Starting at the Beginning

I've been tabletop roleplaying since first sitting down with a few friends and AD&D second edition back in 1990. While I've played in a variety of systems and settings over the last 35 years, I've always ended up buying, borrowing, or reading up on more systems than I had the opportunity to play.  One thing I've always enjoyed, though, is creating characters for anything I read, even if I knew I was unlikely to have a chance to play them.  Of course, at that time, I hadn't really heard of 'solo roleplaying,' and if someone had mentioned those to me, I would have thought they meant something like CYOA or Lone Wolf gamebooks, which were themselves my gateway drugs. 

My main focus here will be creating characters under various systems and settings, with a focus on flavor and fun, not so much on 'build optimization.' But I've also recently been inspired by channels such as Wizard Deadloss and Brian's Channel, so my idea is also to do some rudimentary setting and story development for each set of characters, and give this whole 'solo' thing a shot.

I'll be starting literally at the beginning, with Original Dungeons & Dragons. I never actually owned this system until getting the 'big red book' as a gift last year - indeed, I didn't really know it existed and I started really delving into the history of the hobby a few years ago. When we started playing all those years ago, my best friend had all the first edition hardcovers, as well as all 5 BECMI boxes and the Rules Cyclopedia, but it was second edition we dove into, and second edition which I still play biweekly even now. However, I did just recently get the chance to play OD&D at Origins 50, and had a blast.

My first batch of characters will be '3LBB' - using only the original 3 1974 booklets. I actually rolled them up last weekend, and somehow got 8 viable (at least, I think so) characters in 12 tries using 3d6 in order. I'll go through each character in detail over the next post or two, while I start thinking about setting (for which I'll probably go back to one of my favorite books I've had since the 90s - the World Builder's Guide Book - along with the more recently acquired Dungeon Builder's Guide Book.)

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