I've gotten into solo roleplaying the last few years. I still play games with a group, but solo play has become an analog activity I enjoy.
You can play standard games like D&D solo, or use games designed to be played solo like Ironsworn [0]. Journaling games are another option that can be played alone or with friends, Thousand Year Vampire [1] for example. Lots of recent games have rules for a "solo mode" now.
The Mythic GM Emulator [2] is a simple way to play any game solo.
If this sounds interesting check out Me, Myself, and Die [3] to watch a high production value version of solo play!
And I second Me, Myself, and Die. Starting out solo roleplaying can be daunting and watching someone entertaining who has a lot of experience doing it helps a lot in the beginning until you figure out your own flow that works for you. As an example figuring out how to use GMEs isn't exactly obvious (what sort of questions should I be asking, and when?) but it quickly makes sense watching Trevor do it.
I'll go ahead and suggest Mage Knight: Ultimate Edition [0] as a fantastic solo board game with RPG elements.
There are a lot of great options for solo games nowadays which I really appreciate. Sometimes, getting a group of people together for a session of D&D is just too tough with conflicting schedules, so it's nice to have the option to just hang out and enjoy a solo session for a bit!
Not quite roleplaying, but adjacent, are dungeon crawlers, many of which are solo friendly. Most notable would probably be Gloomhaven (check out Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion if that $184 price tag is a bit much at first for a $30 taste), or Frosthaven. Handy if you're just not into the DM aspect of rpg's but still want some tabletop hack and slash.
It's a narrative-focused zero-preparation game where, instead of roleplaying individual characters, the whole group collaboratively roleplays a universe, using index cards for bookkeeping.
The basic action per turn is to add one of:
- Period: description for an era inside the universe (possibly spanning 100s or 1000s of years). E.g. "The Age of the Dragons".
- Event (inside any period): a noteworthy episode (at the scale of months or a few years). E.g.: "The Laghdur Dragonguard rebels against their masters, beginning the Dragon hunting".
- Scene (inside any event): a particular setting where specific characters actually play a part (at the scale of minutes to hours). The core idea of a scene is to answer a specific question and the answer will come up organically as the scene is played. E.g.: "Why did the Dragon hunting start? Setting: the Laghdur council." -- And, during roleplay, this happens: "The Queen of the Laghdur and her entourage plan to execute their rogue Dragons, but Feuner opposes since it would mean the hegemony of the Laghdur in the kingdom will end". -- This is the closest to traditional roleplaying you'll get.
You can add any of these (written as an index card) at any point in the timeline of the universe (there is no past, present or future), as long as they are consistent with already established facts. Inevitably you will form preconceptions about "your" universe, which will get completely shattered by other players developing new facts and storylines. It's truly magical.
With the right people it's a joy (I'd say it resonates with creative, narrative people), but don't expect anyone that associates RPGs with characters and levels, stats and fighting, to get into the mood (I'd even recommend to present this as a tabletop game instead of an RPG in that case).
It's easy to devolve into crazy settings with time-travelling and other trite shenanigans, but once you get the hang of it and get truly creative you can get pretty cool character and universe developments.
I've had some of the biggest belly laughs with a group of friends playing a game of microscope, watching as silly one-offs from the start took a life of their own and mutated over the course of centuries. It's also a really great way to "worldbuild" a universe that you'll then get to play in in a more traditional pen and paper RPG!
Thanks for the recommendation. I got interested and would like to try it.
That is, if I can buy it.
From the page you linked, I clicked "BUY NOW" on the top-right, which took me to the store. I can see the prices there but the only links are on the product covers. When I click the Microscope one, it takes me back to the product page with the same "BUY NOW" link on the top-right.
Is there a quest or a puzzle on the website that I need to complete before I can spend my money on them? Is this already part of the game?
"Powered by the apocalypse" based games are a great suggestion I think. I've only played, rather than DM-ing, but from what I could see it seemed like they really emphasized the player driven nature of the experience in a way that, at least to me, looked like it should reduce the amount of DM prep required (definitely interested in DM perspectives though, maybe the improv nature of the system makes it more stressful).
I used to sporadically try to run D&D games (each edition since AD&D 2nd) and I’d always have trouble improvising so it really made me feel better when he showed it being normal. As for reducing the need for the DM to come up with stuff, I thought Mythic sounded promising. I didn’t end up playing it, but I thought it partly involved turning the question around to ask the player to answer questions the GM would usually have to answer. The current product page seems to emphasize solo play though.[1]
Considering how much I browse RPG books I’m surprised I haven’t heard of “Powered by the apocalypse” games at all. But then those don’t appear to be ones available in game and book stores.
To take it to an even more extreme, Fiasco is played with zero prep and no DM/GM. Everyone gets their own character. It's tremendous fun with the right group.
Fiasco is kind of tough because there's no real conflict resolution like in more traditional RPGs. Even in something with complex dice rolls like Genesys, there's an outcome decided and you can use that to guide actions and outcomes. With Fiasco, it really just is improv scenes and you play up your relationships and goals.
I totally agree it can be fun with the right group, but the right group is either very open minded and comfortable with each other, or decent or better improv players.
I've definitely had some great times with Fiasco, and as another comment suggested Microscope.
The specific thing I like about the Apocalypse system games for this sort of list, though, is that they seem to be in the general ballpark of "as rules-light as you can get while still having mechanics for fighting monsters."
I had a lot of fun running a low-prep one-shot zombie apocalypse game extensively drawing on google maps and streetview - looking them up ad-hoc during the game as players explored real locations.
I've also thought it would be kind of funny to have a game where they players start out as themselves, at the start of the game, and then describe myself going to the door to check on some banging. I get eaten by a zombie and we go from there.
Not a traditional TTRPG, but I've been thinking about Dread lately since it's on theme for the upcoming season.
The chance mechanic centers around pulls and towerfall events using a Jenga tower instead of dice. As the risk increases, players are required to make additional pulls to succeed until the tower collapses a catastrophic penalty occurs / the game phase changes. Timing these to happen at the tensest moments is a ton of fun.
Another really fascinating feature is the pre-game. Character sheets are replaced with private questionnaires adapted to give each player context and reasoning behind their character's motives:
"What did the Captain do to your father that made you want revenge?" "Who's death drove you to leave your family to join this one-way space expedition?" "You weren't close to the player who invited you on this camping trip. Why did you come?" "Why haven't you told the medic how you really feel?"
It gets pretty interesting when people use the same names for answers and the GM spins their stories together.
And the best part is that there are plenty of pre-rolled scenarios with character sheets available for free online. "Beneath the Ice" is The Thing themed and captures the action and paranoia well.
I ran a special session of Dread for Halloween a few years ago. We typically play D&D but for the season, I wanted to mix it up. The thing is, I set the Dread game in the same setting as our D&D game, and the players got to experience what it was like to NOT be the big damn heroes for once, instead getting to run for their lives.
I can't believe nobody's mentioned Paranoia!
It's all about troubleshooting, hacking, and rising up the ranks in a totalitarian society ran by a Friendly Computer.
I have to put a vote in here for Old School Essentials, an improved and very accessible retroclone of Moldvay’s 81’ basic/expert game.
It has a large friendly community on Discord, a lot of active players and an enormous amount of content - notably it is generally backwards compatible with many of the older D&D modules. You can read through the basic rules here - https://oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com/srd/index.php/....
Been a longtime D&D player since high-school (cut my teeth on the soft-cover D&D Basic Rules Set), with a long hiatus between college and recent years.
While saddened to see the increase in rules complexity since that time (my attention dwindled around 3e), imagine my surprise and joy when I came across Basic Fantasy!
If you’re looking for a nearly zero-cost way to get into a game that “feels” like classic D&D (less focus on tactical combat and more on the role playing aspect, supported by modern d20 rules), I’d highly recommend it.
Any thoughts and recommendations on how best to introduce my 5 year old boy to ttrpg? Recommendations on playing tips, games, narratives that engage and how to progress as he gets older?
Recommendation: Start with the story and narrative elements. You can abstract away all the rules, and math as need be, and re-introduce them over time.
I think this is a tough one because table top often involves reading, writing, and mathematics that a 5 year old might not be able to handle. My 11 year old niece is getting into D&D now, but when she was 5, she would not have had the wherewithal to play.
When she was 5, though, she did enjoy collaborative storytelling. I would start by building the character with her:
"Once upon a time there was a..."
"Squirrel!"
"Yeah, and this squirrel was named..."
"Elsa!"
Then, when we'd established the character she wanted, we'd establish the type of "campaign" she wanted:
"So, one day Elsa the Queen of Purple Squirrel Kingdom was sitting on her throne when one of her squirrel subjects came to ask her for help, 'Please, O wise Queen, I need your help...'"
"Finding Taylor Swift!"
Then we'd proceed to tell the story of how Queen Elsa the Squirrel saved Taylor Swift from the next door neighbor's dog together (actual example), stopping every few sentences to get her input.
I learned to play this game with her from her father, who also happens to be a great D&D GM.
We’ve kind of started a start a story daddy, the he continues and then I do. I think your ideas will fit well with that. Taking turns on the narrative and with elements he loves. Cats as characters and trains of vehicles for fantasy. Thank you.
Start with stories where you sit down next to them on the couch and make them the main character. Just make it up as you go, doesn't have to be wild fantasy, can be anything. When you come to a decision point ask them "what do you do?". Then weave their decision into the story. Make it fun, make them the hero and never leave the story hanging at that age (they need to feel safe). You don't need dice and such yet, and even when they're older you can still keep it up. Builds fun memories too.
I used to do this with my niece, who is now old enough to actually play table top. I still remember a couple of the weirdest stories we came up with together.
Don't worry about special "kid friendly" rpgs. Just play D&D but water it way down. Get some miniatures and map tiles and let them set up the map to explore with their characters. They will want to play with these things as toys rather than a TTRPG and that's perfectly fine. Just establish the basic rule of "rolling higher than a number". Improvise like crazy, let them re-roll but set some appropriate boundaries, and let them guide the fun.
DriveThruRPG[1] has a lot of kid-oriented games. I have Amazing Tales[2] and the kids liked it well enough (although I got a little too scary with the goblins one time and they were a little hesitant to play for a while). At 5 you'd probably be running the same gambit I'd say but ymmv.
Check out Hero Kids. Super simple mechanics that still have the general feel of D&D. In my experience younger kids are way more interested in narrative than in combat though so I would lean into that aspect of it.
Readit News
You can play standard games like D&D solo, or use games designed to be played solo like Ironsworn [0]. Journaling games are another option that can be played alone or with friends, Thousand Year Vampire [1] for example. Lots of recent games have rules for a "solo mode" now.
The Mythic GM Emulator [2] is a simple way to play any game solo.
If this sounds interesting check out Me, Myself, and Die [3] to watch a high production value version of solo play!
[0] https://www.ironswornrpg.com/
[1] https://thousandyearoldvampire.com/products/thousand-year-ol...
[2] https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/20798/Mythic-Game-Maste...
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9ag6U3a8eM
https://old.reddit.com/r/Solo_Roleplaying/
And I second Me, Myself, and Die. Starting out solo roleplaying can be daunting and watching someone entertaining who has a lot of experience doing it helps a lot in the beginning until you figure out your own flow that works for you. As an example figuring out how to use GMEs isn't exactly obvious (what sort of questions should I be asking, and when?) but it quickly makes sense watching Trevor do it.
There are a lot of great options for solo games nowadays which I really appreciate. Sometimes, getting a group of people together for a session of D&D is just too tough with conflicting schedules, so it's nice to have the option to just hang out and enjoy a solo session for a bit!
[0] - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/248562/mage-knight-ultim...
It's a narrative-focused zero-preparation game where, instead of roleplaying individual characters, the whole group collaboratively roleplays a universe, using index cards for bookkeeping.
The basic action per turn is to add one of:
- Period: description for an era inside the universe (possibly spanning 100s or 1000s of years). E.g. "The Age of the Dragons".
- Event (inside any period): a noteworthy episode (at the scale of months or a few years). E.g.: "The Laghdur Dragonguard rebels against their masters, beginning the Dragon hunting".
- Scene (inside any event): a particular setting where specific characters actually play a part (at the scale of minutes to hours). The core idea of a scene is to answer a specific question and the answer will come up organically as the scene is played. E.g.: "Why did the Dragon hunting start? Setting: the Laghdur council." -- And, during roleplay, this happens: "The Queen of the Laghdur and her entourage plan to execute their rogue Dragons, but Feuner opposes since it would mean the hegemony of the Laghdur in the kingdom will end". -- This is the closest to traditional roleplaying you'll get.
You can add any of these (written as an index card) at any point in the timeline of the universe (there is no past, present or future), as long as they are consistent with already established facts. Inevitably you will form preconceptions about "your" universe, which will get completely shattered by other players developing new facts and storylines. It's truly magical.
With the right people it's a joy (I'd say it resonates with creative, narrative people), but don't expect anyone that associates RPGs with characters and levels, stats and fighting, to get into the mood (I'd even recommend to present this as a tabletop game instead of an RPG in that case).
It's easy to devolve into crazy settings with time-travelling and other trite shenanigans, but once you get the hang of it and get truly creative you can get pretty cool character and universe developments.
[0] https://www.lamemage.com/microscope/
That is, if I can buy it.
From the page you linked, I clicked "BUY NOW" on the top-right, which took me to the store. I can see the prices there but the only links are on the product covers. When I click the Microscope one, it takes me back to the product page with the same "BUY NOW" link on the top-right.
Is there a quest or a puzzle on the website that I need to complete before I can spend my money on them? Is this already part of the game?
And for smaller groups there's Everyone is John, which is a lot quicker to get into. https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Everyone_Is_John
You can also buy it physical if you prefer (I do), check the bottom text in that page.
Considering how much I browse RPG books I’m surprised I haven’t heard of “Powered by the apocalypse” games at all. But then those don’t appear to be ones available in game and book stores.
[1] https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16173/Mythic-Role-Playi...
I totally agree it can be fun with the right group, but the right group is either very open minded and comfortable with each other, or decent or better improv players.
The specific thing I like about the Apocalypse system games for this sort of list, though, is that they seem to be in the general ballpark of "as rules-light as you can get while still having mechanics for fighting monsters."
I've also thought it would be kind of funny to have a game where they players start out as themselves, at the start of the game, and then describe myself going to the door to check on some banging. I get eaten by a zombie and we go from there.
The chance mechanic centers around pulls and towerfall events using a Jenga tower instead of dice. As the risk increases, players are required to make additional pulls to succeed until the tower collapses a catastrophic penalty occurs / the game phase changes. Timing these to happen at the tensest moments is a ton of fun.
Another really fascinating feature is the pre-game. Character sheets are replaced with private questionnaires adapted to give each player context and reasoning behind their character's motives:
"What did the Captain do to your father that made you want revenge?" "Who's death drove you to leave your family to join this one-way space expedition?" "You weren't close to the player who invited you on this camping trip. Why did you come?" "Why haven't you told the medic how you really feel?"
It gets pretty interesting when people use the same names for answers and the GM spins their stories together.
And the best part is that there are plenty of pre-rolled scenarios with character sheets available for free online. "Beneath the Ice" is The Thing themed and captures the action and paranoia well.
Would recommend!
Find it on https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/browser/filter/id/10122
It has a large friendly community on Discord, a lot of active players and an enormous amount of content - notably it is generally backwards compatible with many of the older D&D modules. You can read through the basic rules here - https://oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com/srd/index.php/....
While saddened to see the increase in rules complexity since that time (my attention dwindled around 3e), imagine my surprise and joy when I came across Basic Fantasy!
If you’re looking for a nearly zero-cost way to get into a game that “feels” like classic D&D (less focus on tactical combat and more on the role playing aspect, supported by modern d20 rules), I’d highly recommend it.
Related discussion: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/103550/what-would-be...
When she was 5, though, she did enjoy collaborative storytelling. I would start by building the character with her:
"Once upon a time there was a..."
"Squirrel!"
"Yeah, and this squirrel was named..."
"Elsa!"
Then, when we'd established the character she wanted, we'd establish the type of "campaign" she wanted:
"So, one day Elsa the Queen of Purple Squirrel Kingdom was sitting on her throne when one of her squirrel subjects came to ask her for help, 'Please, O wise Queen, I need your help...'"
"Finding Taylor Swift!"
Then we'd proceed to tell the story of how Queen Elsa the Squirrel saved Taylor Swift from the next door neighbor's dog together (actual example), stopping every few sentences to get her input.
I learned to play this game with her from her father, who also happens to be a great D&D GM.
[1]: https://www.drivethrurpg.com
[2]: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/222950/Amazing-Tales-co...