Playing an OD&D Solo Game with my wife - third game

Friday night, my wife and I, along with my visiting 10 year old daughter, sat down to continue the exploration of the ruins of Zenopus's Tower. It was a really fun game, and one where I saw my wife and daughter achieve something that a lot of gamers take for granted - solving a puzzle. I think that can be one of the hardest, most frustrating experiences for new gamers, but when they achieve it, there's an "AhHA!" moment that they'll not soon forget - and they can use that for future reference.

I've tried to RP with my daughter before, and she didn't enjoy it so much. I had tried to give her a game where there was a very obvious story, but she didn't want to do it. She also didn't want to just explore the town. I think it just wasn't something that caught her imagination, and I think she didn't like playing solo. In talking to her, it seems like she likes to be part of a group, so she doesn't like having to make the decisions by herself, but she also definitely doesn't want a railroad type of story.

I had a few pregenerated characters, so she picked the very strong dwarf. Both her and my wife were happy that I hand-waved the character introductions and just dropped her in the party. My wife wanted to get back to the dungeon and bash things, and I think my daughter didn't want to do a lot of RP'ing herself.

When we last played, my wife had done a lot of interaction with the townsfolk of Westport and had found out that hirelings had lives too - the widow of a dead hireling wanted his body back for a proper burial! So that was job 1 for Aeli, get the bodies back.

My wife is starting to map now, which caused some interesting discussions because the map she had didn't match the descriptions I was giving her. I was describing what she saw, and she replied "That's not it..." so that was a quick gentle reminder that yes, I am describing what she saw. I need to remember to remind her that maps are general guidelines, and they might get confused, but that I'm not going to change things to mess her up.

So they trooped through the goblin room, with dead goblin bodies, and back into the spider room, where the door was closed, of course. Aeli and Yakimi (my daughter's dwarf) grabbed the bodies and started lugging them behind, at the rear of the party. Reopening doors to head back, they come face to face with wandering monsters, more bandits!

Then began another standoff - "Get out of our dungeon!", "No, you get out!" and combat was had. Aeli and Yakimi were boxed in behind the hirelings as the fight was at a doorway, and I now realize that I did a big no-no; I had a fight that didn't have the PCs participating much. One of the hirelings fell from a huge wound, so Aeli was able to step in, and the other gave way to allow Yakimi into the fray. Two bandits fell, two routed and that was it.

The party healed the hireling with one of their healing potions, put the recovered bodies near the stairs and decided to head to a new section of the dungeon. They entered an extremely dusty room with cobwebbed niches - of course something was going to burst from them, 4 skeletons!

Thus began bash #2. Aeli and Yakimi dashed towards the skeletons and the hirelings... well, they taught my wife a new lesson in combat tactics - the fighting circle! She saw that they grouped up in the middle of the room. She said "Hey, where are you guys going!?" and one of them retorted "We're being smart and forming a circle!". The skeletons, being mindless automatons, attacked what was closest, two on each single PC!

Although the battle was short and sweet, it was good to see my wife start backing up back into the circle. She's playing a good headstrong "bash 'em all" fighter type, but she's also seeing some tactics in action and in ways that don't force her to do what I think she should do. Sure, go ahead and run into the middle of the bad guys... but you see your hirelings doing smart things? ;)

An exploration of a few empty rooms, which always serves to heighten the tension, led them to what I saw as the highlight of the evening.

The party came to a door that was very different from the rest of the typical wooden/iron-banded/ring-in-the-middle doors they'd run into. This door was finely crafted, with scrollwork on the doors. It also had no ring to open it, but smoothly and *quietly* opened to the touch. It swung all the way open on it's own, then swung shut. Aeli could hold it open, but she could feel a pressure that wanted to shut the door. Yakimi could see a statue of a figure with a distorted head, and horns (a demon looking figure) facing the door, with an outstretched hand towards the door.

So all of the party went in, with Aeli holding the door. After seeing that there was nothing else in the room, except for doors in all four walls, Aeli followed and allowed the door to shut. I then mentioned how each door fit flush into the wall. You probably see where this is going, but my wife and daughter didn't... until they tried to exit another door.

"We push the door open."
"It doesn't push open. It's flush into the wall and doesn't move when you push it."
"..."

They realized there was nothing to grab onto to open the doors, and they couldn't pry them open. The whole room was finely crafted, well built and hardly the worse for wear. The statue was on a pedastal.

My daughter tried bashing open the doors with her hand-axe. Each stroke resulted in just sparks from the axe hitting the door. Eventually, her axe broke, because she said she kept hitting the axe on the door.

My wife tried pushing the statue. I rolled a d6 to see if a hint would happen, and she got a 6, so I told her that she felt "something". Repeated pushes, which she described as pushing to try and topple the statue, lead to nothing. My daughter's dwarf climbed on the statue, pulled on it's arms and head, but nothing happened. I had them describe to me exactly what they were doing, and tried to determine if anything would help, but they weren't doing anything that would solve the puzzle. My daughter proclaimed "We're dead!" and her dwarf proceeded to take a nap because she was bored with trying to figure it out.

I could see that my wife and daughter were getting a bit frustrated, and this was a dangerous point. I did NOT want the NPCs to "stumble" on the secret and give it away, and I did NOT want the solution to come to a dice roll. Tironell, my mage NPC, did mention that it didn't seem magical and that all we had to work with was the doors and statue, and this probably wasn't meant to be a death trap.

After a bit, and my NPC asking Aeli "What else can we do to the statue?", she started trying to move it in all directions, which then I could say "The statue twists slightly on the pedestal." That was the "AHA!" moment at which my wife started moving the statue, since it rotated in one direction only, the hand points to a door and it silently swings open and shut. Since the party was starting to run out of torches (my wife now is starting to learn that resources are NOT infinite), it was time to go the way they came.

A quick foray into a "garbage room" and a really quick fight with rats - one of my hirelings stabbed a 1 HP rat through the middle, held it up and proclaimed in his sidekick voice "Rat on a Stick. Yea." (Turchao and Rather are two "brothers" who are Men at Arms together. Turchao is the talker, all Rather says is "Yea." after everything, so this speech was surprising to everyone. I love dropping in things like that.) The party found 50 platinum pieces and a silver dagger. They left the dungeon and called it a day, as we have a bit of RP'ing to do when Aeli takes back the bodies to the local temple and meets the cleric of the town for the first time. He's going to have a reaction to her that will tie into her story, but we'll save that for later.

My wife admitted later that the puzzle room had been hard, and that it had been frustrating, but I pointed out (and awarded XP) that she had solved it, and that she did it on her own. The nice thing is now she's learning that not everything is going to be in front of her and that creative thinking may be needed.

My daughter had a blast and couldn't wait to play again. Unfortunately, the way the weekend went, my wife didn't feel good and so we've put off the next game till tonight. I'm really happy she had a fun time.

OD&D/microlite74/Philotomy's Simple combat is quick, fun, and not overloaded with a lot of rules. I varied off the m74 rules a bit and allowed a bit of movement and melee in the same round, if it was a short movement. Playing with miniatures helped, although they did distract my wife a bit in terms of the marching order, but we got it all sorted out. I'm trying to remember to be descriptive and give each thing they do some sort of sense-cue, without overdoing it. Random sounds, wandering monsters, they all make this a way to introduce a sense of "oh crap, what are we doing here in the dark..."

Playing an OD&D Solo Game with my wife - Session recap

Last night, my wife and I were able to squeeze in about 60 minutes of play before we had to break off for the evening. That's the good thing about solo games - you can take advantage of odd moments and be very flexible on when you can play, but it also means that you might not have the time to do some RP'ing above ground and head to the Underworld (and back) in the same session.

Based on the fine comments of Mr. Maliszewski about his secrets to successful campaigns, I came armed to this session with many NPCs fleshed out and the small city of Westport became a bit more "alive." Each NPC has a "one sentence" (or more) backstory going with them. I also wrote up a quick "developments" page to center my thoughts about where things were at and help keep the story into motion.

Still, I found myself ad-libbing during the session, right from the get-go. As we opened up, Aeli (my wife's character) was rising from a well deserved rest after fighting off spiders and goblins to gain some treasure. Unfortunately, she hadn't taken any healing magics with her, so the two hirelings that had died from the spider were still lying cold on the floor in the dungeon. This just screamed "opportunity" to me all week and just as Berlbur, the forgetful (but singing) innkeeper came to her door, it hit me.

Thus Tyrana, the ageworn woman and now widow of the late Bieb-the-man-at-arms stood behind the innkeeper, demanding to know why Aeli had left Bieb's body down in the dungeon, when he should have been brought up for a proper burial. Now his soul was going to wander the ruined tower of Zenopus forever and that wasn't the way it.was.to.be.

The look on my wife's face was worth the ad-lib, because now she had a problem on her hands. Aeli tried to pass it off as a "party decision", to which the widow retorted that everyone else said she was in charge. After a bit of back and forth, and some foot shuffling by the innkeeper, Aeli reluctantly agreed that she would bring the bodies back.

- I am really happy that I followed my instincts to add this on-the-spot. One, it gave me an opportunity to enrich the environment around Aeli. Although hirelings/men-at-arms are usually Red Shirted security officers, they are people too, with lives and interests. This gives my wife a bit of an eye-opener that she's in an environment where actions have consequences and although the bashings and beatings will happen, there may be Prices To Pay. Secondly, it helps to give me some opportunities to talk about alignment and "role playing" for the future. I hope all of my ad libs go this well!

After a quick discussion with Berlbur, who not only confirmed the Westport tradition of burying their dead at sea so that their souls would be free to move on, but also that word had -again- spread quickly of the party's adventures, Aeli made her way downstairs to meet the recurring NPC mage, Tironell.

The party had found a mysterious vial with an unknown liquid inside, so there was a discussion about this. Tironell tasted the liquid, and offered it to Aeli to taste. She roleplayed her character well in being suspicious of the offer, but she did taste it, which tingled her tongue, had a very different taste to it, but nothing happened. This gave me the hook for Tironell to take Aeli to see another NPC, the sage Nickodemus, a dandy man who is also a magic shop owner.

Tironell also related that rumors were flying about the possibility of other townsfolk and maybe even other adventurers wanting to find the secret entrance to Zenopus's Tower, now that treasure was being found, but that the deaths of two hirelings had also given people room for pause - and probably driven up the prices of hirelings.

With that, Aeli and Tironell made their way to Nickodemus's shop. He's a very confident, very proper dandy who took to Aeli immediately. He offered to identify the contents of the vial for 100 gold, and as well, sell Aeli two potions of healing for an additional 100 gold. Some negotiating happened, and Aeli agreed to trade the potion (of growth) in exchange for the two CLW potions. Nickodemus also slipped in some advice about trying to heal people even when they've been injured to death.

Aeli then visited Thumbold, the one-eyed dwarf smith who repaired her bow (string broke from a fumble) and gave her some tactical advice based on rumors coming back from the hirelings on how combat had went. She likes Thumbold because he's crass, to the point and gruff.

- This also introduces a possible way for her to ask questions of tactics without having the NPCs 'lead the way' or to get some suggestions and constructive criticism without it seeming like I'm telling her what to do. One thing I do not want to do is to make her think I'm telling her how to play the game. I'd like her to learn by doing, but also give her some things to think about.

Aeli then went back to the Inn of the Dancing Sea and negotiated with the existing two hirelings (Nodwig, the bearer - and yes, he's a fainting coward who complains about his back, and Torim, the surviving MaA from the previous game who now wants a bit more treasure to risk his neck.) She also met two grizzled looking Men-at-Arms, Turchao and Rather. They work as a team, and they wanted 3 days up front pay, plus a bit more of the share of loot than the other hirelings had asked for. Clearly, rumors of danger and higher rewards was driving up the pay a bit!

- At this point, my wife seemed a bit overwhelmed and unsure why the hirelings were asking for 3 days up front, when in the previous two games, it was a day by day proposition. I took some time to talk OOC about to think of it like free-lance contract work and risk/reward. I thought it was important that she see that there is a way of how things work, that its not arbitrary, and I'm evolving her knowledge of how things work and how she'll have to make choices and balance her resources. I want the game to be fun for her within the necessities of outfitting and preparing a party, so I tried to take the time to explain it out for her.

At this point, with having gone through most of the coins she found in the previous dive (1000 copper, 500 silver and some gold), I hand-waved the storage of her treasure, although I did tell her that if she gained a lot of loot, she'd have to start thinking about how to store that much treasure.

And with that, we were getting late enough that a dungeon dive and required exit would take us far later than I wanted to be on a weeknight, so we suspended play for awhile.

Am I holding her hand too much? She is enjoying herself and she doesn't think so, but I want to make it a good balance between "teaching" her some tricks of the trade and give her some options, while not making it overwhelming. The Tower of Zenopus is a good "Hall for Noobs" adventure, deadly, but not so deadly that she'll die instantly - she'll get in some roleplaying around Westport and she'll gain some experience. She's almost at second level and hasn't yet almost died, so I hope I'm not being *too* soft - she's faced ghouls, bandits, goblins and a giant death-dealing spider. There is more to come in the tower, but I have a feeling she'll hit second level very soon.

We're having fun, so I think that's all good. I've got a great background story from her, I've got plenty of plot hooks running around for her to latch onto and certainly, she's now heard about the Mayor/Patriarch and the high priest of the local temple, so I think we've got some good directions. She enjoyed the back and forth with her and the NPCs, so this all bodes well for the future.

It's Friday! Game night!

Tonight is going to be another chapter in my solo game with my wife. Although the dungeon is well prepped, I need to have a few more NPCs and hirelings gathered.

I've gotten some really good feedback on ideas and thoughts about how to teach "tactics" without turning my NPC into the "answer book" - randalls gave me a fairly good idea on how to provide NPC 'guidance' on my old m20 blog. I also had some good comments from SirLarkins who is in my head about the effect of hireling deaths and rumors of treasure being found will have on things. It's going to be an interesting time in Westport tonight! After reading this comment about retainer costs and attitudes, I have a few more options to spin.

She hasn't started exploring the city of Westport yet, which I'm now going to collapse into my town of Vale and combine the two. I was going to have her finish this little example dungeon and give her the opportunity to "move on" , but that would be railroading - so I'm going to make "the village of Vale" disappear and now Westport will combine the two. It'll serve as a good base for her to explore, learn more things and start exploring some the more interesting aspects of the Vale area.

And just because I'm a HUGE fan of the 'Ale and Whores' concept, I submit to you this image, as provided by the blog Demons and Dragons Friday Gallery

Playing an OD&D Solo Game with my wife

In the tradition of Oakspar7777 (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=471897), I thought I would put down some of my thoughts, ideas and game replays of an OD&D campaign I'm running with my wife. It's a one-on-one game, using a mashup of microlite74, OD&D according to the Little Brown Books and Holmes Basic, as well as Swords & Wizardry and some house rules. My wife played D&D as a teenager in highschool, much as I did, although I've spoken a bit about my history as an RPG'er on this blog.

[[Read more to read the full blog story]]

I wanted to come up with something for my wife that would be easy to play, and yet fairly filled out and quick for me to convert to microlite74, so the sample dungeon (1st level of the Tower of Zenopus) from the back of the Holmes basic book was my test. If she likes it, then I'll move to converting the 1st level of a dungeon I created for a campaign that I've bounced around my skull and various maps called "The Vale." It's something I've semi-fleshed out and have started the same "intro" adventure a couple of times with various people under various rulesets. This time, I'm making it stick!

The first game went pretty well, and pretty quick, which I mentioned here: http://www.microlite20.net/node/104 . During the week, I asked my wife a little bit more about the type of game she wanted to play. "Oh, I like to bash heads in" she replied and my heart warmed - I knew there was a reason I loved this woman - she likes to get into the dirty dungeons and play whack-a-goblin! I went through some questions/answers (based on Oakspar's list of questions to get an idea of what kind of game a player might enjoy) and based on her answers, I think my Vale campaign idea will still fit the bill. She wants to dungeon delve, but as she gets more confident with the rules and the flow of the game, more role playing. She would enjoy mid-level fantasy (think Tolkein/Conan), mid-power magic, she likes the thought of a low powered game where the characters struggle and fight to succeed, she'd like all sorts of tones from dark to light, and she's good with a lot of gore.

Now these questions were more about "plot" than they were about my settings. The dungeons are going to be the dungeons, but the campaign that I wrap around them is where the plot and story come in. She's also fully aware that death is fairly easy to happen (as she saw in the game we just played) and that survival will be more about luck and her wits than any sort of powers found on her character sheet. The really cool thing is that she really doesn't have any sort of "bias" or pre-existing expectation, so in a way, I am really taking her through a learning curve. That's somewhat scary, as I'm in a (re)learning curve myself at being a DM.

So we've come up with a short history of her character (or characters that she might play, depending on if her character survives) but that's about it.

So... on with the game.

We started off with her character, Aeli, counting the spoils of their first 2 room dive into the ruins of Zenopus's Tower. Everyone had survived, aside from the torch/loot bearer fainting after the combat with the ghouls. Aeli was off to spend some of her hard earned loot. She bought a bow/arrows/quiver combo, although she was really ripped off by the merchant! 75gp for a set that would have cost 50 at list, but she didn't barter, so the merchant closed his shop early that day!

He did feel expansive enough to tell her that after their first dive into the Tower, a bit of fame had spread about them. He also gave her some information on the recent history of the tower - namely that it hadn't been explored in recent memory, and that everyone was nervous about the strange lights and the dark figures dancing on the top of the fallen tower's roof. (My wife was a bit unsure of 'talking' to the merchant, so I gave her some benefit of doubt and encouragement and she got into the spirit of asking questions.) Her history has some bad feelings about mages, so she quizzed the merchant about the NPC that I've had go along with her, Tironell. The merchant knew nothing.

After that, she went back to the Inn to meet up with the band for another day of tower diving. Unfortunately, the hirelings/men-at-arms were busy drinking down their pay and boasting of their exploits, so now EVERYONE wanted to go with Aeli. Aeli also wanted to renegotiate the shares/payment arrangement with Tironell - since she'd proven her mettle, she didn't want to pay for the hirelings on her own! After a bit of back and forth, Tironell agreed to split the cost. She decided to hire one more man-at-arms and rehire the 3 from earlier and off they went.

(I asked her if she wanted to hire more men, and she wasn't sure, so I use my NPC to drop hints and suggestions, but I'm also making it clear that she's the one that decides. When she's tried to put the NPCs/hirelings "in charge", I play them in a way so that she feels like she's the one to make decisions. She's starting to get the hang of it.)

They found the entrance again, and once again, stepped into the dark corridors. At first, she wanted the hirelings to go in front, but they were really reluctant to do so, so Aeli agreed to be in the front. Muahahaha.

(My wife started making simple maps - and I repeated some of the advice that I've read elsewhere about not going crazy with the maps, as long as it's useful for her to find her way back out. She seemed reassured by that.)

The group reached the first, and familiar, 4 way intersection after the stairs and she decided they would go forward. After listening and opening a door to an empty room, she then just yanked open the following door across the way (no listening or preparation) and came face to face with 5 goblins that had heard her open the first door and were fully prepared to do battle. (As soon as she told me she was opening the door and I started to speak, I saw a look of "Oh crap, that was a bad idea!" come across her face. Experience is the best teacher at times...)

Thus began the first parlay of Aeli with goblins. Tironell, by dint of his Intelligence (and a quick on the spot ruling by myself), could speak some goblinish and was able to translate the conversation. The goblins demanded that the party leave. She demanded that they let the party through. The goblins replied that they could pass, once, if they paid 15 gold. After a quick discussion with the NPCs, Aeli offered 8, which the goblins took, but the goblins warned the party to not return. Aeli decided they would take the door opposite the one they came in. Aeli asked the goblins what was behind the door and the goblin leader smirked "What you deserve..."

What was behind the door was a very small 15 foot long corridor with another door. As soon as the party was in the corridor (and the hireling/mage were in the open doorway of the goblin room) the goblins rushed the door, pushed everyone into the corridor by slamming it shut behind them and began hammering spikes into the door.

So now Aeli and 5 other people are squished into a 15 ft by 10 ft area. Listening at the door was difficult, and she heard nothing obvious, so Aeli opened the door (it swung into the room) and her and one of the hirelines were basically pushed into the room by the press of people.

Unfortunately, the giant spider that was lurking in the ceiling of the room heard the noises and based on random roll, jumped on the hireling instead of her. The spider missed and combat was joined.

(This was where I took the time to give my wife some suggestions about tactics. She would have stayed at the doorway, preventing the other men-at-arms an opportunity to attack, so I suggested she let the rest in. We were using dice as miniatures at this point, and once she saw how things were stacked up, she spent a turn moving [m74 combat turns are one action - move or attack or cast] - now maybe that's a bit of too much hand-holding, but I also saw this as a good way of giving her some things to think about without telling her what to do. I hope I'm not leading her too much by the hand, but I also don't want her to get too frustrated, so I'm walking a balance that I'm probably not good at walking. Anyone else have comments on teaching someone about tactics?)

A couple of rounds of misses, and then Aeli scored a critical hit (natural 20), so I let her roll another die of damage (just an on the spot ruling, since she had rolled a 1 damage) and described how her arrow had pierced one of the eyes of the spider and ripped through it's head to come out the other side through another eye. The spider lost a great deal of hit points, but was still around. Unfortunately, the next two rounds were disastrous for the party.

One of the hirelings rolled a 1 and his sword went sailing across the room. The spider then scored a hit and proceeded to rip out the hireling's throat, killing him. The next round, Aeli herself fumbled (natural 1) and her bowstring broke. The spider bit another hireling and he failed his saving throw - died from poison. Things were looking pretty bleak when the mage NPC finally scored with a tossed flask and torch and now the room was lit with the flames of a burning spider. Another hireling managed to land the killing blow and now the room was filled with the fumes of charred arachnid and the sight of 2 dead hirelings. After a quick search of the room, the party had to decide what to do.

(At this point, my wife was pretty surprised at how fast things could seesaw back and forth. I also started asking her to be more explicit in how she was doing things. Instead of "I'm searching the room.", I asked her how and where she was searching. No die rolls, in the spirit of OD&D. That meant that because she didn't poke around the remains of the spider, she missed a +1 dagger. But that's how it is...)

Aeli wanted to move on into the dungeon, but I role played the NPC mage who protested that "we've lost a third of our party, we're stuck exploring an area that we don't know about, and you want us to push on?" Aeli wanted to know how only 2 fighters and a mage could take on 5 goblins and a spiked door. Tironell mentioned that he might be able to dispatch some of them with a spell, allowing her and the other man-at-arms better odds.

So the party stripped the hirelings of their gear (and Aeli took back the gold she'd spent on hiring them - rather cold blooded, my wife is!) and went back to the now spiked door.

(My wife wasn't sure what to do at this point, so I pointed to the swinging door that lies between our kitchen and dining room and asked her how she would get that door open if she were on one side and I was on the other keeping it from opening. She thought about it, and said she'd try to push it open and maybe put her shoulder into it. So I suggested she try it.)

Aeli put her shoulder into the door and it gave a bit. Encouraged, Aeli and the remaining man-at-arms put their shoulders into the door and started ramming into it. A quick roll of a d6 to see how many times it would take, and two pushes shoved the spiked door open (apparently the goblins didn't do a very good job).

Of course, the goblins were waiting in a battle formation and combat ensued. The mage put two of the goblins to sleep, one of the goblins fumbled and ended up on his back, but managed to avoid getting hit and two goblins were slain by Aeli. The fumbling goblin attempted to flee, but because he had to open doors, Aeli caught up with him and sliced him in half.

After recovering their 8gp toll on the goblin leader, a discussion between Aeli and mage was about what to do with the sleeping goblins. Aeli wanted to kill them - "They'll be here when we come back!" and Tironell was reluctant to. He pointed out that they were more than likely to not hang around, but Aeli said "They might come back with friends [DM Note - oh yes they will!!! Muahahaha!] Tironell managed to convince Aeli to just tie them up, so she did and then she explored the room.

She found several sacks of thousands of copper and a mysterious glass vial with a substance inside and an unlocked, closed chest. Once again, not thinking, Aeli flipped the lid open, only to be surrounded by a green gas. Aeli made her Fortitude Save (microlite74 mechanic) and the mage wryly observed that she should be a bit more cautious next time. Inside the chest was more treasure, a few hundred silver. After loading down the poor bearer (who is rightfully named Nodwig), the party returned to the surface and ended the game.

With this intro game, I wanted my wife to learn a few things - and after the game, we talked about it. She figured out that jumping into things is going to get her killed, even though she likes to play headstrong. If you ever get to know my wife, you'd say "well, that's not a surprise!" *laugh* I praised her for parlaying with the goblins, and she said "Well, they weren't attacking, so we weren't." She also likes the quick combat pace - the spider combat lasted the longest at about 3 to 5 minutes. So, so far, her introduction to OD&D is going well.

Now what I have to decide is:
- How do they get the glass vial identified? (I'm thinking that they could find a sage or wizard who might do it for a fee... )
- How the town will deal with the rumors that the hirelings will bring back of death from above, goblins and danger in the tower - and the lure of treasure. There might be another adventure group forming? Competition?

I also have some plot ideas based on my wife's backstory for Aeli. Aeli's recent history was filled with a terrible tragedy and one that has left her with a single purpose in life - revenge. She was of a rich noble family. The family was rumored to have held great secrets from an ancient relative who had brought them to their noble status. A mage befriended Aeli, seeking to take advantage of her naivetee, to gain access to these secrets?

After learning how best to infiltrate the family's home, he did so, seeking the scrolls. He attacked the home with many hirelings and a horrific battle ensued between the bandits and her family's men-at-arms. They were eventually overcome. The mage could not find the ancient secrets, and he killed the majority of her family (some where not present during the attack) trying to get the information on where the scrolls were kept.

Aeli was not at the family estate, as she had been away preparing for her impending marriage. Upon learning of the attack, she ran off from her family and fiancee to track down the mage and make him pay.

Now the cool thing is that if Aeli dies, and she wants to keep this plot going, her 'replacement' could be a sister, or brother, or cousin or a friend of the family's.

I've also got the BBEG all planned out - Calypso, who may or may not be what he seems. He seduced Aeli to get to the ancient knowledge... but is he keeping tabs on Aeli? What is he? What does he want? I am plotting that out, and the nice thing is that my Vale setting was vague enough that Calypso and Aeli will fit right in.

So far, running solo works out nice! I'm really trying hard to make sure that my wife is the decision maker and I'm only giving suggestions when she's really stuck, or there's a teaching moment, like with battle tactics. I'm letting her learn the hard way, like with yanking open doors and chests - but also providing some food for thought - like when she wanted to keep going with half her party's fighting ability taken out by the spider.

There's more to Zenopus's Tower example, but once she's done first level, I think I'll have the plot present an opportunity for her to pursue her story, or keep going in Zenopus's Tower. We'll see.