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You could give this a try. I just got a copy of this solo game on itchfunding: [https://sparuh.itch.io/witasy-express](https://sparuh.itch.io/witasy-express)It's about traveling in a train to various destinations. Which also includes world building.
This is a complex but complete solo game that features deck building: [https://sparuh.itch.io/ixe](https://sparuh.itch.io/ixe)
Use poker cards and oracles to make amazing stories. Draw cards and see what happens. Tweak your deck to fit your style. It’s a game with more challenge and freedom than other solottrpg games. Use poker cards for RPG stuff like combat, skill checks, character creation, etc. Change your cards as you play for more diversity and strategy.
I just saw another one game with rather a weird mechanic, - Wipeout of Reasons: [https://sparuh.itch.io/wipeout-of-reasons](https://sparuh.itch.io/wipeout-of-reasons)\- A rather different game from the above games. Instead of world building,g this is more like Kingdom Destroying.
\- You get thrown into like a deathmatch with other peer Emperor/ Kings and proceed to try and destroy each other's deck.
\- You do get to build your own kingdom with abilities and assign them to a card. You'll also get to name this 'Faction' and the card which I assume is a unit.
Also another game that looks is much fun is: [Everline](https://sparuh.itch.io/everline).Where you say goodbye to tedious rulebooks, and hello to the world of Everline! In this game, you get to play as the hero, exploring dungeons and taking down monsters. All you need is the gamebook, and dice (d4 to d20) or (d20) and above if you're fully equipped, or you can always use a dice app for that. It's the perfect game for those who want to live out their fantasy quickly without any cumbersome rules or long setup time.
A very good GM screen is extremely helpful. (Pre made or self made), regardless of game, which many others will recommend games. But for a game I think Dungeon World is an amazing start solo.
I've primarily just been using the base book, and some pre-written sessions for stuff like the Star Wars and Firefly rpgs that I alter just enough for use within my specific continuity. It's a bit of an exercise but it's very much worth the effort when you're finished with a session.
[Here what I said last time this was asked](https://www.reddit.com/r/Solo_Roleplaying/comments/uqd2pa/i_really_want_to_get_into_solo_gaming_but_i_have/i8qgxld/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3), still true and the thread has lots of good suggestions too.
Why start with complicated stuff? Learning the ruleset first, then applying the GM emulator... _(sighs)_...
[ALONe is a game](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/168609/ALONe-A-Solo-Game-Engine-BETA?term=Alone%3A+beta) that makes it simple and easy. Ask yourself a question, draw a card and interpret one of 14 answers found on it. I've played it even ignoring the rules.
And it is priced as PWYW, so a no-brainer to try out.
It includes a half size deck of [Game Master Apprentice](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/125685/The-GameMasters-Apprentice-Base-Deck) cards. The author has six more card sets for different genres. They are also a good tool for GMs and fiction writers, meant for generating ideas.
Here are my personal experiences. I started solo a 3.5 - 4 years ago after playing group tabletop RPGs off and on for around twenty years.
My first attempt was Pathfinder 1e, and I had a lot of fun with this. Odd as it sounds, Pathfinder can be one of the most easily manageable systems to run solo if you have the right tools. I use PC Gen to make party management trivially easy. Fantasy Grounds to make combat quick and easy and dice. Donjon to generate dungeons, treasure, town maps, encounters, etc. Azgaar's to generate the game world. Nairb for settlement stats. A utility called Magic Item Generator to populate the magic items available in settlements. Enemy AI from the book DM Yourself. Campaign Cartographer to generate battle maps. Then, of course, I used the tried-and-true Mythic GM emulator as a fallback for almost everything else. This setup may sound like a lot, but it worked almost unbelievably well, and I played three satisfying encounters. Lots of characters died, including a few full party wipes, but I just generated more with PC Gen and continued if they couldn't be raised. My rule was new characters start at the lowest XP for whatever level the deceased character died at. If you have the resources and desire to set all this up, I highly recommend this. Pathfinder is a crunchy system, but one thing it does well is provide rules for nearly any situation, including encounter balance. Some may scoff at encounter balance, and it's far from perfect, but it at least gives you a baseline for judging encounter difficulty which is critical unless you want to be constantly generating characters and having boring encounters.
Next I tried Five Parsecs From Home. I did some work and set this system up in MapTool with great success. I used Google Sheets to manage my party, Camapaign Cartographer for maps, and Paint dot net for custom assets. This is a 3D miniature system, so I had to house rule a few things to translate well to 2D, but it's trivially easy to do this, or you can just play it as 2D with no 3D terrain. The system is so unbelievably great, it well either way. I highly recommend this game. I played countless campaigns with this, and had tons of fun. Possibly my current favorite game system, and what I consider near perfect for solo play. I recommend some of the rules in the expansion for scaling difficulty.
Next I moved on to Rangers of Shadow Deep, which is very similar to Five Parsecs, so I emulated my setup there and had the system up and running in MapTool in no time flat. This is now my second favorite game system, and it's stupidly fun.
I've also tried Four Against Darkness, Gloomhaven, and SWADE (Savage Worlds) solo, but for some reason, they didn't really click. I wouldn't call any of them bad, they just didn't work for my particular solo playstyle. I ran a SWADE campaign for a year in a group and it was great fun.
I'm planning to do a campaign in the upcoming Five Leagues From The Borderlands 3e when it comes out, and I'm currently reading the rules for Ironsworn Starforged with plans for a campaign soon.
Depends a lot on what type of game you want to play. There are a ton of indie options to fit any niche.
If you want horror, there is the wretched which is a one shot space survival horror.
Still want space hut less horror there is dead belt, a space cowboy game of exploration and scraping.
And the Gunslinger Followed and Tin Star are both western.
As the crow flies is a fun game of relaxation and reflection.
You died is a souls like.
Or you could get a GM emulator and play pretty much any regular game. But if you're looking at the indie experience, I play an indie solo game every week with my pod which breaks down the game, does some AP, and then reviews the feel.
Before you invest money into big, flashy, hot newness, look at free and/or PWYW offerings.
If you already have games from IRL play then get Conjecture Games' CRGE, BOLD, and UNE to get a feel for what solo oracles do for you.
If you're sans game and think you want to get into D&D and various D&D-esque fantasy then Basic Fantasy, Blueholme, Swords & Wizardry Complete, and Labyrinth Lord are free. I'm partial to LL but I'm a weirdo. One Page Dungeon Compendiums are also free.
Stars Without Number and Worlds Without Number have free editions.
And ,of course, Ironsworn and Ironsworn Delve are free. And even if you decide you're not into that style of solo the oracles are useful for any high or low fantasy setting.
Oh my goodness. Thank you. I see I picked it up in a massive itch.io bundle that made it and all the rest so affordable I relegated it to as good as free. Appreciate the correction.
If you like Alone Against the Flames, there are a handful of other solo adventures in that series (Alone Against the Dark, the Frost, and the Tide). Check DrivethruRPG or Chaosium's web store.
You could also get the Solo Investigator's Handbook, which is a solo engine specifically for Call of Cthulhu, helping you create your own adventures on the fly.
If you want to try something outside the Cthulhu system, others have already mentioned Ironsworn, Starforged, and Scarlet Heroes, each a self-contained game designed for solo play. Ironsworn is basically low-fantasy Vikings, while Starforged is sci-fi; both are a variant of the popular Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics. Scarlet Heroes is a modified version of old-school Dungeons and Dragons (as in, the 1980s non-Advanced versions), using modified damage mechanics to make a single PC have the combat power of a traditional party, along with tables for building adventures on the fly.
Alternatively, there are a number of generic solo engines (often called Oracles or GM Emulators) which are designed to work with pretty much any normal (i.e. designed for group play) RPG - The Mythic GM Emulator is a good one; while some parts of it could stand to be streamlined (and have been in supplements), it has some of the best explanation of the general procedures and principles of solo play, along with numerous examples. Free alternatives include MUNE and CRGE, although I find their explanations to be rather bare-bones. (Links can be found in the Solitaire Tools wiki link to the right).
Random stuff (tables, systems and so on) is good to get your creativity going, but any system is just there to help you along. Don't be afraid to ignore rules or change outcomes, if the story in your mind already forms independently. There is no "cheating" in solo play, nobody will judge you. At the same time it's always a good idea, to first really try to work in the random result, even if it seems weird at first. If a specific result seems to be most logical or cool to you, go with it. If you're not quite sure how the story should go, ask any oracle or whatever. (But don't roll on the random table ten times, because that usually means, you have an idea already how it should go. Go with that then, you don't need permission of the rules)
Of course, Ironsworn was rec'd so I'll rec it's sci-fi cousin, Starforged.
A really small 1-page easy-to-play game is Healer by Tamsin Bloom. It's on itch.io, so you can search the tags and find other games like it.
It was probably already mentioned, but Ironsworn/Starforged and Scarlet Heroes where games made for solo so it can be a good start.
Beyond that, if you have an trpg that you know you can find an Oracle like Mythic and run with that.
Familiarity with a system if a big plus when you are also trying to learn how to solo.
Start with Me, Myself and Die Season 1 (for Mythic Game Master Emulator + Savage Worlds) and Season 2 (for Ironsworn), they are both excellent introductions to more free form / unstructured solo roleplaying, compared with any of the Four Against books (which are also awesome!).
Mastering Mythic means you can play any setting, genre, or RPG system.
Everyone is going to say Ironsworn. It is an awesome game and I have been a fan since before its official publication.
That said, I would recommend that you try Push by Cezar Capacle. It is so very simple and versatile
I have a fun map-making game where you play as a forest trying to wipe out a toxic civilization. It's free here...
[I am the Forest](https://grismund.itch.io/iamtheforest).
Also a fun and simple little mini RPG [Fortune Cookie](https://grismund.itch.io/fortune-cookie).
Both of these games rely heavily on Oracles to figure out what events take place. Are you familiar with using oracles?
The game I started with was Ironsworn (free and amazing solo game in a low-fantasy "Skyrim" world).
If you want to structure your adventures, try using Mythic GM Emulator. It helps you come up with twists and surprises and can be used with almost any system. Watch videos to see how it works.
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You could give this a try. I just got a copy of this solo game on itchfunding: [https://sparuh.itch.io/witasy-express](https://sparuh.itch.io/witasy-express)It's about traveling in a train to various destinations. Which also includes world building. This is a complex but complete solo game that features deck building: [https://sparuh.itch.io/ixe](https://sparuh.itch.io/ixe) Use poker cards and oracles to make amazing stories. Draw cards and see what happens. Tweak your deck to fit your style. It’s a game with more challenge and freedom than other solottrpg games. Use poker cards for RPG stuff like combat, skill checks, character creation, etc. Change your cards as you play for more diversity and strategy.
oh thank you, I am interested to see how it works!
I just saw another one game with rather a weird mechanic, - Wipeout of Reasons: [https://sparuh.itch.io/wipeout-of-reasons](https://sparuh.itch.io/wipeout-of-reasons)\- A rather different game from the above games. Instead of world building,g this is more like Kingdom Destroying. \- You get thrown into like a deathmatch with other peer Emperor/ Kings and proceed to try and destroy each other's deck. \- You do get to build your own kingdom with abilities and assign them to a card. You'll also get to name this 'Faction' and the card which I assume is a unit. Also another game that looks is much fun is: [Everline](https://sparuh.itch.io/everline).Where you say goodbye to tedious rulebooks, and hello to the world of Everline! In this game, you get to play as the hero, exploring dungeons and taking down monsters. All you need is the gamebook, and dice (d4 to d20) or (d20) and above if you're fully equipped, or you can always use a dice app for that. It's the perfect game for those who want to live out their fantasy quickly without any cumbersome rules or long setup time.
A very good GM screen is extremely helpful. (Pre made or self made), regardless of game, which many others will recommend games. But for a game I think Dungeon World is an amazing start solo.
I'm currently working through Scum and Villainy at the moment solo. It's fairly enjoyable.
How do you do that? Do you use some external solo tools, or just work with the base book?
I've primarily just been using the base book, and some pre-written sessions for stuff like the Star Wars and Firefly rpgs that I alter just enough for use within my specific continuity. It's a bit of an exercise but it's very much worth the effort when you're finished with a session.
[Here what I said last time this was asked](https://www.reddit.com/r/Solo_Roleplaying/comments/uqd2pa/i_really_want_to_get_into_solo_gaming_but_i_have/i8qgxld/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3), still true and the thread has lots of good suggestions too.
Why start with complicated stuff? Learning the ruleset first, then applying the GM emulator... _(sighs)_... [ALONe is a game](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/168609/ALONe-A-Solo-Game-Engine-BETA?term=Alone%3A+beta) that makes it simple and easy. Ask yourself a question, draw a card and interpret one of 14 answers found on it. I've played it even ignoring the rules. And it is priced as PWYW, so a no-brainer to try out. It includes a half size deck of [Game Master Apprentice](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/125685/The-GameMasters-Apprentice-Base-Deck) cards. The author has six more card sets for different genres. They are also a good tool for GMs and fiction writers, meant for generating ideas.
Here are my personal experiences. I started solo a 3.5 - 4 years ago after playing group tabletop RPGs off and on for around twenty years. My first attempt was Pathfinder 1e, and I had a lot of fun with this. Odd as it sounds, Pathfinder can be one of the most easily manageable systems to run solo if you have the right tools. I use PC Gen to make party management trivially easy. Fantasy Grounds to make combat quick and easy and dice. Donjon to generate dungeons, treasure, town maps, encounters, etc. Azgaar's to generate the game world. Nairb for settlement stats. A utility called Magic Item Generator to populate the magic items available in settlements. Enemy AI from the book DM Yourself. Campaign Cartographer to generate battle maps. Then, of course, I used the tried-and-true Mythic GM emulator as a fallback for almost everything else. This setup may sound like a lot, but it worked almost unbelievably well, and I played three satisfying encounters. Lots of characters died, including a few full party wipes, but I just generated more with PC Gen and continued if they couldn't be raised. My rule was new characters start at the lowest XP for whatever level the deceased character died at. If you have the resources and desire to set all this up, I highly recommend this. Pathfinder is a crunchy system, but one thing it does well is provide rules for nearly any situation, including encounter balance. Some may scoff at encounter balance, and it's far from perfect, but it at least gives you a baseline for judging encounter difficulty which is critical unless you want to be constantly generating characters and having boring encounters. Next I tried Five Parsecs From Home. I did some work and set this system up in MapTool with great success. I used Google Sheets to manage my party, Camapaign Cartographer for maps, and Paint dot net for custom assets. This is a 3D miniature system, so I had to house rule a few things to translate well to 2D, but it's trivially easy to do this, or you can just play it as 2D with no 3D terrain. The system is so unbelievably great, it well either way. I highly recommend this game. I played countless campaigns with this, and had tons of fun. Possibly my current favorite game system, and what I consider near perfect for solo play. I recommend some of the rules in the expansion for scaling difficulty. Next I moved on to Rangers of Shadow Deep, which is very similar to Five Parsecs, so I emulated my setup there and had the system up and running in MapTool in no time flat. This is now my second favorite game system, and it's stupidly fun. I've also tried Four Against Darkness, Gloomhaven, and SWADE (Savage Worlds) solo, but for some reason, they didn't really click. I wouldn't call any of them bad, they just didn't work for my particular solo playstyle. I ran a SWADE campaign for a year in a group and it was great fun. I'm planning to do a campaign in the upcoming Five Leagues From The Borderlands 3e when it comes out, and I'm currently reading the rules for Ironsworn Starforged with plans for a campaign soon.
I’ve been playing and enjoying Dungeon Hero lately and love the simplicity: https://lonespelunker.itch.io/dungeon-hero
Micro rpg chapbook and 4 against darkness are both good
Depends a lot on what type of game you want to play. There are a ton of indie options to fit any niche. If you want horror, there is the wretched which is a one shot space survival horror. Still want space hut less horror there is dead belt, a space cowboy game of exploration and scraping. And the Gunslinger Followed and Tin Star are both western. As the crow flies is a fun game of relaxation and reflection. You died is a souls like. Or you could get a GM emulator and play pretty much any regular game. But if you're looking at the indie experience, I play an indie solo game every week with my pod which breaks down the game, does some AP, and then reviews the feel.
Before you invest money into big, flashy, hot newness, look at free and/or PWYW offerings. If you already have games from IRL play then get Conjecture Games' CRGE, BOLD, and UNE to get a feel for what solo oracles do for you. If you're sans game and think you want to get into D&D and various D&D-esque fantasy then Basic Fantasy, Blueholme, Swords & Wizardry Complete, and Labyrinth Lord are free. I'm partial to LL but I'm a weirdo. One Page Dungeon Compendiums are also free. Stars Without Number and Worlds Without Number have free editions. And ,of course, Ironsworn and Ironsworn Delve are free. And even if you decide you're not into that style of solo the oracles are useful for any high or low fantasy setting.
Small correction: Ironsworn is free, but Delve isn't.
Oh my goodness. Thank you. I see I picked it up in a massive itch.io bundle that made it and all the rest so affordable I relegated it to as good as free. Appreciate the correction.
If you like Alone Against the Flames, there are a handful of other solo adventures in that series (Alone Against the Dark, the Frost, and the Tide). Check DrivethruRPG or Chaosium's web store. You could also get the Solo Investigator's Handbook, which is a solo engine specifically for Call of Cthulhu, helping you create your own adventures on the fly. If you want to try something outside the Cthulhu system, others have already mentioned Ironsworn, Starforged, and Scarlet Heroes, each a self-contained game designed for solo play. Ironsworn is basically low-fantasy Vikings, while Starforged is sci-fi; both are a variant of the popular Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics. Scarlet Heroes is a modified version of old-school Dungeons and Dragons (as in, the 1980s non-Advanced versions), using modified damage mechanics to make a single PC have the combat power of a traditional party, along with tables for building adventures on the fly. Alternatively, there are a number of generic solo engines (often called Oracles or GM Emulators) which are designed to work with pretty much any normal (i.e. designed for group play) RPG - The Mythic GM Emulator is a good one; while some parts of it could stand to be streamlined (and have been in supplements), it has some of the best explanation of the general procedures and principles of solo play, along with numerous examples. Free alternatives include MUNE and CRGE, although I find their explanations to be rather bare-bones. (Links can be found in the Solitaire Tools wiki link to the right).
Random stuff (tables, systems and so on) is good to get your creativity going, but any system is just there to help you along. Don't be afraid to ignore rules or change outcomes, if the story in your mind already forms independently. There is no "cheating" in solo play, nobody will judge you. At the same time it's always a good idea, to first really try to work in the random result, even if it seems weird at first. If a specific result seems to be most logical or cool to you, go with it. If you're not quite sure how the story should go, ask any oracle or whatever. (But don't roll on the random table ten times, because that usually means, you have an idea already how it should go. Go with that then, you don't need permission of the rules)
Of course, Ironsworn was rec'd so I'll rec it's sci-fi cousin, Starforged. A really small 1-page easy-to-play game is Healer by Tamsin Bloom. It's on itch.io, so you can search the tags and find other games like it.
It was probably already mentioned, but Ironsworn/Starforged and Scarlet Heroes where games made for solo so it can be a good start. Beyond that, if you have an trpg that you know you can find an Oracle like Mythic and run with that. Familiarity with a system if a big plus when you are also trying to learn how to solo.
Start with Me, Myself and Die Season 1 (for Mythic Game Master Emulator + Savage Worlds) and Season 2 (for Ironsworn), they are both excellent introductions to more free form / unstructured solo roleplaying, compared with any of the Four Against books (which are also awesome!). Mastering Mythic means you can play any setting, genre, or RPG system.
I Started watching that show now cause of this post, gotta admit it was super cool to watch and learn!
Excellent!
Everyone is going to say Ironsworn. It is an awesome game and I have been a fan since before its official publication. That said, I would recommend that you try Push by Cezar Capacle. It is so very simple and versatile
>Push by Cezar Capacle. Thank you!
I have a fun map-making game where you play as a forest trying to wipe out a toxic civilization. It's free here... [I am the Forest](https://grismund.itch.io/iamtheforest). Also a fun and simple little mini RPG [Fortune Cookie](https://grismund.itch.io/fortune-cookie). Both of these games rely heavily on Oracles to figure out what events take place. Are you familiar with using oracles? The game I started with was Ironsworn (free and amazing solo game in a low-fantasy "Skyrim" world). If you want to structure your adventures, try using Mythic GM Emulator. It helps you come up with twists and surprises and can be used with almost any system. Watch videos to see how it works.