In looking deeper into Knave 2E with an eye to solo play, I have discovered a few things. First, 100 coins is not much money at all (as I had first assumed.) Second, there is really no good guideline here for awarding monetary treasure from encounters to PC's. Coins convert directly to XP in Knave, so I suppose I need to consider how long I think it should take to advance a character to their next level from their current level and then convert from there.
It takes 2000 XP to reach second level in Knave. Let's assume that I'd like my character to reach that milestone after about 3 sessions. I'd want my character to recover about 350-400 coins per adventure on average. Knave mentions "cost of living" and says to use this as a guideline for what a PC might require for life between adventures. This lists 600 coins as "Humble" … this leads me to think that my character should recover closer to 1000 coins on an adventure at the minimum.
I think Knave is meant to allow the running of prewritten adventures from old-school sources. Old school D&D modules are famous for providing hoards of treasure to the adventuring party. Knave gives tables and charts of curiosities, but no monetary values. I think if I'm trying to create with Knave alone, some things are going to be a little challenging.
From a player stand point, Knave feels fairly complete. From a GM stand point, Knave assumes that the GM's past experience and foresight will be doing most of the heavy lifting. I'm okay with that. It's just something to be aware of. I'm just going to dive in.
The game is built around the pretense that the PC's will venture from a safe haven location to a dangerous location with some kind of goal in mind (most likely the recovery of valuables.) I've not done the solo thing before, but I'm going to start by creating a few random details about the dangerous location.
There is a Dungeons Table on page 16. I will begin by making a few rolls on that.
68 - Nest
42 - Hospital
Hmm … how to combine those elements? Remember, that my character wants to stop the war. So, there is a war on. A war hospital can certainly be a thing. I am going to say that there is an old wartime hospital in the nearby mountains (mountains because a nesting monster might be more likely to live in the mountains) that was long ago abandoned after the end of an ancient conflict.
As the current war continues to rage, the need for medical supplies increases and a reward is being offered for the recovery of any possible medical supplies from the old hospital. But, there is an inherent danger because "something" has moved into the ancient hospital and is nesting there.
That's as good a start as any.
My character is concerned about dwindling medical supplies (because of the war) and remembers a story he once heard about an ancient and long abandoned Dwarven infirmary in the mountains. He thinks that it might be a good idea to investigate the site and see if he can recover any medical supplies and bring them back.
I have a destination and a reason to leave town after two rolls on the "dungeon" table.
Not bad.
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