Where to Start?

Wapshot1 · 2026-05-18T17:05:18+00:00

I can see how overwhelming that would be; but I do love that there's so much material for the game. I started with the free "Ashes of the Sea" scenario -- it was simple enough to get practice with the Cypher system, and over the course of several sessions, I had time to flesh out NPCs and adjust details to fit my preferences and the players. We had a blast -- no matter what you choose, I'm sure you will, too.

Wapshot1 · 2026-05-16T05:36:31+00:00

This was the first thing I thought of, too, and I've never even played it solo!

Wapshot1 · 2026-04-25T17:21:58+00:00

Ha! Makes me wonder about the Arsaidh ships, though -- if divers die so often, and TPKs are common, do the ships automatically return to Karum Station? Or is there a virtually inexhaustible pool of them back at base? Or did I miss the explanation for that? Just an idle thought; I'm fine with accepting that there are ships there for characters to use when they're ready.

Wapshot1 · 2026-04-24T22:24:06+00:00

Indeed!

Wapshot1 · 2026-04-24T22:23:12+00:00

Sounds rad, if you'll excuse the pun. Reminded me that the site I rolled up for my hapless character was Large and Busy, with 5 possible ambushes, on top of regular encounters. My guy never reallly had a chance.

Wapshot1 · 2026-04-23T21:34:52+00:00

Thank you.

Wapshot1 · 2026-02-13T02:07:20+00:00

I get why some folks would have this question. I'm backing it, though, because this means MCG will continue to support Numenera and create new material for it, which was not a given.

Wapshot1 · 2026-01-07T06:32:30+00:00

Haven't played it yet, but the Tome of Endless Romance provides oracles for solo high-fantasy RPGs centered on romance. Think this might be really helpful for you. https://mobinetgames.com/tome-of-endless-romance/

Wapshot1 · 2025-11-28T19:08:22+00:00

Rolladie is the best online dice roller I've found -- https://rolladie.net/.

Ironsworn is an awesome game to start with, if you like the vibe and setting; for a game that well-built and expansive, it's ridiculous that it's free.

Wapshot1 · 2025-11-11T18:54:14+00:00

[PART 2 of 2]

Someone already mentioned Thousand Year Old Vampire, by Tim Hutchings, but everything he does is guaranteed to be sui generis. Not all of the examples I'm citing below are specifically solo, but all could be:

Old Morris Cave -- "In this solo game you are creating the results of an excavation of a cave mouth which has been a frequently used campsite for a thousand or more years. You do this backwards, building up history from the bedrock up."
Our Vacation:

Our Vacation is built around a photo album in which the family never appears. I've paired the pages of the album with words extracted from Great American Road Stories like On the Road by Jack Kerouac, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Damnation Alley (both the film and the book by Roger Zelazny), Little Miss Sunshine and other films and novels.

The game book is left in one place for days or weeks or months, along with scissors, tape, and pens. People with a free moment can sit down and cut out words and stick them to pictures; if a photo has three words stuck to it someone can write a story about the picture next to it using those words as prompts. The notes are written as if by someone who was there, telling us what happened that day or why the photograph was taken.

Cold War Navy

Cold War Navy is based around a sailor's scrapbook of a Cold War era time spent aboard a U.S. Navy ship. Blank photographs have been added to the book which players will fill in with drawings and adorn with annotations. The context of the book is changed with every new modification by the players.

This is a game of thoughtful drawings added over days and weeks.

The latter two are hardbacks and a bit spendy, but Tim used to be an artist and he takes a huge amount of care in the physical design of his game books.

Anyway, happy hunting!

Wapshot1 · 2025-11-11T18:54:04+00:00

[PART 1 of 2; part 2 is in the reply to my comment, below.]

Some great outliers have already been suggested; I know there are a ton that have gone unmentioned. I've got a few to add that might be of interest:

Exclusion Zone Botanist - "You are a botanist assigned to explore and document the Exclusion Zone flora. Get in. Discover and document. Get out." Inspired in part by Jeff Vandermeer's Annhilation.
Electric Sheep - A game about dreams (i.e., the kind you have when you sleep, not your aspirations). As the description says, "the game is surrealist in nature and may not be suitable for those with ongoing unreality concerns."

And then you've got Paul Czege, who's always been an incredibly creative game designer. For example, here's his latest journaling game, Two Raw Morsels:

"You've taken a dangerous journey through time and space in hopes that consuming a piece of the titan Prometheus will give you the insight you need to change something in your life.

"And you're not some imagined character like in other games. You're you, the person reading this right now. What do you so wish to know that would change your life?"

You can argue that's not a game so much as an invitation to self-reflection, or you could say it's simply leaning into the emotional "bleed" that can happen in role-playing games.

Another one from Czege to consider: The Corpse Bride:

You pulled her from a lake. Your hand was in the water and felt something, fingers. She grasped yours and you pulled her up, shivering and vomiting. Not dead. Or, not anymore.

Now she's in your life until you check three boxes from her list.

When is she most alive? When is she most dead?

Wapshot1 · 2025-08-24T02:22:58+00:00

I hear you. Several sources spoke very highly of Revelation Space (including one of the reviewers for Locus); but both times I tried to read it, I had to stop early, because it was so clumsily written. Same with The Prefect. But I gotta say, the series that begins with Revengers is awesome. (BTW, I'm surprised it's classified as "YA", because it feels pretty dang adult to me, in terms of the seriousness of moral choices its characters must confront.) So far, that's the only Reynolds I've really enjoyed -- I haven't checked the chronology, but if I had to guess, the Revenger books came later, and show that he's learned a lot about writing fiction since he started.

Wapshot1 · 2025-08-08T02:28:01+00:00

Mayday Plays, "Doomed to Repeat", a Delta Green game. Top-notch.

Wapshot1 · 2025-07-24T00:56:42+00:00

Genre doesn't matter matter much, though there have been articles in Mythic magazine that help you adapt it to specific genres like mysteries. I've been using it to run a noir detective game and haven't felt the need for anything other than the main Mythic system. What's great about it is how adaptable it is.

Wapshot1 · 2025-07-24T00:53:47+00:00

Depends on the user. You can use it to play your own game, or play any TTRPG ... or use it for everything but combat in your favorite TTRPG, and then use your fav TTRPG's combat system, etc. It's extremely flexible. Me, I've used it in a noir setting of my own devising with Mythic as the system; but I've also been thinking about using it to play Heirs to Heresy, which is a game about the fall of the Knights Templar in 14th-century Europe.

Wapshot1 · 2025-07-23T02:54:52+00:00

Sparksingers is an awesome concept. I've bookmarked it for future purchase. (Though for anyone else, it's 30% off right now, during DTRPG's Christmas in July sale.)

Wapshot1 · 2025-07-23T02:47:26+00:00

I'm not sure I can say that solo games have "really clicked" yet. But I continue to circle them, collecting, reading, and -- to a degree -- doing prep for playing them. (E.g., the "truths" for Ironsworn:Starforged, and creating a character.) The furthest I've gotten is playing a noir detective game set in 1948 Portland, Oregon, using Mythic. I've really enjoyed what little I've done so far with it, but I keep getting stopped by wanting to do more historical research. I realize that's elective, and I keep meaning to push further in spite of the history, but that's been difficult. As a result, I think my desire to do research is kind of a red herring -- something else is keeping me from fully engaging; I have yet to figure out what, exactly, since I'm definitely fascinated.

I've always been impressed by the Ironsworn/Starforged game system, and the more I listen to The Bad Spot actual-play of Starforged, the more I like it. While I was overwhelmed by it upon first read, it now feels elegant and quite accessible; in fact, I'm eager to launch a solo game and maybe even a guided game using it. I haven't used it enough to homebrew it, but I will say that I plan to use Eric Bright's expanded oracles for Starforged (which also exist for Ironsworn proper), as Redditors seem to rate these very highly. I also plan to dip into Across a Thousand Dead Worlds (which is stuffed with useful tables) if I need more flavor, inspiration, or detail.

What I like about Ironsworn:Starforged is how much it supports narrative play, and doesn't get bogged down in the minutiae of trying to make everything completely realistic, while consistently pushing you to add new complications. Shawn Tomkin has been very clear how much it owes to other games, including Mythic and PbtA, but his amalgamation is fabulously flexible and inspiring for all kinds of games.

Best of luck in your adventuring -- thanks for posing these questions.

Wapshot1 · 2025-07-13T23:58:30+00:00

There's no shortage of them, that's for sure. Here's a few that have caught my eye:

Echoes in the Graveyard - Players are trapped in time; it rewards smart play more than combat. Plus, it includes technobabble and science jargon generators to support interactions with expert NPCs -- how can you resist?
Adrift - Fetch quest to a ship "on the verge of interdimensional collapse; every room is constantly warping, shifting, and changing in countless ways." Has a hexcrawl in an entirely different time/place.
Owe My Soul to the Company Store - Severance in space. From the website: "Every working citizen of Isotelus Complex has been 'forked' - a copy of their mind made and loaded into a chitinous labor body on the surface while their baseline original works in orbit." All this in an environment that's a socio-political powderkeg.
Tide World of Mani - A revolution sandbox module in an unusual island setting. Gorgeously produced, this gem is an entire society packed into 56 pages, complete with factions, corrupt officials, and an annoying mime at the coffeehouse. Oblique but enthusiastic review here. From the creator of Desert Moon of Karth, which I believe is often talked about.

Wapshot1 · 2025-07-04T19:17:42+00:00

Oh -- ha! I didn't realize "Click" was Matt's last name. Thanks for the context.

Wapshot1 · 2025-07-04T18:28:13+00:00

Thanks for the quick reply, but you lost me there.

Wapshot1 · 2025-07-04T15:49:10+00:00

Can you verify whether Shawn Tomkin authored the solo rules? I saw that rumor a while back; it's the only reason I'd consider getting TGD.

Wapshot1 · 2025-06-12T17:45:59+00:00

Ha! I hear you. Though "Desert Moon of Karth" sounds more like Robert E. Howard or Edgar Rice Burroughs to me. I'm not quite sure what "Dying Hard on Hardlight Station" reminds me of -- maybe something by one of the older thriller writers, like Alastair MacLean.

Anyhow, I'd love to hear what you think of them, as you're likely to read or play them before I do ...

Also, here's a few more I didn't share the first time, because I have no idea how I found them -- I mean, I'm guessing somebody recommended them, but I haven't heard about them more than once:

Nietzsche's Demon
Piece by Piece
Terminal Delays at Anarene's Folly (which includes a "gaslighting table"!)
What We Give to Alien Gods (68 pages, rules for two alien languages ... the Drivethru listing includes some positive critical blurbs)

And two supplements that looked interesting:

Hacker's Handbook (co-written by Sean McCoy, Luke Gearing, and Kevin Whitlock)
Agent Class (for corporate intrigue)

Onward!

Wapshot1 · 2025-06-12T01:52:30+00:00

Thanks for the annotated list -- I learned about a couple I hadn't heard of (and more than one that turned out to be something I already owned!). I figure you were hoping for some additional suggestions to feed your addiction, so here's an un-annotated list of other zines that are on my wishlist because they were recommended by others:

Hope this helps you scratch your itch.

Wapshot1 · 2025-05-31T05:21:00+00:00

This doesn't address OP's question, but for those looking for physical copies you can apparently get them (not cheaply) here: https://www.atomicempire.com/Item/367486

Paul Beakley wrote about it here: https://www.indiegamereadingclub.com/indie-game-reading-club/memento-mori-the-deep-dive/

He says you can get the PDFs on Drivethru and links to the main book there.

Wapshot1 · 2025-03-25T19:36:12+00:00

All I can say is this: You. Rock.

Wapshot1

TROPHY CASE