little long for what it is, but, seen for what it is, a print promo offering (which is what I seem to recall it is) it’s a fine little give-away.

This is $3 at DriveThru. No Previeeeewwwww!!!!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/537468/pest-control

by YourLoveOnly

Elida wrote:

Hey, does the header say April?

Oops. That was my last time hosting and I copied from there. The Geeklist title had the right month, but the body text did not. Fixed now :)

by Elida

Hey, does the header say April?

by Inari44

havoc110 wrote:

Book club is coming back in '26, right?

Hope so!

by latindog

I have never run a PbF game on here but I have played in two and I think it's generally good as mentioned above to give a minimum posting guideline like "once per day" to make sure that people remain engaged.

I will try to run a game here at some point. Maybe I'll try to run something super short this summer while I'm off from work and can devote some attention to it.

by latindog

I generally want the non combat actions to be free form with room for discussion etc. I find that it's rare to find an adult group that has a problem with this but it has become a minor issue in some convention games. When I feel that one or two players are dominating the discussion, I will often tell them "Great idea, we'll get to Snaggletooth (or whatever their character is named) in a moment but first, I'd like to hear what Gorkan would like to do" and turn to a more reserved player to hear a suggestion. Sometimes the other player will yield the floor but, at least, they had an opportunity to take an action. There are also times, if a particular player is uniquely quiet, where I might call them out for a layup to suggest participation from them e.g "You've come to a locked door, what does Gorkan do at this point" if they happen to be a lockpicker and they haven't done much up to this point. Sometimes they'll still seek to yield the spotlight (they might be looking to cruise along quietly in a new system and just roll some dice when they need to) but sometimes this can prime them to participate a bit more actively. It's all good either way but I do try to give them some space to participate as some have responded well to a little bit of an invitation.

by Phegnax

Here
https://rpggeek.com/geeklist/368325/solo-rpgs-on-your-table-...
or
https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/368325/solo-rpgs-on-your-...

You could have, however, just openend the Link in the description Also subscribe here to be notified of new monthly lists. and get the link yourself.