SoloBickering-TTRPG-For-One
SoloBickering is a one-player TTRPG podcast where the dice roll, the rules bend, and the arguments are all in my head. Join me as I dive into solo roleplaying adventures using Old-School Essentials and other systems, testing variant rules, homebrew mechanics, and narrative twists—sometimes brilliant, sometimes ridiculous. It’s part playthrough, part design lab, and part therapy session for a GM with no players but plenty of opinions.
No party? No problem. Just me, my dice, and a thousand voices in my head. Let the bickering begin.
SoloBickering-TTRPG-For-One
Rollohi-ep04
--/-- Having survived three episodes, let's take a look at the male thief, Jack:
--As rolled hp 4 attributes (SIWDCC) 08,13,10,12,14,07
--Jack has fostered a 'cultured' voice, along the same lines as Pokemon Team Rocket's James. I like the idea of Jack using this persona but lacking the CHA to pull it off. In fact, Jack has a few quite different drives and these have been showing up in play.
--/-- Welcome to SoloBickering, the podcast where I—an aging Kiwi with too many dice and not enough players—explore solo TTRPGs, variant rules, and the occasional philosophical meltdown. Today, we journey into the world of Rollohi: a PG-rated realm of fantasy, where a party of eight attempts to survive the wilds. I hope it becomes a full drama, with discovery, treasure, and arguments I lose with myself. Whether you’re here for the rules, the roleplay, or just the bickering—there’s always something brewing in SoloBickering.
Script: https://larrymannplayssolobickering.blogspot.com/2025/09/rollohi-ep04-script.html
--/--Music from Pixabay with thanks to: daynightmorning, Good_B-Music, JefWakeUp, LudoSoundX, makesoundmusic, Playsound, teodholina, and White_Records
-signout
https://larrymannplayssolobickering.blogspot.com
Last time in Rollahy Ambush, with clear weather and a decent bit of turf. The brigand leader throws himself and his three men at the caravan. They ride out from behind a rocky outcrop and begin trotting towards the party van. A trusty halfling scout C-pods spot the riders and whistle an alarm. Erin the fighter is able to close up on Xantu and set her polearm, while behind them missile users, mules and merchants run for cover behind a copse of trees. Arrows and bolts are exchanged, but the key event comes when Umbert the magic user uses Charmed Person on a brigand. The loss of that fourth man is telling. Erin finishes the fight with her polearm and after he helps them round up the stray horses, the charmed brigand helps lash bodies to those captured horses and acts as a guide to their lair, which proves to be the exact destination of a Jiwe the Merchant, a hidden system of fortalece cavern and hot springs beneath the plateau. After they finish moving in, jack the Thief steps the brigand back out to where the bodies are piled and backstabs him. And now today's episode begins.
Speaker 1:Moon, one day post-fall, the party, together with Ajiwe and Yigion, has rested and done some light work on the hot springs. Everyone has recovered their hit points, from the tiredness and cold weather and in some cases the fighting two days ago. Today the grim task of chumming the forest for monsters is underway. Weather no change, or even finer Watch one Does the task finish? No, and A patrol of hobgoblins finds them. Is it a full patrol? No, and I use the basic addition numbers. One appears. Neither side is surprised.
Speaker 1:The Hobgoblin will attempt to disengage and flee, but not leave a trail. But its move of 90 is 30 slower than the lightest of the light foot, so-called. Will Kiley go alone? No, but she will move at her own speed. The original range is 80. Kiley immediately gets to decent longbow aim and hunts the weaving hobgoblin using 5 arrows. The total distance travelled is 530 yards. Is 530 yards?
Speaker 1:Using the evasion rules outlined in OSE and WIS checks, I find that Kylie manages to lose sight at one point but picks it up the next round To test whether or not the terrain favors evasion. I ask Is it still forest? Yes, but with small meadows. On the other hand, maybe the hobgoblin was running back to his main force. Are there signs of other hobgoblins? No, but the area is patrolled. Sometimes I have a mind's eye picture of how this fits together against the terrain we've seen so far, but it may not amount to anything. Kylie loots her prey and wonders if there might be a local bounty on hobgoblins. Snick Off comes an ear Loot 22 copper, 52, silver Watch 2.
Speaker 1:The weather begins to look like rain again. The bait is out and the party is hunkered up on higher ground Something of a footnote to the plateau where the volcanically heated water originates. A roll up crab spiders for the monsters. Three appear. No surprise either way, but characters have got their bait out and they are hiding right. Yes, I rethink how surprise would work when the party's setting a deliberate ambush On a one to four. Do the party achieve surprise? Yes, characters are high, but not unapproachable. Range to bait 40 yards. Just a reminder that Erin, jack and the halfling pair have short bows. Kylie has a long bow and both Engel and Umbert have slings. All bows hit their mark, the slings max off, which, to elaborate, happens when the die rolled for the weapon scores its highest amount. Sling is an excellent weapon against heavy armour but has a 25% chance of glancing off any target. The nearest spider takes 11 damage and is dead.
Speaker 1:Round 1. Inits Character 6, spider 3. Characters win the initiative. Another round of arrows and slingstones. This time Aaron maxes out, but good hits are scored by Kylie and Jack. The next spider the biggest is down Monsters round. They have a morale of 7. The remaining one grabs a corpse and retreats.
Speaker 1:It's time to go back to the evasion rules again. Spider 3 moves a full 120 yards away. Does Kylie let it run? No, I find the evasion explanation on OSE a bit confusing, but essentially it says that both sides being the same speed, the evader has a 50-50 shot at getting away. That increases to a 3-4 chance if the side fleeing is faster. The main point about this is that Kylie's longbow allows her to take a couple of shots, as long as she keeps reasonable distance. So the next question is really, can characters get down that height without breaking their necks or just falling over and losing the chance to keep up? Kylie makes a dex check of 09 to maneuver down while not losing line of sight. Erin falls. Jack makes a natural one, meaning he too has no disadvantage. The halflings make it down but are losing distance. Kylie and Jack get their shots home for 12 of 12 hit points. That's a total clean-up exactly what they were hoping for.
Speaker 1:Speaking of clean-up, all three spiders are available to be cleaned out and turned into parts, basically Trophies, poison and soft armour. The characters haul the corpse back and gather up the three spiders. After some discussion about ways of preserving the spider corpses, they vote to try scraping and burning the soft inner parts out with hot rocks Really, really hot rocks. They extend their monster baiting to watch three but, with the weather not improving, make a decision to bury the corpses before nightfall. There's no monster attracted to the overripe meat. Shall we say that the bodies are now Spots of rain, no wind at all, and with the last watch stretching out for them to get back to hidden springs, they vote to gather rocks from the high ground and make a big cairn over the bodies. I'll just check whether or not they keep the freshest body. No, so it's hot bath time and once they're comfortable, white hot rocks to be heated to scald the spiders inside out.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, back in Hidden Springs, the merchant Ajiwe and his meal skinner Ikion are hard at work repackaging all the supplies and tools for the great enterprise. Will Ajiwe need to get supplies and labour soon? No, but about four more days we'll see food supplies used up. Did the brigands leave more than a day's supply no. Is Ijion experienced at foraging? Yes, is Ijiwe? Yes, but from more settled areas. Farage check for that day no. A D6 check on how the build out itself goes no. And day one is just about moving stuff around and getting the hot springs available for two sexes.
Speaker 1:As the sun disappears, the wary hunters return with three spider carcasses and some coin and weaponry from a single hobgoblin kill. A meeting is held between both parties. Ajibwe would rather the adventurers do what he want to do after all, he's paying them as hired guards. He'd rather they stuck close to the base, explored carefully and didn't expose the operation, as he says. But I'm paying you. If that's the concern, we'll take our stipend to date and we'll withdraw our labor. Engel says firmly Well, I say I'm just spitballing here, no need to be angry. The plan for the next few days, then, as a compromise, is to forage while mapping out hunting chances, be very cautious of hobgoblin patrols and, if possible, try to work out where they have their base. We move through time four days ahead. The full moon has been and gone and we're now in the waning, gibbous phase.
Speaker 1:I'm not building a hex map here and I have no settled playbook for building terrain. For this next little bit, just to outline what does lie around them, I'm going to try Cairn 2nd Edition, dice Drop. I roll a 4, then I roll 46 on an A4 size piece of paper. The results are 3, 5, 3, 5, reading roughly left to right and top to bottom, it becomes two easy zones separated by Tuff in the north and the entire south of the map is Tuff. I read this as being the foothills in the west lead via Best Pass to Fort Stouthart. The plateau becomes the eastern easy part. There's a central tough area between them which are the woodlands. The southern tough area are marshlands. That was pretty easy. Thank you, cantui. I'm happy to have helped kickstart you.
Speaker 1:I make some further rolls for hunting prospects. West, in the foothills, we have animal, humanoid and V-comp patrols. East, on the plateau, we have multiple animal types and humanoid which I imagine relate to hobgoblins. Around the forest we have multiple animals and V-Compt patrols. South into the marsh, however, we have flyer insect and undead. I also develop a theory that the top predator of the region is Thar Dragon and since there is a marsh in the south, I think Thar Dragon will turn out to be a black dragon. Because of this, I'll tend to re-roll wilderness encounters that conflict with the dragon's standing.
Speaker 1:The party maps this out very thoroughly, even though the hunting and foraging takes four days to show any result. On their final check-in they're taken on a tour of the refurbished hidden springs. They are complete as far as they go, that is, as far as two non-masons and non-plasterers can make them. Ajiwe proudly shows them around with airy gestures, traces out how the newly hired labour force will make the area not just a rock hut on Zen but an entire hub for commerce. Yes, this is his master plan. Commerce, yes, this is his master plan. But now, with the four days hunting and mapping complete, ajiwe presses for the planned mission to the V-comps eastern lodge. There he can confirm his license and present a case for a road to be built through the woodland to Hidden Springs. There seems no need for any intra-party debate. As the Jiwe knows, the party is in his employ and he is right. Angle has but one stipulation yes, but we will need to travel and forage at the same time. In terms of the future, on return from the lodge, the party votes to hunt for meat, primarily up on the plateau. Next, once they have enough meat to jerk or smoke. They can expand operations and even hire on hirelings. Of course, as the saying goes, the best laid plans. I make a couple of rolls to check back in on Yormsley. After all, he's a named NPC and I don't want to lose track of him. Okay, he's still on the map. I'll leave it at that for now.
Speaker 1:Day one of the return. Weather is no different from seasonal average, but neither is it improving. During the middle watch, the sky clouds over and light rain falls. During watch 3, it clears away to fine and the sun sinks vividly behind the foothills. Do they lose direction? No, but at the end of the day ajiwe has run out of landmarks. Well, need to find a campsite. I have no real idea how far south of the Wacom's lodge we are. There's a hail from the growing dark Jomsle looking, if possible, even more ragged steps forward to be identified. Ajiwe is extremely cautious about the appearance of the man. According to the others, this fellow was traveling somewhere. Why is he still on this beat? Ajiwe files a charisma check to draw Yormsley out. He does have very average charisma, I'm afraid. With 11 people available for watch, ajiwe takes himself and Ikion out of the night watches.
Speaker 1:The party feels that the previous three lots of three worked okay, but Pod and Seed now ask that they swap watch from breakfast to first. They swap with Eren and Kiley. Jack wants to take first watch and Kylie, after thinking for a time, opts to take breakfast shift. By the way, elves under OSE do not get a waking sleep feature. I need to find out a little bit more about Yormsley. Has Yormsley hostile intent? No, but he has no love for the party either. He's using his presence with them to throw off any hounds. The V-comps huntsman may be using. Something happened in Yormsley's recent past, something around the time of the full moon, that he doesn't entirely understand yet, but he's decided to relish it. He's looking forward to the next full moon.