Solo Roleplaying Session 0 Part 1: Intro to the System

Crown and Skull

Today we’re talking about something I love—Crown and Skull. Really it’ll probably end up being a big ad for all things Runehammer.

Brandish Gilhelm, a man of many names. He makes passion projects. You can tell he puts a lot of love and care into them.

The Products

• The backdrop map of the North Holds (the setting)
• Troll Mers dice kit—standard D7 set, very high quality, very thick boys
• Binary skull dice, directional dice, D4 prisms
• Special Crown and Skull dice: defend, attack, and AoE attack

Newtonian Solids Only

One weird thing about me: I only use Newtonian solids. No D10s, no D4s.

For a D4, I roll a D8 and divide by two. For percentiles, I roll a D20 twice—first for the tens, second with the one dropped.

A little extra math, but adding that esoteric aspect is just more fun. The original D&D didn’t have D4s or D10s—they used what they had.

Why This Works for Solo Play

All roles in Crown and Skull are player-facing. Although the game wasn’t designed for solo play, with just a small amount of work it’s well suited for it. I’ve DM’d two different groups for Crown and Skull, so I’m excited to go my own path.

Monster AI Built In

Every monster has built-in tactics. Example: Needler has two tactics per phase. Roll the dice and the behavior is determined—normal attack, AoE attack (Blinding Shot), etc.

I don’t have to worry about gaming the system. I spawn them in, they follow their tactics, my characters react however they want.

Zero Prep Required

Each hex has roll tables. Example: Party leaves Thrin and enters Greyfoot Forest hex. Roll for location (Crumbled Ruins: curved pillars and cobble stairs of an elven temple). Roll for event (Sunlight Lance: find an heirloom lance perched on a ritual stone).

There’s lore throughout the world, but it’s vague enough for my own thing. My goal when solo roleplaying is to tell a story—write a novel with extra steps.

The Quality

This book is leather bound, gold foil. I’ve flipped through it hundreds of times and it still looks great. The pages are thick, fibrous, feel good to touch. This is an artifact. The map is very thick, high quality.

Why Crown and Skull

The adaptability pulled me in. I can make any character, do any kind of magic, within the confines of the system that makes the game fun.

Crown and Skull 2 introduces new material but continues the story from book one. Runehammer’s actual group events form the next book—it’s a living world you exist inside.

Coming Up

Next step: generate a party. There’s a free character builder PDF and an official online character builder.

Also: Dolmenwood campaign coming when I finally get my Dolmenwood. Stay tuned for that.

Transcript

Today we’re going to talk about something that that I love. Uh I love everything about it really. Crown and Skull. I think really it’ll probably end up just being a big ad for all things Runehammer. Uh Brandish Brandish Gilhelm, a man of many names.

Uh it’s just awesome. Awesome dude. He makes passion projects. You can tell that he puts a lot of love and care into them. Uh, I have a lot of a lot of his projects in front of me right now.

So, the the backdrop, the map of the North Holds, which is the setting of Crown and Skull. Uh, I have two of his of his recent dice kit dice kits here. So, the troll mers uh pretty standard D7 set. Then, uh, recently he came out with these, which are the they’re a little slightly different color than the original ones I got. I think that I don’t know if that’s um by design or just like different batches or different colors.

These things are very high quality, very very thick boys. Um then these are just just binary dice with skulls on them. Directional dice. Yes. No.

These are D4s and prism shapes. And then these are specifically for crown and skull. There’s a defend attack and an AoE attack. And that’s what the the encounters are. All the roles in Count Crown and Skull are playerfacing.

So although the game wasn’t designed to be a solo played game, I think with just a small amount of work, it’s going to be very well suited for it. And I’ve DM’d for for two different groups now for Crown and School. So I’m very excited uh just to kind of go my my own path and and do my own thing. Um, one thing that’s just kind of weird about me is I only use the Newtonian solids. So, I I don’t use these these guys, like the the D10s.

So, and I don’t use I don’t use the D4. So, to make up for that, uh, there’s a D8 or excuse me, D8. Uh, and I roll that instead. So, that’s a that’s a two. That’s four.

Let’s see if we can get something that’s not an eight. So that would just be you divide that by two and now that’s a four. And then for the percentiles, uh kind of the same thing with the d20. So if I if I need to roll a percentile, I roll a d20. So that’s just a three.

That’s my 10 spot. Second time I roll it, I just take the one off. So that’s a seven. So 37. It works the same way.

Uh I know that’s a little bit extra work, a little bit extra math when I I could just roll these. Uh but uh to me just just adding that little bit more Whoa. Let me smack the camera. Uh to me just having that little bit more of that that esoteric cool aspect to it is just more fun and more enjoyable for me. So I don’t even really use these.

I just use the Newtonian solids. Uh and also there’s the full pack of D6s in the troll mers which I I use for other games. So I have them in other places. But uh just again these these boys thunkk like hopefully that comes through on a microphone and like this right here. Here’s a comparison.

There’s a standard just like cheesy chessics D6. Uh huge difference. Um like the the here’s a normal here’s a normal D20. There’s the Rude Hammer D20. Very awesome.

So, I don’t know. I’m going to be all over the place cuz I’m just excited about this kind of thing. I like people who make good products because they want to make good products, not because they are like, look at this book. This is leather bound gold foil. All of the pages and I flipped through this thing hundreds of times and it still looks great.

They are thick, fibrous, like they feel good to touch it. This is an artifact. Volume two is the same way. [snorts] The map, uh, I have mine framed and the cover on top of it, but even the map is very thick, very high quality. It’s just, it’s just great.

So, all right, let me stop just uh dislazing her hammer. It’s all so good. This, you’re probably wondering about this mouse pad. All of the monsters in Crown and Skull are meant to be put on an index card. And and Rune Hammer also makes index card RPG, which I’m sure you’ve probably heard of.

So, for example, this monster, a needler, his HP is 10. So, I uh I should I do I will add I use uh should add I will I do use these for record keeping. Uh, I shouldn’t have thrown them over on my desk, but I just don’t roll them and I don’t use them to actually play the game, but I I really use them for record keeping. I know it’s a little bit silly. Uh, but I just think they tapped into something magical when they were using the the Newtonian solids and it’s in the original in the original D&D, they weren’t using like D4s didn’t exist, D10s didn’t exist.

They were using what they had. So, that’s also just something to think about. So [snorts] six attack again this I’m looking out he he goes in phase one and he has two tactics. So to represent that, what I do just two dice here and then normally what the tactics actually do uh specifically I could write on the card or if I if I wasn’t as going through the book I could have a whole bunch of index cards prepared and just set here and I have multiple uh mouse pads too. Jeez, I got to stop smacking the camera.

So uh with these with these with any dice really because you can tactic one, tactic two through five, tactic six. This just makes it so I don’t have to think about it. So that’s just a normal attack, needle blow, a tiny barbed arrow that pierces armor, destroy attrition, unless no equipment left, then flesh attrition. And the attrition is just how the how Chronicle itself actually works, which I’ll probably get into in a different video. But he gets two tactics.

So I get this other dice and that is also just an attack again. But see if I if I were to get this symbol, that’s the AoE attack. Blinding shot. Needler fires a fire, a flare tipped arrow. All fo foes will resist to look away in time or be blinded for the remainder of the round.

So just this very cool very simple recordkeeping player facing rolls very straightforward with this AI. I don’t have to try to like worry about gaming the system, right? Like slime beast. If I roll a one, he slurps and sucks along moving toward light movement or an open space. Uh two through five, he jumps forward but gains a small amount of mass.

This action heals essentially then six he elongates by one foot for every three HP creatures touched are sucked into the sticky gelotinous material. So there’s built-in strategy and tactics in all the monsters and all the encounters. So I don’t have to worry about what they’re supposed to do. I just spawn them in, go from there. My characters can react however they want.

And the way that I can you like these are kind of like yes no die. Obviously I have a yes no but I can use them for keeping track of things. So maybe the the party is here as they’re moving across the the hex’s and the cities. Uh one thing that’s also very cool about crown and scroll that I think will lend itself well to solo play is I don’t have to do any prep because each hex so old watch. Let’s see.

Let me one that’s actually in frame. So garden burrow if you’re actually here’s a better one. So so grayfoot forest which is right here the top of the screen. Uh what you do and again this uses the the d10. So say the the party sets out of thrin and they go into this hex.

When they go into this hex I roll a d10. So that for me that would be a five which is crumbled ruins curved pillars and cobble stairs of an elven temple. And then that’s our that’s my location. So now I know that I can I can take a note of that that that hex is an elven ruin. And then I roll a d10 again.

And this will give me an event. So 18 for me. That’s an eight. Sunlight lance. You find an heirloom lance perched on a ritual stone.

So I have this kind of the scene I’m in an event that’s going on. And then I can kind of role play that myself from there about what’s actually going on in here. And sometimes those events will be monster encounters. Sometimes they’ll be NPC encounters. Uh, and it’s just really there’s a lot of lore throughout the world that’s already there for me that I can I can run with, but there’s also it’s vague enough that I can kind of do my own thing.

Cuz really my goal when solo role playing is to just kind of tell a story, right? like write a novel just with extra steps. Okay, so I think the next step is going to be to generate a party. So I mentioned how excited I was about that War Machine set, not just from a War Machine perspective, but just because of of how evocative and fun the sculpts are. So there is a free character builder PDF which is the first half of this book the character creation uh not first half like for this first section where it runs you through the ways of building your own character and there’s also an official online character builder.

What really pulled me into Crowning School and what has really like there was it was a lot of back and forth in my head about what system to use because my plan is my solo play to build a world where I’ll eventually do a real campaign with real players again when things are like when the timing is better uh and not another system like OSE. I’m going to do an OSE one too. A Dolman Wood’s coming when when I whenever I finally get my Dolman wood. I will also be doing a Dolma wood campaign. So stay tuned for that.

That’s going to be a lot of fun. uh was the adaptability. I can pretty much make any character I want to make. I can do any kind of magic I want to do with this in in the rule system, not flubbing it in a working like obviously it’s not a war game, so it doesn’t have to be balanced, but I can make it within the confines of the system that make the game so fun to play, right? Which was important to me because I want to be able to throw a ton of stuff at it.

So, I’m I’m going to play through book one. We’ll see how far we get. Then, like Crown and Soul 2 introduces new material, but it’s also a continuation of the story told in book one. So, you’re playing it’s a living world, right? Like his the the events of what happened with Runehammer’s actual group form the next book of Crown and School and the next events in the series.

So, it’s a it’s a living world, which I think is cool, and you’re just kind of existing inside of it, which is uh something I’d like to make myself one day. So, that’s another reason I want to play through and just kind of see like what’s going on. So, on to finally making our