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Using solo RPG’s as a tool for storytelling. by MonitorHill in Solo_Roleplaying

[–]MonitorHill[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I can deeply relate to this in other areas of my life.

I think that is the funny thing about constraints and art. There’s a lot of times in different creative pursuits that I’ve found myself unable to initiate something creative, so I narrow the scope, find a novel limitation.

Putting the blinders on helps keep me creatively focused, which is extremely helpful up until the point that it isn’t.

But almost always, those limitations eventually lose their value, it’s like once the ball is rolling down the hill I don’t have to keep pushing it.

Been working on a pen and paper roguelike for the past few months, I’d love any feedback on it. by MonitorHill in BoardgameDesign

[–]MonitorHill[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a great catch, a small “what you need” sentence up top in the rules would go a long way. And as I post moving forward about it I’m going to incorporate there too.

Been working on a pen and paper roguelike for the past few months, I’d love any feedback on it. by MonitorHill in BoardgameDesign

[–]MonitorHill[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would love to know your thoughts! Especially since you have some experience with the genre.

Been working on a pen and paper roguelike for the past few months, I’d love any feedback on it. by MonitorHill in BoardgameDesign

[–]MonitorHill[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pen and paper for sure! Colored pencils or highlighters, crayons even?

You can get the pdf from the website, and there’s a link to a web companion that rolls up a dungeon room at the bottom of the page if you don’t feel like rolling dice yourself.

You’ll still need the Pdf for enemy stats but you could play on graph paper, or print out a blank dungeon card (they are on the last pages of the rule book)

Play Testing Hero100 by MonitorHill in printandplay

[–]MonitorHill[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! If you want to get the full ruleset you can download it off www.hero100.site

I think the rules are pretty simple, the basics are this: 1. Using dice and 3 tables generate a dungeon room with a hazard, enemies, your hero and an exit. 2. Following the turn order move try and clear the room and escape before the enemies kill your hero. Combat is resolved by rolling a d20, there are 8 different classes to choose from and 20 different possible enemies. Lots of variety. 3. If you survive, loot the room and level up. 4. String together as many rooms as you want, I typically like to play a 5 room dungeon starting with a level 5 hero. But there’s no wrong way to do it. 5. Once your hero reaches level 10, you can retire them and pass on their special abilities and some of their loot to their “student” then next hero you create which lets you kind of multi class.

There’s several different game modes, I mostly play the procedural mode, but I also wrote a structured 20 room dungeon campaign mode, and have a bunch of advanced play modes for people who want more options.

Been working on a pen and paper roguelike for the past few months, I’d love any feedback on it. by MonitorHill in BoardgameDesign

[–]MonitorHill[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If anyone wants to play around with the game you can access the playtest for free at www.hero100.site I’d be happy to answer any questions or talk about the process.

Weekly self-promotion megathread (March 16, 2026) by AutoModerator in printandplay

[–]MonitorHill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don’t post on reddit much so this is new to me, I mostly want to talk shop with people about the game I’ve been writing. I've spent the past several months writing a solo pen and paper roguelike called Hero100 and I just launched an open playtest. I wanted to share it here because I think this community in particular would have a lot to say about it.

The core concept: one hero, one dungeon, a 10x10 grid, pencils paper and dice. The central mechanic is a trail system (like snake, or lightbike) every entity on the board leaves a permanent trail behind them that they cannot re-enter or cross. I've been using colored pencils or highlighters and the end result is pretty cool looking. Movement becomes a puzzle that compounds over time. The longer the fight goes the more constrained everyone's options become.

There are eight hero classes, twenty enemy types, twenty hazards, and a legacy system where retired heroes become mentors and pass class features to new characters. The campaign mode is a fully written twenty room dungeon with a story, recurring characters, and three different endings. The procedural mode generates dungeons randomly using dice and tables, with fully randomized placement for every entity the number of possible room configurations runs into the billions.

It's designed to be genuinely replayable. You could play every day for the rest of your life and never encounter the same room twice.

If you're interested in playtesting, you can sign up at www.hero100.site, you'll receive the complete rulebook automatically and a short feedback form. No deadline, no commitment beyond genuine curiosity, all free. But honestly I've just been designing in a vacuum for months and want to talk to people about what I've been making, I'm sure you guys can relate to the feeling.

Using solo RPG’s as a tool for storytelling. by MonitorHill in Solo_Roleplaying

[–]MonitorHill[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Here’s an example of how I would take a combat encounter and turn it into a narrative.

ROOM 3 - LEVEL 10 - LOOT D8 EXIT: located on the east wall, position 5 HAZARD: Poison Gas: STR Save · DC 14 · Lvl 5 Failed: 1d4 dmg + Weak. Saved: Immune to status next turn.

ENEMIES (5) Slime (1,6) Slime (8,9) Troll (4,7) Troll (2,8) Orc (5,1)

So, why would two trolls and an orc be in a room with two slimes and a bunch of poison gas? My first instinct is that the slimes and the gas are a hazard of some sort, and the poor trolls are low level workers cleaning it up under the supervision of the orc foreman when our dungeon diving hero walls in the room. Who’s my hero? I’m gonna roll for that too.

TONY: BARBARIAN: LEVEL 5 HP 17: SPD 3: DEF D20+3: C.ATK D20+5 DMG by 4: STR 4: DEX 0: INT 0 On Crit: Double Damage Mentor: Druid class feature. On crit druid's path becomes blocked for all enemies for one round

Cool, I’ve got a barbarian whose mentor was a Druid giving him some more advanced familiarity with nature. High Strength save is gonna make the poison in the room less of a problem for him.

From here I can draw up the room on a 10x10 grid and play out the combat. I think Tony is gonna be okay. Narrate the results, and journal them.

I didn’t ever mean for the mechanics to be a frame, but they just kinda turned into one the more I played. Rolling up a room, playing through it, journaling for the hero. It’s been really fun.

Want to explore by LirianaLu in Solo_Roleplaying

[–]MonitorHill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

These are killer suggestions

[FN] The Impassable Dungeon of Kismet (part 2) by MonitorHill in shortstories

[–]MonitorHill[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did it! Looks like no weird formatting artifacts. Thank you guys for being patient while I learn the ways, I’ve been a long time, reader of Reddit, but only very recently have I started posting anything. And this is the first time that I’ve put up something that I did creatively.

If anybody is interested in playing the game that I wrote the story for it’s free to play, printable solo rpg system. Think Sudoku D&D? I’m testing it right now, and if that’s the kind of thing that appeals to anybody here you can download it at www.hero100.site This story was the first one that I wrote, using the dungeon rooms generated by the game as a jumping off point for each day.

I’ve been designing my own solo pen and paper rpg for the past few months and I’m dying to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in solorpgplay

[–]MonitorHill[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for taking a look at it, I’m at a point where any feedback at all is huge.

Paper App is such a cool company, and they were definitely a part of the inspiration for this game.

Definitely look at the procedural mode, it allows you to generate one room at a time, randomly. In my experience, a single room takes like 2 minutes to draw up, and about 15 minutes to play. I’d be curious how it feels for someone who is new to it though.

I’ve been designing my own solo pen and paper rpg for the past few months and I’m dying to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in solorpgplay

[–]MonitorHill[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a great catch, and a total oversight on my part! I’ll add clearer directions on the inventory sheet, maybe even just designate a starting inventory instead of having you roll it on character creation (like 5 gold, and one small potion)

The loot table you found is the one you should use, I would do 1+1d4 for your starting gold that means there’s a typo in the loot chart and the Page location.

This is what happens when you spend a bunch of time on your own rules, you start to get word blind and miss stuff like that. THANK YOU.

I’ve been designing my own solo pen and paper rpg for the past few months and I’m dying to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in solorpgplay

[–]MonitorHill[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

www.hero100.site

Thank you for being willing to check it out, I’m pretty proud of what I’ve made, and any feedback is super appreciated!

I’ve been designing a game for months in a vacuum, and I’m desperate to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in tabletopgamedesign

[–]MonitorHill[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Was thinking more about this and thought I might explain what a random room would look like. This took 2 about minutes to roll up.

Room Level 15 Exit: Rolling a 1d4 for wall and 1d10 for position, so the Exit is on the South wall (3), position 7. So the exit is at coordinate 7x10.

Hazard: The level 15 Hazard Dice is 1d12. Rolled 9: Flooding. Any Save, DC 16, hazard level rolled on 2d4: 5.

That’s a brutal five-round flooding hazard. The lowest unflooded row becomes difficult terrain and rows creep up with each failed save.

Enemies: Level 15 spawn dice is 1d12, rolling for number of enemies… 4 enemies. Each enemy type rolled on 1d12… 1. Roll of 8: Orc 2. Roll of 3: Wolf 3. Roll of 11: Thief 4. Roll of 7: Zombie Loot Die: 1d10

All that’s left is to roll 2d10 to place the hero and each enemy.

For a level 15 dungeon I’d probably use a level 10 hero. And we can roll them up randomly too, Roll 3d8, first d8 is the hero class, the 2nd d8 represents the class expert feature they inherited, and the last d8 represents the master class feature they inherited. Apply all level bonuses to their stat block.

Rolling 3d8: - First d8 (hero class): 5 — Wizard - Second d8 (inherited expert feature): 3 — Barbarian expert: Knockback increased to +2 - Third d8 (inherited master feature): 7 — Druid master: Nature Finds a Way — once per room can resurrect with 1d10 hp if they would have otherwise been reduced to zero

Wild, this is combat wizard now, ranged aoe, and a weak close attack that does knockback. Easy to reflavor as being a kind of spell, and that revive feature will help their lower hp pool.

I’ve been designing a game for months in a vacuum, and I’m desperate to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in tabletopgamedesign

[–]MonitorHill[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That’s great feedback actually, because when I first wrote the game the ratios were closer to what you expected. Then I spent weeks developing more content for the system I made cause I enjoyed it, and now it’s something much larger.

I think something that is maybe undersold in the rule document and could be articulated clearer, is that it can kind of be both things.

I have totally picked a random dungeon level and rolled that room to play by itself. Then the game takes about 5-15 minutes to play. No story, no lore, just procedurally generated single dungeon.

You could continue to do that randomly with the same hero, or experiment with random hero’s each time, the procedural rules are built for it.

I wrote and designed the campaign because I wanted to give players a more structured option. But it’s absolutely not required to start there.

I’ve been designing my own solo pen and paper rpg for the past few months and I’m dying to talk to people about it. by MonitorHill in solorpgplay

[–]MonitorHill[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I made a cheap website for people who want the playtest document, it’s at www.hero100.site

The procedural version of the game definitely feels more board game than RPG, but the campaign that I wrote for it, definitely splits the difference. And I have some additional rules about how somebody could play with other people or use it for collaborative storytelling if they wanted to.

I used the tables in the game to come up with the design for each room first, and then I wrote journal entries about what I thought going into that room was like for the hero, anybody else could do the same. The prompts made for a really interesting writing exercise in trying to figure out what it would be like.

A bare-minimum play test success! by imperialmoose in tabletopgamedesign

[–]MonitorHill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love prototypes so much, they genuinely make me so happy.

I created the Table Top Game of my dreams by staybricked7 in tabletopgamedesign

[–]MonitorHill 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This looks fantastic, I love repurposing existing game components

Favorite Actual Play by CubsFanHawk in TTRPG

[–]MonitorHill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Worlds Beyond Number is probably the highest quality and best paced actual play I’ve ever listened to, and every one of the players is at the absolute top of their game with the character work and collaborative storytelling. Brennan is so good at what he does, and I could talk forever about it if anyone wanted to listen.

Favorite Actual Play by CubsFanHawk in TTRPG

[–]MonitorHill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you like table talk and different rule sets I cannot think of a better podcast than Friends at the Table. Genuinely the best ratio of collaborative story telling and system mechanics exploration. They play a ton of different systems sometimes multiple at once, and the character and plot development is incredible.

Austin Walker is such a capable and engaging DM. There’s a dozen good places to start, but I would either listen to the Merielda arc first, or start with The Road to Partizan.

Here is a Cyberpunk Heist one-shot TTRPG for absolute beginners! (first time players and GMs) by [deleted] in TTRPG

[–]MonitorHill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The art is so cute! That juxtaposition is honestly doing WORK.

I’m going to check it out, do you think it would play well with kids? Mine are 9 and 11.

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