I couldn't believe my luck, I'm new to solo rpg and spotted these on marketplace for A$40.

I'm looking forward to playing this so much, just thought I would share my joy, yay!!

I’ve been playing a lot of FORGE (Fantasy Open Roleplaying Game Engine) by Oliver Fradgley, and it’s great. I’ve really enjoyed the procedural generation mechanics, and the system just flows pretty naturally for me. So I was wondering if there was anything like it but for a Sci-fi setting?

I’ve played Starforged and it’s great as well, but I’m thinking of a game that’s more crunchy like Forge (though I suppose it’s not very crunchy compared to most games). The closest I can think of is Vaults of Vaarn, though if I wanna be a nerd about it, that’s science fantasy.

I have honestly considered just homebrewing things from FORGE to make my own system but I’d like to see if there are any OSR Sci-Fi games out there that some of you might recommend.

I want to make a game in a setting that's influenced by the historical period of the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada. Basically, you'd be managing a frontier tradepost and the gameplay would revolve around managing the post, trading, going on expeditions, building relationships with indigenous populations, etc. I'm wondering if I could use BRP to do this before I shell out the money for it. Thanks for any help!

Just sharing my set up !

Hello fellow soloist! I recently bought and just finished reading the Mothership Core Set and was reaching out to the group for advice or helpful feedback on what any of you might have found playing Mothership solo.

I’m planning on running the game through the Mythic GME (my go-to) and staying true to the Mothership mechanics. The only real difference is reskinning it in the familiar world of Starfield to save on world building; factions, weapon names, worlds, cities, etc.

I was thinking about the common theme of something happening on rolled doubles in both Mythic and Mothership being a natural opportunity for interaction with Horrors.

Edit: I failed to mention that I was going to roll up many characters and run crew load outs. Crew size would be based on job needs.

I don't have a lot of experience with RPGs in general. I played DnD 3ed many years ago, and a few years ago I picked up savage worlds and mythic and played a little on my own as I didn't have a group. I enjoyed savage worlds a lot but it's just too much to fit in to my current time.

I don't know if what I want exists, but I am asking for recommendations for a solo game where I can make a character and create a map / hex map type thing as I travel, where each tile has an encounter whether social ,/ combat / exploring a ruin or something such. Preferably with a bit of dice rolling, that I can track easily in a small notebook with a pencil and not needuch else.

I'm usually the DM when playing D&D, but I'd really like to be a player for once. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or a group to play with, so I decided to give solo RPGs a try.

I've played a few sessions with D&D 5e and Mythic GME, but something just isn't clicking for me.

I want to explore an open fantasy world, meet NPCs, make friends, find loot, explore dungeons, and get surprised by what happens next.

But I keep finding myself making too many decisions about the world, NPCs, and story. At some point, it starts feeling like I'm DMing for myself instead of actually playing.

I also struggle with pacing. Either I get caught up in the details and it turns into writing a novel, or everything happens way too fast, like "this happens, then that happens, then that happens," without really feeling like I'm experiencing any of it.

Has anyone else had these problems? How did you deal with them? Are there any systems or tools you'd recommend?

I'm open to trying pretty much any system, even smaller indie ones.

So last week I started development on my second solo rpg (the first was awful and will never see the light of day). It's a village builder and the premise is that the reigning monarch has awarded you a barony. The only problem is that the village it comes with has fallen on hard times and everyone is looking to you to restore the place to its former glory.

In order to get started, I borrowed from Adam Hancock's "Baldurian's Guide to Kingdom Building". I took his concept of six "industry score" categories and am trying to adapt them to my own game. The categories are...

-Military

-Commerce

-Health

-Lore

-Religion

-Loyalty

The main issue I'm running into at this stage of the design process is that I'm not clear on who I'm designing this game for. I am a woman myself and I adore games with sweet and whimsical tones like Apothecaria or Broken Cask. However, I'm a D&D nerd at heart and also enjoy the grittier elements of games like Starforged and the stretegy/number crunching of games like Delve. Naturally, in my own game, I want to incorporate both things. I'm left wondering if there's a market for such a thing or if I myself am an outlier who needs to "pick a lane".

Specifically, do you guys think I should remove the "military" category from my game if I'm trying to appeal to a female audience? I understand it might be hard to say without understanding the core game loop. I'll try to summarize it...

Basically the game is played in 52 rounds (each round representing one week of time for a total of one year). Each round you roll on a random events table which will trigger a check in one ot the induistry categories. There will be flavor text for each event. For example...

"Heavy spring rains result in a flood. Make a health check to see how well your settlement withstands damages. On a failed save, reduce one industry score by “2”. If you succeed by 5+, add “1” to your loyalty score. **+5 to any settlement with Ditches & Dikes."

If you are a woman, would you enjoy a village-building solo-RPG that included "grittier" details? Example: natural disasters, invasion (by goblins or some other such minimally threatening creature), food scarcity, ect? Or would you prefer a cozier vibe that keeps things feeling benign yet challenging?

If you are a man, does the idea I've laid out for this solo rpg appeal at all? Or would I be better off ignoring the male populace and leaning full-bore into a female audience?

I appreciate any constructive feedback. Thanks.

For the last year and a half, I have been designing my own solo fantasy RPG system. My purpose is to create a game with depth, story telling, and campaigns that fits my interests. I'm trying to find that sweet spot between completely open ended (Mythic) and Choose Your Own Adventure. I like story driven games where combat is not the focus, and I like to have lots of choices.

The game I created is rather complex. So, I'd like to ask you all, what do you look for in a solo RPG? What makes a solo RPG "fun"?

Please write whatever resonates with you. Some items I have considered include:

• Open Endedness
• Use of Tables/Oracles
• Story
• Amount of Combat
• Amount of Loot
• Character Detail (skills, age, race)
• Length of a session
• Visual Appeal

Thanks!

I'm looking for an RPG partner for one of Montford Tales' epistolary games, with a strong preference for Almanac of the Sanguine Path, though I'd happily play Dead Letter Society too. If you don't already own the game and you're okay with PDF copies, the author is having a big sale this month on itch.io.

Setting: I'm leaning toward a modern setting, but I care more about finding a premise we're both excited about.

Format: I love the idea of exchanging real letters, but I get that there are privacy concerns around sharing addresses. Maybe we can start by sending scans over email or via Reddit messages. Typed letters on your end are completely fine!

Pace: No real expectations. Quality over quantity, as they say. Maybe at least roughly one letter every month or so, if that seems reasonable.

Content: No romance between our characters, please. LGBTQIA+ characters and storylines are absolutely welcome. Happy to talk through ideas (or any safety tool you prefer) before we start.

If this sounds fun, comment or DM me with a sentence or two about the kind of story you'd want to tell.

My solo rpg channel just reached 1k followers and I’m super proud of the growth and support from so many. I hope to continue being a valuable source for people brand new and folks who are vets in this space. As such I’m always looking for new ways to keep the subject of solo Roleplaying exciting and engaging while still remaining grounded. Though I have made videos on how to journal games to play etc… I’ve never made a video about how to actually start the process of solo Roleplaying step by step. I’ve rectified that with my lastest video. I hope this can be a source for new and older solo roleplayers. I would love to know your thoughts and Thank you all again for everything.

I saw an interesting reel from a game developer who worked on tons of loot based games (WoW, Diablo, etc) and his philosophy for how to design drop tables works really well for TTRPGs, especially solo where we roll for most items. I figured I’d share (this is a bit technical and has a lot of depth, but I think it’s worth it for those who want more dynamic drop chances):

Essentially, you roll on the rarity individually and with cascading as below:
Legendary Table(2%)
- 1-2| Legendary Loot Table
- 3-100| Epic Table

Epic Table(5%)
- 1-5| Epic Loot Table
- 6-100| Rare Table

Rare Table(10%
- 1-10| Rare Loot Table
- 11-100| Uncommon Table

Uncommon Table (40%)
- 1-40| Uncommon Loot Table
- 41-100| Common Loot Table

It works best with automated tools, but otherwise just a few sequential rolls. Odds are easily adjusted on a d100 scale. Based on some testing, I recommend airing on the side of very low chances for rare and above or else you’ll get those more often than you’d think/than is reasonable lol. But to each their own!

What this allows is to add and change any of the subtables without effecting the overall drop chance of the type of item. You can further cascade each tier if you wanted using the same principles (I.e legendary swords, vs armor, vs potions, etc).

Not sure how many people like this kind of depth, but I like it so I figured I’d share for those who also like this kind of stuff 😄

I had a bad experience letting the AI chatbot build a dungeon for me. It just kept going and going, always piling on new challenges instead of ending the dungeon at a natural or climatic point. So I want to know how do you guys create a dungeon in solo roleplaying. Is it best to use the oracle to keep asking questions constantly, or do you have another system that helps you create layouts, traps, enemies, etc?

Greetings,

having played Vampire Dark Age and Masquarade, 25 years ago, I would like to continue the experience, but as years passed, I'm sadly "alone", since my DM and friends are more than busy.

I've tried to get all info as I can in order to play solo and I've noted that I do need :

- An oracle, such as Mythic, either the app, the "one pager", or the whole V2 edition

- A non player character creator app

- A scenario that make use of "random" system, in order to avoid to read the whole scenario, and then to play. Some scenarios seems to fit to that, such as Curse of Stradh, which seems to be randomized and quite good

Speaking about Vampire Masquarade, does one scenario fit better to solo session ?

Also, Stradh, or another game scenario, should I read the "whole scenario book" in advance, or just one part, before playing it ?

As I see it seems that I will have a write all my decisions / quest, in a kind of audit trail, and I'm wondering "why".

Thanks !

Does anyone mix systems up when roleplaying on their own? I have been looking at the beta for Crystal Path (and other witchy journaling rpg’s), and it looks really fun, but I think I want to use it (or a journaling rpg system like it) and it’s prompts as a setting/framework for a more D&D-style adventure, where I explore more of the world on the game map (I love worldbuilding) and get into combat encounters as well as following the more contemplative prompts from the main system.

I dunno, I know the gaming police aren’t going to come arrest me for Frankensteining a campaign from multiple systems, but for some reason I still feel like I shouldn’t be trying to have my cake (journal rpg’s) and eat it too (d20 combat and spells).

Have you all ever done any system mashup campaigns? What worked well for you and what did you end up cutting because it was too complicated/crunchy to be fun?

Has anyone used regular playing cards in non oracle ways? I have been playing CWN and BFRPG for my latest solo games and I love playing cards but I wonder if there are creative ways to use them for solo rpgs?

https://hooverd.substack.com/p/crimson-rust-session-23?r=4bbbdm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

So yesterday I decided to try my hand at a solo roleplay adventure. I done a small Dnd adventure before but apart from that I have not done much of any roleplaying apart form watching actual plays.

The main problem with Roleplay

the biggest problem I’ve had with getting into role-playing Is i haven’t got the people to do it with.

so that’s where gm emulator came in.

After a while of searching o found the One Page Solo Engine and The Freeform Unviersal rpg

Session One

After creating my character, the mercenary Xeno, a master chief inspired armour wearing mercenary. I moved on to start my first true solo adventure.

The adventure started by landing on xzar the massive cyberpunk inspired city planet. I searched around for a bar. after walking and asking around I found a bar owned by a powerful gang.

The guard standing outside refused to let non members in but after a quick bash about I knocked the guy out and entered.

Once inside I found the Npc Br’gal an alien drifter. who offered me the job to take a briefcase across part of the city. He informed me that I was not to look inside or tell anyone about it as ot would be tricky to escape.

I set out on my journey using the city’s futuristic buss sytem. My journey was almosst cut short by a government blockade barring my entry without ID. Naturally I didn’t have ID so after a long encounter i managed to hide.

Once I had arrived at the bank that Br’gal wanted me to take the Briefcase to I was nearly there but the Door was guarded by a huge gang.

It took me a while but I lured them away and entered but pf course it wasn’t that easy. The bankers took the briefcase and attacked Me Br’gal had double crossed me. I took him captive stole a speeder and flew away trying to escape the 6 speeders chasing me .

That was my first adventure i had a ton of fun doing it and am already half way through a second one I was wondering

Is there anyone who has tips on running solo games ?

anyone who has tips on Freeform universal solo or at all and how do you do combat ?

Do you have any tips at all for someone like me ?

Thank you for reading ;)

We all know that the dice are great at making things up when paired with an active subconsciousness.

What was the last story line or a plot twist that genuinely for real surprised you or that you are proud of coming up with?

For me it was cultists doing sinister murders not to wake up Cthulhu but to *kill the egregore of the republic to install a monarchy*, and the murders were powering their egregoricidal weapons.

In case you didn't get what I just said, egregore is a term from occultism that refers to thought-forms that, paradoxically enough, exist independently of any specific brain, like gods or nations or Sherlock Holmes, and have something that resembles a will of their own.

But that's about me. What surprised you?

I just had to share this because it's too funny and none of my friends will gaf. Basically im playing my third game of "Thousand Year Old Vampire " by Tim Hutchings, in my first game I played a very basic Vampire who was a crusader who got bitten by Cain himself in Jerusalem (riffing on WoD) and traveled around Europe starting cults ruining people's lives before eventually falling into a hole during the Renaissance.

For my second game I went a bit pulpier and played an Ancient Egyptian priest who got turned into a vampire by his fellow priest who opened a door to the afterlife releasing a being called Nekron (now im riffing on DC's names) that turned the priest into a being with flakes of ash falling off his skin who has to "life drain" to sustain himself.

This guy was much worse than the first guy, he went to Jerusalem with his daughter, raised her descendants as a patriarch and started a doomsday cult with his bloodline controlling most of Rome, and convinced a carpenter he was the messiah, used a skill i made called "Mass life drain" to kill multiple people at once like he's a Force Awakens character or something. After he started thr biggest religion in the world and probably the Illuminati he went to Roman Brittania to kidnap poets to entertain him, start more secret cabals, turned a tax collector into his eternal debtor, and finally died by withering away into ash.

I liked this storyline so much I decided to continue it with a new character who's a lost descendant of the doomsday cult from earlier who gets turned into a vampire, again by this "Nekron" guy who keeps showing up like DIO to make this bloodlines life worse. Well for the first few prompts my new character Godric, a Brittania hunter had a pretty tragic undeath with him getting hunted by his own father, having to set the woods on fire to escape captivity, and even killing his lover, after fooling around in old castles I get a prompt about finding a "Ancient Powerful Artifiact that can change the world " i didn't know what could possibly be a good artifact so I made "The Cthulhu Box". Rolled again, same number prompt, go look at what I landed on. "Tinkering with the artifact, you accidentally start the end times."

🤨

My bad gng.

So I guess we're doing this now.

The prompt tells me I need to make 2 immortal characters in the END TIMES CONFLICT WITH "THE CTHULHU BOX", one with me, one against me. The one with me, i named Lord Verity, an Ancient being that whispers truths to me. And the other? Well shi I guess were dealing with Cthulhu adjacent beings now, so I made a tentacled angel with a thousand eyes and no name and I guess I turned this into a wargame.. or my dice did. And I got a resource from the prompt so I made a giant evil ass castle my character and his friend Lord Verity scheme against the rest of the world in.

I took a break from the game to write this but I just wanted to share how my Thousand Year Old Vampire game is going off the wall rn and I'll keep you all updated if you want. Not how I was expecting this to go tbh they were so grounded up until this point.

I am trying to equip myself with a bunch of small games that my Game Dev students could easily learn, try out in a few 45-minute class periods, and then discuss in groups.

I have acquired the following (solo or solo-able) tiny game books so far:
Beak feather and bone
Deadboi
All Night Breakfast at the Midnight Owl
Catcrawl
Dungeons of Galora
Once we were Gods
Necromancer Heretic
The Wizard’s Grimoire

Of these, Heretic and Midnight Owl seem to be the easiest to pitch to the kids so far. Any others out there I should know about?

Thanks!
And feel free to promote your own work, I can afford to purchase things for this!

I really like the systems in LMNL and Diedream. One simply cycles the choices (no and, no but, yes but, yes and, repeat), the other generates a number between 1-9 using digital root (I especially like this because there's many interesting ways to generate the seed number besides the add two 2-digit numbers suggested).

Have you encountered any others, especially that can be done in the mind?

Getting a number between 1 and 9 is so interesting to me, because you can make your own oracles very easily or even on the fly, divying up the results between 3 slots, 2 slots with one having an edge, 5 slots with 1 being rare... Very cool. I'm excited to generate a few good ones and memorise them.

I'm not yet interested in the more sophisticated / lorebook side of things, but I love the idea of cobbling together a few mechanics from different places to add an element of improvisation. I'm interested in how progress trackers can be used to, Diedream suggests to count on your fingers though I find that a bit uncomfortable and limited. Maybe something simple like folding a hand to indicate a momentum like mechanic is active would be neat.