Looking for solo tabletop rpgs.

[Sir Auriel of Lionel]

Only stuff I seem to find needs at least 2 players but I liked playing against a gamebook, random chance cards, or a die that allows me to build a world by words or by my own imagination. I've done the Lone Wolf series and while I'm not the biggest fan of stat keeping I'm willing to learn them and new rules. Would definitely appreciate ones with deluxe kits that contain world builders like maps, coins, dice and and such but I'm good with digital downloads.

 

[Raziya The Seeker]

I'd played solitaire TTRPGs before, and have been trying to get myself to do it again for a while now. There are a few I've heard of, but not a lot I've actually played.

Four Against Darkness looked neat. I'd peeked at it once, and it seems a bit more old-school D&D in some ways. It's a fleshed out system where you randomly build a dungeon encounter with character types suited for the format.

Dungeons and its expansion, Dragon Fang Mountains, uses a dice pool system and is a bit more streamlined. It's more events-based than making a whole map. I have never beaten any runs of this game.

There's always Tunnels and Trolls for classic games, which has a few CYOA-style modules floating around. There's a free demo version of the basic rules I've linked.

I know r/Solo_Roleplaying really seems to treat Ironsworn as its sacred cow. Never played. It's based in Powered By The Apocalypse rules, and seems to be a vikings-esque dark fantasy game from afar? I can appreciate a Dark Souls and a SKALD for dark fantasy video games, but viking stuff is overrated IMO.

Of course, there's also something called Scarlet Heroes. This allows you to play old-school D&D-esque games solo. There's a new funky damage dice rule, something called a Fray Die to damage enemies, and a way to reroll when you'd be defeated by some adventure-ending spells and effects (save-or-die poisons, sleep spells, petrification, et cetera). It has this Southeast Asian theme, more Chinese than anything, but I recommend this quickstart version the most of any of these from personal experience.

Aaaaand, of course, there's also just BSing your favorite game systems in ways to play them solo. Using simple oracles for randomization, dungeon generators, et cetera. I usually prefer simpler RPGs to run solitaire, but I've been dying to do it with Savage Worlds. One of my favorite oracles for generating plot twists is Impetus. As for when to ask a question to determine in-world answers? A simple roll of a six-sided die, meaning...

1. No, and...
2. No
3. No, but...
4. Yes, but...
5. Yes
6. Yes, and...

Good luck and happy gaming!

 

[RageBurner]

Also, some games do have alternative, fan made rulesets for a single player, so I'd look those up and adapt them to your needs. Slay the Spire the boardgame also has a solo mode, if the IP suits your fancy.

 

[KaiserRitter]

The ones I know are the following
Mothership
The walking dead universe
this two have solo play in the rule book.
The Adveturer by James Chip, this one is a journalism rpg, you use a deck of cards to play. Im currently playing this one with extra rules I created.

 

[Raziya The Seeker]

The Adveturer by James Chip, this one is a journalism rpg, you use a deck of cards to play. Im currently playing this one with extra rules I created.

Heyyy, I've played The Adventurer before! I forgot about that one, but it was a ton of fun. Helped me come up with a backstory for a character of mine, kinda of a "year one" for her adventures.

 

[RageBurner]

Heyyy, I've played The Adventurer before! I forgot about that one, but it was a ton of fun. Helped me come up with a backstory for a character of mine, kinda of a "year one" for her adventures.

I'm trying to remember a cute game with with goblins. You lay down dungeon pieces and doors to get treasure and level up. Can be played solo or multi-player.

 

[Raziya The Seeker]

I'm trying to remember a cute game with with goblins. You lay down dungeon pieces and doors to get treasure and level up. Can be played solo or multi-player.

I'm afraid I wouldn't know. The closest thing that comes to mind is Goblin Quest, but the game's website doesn't say anything about laying down dungeon pieces and doors. Sorry. :(

 

[RageBurner]

I'm afraid I wouldn't know. The closest thing that comes to mind is Goblin Quest, but the game's website doesn't say anything about laying down dungeon pieces and doors. Sorry. :(

It's no worries! it's just funny that I wanted to contribute but forgot critical information, haha.


Edit: I remembered!

Munchkin (card game) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Sir Auriel of Lionel]

Was about to mention ChatGPT gave me Munchkin Dungeon

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

I think that The Electric State RPG has some solo play rules, but I've never tried them out.

I know there's some systems that say they can turn any game into a solo TTRPG i just can't remember what it's called. It's something like Mythic or Runic or somewhere along those lines. I'll try and wrack my brains for the name unless someone else can remember it for me.

I can also second the recommendation for munchkin, though it's not exactly a 'solo' TTRPG. It's a fun game though.

Final honourable mention would be for any of the Fighting Fantasy adventure gamebooks. They're basically single-player TTRPGs but you do have some limited state management to worry about. Bonus is that they all use pretty much the same system (outside of the occassional gimmick and spin-off series)

 

[Sir Auriel of Lionel]

I found out a lot since the beginning of this thread, many solos tend to be journal based but I think I've managed to find a balance in customizing the journal and letting Chatgpt be a randomizer than just the die. Being solo still has the effect of being hollow in the fact I can walk beck from consequences or restart to a more favorable point without anyone but myself to hold accountable building up a journal is probably the best way to make each game unique. Though it's costly in the beginning when I buy set dressings and it's heavily decoupage based.

 

[Graw]

I had this book

And a few others like it when I was a kid. It's like one of those choose your own adventure books with a built in rpg system for combat and stuff. The ninja ones had a pretty in depth system too. There were some fantasy themed ones I had as well but I don't remember the names of them. They were pretty fun. Not the most in depth rpg adventure ever but they were decent enough to play by yourself.

 

[Varyag]

I've seen this thread before and kinda brushed it away, but now a while later I'm coming back to it because I accidentally tripped into this same rabbit hole. I've been looking into different options since yesterday, and have already downloaded a few system books that I think are going to serve me well.
Mostly started from seeing this video, and this guy's own custom system on itch.io was the first recommendation:

Other than this one, however, it's worth saying that I'm looking at using RPG rules-lite systems that aren't necessarily made for solo play, but they are simple enough that one can play a whole party by themselves. And then use certain tools for setting up the stage, such as the ones outlined by this guy:

looking into these, it highlighted to me some oldschool styled systems that are free to download on pdf, like Basic Fantasy: https://www.basicfantasy.org/downloads.html a fully open source game
and White Box, which shows up on lots of videos about this: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/190631/white-box-fantastic-medieval-adventure-game

But realistically, any system that you are personally very familiar with the workings of, should work for a solo adventure, or at least some dungeon delving fun. This is what I'm going to explore, and I hope it helps someone else get into this activity. And also, these systems can be used for a group, if the opportunity arises.

 

[werewolfx]

lone wolf game books

 

[Adrastia]

If you don't mind board games there was one called Dungeon that had rules for a solo game. I'd sometimes play it if no one else was around. I don't know if Dungeon is still made. I originally had a secondhand game from Salvation Army. But it was missing pieces. So in the mid 90s I got a new one at KB. That's a really long time ago though.

 

[werewolfx]

If boardgames are on the table:
Bardsung
Arkham Horror
Fallout: Wasteland Warfare
Battletech offers campaign style games with a separate book.
Zombicide
Country Road Z(doesn't needs models for play, but tokens of some sort.)

 

[Varyag]

And today, I did "session 0" of my solo RPG, using the Cairn game system. I wanted to actually get some more progress in, but I had a full day that didn't go completely to plan. Still, had fun, rolled up four character sheets, and built a whole short dungeon just by dropping some dice on the page! There's a lot of nice addon materials for this game system all free on itch.io such as Barrow Delver, the Cairn Adventurer's Guide, Beneath These Strange Trees and of course, the great One Page Solo Engine, which works for mostly any game.

 

[Varyag]

Finally did that first solo session using Cairn, that was fun! I printed the rulebook to make my own little booklet since it's just 20 pages. Still trying to find my rhythm with this, the session took me about an hour with two characters to cross the dungeon crawl I had pre-generated last week, and nobody died in combat with the Night Shambler encounter, or to the Quicksand hazard they had to cross. Did some light narrative journaling to mark what happened in each room, and the results of my random event rolls. Hopefully I'll get the energy to do this again soon, I enjoyed it.

Also got lucky to salvage a thick cardboard tray earlier today to roll my dice in!

 

[SherionVane]

Finally did that first solo session using Cairn, that was fun! I printed the rulebook to make my own little booklet since it's just 20 pages. Still trying to find my rhythm with this, the session took me about an hour with two characters to cross the dungeon crawl I had pre-generated last week, and nobody died in combat with the Night Shambler encounter, or to the Quicksand hazard they had to cross. Did some light narrative journaling to mark what happened in each room, and the results of my random event rolls. Hopefully I'll get the energy to do this again soon, I enjoyed it.

Also got lucky to salvage a thick cardboard tray earlier today to roll my dice in!

You need a Berserker in your party

 

[Varyag]

My copy of White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game arrived yesterday I am so hyped to start playing with it. I love that it compiles the entire Classic Roleplaying Game in such simple rules that are easy to understand, explain and modify. I will be combining it with Scarlet Heroes to have a heroic single character party, and probably finally get to play this badass knight lady I've been wanting to for years now, and I never got the chance to.

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

I have a PDF of a solo rpg where you use percentile dice and a table to "DM" for you and its pretty sick.

I can send you a link to the file when I get back tobm6 PC but I can't remember what it's called anymore.

I know it had a firey orange cover with some symbol central.

Also you've probably already tried these since you mentioned gamebooks but there's Fighting Fantasy, a series of British gamebooks that are super interesting and has many setting options.

There's also some cools ones based on both Sonic and a few different Nintendo properties (these aren't fighting fantasy, and some of them don't have RPG stats. The UK sonic books do tho.)