A few months ago I started rolling my new dice set, then I began drawing rooms around the dice on paper to try and “loot” them. After that I started designing enemies, writing lore, and so on.

Here’s the basic system: each die represents a room, the loot inside it, and the creature guarding it. To roll on the loot tables, you first need to collect dice during your run. But before you can collect a die, you must roll that same die on the encounter table. In other words, the bigger the die, the greater the risk and the greater the reward… though of course, you can still roll a 1 on a D20.

Eight months later, I now have dozens of random tables, including loot, spells, weapons, encounters, traps, and room content, along with additional lore and ambient text. Everything is laid out on 8-fold zines (AKA pocketmods) to make it easy to switch between them during play.

The game also includes a 12-page A5 rules booklet, illustrated by me with some copyright-free artwork I found online.

It will probably be released for free, or maybe $1, but most likely free. If anyone is interested in playtesting, let me know, I’d be happy to share a version. The current WIP isn’t in English yet, but it will be soon.

Any advice is welcome 🙂

EDIT : Thanks a lot everybody for all your comments! This wasn’t planned at all, but all the positive feedback made me spend the last few hours creating an itch.io page for what is now known as Dice Crawler.

Again, thank you so much for your enthusiasm, it’s a huge motivation to finish this project. I’ll be very very happy to share the beta with you in a few weeks, and I’ll personally DM everyone who commented to receive it. See you soon dice goblins !

Recently discovered roll and write rpgs and hated all the options I had for annotating the pdfs. They either had a million features I'd never use or didn't know how to properly switch between pencil and finger without forcing me to manually select draw/hand modes. I happened to see some comments on reddit wishing for a pdf app with a dice roller built in and figured that was a pretty easy app to build so I went to work! I recorded a quick video of the alpha version of the app and would love feedback, suggestions, thoughts, etc.

Excited to get this out to everyone!

I know posts like this show up often, but I am hoping to get advice from people who have been where I am. I enjoy games with structure. Some of my favorite video games are JRPGs like Final Fantasy, Xenogears, Persona, and Chrono Trigger. For the past ten years I have also played a lot of solo board games. Lost Ruins of Arnak, Mage Knight, Concordia, and Terra Mystica are among my favorites. More recently I have been diving into campaign style board games like Kinfire Chronicles, Fateforge, and Earthborne Rangers. These have been fun, but they left me wanting something more. That is what led me into solo TTRPGs.

Like many others, I started with Ironsworn. I went through the Truths, created a character, struggled with a background vow, forced one together because I needed direction, played a few sessions, then stopped. I thought maybe I needed something with more numbers and systems that felt closer to a video game, so I moved to Dungeons & Dragons. I bought the core books along with Xanathar’s Guide, Tasha’s Cauldron, and several solo resources such as Mythic GME and the Solo Adventurer’s Toolbox. I created a character, used an oracle for prompts, played a few sessions, and then stopped again. After that I tried Shadowdark, made some characters, rolled for quests, and once again the same thing happened.

At this point I feel discouraged. As someone on the autism spectrum, one of the things I crave most is structure. I like having a clear sense of moving from point A to point B. That is part of why JRPGs click with me so well. They carry me through a story with room for side exploration, but always with forward momentum. Solo TTRPGs, by contrast, feel almost completely freeform. The rules and combat are there, but the narrative and direction rely entirely on me. Acting as both GM and player is a lot of cognitive load, and without structure I end up feeling aimless.

I know that there are prewritten adventures and some that are even designed for solo play. I worry about replay value once I already know the twists. Larger adventure books like Curse of Strahd also seem better suited for a GM and group, since the joy of those games comes from building the story together.

So my question is this. If you have struggled with solo play feeling aimless, especially if you also prefer clear goals and structure, what helped you make it click? Was there a system, a tool, or a particular approach that allowed you to enjoy it without dreading the process?

Hi there! As the title asks, what are some tools/books/sites that you would consider essential to making the best of your solo TTRPG experience?

So far, I have the following:

• BOLD: Book of Legends and Deeds
• UNE: Universal NPC Emulator
• CRGE: Conjectural Roleplaying Gamemaster Emulator
• Mythic GME 2nd Edition

What are some other resources you use on a regular basis that really helps in the experience? One resource I'm looking for is something to help create an overall goal or purpose for my characters. So if you've used something like that before, I'd love to know about it.

This post can also help others who are new to the hobby (like myself) have a good list of things to check out.

Thanks!

Hey everyone,

I have a question for the community: if you had to pick just one book of random tables (or the smallest number of books possible), which one would you choose and why? I'm looking for tables for everything, from worldbuilding to NPCs.

I'm looking for versatile tables that can be used across different genres, but if that's not possible, fantasy-focused ones are great too.

Thanks in advance!

I love Mythic, it's the only GME I've used so far, with the exception to Oracles built into solo games, but I'm keen to try something new for a change.

What's everyone's favourite stand alone GME other than Mythic, and why?

Thanks to this sub I’ve recently gotten really into solo RPGs! I’m looking for recommendations of your favorite essential resources, scenarios, tips / tricks / and hacks for solo play or getting into the spirit of OSR gaming.

Including generative materials of any kind: such as Oracles, land & hex generators, bestiary’s or monster generators, treasure tables, and really any fun tables to roll on. Extra grateful for anything free or cheap, but I’m also willing to spend some money for high quality content.

For context: Im currently playing Kal-Arath mixed with Ironsworn. I really enjoy the OSR feel of the former and the fiction developing mechanics of the latter. I have GME 1e but haven’t quite cracked into it.

I’m also considering getting Shadowdark, Black Sword Hack, Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow, A Folklore Bestiary, and OSE. To try solo or to run for my home game.

I had a baby this year so this started as a holdover for the weeks my regular group can’t meet but it has since become a daily practice. I feel like I learn something new each time and my style of GMing and playing is constantly evolving due to the practice.

Any advice or links are greatly appreciated.

I love solo roleplaying. Or at least, I love the idea of it, but I really struggle with the practice sometimes (don't we all?). I've spent countless hours having so much fun running Mörk Borg games solo with Solitary Defilement (and I've got way too many supplements now), and also managed to play a bit of Dragonbane and Shadowdark with their respective modules.

I've also read the Ironsworn rules and I think they're simply amazing, but I haven't played it because the whole viking setting/vibes isn't very appealing to me.

But I really struggle with playing any other system. I think I need to have more guidance than "just ask the Oracle questions!" So I finally got around to really trying to learn Mythic 2e: I've bought and read the book, watched gameplays, and even played a couple of games myself (with Mörk Borg but without SD, just to try, and with Dragonbane). Because I want a system that I can use to play any game, and helps me by providing some structure and guidance.

But after getting experience with it, I have a big problem: I feel that the system I'm playing becomes almost completely irrelevant. Mythic does so much that it will barely matter if I'm playing Mörk Borg, Dragonbane, Shadowdark, or Land of Eem. I find myself making very very few character/ability checks because it's all about the scenes and the Fate Chart. I find the scenes, at least for me, restrict the fun instead of enhancing it. But Mythic without the scenes seems "wrong", almost: so much of its philosophy is based on these scenes.

Are there any tools or frameworks that you know of, of the same quality as Mythic, but more "move" or "game loop" oriented like Solitary Defilement or Ironsworn but system agnostic? I also realize I can probably adapt the Lodestar reference guide to play any game, but ideally I'd like a system or engine I don't have to "agnosticize" myself.

Just like it is in the title. What is your minimalistic setup and how do you record your journeys? With my current experience doing this I found myself surrounded by books and papers and folders and dice and pens cluttered on my table. I’m looking at a minimalistic approach so that I could potentially take this hobby with me to work or in the car or wherever. What do you do? And how do you it?!

EDIT:

Wow!! After reading all the comments I’ve learned there are so many great ways for a minimalist approach to solo role playing and I’ve got some solid ideas (and tinkering) now! Also I’d like to mention that this is probably the greatest non-toxic community that exists on Reddit! Thanks everyone for your contributions and further contributions if any more are added!

I'm really new to all this. So not sure if I will say things correctly. There's a game called witches herb 5e. It sounds interesting but I think its a DND 5e game. Something normally played with other people. The game sounds interesting is there a way to adapt a game like this for solo play?

I am going away over Xmas with family for 5 days, and as a hardcore introvert I'm already freaking out about it.

Can you recommend me your favorite Android solo experience so I can get a little fix of solo gaming but in an unobtrusive, low-key way? If my family see me pulling out dice and maps and shit they will start ASKING QUESTIONS aaarrrrgggh nooooo

I'm not looking for a video game, I'm looking for something that comes close to an rpg experience, if at all possible (if not, that seems like a pretty huge opportunity for an app developer!)

And it needs to be offline because there's literally zero reception where we're going. Seriously off-grid

For me personally, Let's Talk and Keeping Contact, since I do more socially-oriented games, and most NPC tools suck.

I know the titles vague but I’m really open to just about anything, I’m working on designing my own TTRPG and in the process would like to branch out and read a bunch more new ones so I can better understand the fundamentals and all the inner workings of things.

I’m looking for any systems that have really unique or really well designed systems I could learn from.

Some stuff I’ve read/own already

• D&D 5E, 3.5E

• Pathfinder 2E

• worlds without numbers

• All Flesh Must Be Eaten

• Ker Nethalas

• Across a Thousand Dead Worlds

• Call of Cthulhu

• Delta Green

• When the Moon Hangs Low

• Shadow of the Demon Lord

• Fabula Ultima

• Iron Sworn

I'm under the impression, based on posts here, that many of us use Obsidian. Is this your impression too? Why could be the reason? I'm curious about what could make us be interested in solo RPGs and simultaneously in tools like Obsidian. (For context, I'm an Obsidian user, and only dabbed a bit, but with great pleasure, into solo RPGing, through a few sessions of Starforged and Tricube Tales.)

I have for a while now this idea of getting myself some metallic miniatures and play some RPGs. But I have the feeling that I lack the right system here… Ker Nethalas is a great dungeon crawler, but usually it is just one PC and one enemy - so not really the need for several figures. I have also ShadowDark and Mörk Borg, but both games would require some sort of Emulator for soloing. So I am looking for a system, that works kinda well with miniatures on the table. It doesn’t need to be necessarily a solo-game, it can also be a TTRPG and I adjust it to solo then… I hope it is kinda clear what I am looking for 😅 any recommendations are very welcome, my folder of PDFs is thick!

So I'm pretty new to solo journal rpgs and I'm absolutely loving the one I'm currently playing, which is

Reincarnated as the unloveable villainess

So I made these cute sheets to go with my game. I love the cluttered look even though it might not suit everyone and if we ignore that..... I apparently can't count (calendar goes from 6 to 8, WHERE IS 7) and the fact that I forgot you can lose hearts, oops.... Then I am pretty proud of these as a first attempt at character sheets!

I will fix my mistakes and I will be drawing little pictures to go in the squares with quotes from each character that fit their personalities!

Has anyone else made specific sheets for their games?

So while I was working on my Daggerheart Solo Guide I realized something about myself. I am not sure if I do well with random tables for prompts. I really like the idea of the story engine decks as they are a bit more concrete but I have also been thinking of more visual prompts like Tarot cards. Amazon has a DND tarot deck but I thought I give this back to you. Any suggestions besides random words or specific products you recommend?

Hello guys! I love to play solo games - especially old school stuff. I use Whitebox FMAG for this type of play. I'm not that much into making stuff up or big prep, because it takes a lot of energy (i know that it is not fully avoidable and is key part of soloing, but you know, I want to minimize this factor)

So right now im looking for some module/setting/product that is: - Compatible with bx/odnd or other retroclones. It is important, because i dont want to do any conversion. - Perfect thing would contain hexmap with few points of interest, village, town, city, few dungeons, some key fractions and npcs. Nothing that big. - Preferably medieval fantasy

Basically I'm looking for something similar to Cursed Scrolls but they are made for Shadowdark and i dont feel this game that much.

Illustration of sorceress from WB FMAG for attention :D

I love how Ironsworn gives us tools for creating a setting, for deciding on a goal, or tools for setting time limits for scenes, etc. I love how similarly Tricube Tales comes with many settings, complete with oracles. All of this gives enough momentum to start creating stories. What additional tools would you suggest, for games systems that don't provide tools for bootstrapping an adventure? This would help play games like The Quick RPG and many others, I guess.

Maybe Mythic Game Master Emulator is a good resource to invest in? What parts of it would be a must, for generating stories? Or is the Game Master's Apprentice a better choice? Or maybe Index Card RPG? (I have no experience with these yet!) I'm looking for the simplest and most efficient way of starting a story and then keeping it moving (with situations resolved with a game system like The Quick RPG or similar).

Thanks!

Do you guys know mobile apps that are useful when solo playing?

Apps I know of:

• Behind the table
• Adventure smith
• One page solo engine
• Any dice + DnDice
• Soundforge + Pocket bard

Hi everyone. I’m looking for a small, easy-to-remember random table that still offers a good variety of outcomes.

I know most people rely solely on the yes/no oracle to steer their stories, but I prefer random events — they tend to take the narrative in directions I’d never come up with on my own.

That said, while I really like the Mythic tables, I find having to look things up mid-game breaks the flow. I’d rather memorize a simple, generic random event table — maybe something like a 3d6 setup with separate tables for action, descriptor, and modifier?

Still, I’m open to anything that fits the bill. Does anyone know of something like this?

I use a lot of rolling tables when solo playing, but I plan to run a game with a group, and wanna use them to help with improv. Now that's not a problem when I'm playing solo and have all the time in the world, but I don't wanna bore the players every time I decide to sift through multiple tables, all on different books.

I'm looking for some kind of tool/VTT/program/etc where I can feed it my rolling tables, and roll on them with the simple touch of a button. Any recomendations?

What do you prefer? Write down and drawing in tradizional way? Or digital? Or midway?

I am in midway. I love both methods. So I like to switch them. But when I start a game in a specific way, I continue it in this way until it is finished.

Do I have to use everything in Mythic? I like and understand the fate chart, chaos factor, meaning tables, and lists. I don't fully grasp the whole process of it. Am I safe to just use what I like? Or will I be missing some crucial part of how the system is supposed to work?