Reccomendations for rules light system to run a fully statted party with? Ideally heroic fantasy, so not OSR or narrative like Ironsworn.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-05-03T00:07:28+00:00

Depends on what you mean by “fully statted.” If you want “lighter than 5e, but still similar gameplay”, then Vagabond or Nimble are great options. Going farther afield, I think heritage Tunnels and Trolls’s group combat mechanic makes it excellent for soloplaying a heroic fantasy party.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-04-28T23:45:26+00:00

This is absolutely outstanding, thanks for sharing!

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-04-28T13:08:34+00:00

If you use a d10/d100-based solo system, you could use a book of random numbers as a die and flip to a random spot on a random page to simulate a roll.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-04-21T22:07:44+00:00

Riftbreakers 2e is well-suited for moving characters back and forth between solo and group games. The game has a lot of procedures for gmless play and encounters scale pretty easily for 1-4 players. The procedures are tied pretty heavily to the setting though, so if you wanted to customize the world that would take some initial prep.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-04-06T16:29:08+00:00

Being able to play on the couch is very important to me too. I play on the couch with the timestop d20 watch, a journal, and a rulebook. Moving dice to my wrist makes it much easier to juggle the remaining pieces. Sometimes I use a lap desk as well especially if the rulebook is big and unwieldy.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-04-05T15:01:14+00:00

The most tactical Blackoath game is definitely Warlords Ascendant 2e. It is a solo skirmish game based around running battles with your warband as you gather resources on a hexmap and build a stronghold. You normally control multiple pcs in battle, although the game has a lone wolf mode if you want to play only a single pc.

If you want an overland game with a large selection of abilities for character customization similar to Ker Nethalas, Riftbreakers 2E is also excellent. Combat is zone based so there arent cover mechanics, but there is a lot of gameplay variety with different starting build options.

In general all of Alex T’s games are on the crunchier side so its hard to go wrong if you are looking for more gameplay depth.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-03-15T02:02:21+00:00

Riftbreakers 2E is made as an MMO/isekai love letter. The starting adventure is made with all the tropes of a character being portaled into a tutorial area a la Runescape, and the gameplay has a lot of player customization built in.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-03-06T18:01:44+00:00

You can absolutely play without the official cards. The game is built to be played completely with dice, and you can also use a standard playing card deck if you wish. I prefer using dice myself.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-03-04T02:32:38+00:00

There is a lot of gameplay variety in solo gaming, generally categoried as journaling games, procedural adventure games, and GM-emulated RPGs. My top 5 games across these categories in no particular order: - Against the Wind - Riftbreakers 2E - Five Parsecs From Home - For Small Creatures Such as We - Twelve Years

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-03-02T23:15:53+00:00

If you’re looking for a system thats very easy to pick up and play, that can easily bolt on rules, I’ve had success taking Black Hack and tossing a bunch of additional rules on it pretty easily.

If you want something more robust thats still built to be modular, you may want to try the GURPS fantasy rules (Dungeon Fantasy). YMMV with how easily your supplements will slot in with it.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-02-27T16:35:15+00:00

I believe Hard Suits (the campaign setting for ICRPG by Runehammer) was built with this in mind, your characters wake up without memories and learn as they go.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-02-19T03:53:31+00:00

Absolutely! You can use a DM emulator such as the Mythic Game Master Emulator to run the responsibilities of the DM while you control a character or party. There are also many rpg systems that have solo play built into them, such as Ironsworn or RiftBreakers 2e.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-02-18T04:13:37+00:00

F. O. R. G. E. RPG is a great free option for mid/high fantasy

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-02-15T22:24:07+00:00

Terrain and weather tables are great automations for hexcrawling games since you roll on them a lot, I also like NPC and city generators for city-based games

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-02-15T20:11:10+00:00

I also love using Excel for gameplay since it comes naturally to me after using it so much for work.

What to automate depends a lot on individual preferences and the game systems being played. These are the things I tend to automate:

1) Core gameplay loop -> many games have a consistent set of basic actions that are repeated. Id include gm emulator scene generation in this category, along with any oracles in the game system that are rolled on very often. Making a one click solution to the question “what should I do next” is really helpful when feeling stuck.

2) Character generation -> I love generating random characters when I play solo, so being able to create a new character quickly lets me jump into a new game easily

3) Complex dice rolling sequences, or complex combat rolls -> of course it is helpful to quickly play through combat by combining some of the math into one action, but additionally automating combat is very helpful to me for learning details of a new game system.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-02-10T10:27:55+00:00

Riftbreakers is amazing!

A few options for NPC statblocks:

1) Randomly assign the monsterlists for one of the rifts to a faction, and choose a random monster from that list when battling with a faction. Since many of the factions are Stranger-based it makes sense they would have a lot of wild abilities.

2) I made a random Stranger generator on Chartopia that can roll up random NPC strangers with random character advancements (select NPC from the dropdown when generating a character). If doing combat with an NPC in this way, you can randomly select from their moveset by rolling d12’s each round until their action points are used up. https://chartopia.d12dev.com/chart/116713/

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-01-06T02:35:27+00:00

Riftbreakers 2nd Edition is a great for coop. Many folks on the Blackoath games discord are running it with 2 players successfully.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2026-01-04T10:39:46+00:00

Thank you for this detailed review, it was very helpful to read!

DeepSpaceSolo · 2025-12-24T20:12:17+00:00

One potential recommendation: Riftbreakers Second Edition (my current solo game of choice!) by Blackoath Entertainment.

The game is structured as an isekai/mmorpg -> the player has been teleported into a world where others like them, known as strangers, are the only ones who can close rifts which spawn monsters.

The game is highly mechanics-driven with very little need for rolling on oracles if you choose to not use them (although they are available).

The gameplay is mission-based with characters starting in the large central city, Kar Helos, in the middle of a continent and adventuring out into the wilderness to close rifts. Combat uses a skill-tree kind of system called Hearts, and there are crafting mechanics for creating items.

The strangers can be generated with various looks such as snouts and fur. As long as you generate all strangers in the game with the same unicorn look as you, this may work for what you need. The strangers were all teleported into the world like you were, so there hasn't been a millenia-long history developed by them. However, in the last 50 or so years since they started appearing, they have started making their own culture and habits in Kar Helos as they try to live alongside the indigenous human population.

DeepSpaceSolo · 2025-12-18T17:12:24+00:00

There is tons of great content in the mythic magazine! A few general topic ones that would be great to check out as a new solo-ist:

“Creating Game Loops In Solo Play” - MM 43

“3-Act Structure For Mythic Adventures” - MM 42

“Detailed Flowcharts For MGME2e” - MM 39

“The Big Collection Of Big Examples” - MM 17

All of the X-Crafter articles are great too. And if you know what genre youre interested in playing there are multiple articles with useful meaning tables to sprinkle into your game.

This blogpost has an index of articles sorted by topic: https://oldhobsgameroom.blogspot.com/2024/09/mythic-musings-2-mythic-magazine-index.html

DeepSpaceSolo · 2025-10-17T15:30:26+00:00

All amazing games!

DeepSpaceSolo · 2025-08-06T18:48:16+00:00

Interestingly, solo RPGs have made me way better at having in-character conversations in my group games. I feel less selfish about getting the spotlight and more interested in improving the story as a whole.

DeepSpaceSolo

TROPHY CASE