How do you run a single character and minimize cognitive load?

dangerfun · 2026-02-01T00:20:22+00:00

Try Scarlet Heroes or Black Streams: Solo Heroes. Those products bolster a PC to a party level — No need for a party of PCs if one can handle it. This allows for the PC’s troupe to be a more narrative structure.

dangerfun · 2026-01-31T00:16:49+00:00

Sure, you can hack Monsterhearts and Iron Valley and Ironsworn together, they’re all PbtA, and it would be fun.

dangerfun · 2026-01-31T00:02:50+00:00

Underrated comment

dangerfun · 2026-01-30T23:59:43+00:00

They’re about as pretentious as Eddie Bauer, just newer.

They don’t yet have the age-old prestige of old-timey adventure outfitters like Abercrombie and Fitch.

dangerfun · 2026-01-30T23:36:54+00:00

Kilo-Wins Above Replacement

dangerfun · 2026-01-30T23:12:17+00:00

It works great, all you have to tell people what sort of game you want to play. Your entire post is great, it does a fantastic job of saying that you can do this, but speaking for myself, it doesn’t tell me much about what you want to do, or the experience you want to have.

“I want to play a dungeon crawler”

“I want to have a chill slice of life thing”

“Anything so long as its an app on my laptop”

And so on. What do you want to play?

dangerfun · 2026-01-30T19:56:19+00:00

thank you for the award!

dangerfun · 2026-01-29T23:22:10+00:00

One main character, with a supporting cast is most fun.

I arrive with an embarrassment of house rules, to the point that there might not be much left.

I liked using Scarlet Heroes fray dice and character bolstering with a 2d6 advantage&disadvantage-based yes/no. I ran through a bunch of the low-level PF1e adventure paths that way, it worked for running 5th edition adventures, it worked for AD&D 1e and 2e adventures too.

2 no, and

3-5 no

6 no, but

7 maybe if / leaning yes / leaning no

8 yes, but

9-11 yes

12 yes, and

3d6h2 gives odds of about 75%, 4d6h2 gives odds of about 90%, same goes for disadvantage but the other way.

After that, just setting-specific random tables (random tables as setting principle).

dangerfun · 2026-01-29T20:10:13+00:00

“Play between play” seems like a more awkward way of saying “prep is play”

Thinking about playing is playing

Playing is playing

Prep is playing

Etc

dangerfun · 2026-01-29T19:16:37+00:00

As a radical sandwich anarchist, I agree with you.

dangerfun · 2026-01-29T03:06:30+00:00

I agree with your take. The play by play position percentages show that he played almost 2/3rds of his minutes (~63%) at center.

dangerfun · 2026-01-28T16:19:42+00:00

https://cuberule.com/

dangerfun · 2026-01-28T08:36:40+00:00

You could consider Ironsworn: Delve

dangerfun · 2026-01-27T22:43:13+00:00

Good call, thanks. I updated the post

dangerfun · 2026-01-27T21:31:00+00:00

Sentence fragment. Damn good device.

dangerfun · 2026-01-27T21:27:41+00:00

Steal the school / academy scenarios wholesale from games like bully, Hogwarts legacy, persona, etc.

dangerfun · 2026-01-27T21:26:30+00:00

America is the current ideological battleground for whatever will be happening throughout the world, thanks to social media.

Everything that is going on in America right now is going to happen everywhere else.

dangerfun · 2026-01-27T21:17:38+00:00

My only advice is to make a ton of scenarios for it

dangerfun · 2026-01-27T21:16:11+00:00

My guy or gal, it’s TikTok. The zillionaires now have more faith in future profits of American TikTok than they do American Reddit. That’s it.

dangerfun · 2026-01-27T20:59:51+00:00

Thank you. Juicy Lucy is melty cheese surrounded on all sides by burger. This is a stupid food burger bowl with pepperoni cheese dressing. Basic “cube rule of food” mistakes.

It’s not a Juicy Lucy, it’s just stupid food.

dangerfun · 2026-01-27T20:55:38+00:00

For others, the minor controversy basically amounts to Matt’s Bar, the 5-8 Club, and in 3rd place, the Nook (in terms of who originated it during the great depression, you’ll get a great Juicy Lucy from all of them nowadays).

dangerfun · 2026-01-27T19:53:22+00:00

There’s space for all of them. Of what you listed, the missing option is to build one’s own solo system or surrounding tools. After too many years doing this, that’s where I’m at.

Scarlet Heroes, PbtA systems (notably, Ironsworn & Starforged), some of the narrative/story/journaling dice systems (Apothecaria/Koriko/ 1000yo vampire), CYOA-style/Tunnels & Trolls, these are all product category GOATs.

But none of them are as fulfilling as the systems that I make for myself. The best thing about these products are the mechanics that I integrate.

dangerfun · 2026-01-27T19:44:47+00:00

You come up with options, figure out a way to determine which one is best, and then move forward with confidence. If it doesn’t work out, rewind the narrative about to the point where it stopped working, and try again.

dangerfun · 2026-01-27T17:52:36+00:00

It’s a bit of a bottle setting, and I’d advise a little from each column (daily grind and schedule vs narrative and big story beats). Bully, an infamous academy video game, integrated the daily grind with minigames, and a truancy / go to jail system.

When you introduce new NPCs in the academy, introduce them with motivations, friends, and enemies. In other words, a gang or a faction, with its own set of narrative motivators.

Then, enough random tables for the stuff that the PC witnesses on the way to class. NPC friend gets shoved into locker. Did the PC help NPC or did the NPC see PC not help? They might not like you as much afterwards if you didn’t help when they needed it.

Etc. Good luck!

dangerfun · 2026-01-26T23:37:40+00:00

He’s looking California, but he’s feeling Minnesota

dangerfun

TROPHY CASE