I've been solo-curious ever since I first realized it's not possible to play as often as I'd like with a full group, but I've only recently begun looking at options to try it out.
As always, my first instinct was to roll up a party in my system of choice and go in blind, making it up as I went, but I've now settled on using "DM Yourself" [[footnote: DM Yourself - Solo Roleplay for 5e, D&D and OSR Adventures for Dungeons & Dragons and More (Scutt, 2020)]] with selected bits of "DM Yourselves." [[footnote: DM Yourselves - Solo and GM-less Roleplay for 5e, D&D and OSR Adventures (Scutt, 2022)]] [[footnote: Caveat: I discovered this book when this post was already nearly finished, but I think it's going to be clutch.]]
Contrary to the first book's recommendations of having a single PC and using 5E for its robust skill system, I will be running a full party (and then some). I'll embrace the slight procedural ambiguity that comes with not having a skill system over dealing with 5E's super-heroic power levels. Running a megadungeon in 5E is like filming an episode of Survivorman where Les can order same-day deliveries from Cabela’s, Home Depot, and REI. No, my copy of Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised has been collecting dust, so I'll finally try that out.
And since I can't not tinker, I allowed non-standard ancestry/class combos, such as the (imo) classic Dwarven Cleric, as my homebrewed setting demands [[footnote: I'll get way too into this at some point, but while I love the OSR play style, I was raised on post-2E and early-MMO (well, EverQuest) vernacular fantasy.]]. I don’t think any of the players are going to complain, and if they do they can hit the bricks [[footnote: rimshot!]].
I'm happy being a Forever GM, so I want a super loose party emulation, though I'd prefer a "semi-autonomous" party over something entirely "AI"-driven. Default Behaviors [[footnote: "[Default Behaviors] define what your character will do in any given situation (in the absence of any information to the contrary)." (DM Yourself, p. 9)]] will be key for that, though I'll probably add a basic oracle so characters can still surprise me.
Binding Decisions [[footnote: "Binding Decisions are like short-term Default Behaviours – basically a mechanism to stop yourself cheating, a way of committing yourself to a course of action before you’ve read the details of a location." (DM Yourself, p 30)]] won't be used since I'm going for that hybrid party emulation approach.
I don't have anything against the concept of Binding Decisions, but the distinction between room description and detail doesn't really jive with Stonehell's one-page dungeon design. Plus, I like when my players surprise me, and I want to try to capture a piece of that. Maybe Binding Decisions will come into play with the room features that are elaborated on in the Special Dungeon Notes sections. I'm not really too worried about meta-knowledge, but it's nice to have something available when I don't trust myself to be unbiased.
At this point I've rolled up the party, so the next step is to hit up Stonehell. I'll be running it in the state my real-life, flesh-and-blood players left it in earlier this year, since that sounds like more fun than wiping the slate clean.
I’ll close this one here. Next time: We meet the party, and they head into the dungeon. And if they wipe, I have no one to blame but myself.
EDIT: To delay is human; to forgive, divine. This will be continued...