Icespire ❄ Single-Player Solo or Duet ❄ Play by Post (PbP)
You and your faithful animal-companion will use strength and guile, overcoming obstacles, gaining power, and ultimately challenging a mighty dragon.
About the adventure
Cryovain, the white dragon, has been driven from lands farther north, and she now claims the snow-capped Sword Mountains as her domain. With each passing day, the cruel dragon’s territory expands across the land. Lesser monsters that are displaced by the voracious dragon are driven ever closer to the sleepy town of Phandalin. You and your faithful animal-companion start off as adventurers for hire, entrusted with ever more challenging tasks by the TownMaster of Phandalin. Overcoming obstacles through strength, diplomacy, and guile, you will grow in power and confidence and ultimately challenge Cryovain herself. This classic heroic fantasy adventure starts on a small scale and slowly grows to epic proportions as your character matures through levels 1 - 7. Based very loosely on "Dragon of Icespire Peak", this campaign has been heavily modified and customized to significantly improve the storyline and gameplay, keeping only the overall setting and theme from the original DoIP. A great stepping stone into the world of Dungeons and Dragons, this adventure is specifically designed to be friendly to people just starting out, with plenty of help whenever it is needed to learn the ropes. This is an asynchronous (not live) game played via text (not voice), with interactions multiple times per day throughout the week. During hundreds of past sessions, the gaming interface we use has been tuned and refined, becoming progressively simpler and more accessible. Experienced players who are looking for a new Solo experience, or players new to D&D are both absolutely welcome!
Game style
Play By Post
Rule of Cool (RoC)
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
1 year on StartPlaying
27 games hosted
Highly rated for: Teacher, Inclusive, Storytelling
Average response time: 24+ hours
Response rate: 100%
About me
Hello there! I'm your friendly online Game Master. I first started playing waaay back in the 70's and have loved tabletop and online games ever since. I'm an easy-going guy who wants players to have fun. I like a 50/50 mix of time spent in and out of combat, and I strive to bring roleplay into every battle. I host asynchronous solo / duet campaigns. "Duet" is for you and a close friend or relative. "Solo" is just you and your faithful animal-companion, making your own decisions and driving the story. I structure my games to help new players feel comfortable. My goal is to help you bring your character to life. The games I run are based largely on the written word, with original imagery for every setting, scene, and character to help set the stage. I definitely prefer playing text-based games because being in-character feels much more natural. I'm a big fan of the marginalized and under-represented. With no random players, a D&D solo/duet campaign is the safest of safe spaces. LGBTQ+ and new player friendly!
View Profile →Reviews (5)
Proficiencies
Players say this GM is great at:
Teacher
Inclusive
Storytelling
Signed up for a PbP duet/trio with my boyfriend and we’re having a blast. The DM is highly engaged and is creating a really immersive game for us. He knows his stuff and is amazing at introducing and guiding players through every step of the game and each of the tools used. Play by Post is perfect for us - sometimes we feel like writing detailed descriptions for our players actions, and sometimes its just “I throw my javelin at the goblin”, and both are just fine. The DM fills in the details as needed while always keeping us in the drivers seat. Highly recommend to anyone looking for a good PbP experience!!
I have kids and just can't carve out a large enough block of time for live sessions. I was worried a solo mission would be weird, but the DM made it totally natural and his NPCs filled in the narrative gaps. Solo game means people aren’t ghosting or appearing mid-story = much more engaging. DM was fantastic! Frequent updates so momentum continued and story was always moving. Satisfied my DnD craving throughout the week. Great images and descriptions for atmosphere. Theater of the Mind with live in-game maps to make combat come alive. The game felt very collaborative. By far the best DM I've paid for: 10/10
Excellent GM, would recommend! Positive, relaxed, and fantastically funI The amount of effort he put in really paid off - he had everything setup for me in advance, so I could just drop right into the game very quickly. As an introvert, I was doubting my roleplay skills but he was really supportive and encouraging, putting my little gnome in situations that would help define her personality. Terrific story teller! You can’t go wrong with this GM!
Great GM! I’m a total noob and he helped me get the basics down and get playing right away. Easy to understand and a lots of fun! Answered all my questions from character creation to combat to rollplay. Kind, and quick to respond. Great teacher: thorough but never overwhelming. Very solid welcoming experience! Had tons of fun - would play with him again certainly!
TTRPGs were completely new and I was worried about picking up the rules and mechanics, but he has been the perfect GM for me. Helped me customize my character and assisted with everything from spellcasting to exploration. Honestly, I was intimidated at first, but he made everything seem so simple - why didn’t I do this years ago? With this game, I get a little fix of D&D a couple times a day, all week - it’s wonderful! Highly recommend for anyone wanting a text-based game!!
Character creation
Creating your character
Character creation can be a wonderful adventure in itself, or it can be a daunting task that paralyzes a new player. If it's fun for you, go ahead and use DnDBeyond to create a character from scratch. Let me know what you're hoping for, and I'll help you craft a character that's a good match for the adventure you're facing. For some people, dreaming up the perfect character is more fun than actually playing the game. On the other hand, most people on startplaying.games want to Start-Playing-the-Game. For them, and especially for beginners, I strongly recommend choosing from the handful of premade characters that I provide in the 'Starting-Characters' channel on discord. From brawlers or rogues, to warriors or spellcasters: choose the one that says to you, "Yes, I would have fun pretending to be this character!" If you want to customize it a bit, that's great. Also, since this is typically a one-player adventure, you will have an animal companion on your journey. Again, read through the list, and if you see a character/companion combination that looks fun, go with that. (If you are playing in a 'Duet' with a partner, rather than playing a solo campaign, then the two players will provide all the social interaction you need, and you will not have an animal companion) Tell me your choices, along with your names and pronouns, and we'll put together a quick back-story and dive right into the adventure! Note: players sometimes get stuck trying to create the "perfect" character: one that is the mightiest, cleverest, and most epically heroic. Don't! D&D is not an exercise in optimization; it's an opportunity to roleplay an exciting adventure. The *perfect* character is the one that is the most FUN for YOU to play. It's often more fun to play the underdog, or at least the character with an interesting balance of strengths and weaknesses. Maybe your character is incredibly strong, but not very bright . . . but your animal companion is extremely clever and perceptive. Or vice versa. That can be a recipe for great storytelling, and THAT is what makes for a memorable D&D experience.
FIRST WEEK FREE -- No charge for getting set up and checking out how well the campaign matches your gaming preferences. Asynchronous Text (no audio, no scheduled sessions). This is not a campaign where you get one long post each day, and then wait..... Instead, expect much more continuous interaction. Since this is a Solo campaign, YOU set the tempo. Want to post each evening? Fine! Want to post before work and on your lunch break? Fine! Want to post a lot on some days, and pause on others? That's fine too. I'm prepared to update the story multiple times per day, seven days per week, as needed. So far, I've always been able to match the pace of the player.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
This adventure is designed specifically for Play-by-Post for a single player or a duet (two close relatives or friends). Maybe you're a D&D beginner; maybe a Solo-Campaign beginner; maybe an online-D&D beginner; or maybe you've just been away from the game for a while. Every effort has been made to streamline and simplify both the startup process and the playing experience. Since the game is not LIVE, and since there are no other random players, there is no need for a virtual tabletop (VTT). The entire game takes place within Discord. You do not need to manage DnDBeyond or Roll20 or Foundry or Fantasy Grounds or any other platform. If you're an experienced player who is already comfortable with their own gaming platform, you may certainly continue to use it for managing your character, but that is absolutely not necessary for the campaign.
What QuietDynamo brings to the table
I provide stories, truckloads of engaging artwork for characters and settings, tactical maps, and plenty of guidance.
Homebrew rules
This campaign is built on the 2014 version of D&D 5E. If you're a fan of the 2024 version and you have a specific element that you want included, let me know - we can probably make that happen. Since this is primarily a solo campaign (and because the D&D 5E death mechanics are dumb, imo), the rules related to character death borrow heavily from the Nimble platform -- see the discord channel for details. Generally, crafting an enjoyable story always trumps following the rules as written.
Equipment needed to play
Computer
Internet
Platforms used
Safety
How QuietDynamo creates a safe table
Honestly, the solo campaign format makes for a much safer social playing environment! IceSpire is not a particularly dark campaign, and we can easily adjust lines and veils to avoid any sensitive areas.