As I mentioned in the previous post, there has been a lot of work that has gone into The Sword, the Song, and the Mage and a lot of it was given freely, whether by watching countless hours of YouTube Author/Creators discussing key points and what-not-to-dos , or finding resources at that ancient feature known as the public library. As Act 2 of the first book draws close to completion, I am going to take a moment to make a plug for the number one tool that has been doing the majority of the heavy lifting for this story.
In January of this year (2025), I decided amongst the various other New Year’s resolutions to do a month long fast at the beginning of the year. One of those things I abstained from was playing video games for the month of January. Knowing that such a feat would be grueling (Especially those who know how much of my time was put into this hobby), I had to find a creative substitute. Dungeons and Dragons. The only problem being I haven’t had a gaming group in years, let alone the time to build up a campaign to run with them.
A couple years ago, I had purchased The Game Master’s Book of Random Encounters by Jeff Ashworth. While this was a fun tool to use mid-adventure, it was hard to generate a full campaign from the very beginning to the very end.
Then I found the Solo Adventurer’s Toolkit by Paul Bimler. I was both set and blown away of how versatile this book was. With its numerous tables and descriptions, I had almost everything I needed for solo play. I used this book to play through and subsequently draft the first five books in this story, starting with the main characters’ origins, backstories, and unique interactions between them and the numerous side characters they come across. Just this last month I purchased Solo Adventurer’s Toolkit Part 2: The Toolbox Expanded by Paul Bimler as now I am needing even greater elements to pull from in order to continue to build out this world I created.
I hear you asking, why not just brainstorm, outline, and draft, and draft, and draft, and draft, and draft, and draft, etc like the rest of us novelists. The answer is simple. Gamification. Or as I like to call it, Immersive Storybuilding. Since starting this campaign eight months ago, I have barely messed with video games. That’s because I am crafting my own story within a game (Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Ed). Yes, I had spent some time brainstorming ideas and the general plan of how the story went, using the tried and true plot elements that everyone loves to see in their favorite stories, but then I let the dice tell the tale. Granted, not everything happened in the book the same way the game played out. A lot of things had to be changed, restructured, and even replayed after the initial proto-draft (Gameplay notes) were completed. Regardless I have such a ridiculous amount of material to work with that fits nicely in between the story arches I have laid out. This level of completeness and complexity has made writing the story a very enjoyable experience. I still have only touched video games when playing with my children. Even then, I am still constantly thinking of the story and where the dice will take me and the characters next.
If you want to begin your own Immersive Storybuilding experience go to DM’s Guild website and get your copies of The Solo Adventurer’s Toolkit parts 1 and 2 for roughly $15 each. You can purchase softcover editions of these for $32 and $42 each…or you can do it on the cheap and print out the pdfs in booklet form and use those (In the mean time). Check them out in the links below:
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/252355/The-Solo-Adventurers-Toolbox
Additionally, The Game Master’s Book of Random Encounters can be found on Amazon $14 hardcover in the link below (It irritates me that this link provides a full photo and not the other ones(I’ve recently adjusted this)):
Until then…
James C Gilliam 
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