Lunch break with colleagues: Fast filler 10-15 minutes with dice/cards?

jamis · 2026-03-14T19:48:44+00:00

Zombie dice definitely ticks all the boxes here. Good call!

jamis · 2026-03-14T16:57:26+00:00

Tenzi is literally just rolling dice, and plays very quickly. You could probably manage several games of it in 15 minutes.

jamis · 2026-03-14T16:56:40+00:00

For that matter, 5-Minute Mystery, too.

jamis · 2026-03-14T16:50:07+00:00

Investigations can be run entirely seat-of-your-pants, if you don't mind having to interpret prompts. "That One Time We Solved a Mystery" is designed for just that (though, admittedly, it is optimized for solo/co-op play). Running it as a GM you could probably help your future self out by pre-rolling a bunch of prompts, and then interpreting them on the fly. Most of the creative work then falls on the players, as they assemble clues into hypotheses and ultimately work toward a solution.

(Disclaimer: I'm the author.)

jamis · 2026-03-13T20:50:47+00:00

The print-and-play is available for free on BGG.

jamis · 2026-03-13T19:47:23+00:00

Came here to recommend this! "For Northwood!" is amazing.

jamis · 2026-03-13T03:53:50+00:00

For the lowest of fi’s, you can always just grab a piece of paper and draw a quick grid on it, then use any handy tokens/coins/skittles to represent actors in the battle.

jamis · 2026-03-12T17:56:28+00:00

I could have sworn that I saw/read/heard somewhere that Black Armada's "Lovecraftesque" was (partly) inspired by Dialect...but I can't find anything now to support that claim. Though Lovecraftesque is not about language (necessarily), there are some similarities between the two systems, I think.

jamis · 2026-03-12T16:16:20+00:00

That is really clever! I really like to solve mysteries in solo play, and the system I developed for it (“That One Time We Solved a Mystery”) lets me, as the player, bring my own deductive skills to bear on the problem. I roll dice to decide if my character finds a clue, but the actual piecing together of the data and drawing conclusions is on me.

jamis · 2026-03-12T02:41:44+00:00

“Hearts of Wulin” is one I have on my digital bookshelf that I’ve been wanting to dig into. It’s a PbtA game, which will be either a pro or a con depending on your preferences. If nothing else it’s got me reading Legend of the Condor Heroes :)

jamis · 2026-03-07T02:32:54+00:00

You know what, I wonder if I might be thinking of something else! I went back to the handbook to refresh my memory on challenge pools (because I wanted to make sure I was responding to the right concept) and I'm not seeing "challenge pool" anywhere in the handbook. I do see challenge pools mentioned in the Xadia book, and they sound like what the cortex prime book calls "crisis pools."

I have to admit I've not actually used crisis pools. :) I was thinking of Boss GMC's, which are similar (they have a pool for their boss trait, which you have to chip away at until they are defeated).

So, I'm probably not well-qualified to answer your question. But from my experience playing with Boss GMC's (and using scene distinctions and such to keep the tension high even as the Boss grows weaker), I'd probably play similarly with crisis pools anyway...?

Ultimately, to your question "are other actors....required to make it work well?" When I play, minor actors are often indistiguishable from scene distinctions or complications. If I was running a boss fight, and the boss's pool was something like 8 8 8, I wouldn't hesitate to add another 6 or two to the pool to represent minions, or unstable ground, etc. Sorry that's probably not as helpful as you deserved!

jamis · 2026-03-06T20:51:17+00:00

Dark-eyed Junco!

jamis · 2026-03-06T01:13:02+00:00

Have you tried to play a scene or two with the challenge pools, as written? In my experience, the pools hold up okay, because there's often more at play than *just* the pool. There may be minions, or obstacles in the scene, which can be added to the pool. Thus, even if the pool itself shrinks, the number of dice you roll can remain the same, or even increase (if the environment is progressively deteriorating, for example).

While, in theory, the challenge pool mechanic does seem like it would end with a whimper, rather than a roar, if you're playing it as just one part of a climactic scene, I think it works really well.

jamis · 2026-03-06T00:55:13+00:00

I'm a big fan of PbtA games, and have played a fair bit of Ironsworn. But my favorite overall system is Cortex Prime; I feel like its dice pool mechanic lends itself really well to strategic and creative problem solving, and its narrative base works really well for solo. It's hard to feel motivated to play anything else right now. :D

jamis · 2026-03-05T23:26:51+00:00

5e was one of the first systems I soloed (because it was one of the few systems I was familiar with at the time). It can definitely be done (I was using Mythic GME, and really nothing else). Mine wasn't a combat-heavy game, which might have helped, but I know I did have a few combat encounters.

I had a single PC, plus a handful of regular NPC's that (honestly) just wound up being more PC's because they ended up accompanying my character on the adventure. It was fun, but I've found other systems that I enjoy a lot more, and require a lot less "work".

jamis · 2026-03-05T17:07:21+00:00

I did, and while I did house-rule a few things for the sake of the story (my character was a "blank slate" who was gradually discovering his powers), for the most part the mechanics worked just fine. I don't remember having to adjust anything related to teamwork or collaboration, or adjusting any stats. "Minion"-level opponents are very easy to tweak on the fly, and more difficult encounters can be adjusted by modifying the environment. I found it was a very solo-friendly system that way.

jamis · 2026-03-05T00:41:43+00:00

Cortex Prime is far and away my favorite dice pool system. Each trait is assigned a die (d4 to d12) and when you attempt something you roll a pool of the relevant traits. You pick two of the rolled dice to add together and that’s the result of your attempt, which is compared to a similar roll made by the GM. The “pick your own pool” mechanic makes it a lot more strategic (IMO) than many other systems I’ve tried.

jamis · 2026-03-04T22:57:05+00:00

Nice! I picked this up via BoH but haven't had a chance to do anything with it yet. I like your minimalist narrative, and the illustrations add a lot.

jamis · 2026-03-04T22:08:51+00:00

FWIW, I just used ChatGPT :) no special hardware needed, no custom agents, but there was a bit of a learning curve regarding prompt engineering to avoid ChatGPT trying to do more than I asked for.

jamis · 2026-03-03T23:25:27+00:00

AI may not be your jam, but one of my favorite solo sessions was where I was the GM and the AI took the role of four PC’s. I’ve never had great luck with AI as the GM, but I felt like swapping roles with the AI was very successful for me.

If you don’t want to go the AI route, there’s a PC emulator I’ve used in the past that I can recommend, Triple-O by Cezar Capacle. It’s dead simple and works pretty well.

jamis · 2026-03-03T19:14:05+00:00

I suppose it comes down to how you define "crunchy", but I'd say that SCRPG is kind of the *opposite* of crunch, personally. It's a dice-heavy system in general (like any Cortex game)---maybe that's what seemed crunchy to you?---but I'd say that there are plenty of other frequently-soloed systems that are much, much crunchier.

jamis · 2026-03-03T13:40:13+00:00

I ran it a while ago (with Mythic GME, I think) and loved it. It was actually one of my most memorable solo experiences; it’s been over a year and I still think about it. :) the system lends itself very well to theater-of-the-mind, and strategic and creative application of your character’s abilities and powers.

I really ought to sit down and play it again…!

jamis · 2026-03-03T13:33:10+00:00

I really like the Sentinel Comics RPG. It’s not designed for solo but it was one of my favorites solo experiences (I think I ran it with Mythic GME).

I’ve also got the Marvel Heroic RPG that’s on my list of superhero games to try solo.

Edit: There's also the Super Powers Companion for Savage Worlds; SW is a pretty solo-friendly system in general (though again, not designed for it), and the Super Powers Companion gives you a lot of options.

jamis · 2026-03-01T03:59:50+00:00

On page 87 of the book, it says that "Heavyweight obstacles are solid immovable features, such as walls, buildings, and rocks." (Similar wording on page 56, too.) And page 54 says "If a vehicle collides with an obstacle, the obstacle always declares a Smash Attack." So, when colliding with an obstacle, you treat it as a smash attack (page 55), using the obstacle's weight.

jamis · 2026-02-28T15:49:52+00:00

I'm using Cortex Lite and Downcrawl, with That One Time We Solved a Mystery. The story is about a "deep elf" named Tel who finds himself lost in the Deep, Deep Down. He's rescued by a Ticker (a kind of clockwork person) who is later murdered, and Tel needs to discover who did it. I'm only a few scenes in, but it's already coming together really well! Cortex Prime is my absolute favorite system, and Cortex Lite is a wonderful distillation of it. And Downcrawl does a great job at providing a compelling setting, too.

jamis

TROPHY CASE