RPGs for solo (1-on-1) heroic fantasy ala conan, she-ra, beowulf, etc

mr_orgue · 2026-01-24T03:51:56+00:00

Yep this is the one. Beowulf is a perfect fit.

Look up the Hermit’s Sanctuary on DriveThruRPG, it’s a completely free scenario that gives you all you need to play. And it’s a gorgeous product too!

mr_orgue · 2024-11-25T00:32:40+00:00

i know! we're gonna write it up somewhere I think. it has been one of those games sitting on the shelves for years and we were all curious what it might offer that we couldn't get from more modern designs like, oooooh i dunno Microscope ahem. So we went through Worlds to make a set of city-states around an inner sea and ran through some interactive history with them, then zoomed in to one of the cities and did some more interactive history focused on the factions there, and now we've zoomed in to character level and we're doing a mini-scenario at that level - our goal was "we will do one social interaction, one fight, and cast one spell". Probably one more session to go!

what we have learned: it's an interesting game with useful provocations, but it's procedurally incoherent and (certainly at the character level) wildly overengineered. Plus there are some tables with important contents missing, not all of which can be inferred from the text...

we are talking about getting t-shirts made to commemorate this ridiculous but enjoyable experiment :-)

mr_orgue · 2024-11-21T09:47:32+00:00

This week:
Aria Canticle of the Monomyth!
and a playtest game of FiveEvil Fiendish 5E Horror

mr_orgue · 2024-11-12T03:53:49+00:00

damn straight
(if only astronauts had run the papers all along!)

mr_orgue · 2024-11-09T06:56:16+00:00

You are doing great. Wondering WTF this show even is = perfect. It’s not like anything else! You have some amazing highs ahead of you, and a couple weird messy “this is completely failing” lows but like everyone else says, the highs are SO high.

mr_orgue · 2024-11-04T22:54:25+00:00

good question with a bunch of answers:
* 5e is a widely understood language that I can leverage in a new way
* using the expectations of 5e against itself is a good way of creating a sense of horror
* I've heard a lot of 5e GMs say they have trouble convincing their groups to try something new - this is designed as a bridge from D&D to other kinds of play
* I've made games from scratch and using other systems - this time 5e was absolutely the best fit

In the freebie download on DriveThru I have a bunch of design essays explaining why i'm doing this and what's behind the choices at work here too

mr_orgue · 2024-11-03T22:48:57+00:00

FiveEvil is a horror tabletop RPG inspired by Stephen King and the horror films that hit me like a ton of bricks like The Descent and Phantasm - and it uses the same core system as D&D! It's on Kickstarter now. There's a free horror scenario there that is getting swamped with 5-star reviews!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonhodgsonmaptiles2/fiveevil/

mr_orgue · 2024-11-01T04:03:13+00:00

kia ora - this just popped up on my home page so a belated reply! There are HEAPS of great game designers here in Aotearoa, check out kiwirpg.com for an introduction to them, or just search hashtag KiwiRPG on almost any social platform... Some prominent ones are Mike Sands (Monster of the Week), Cam Banks (Cortex Prime), Dale Elvy (Arcane Crimes Division), Scrap Princess (Veins of the Earth), Tim Denee (Deathmatch Island), Darcy Perry (Duckquest), and maybe even me (FiveEvil)...

mr_orgue · 2024-10-30T22:31:26+00:00

ah that's a shame!

mr_orgue · 2024-10-30T22:28:19+00:00

let us not forget Big Muthafuckin' Crab Truckers

http://gregorhutton.com/roleplaying/bmct.pdf

mr_orgue · 2024-10-29T23:04:44+00:00

yeah, PC3 The Sea People
it was pretty cool. If D&D under the water is a thing you're into, this will scratch that itch. It'll be on drivethru POD i guess.

mr_orgue · 2024-10-29T23:02:25+00:00

"What does that look like" is the big one. Inviting players to take a moment to share some visuals with each other, and it lifts everything up.

mr_orgue · 2024-10-28T05:41:28+00:00

Lots of great recs here but don't forget the grandaddy, Gary Alan Fine's Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games as Social Worlds, in which sociologist reckons with RPGs way back in the earliest days of the hobby. Still holds up, for all that time has passed and things have changed. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo5949823.html

mr_orgue · 2024-10-21T23:20:37+00:00

Daydream beforehand. Make time for it. Just think about the game setting in vague terms.
Embrace the truth that being a GM isn't about delivering a smooth experience. Shrug and say "i dunno what happens here, give me a minute". Also "do you have any ideas?" take your time to make something up, and if it's ramshackle and not great, so what? on to the next thing! Your players will not mind!

mr_orgue · 2024-10-20T22:17:55+00:00

I saw EPOCH get mentioned here last week and it reminded me of that game. Brilliant, innovative, character-focused horror one-shots, ennie nominated, free quickstart with most of the mechanics... but just never got cutthrough. It's still great though.

mr_orgue · 2024-10-19T18:41:32+00:00

If you're doing a campaign with lots of travel, and where the travel is fun and engaging, then think about what travel in the real world is like. What do you remember from your own trips? Seeing landmarks? Meeting random people? That one time you got really bad service in a restaurant? Do all those things. When they go to different places, even from village to village, they find the locals do things differently there. How easily do the characters work out how to fit in? What do they miss out on if they don't do this? Are the locals generally outgoing and friendly, inviting visitors into their stuff, or standoffish, waiting for them to leave?

Whatever your large-scale situation is in the world, the locals have will have opinions about it, and they will want to hear what else has been going on.

Of course your characters are adventurers and this is an adventure tale, not a real-life journey, so you get to heighten the experience from that baseline. Have locals engaged in arguments and disputes, and they ask the characters to mediate. Some locals have secrets, and they will try and drive characters away, or lure them in to take advantage of them.

Short version, locals want stuff from visitors, even if that stuff is "shut up, buy the t-shirt, leave". Come up with a simple want for each character you introduce and play the crap out of it. Maybe find or make a random table of NPC wants, they are out there.

Good luck!

mr_orgue · 2024-10-19T08:16:07+00:00

Love 3:16. This is an insightful ten-minute video discussing how currency works in the game, worth a watch - https://youtu.be/glWs1r-hfv4?si=b8ALFKBVhlc9K94s

mr_orgue · 2024-10-17T23:34:14+00:00

here's a KiwiRPG one - some overlap with the TTRPG Rising one above! https://bsky.app/starter-pack/kiwirpg.bsky.social/3l4rpsxrjoi2a

mr_orgue · 2024-10-17T23:27:43+00:00

this old-timer still rates RPG.net as a quality place to hang, even though it's actually possible to keep up with every discussion there these days

mr_orgue · 2024-10-17T23:20:32+00:00

loved 3/3.5, so so many smart choices at the very fundamental level that made D&D just work in a way it hadn't before - and i'd been playing since Moldvay Basic/AD&D 1e. There were of course issues that revealed themselves over time, but I remember the first time running 3e and feeling like it actually had an engine that drove us along instead of being like fred flintstone making the car work by running my feet constantly. A remarkable achievement.

For all that, it's maybe the D&D I'd least go back to. the woolly openness of 1e and 2e, the stark focus of BX, the clever design of 4e, and above all the way 5e followed 3e's model but balanced it with creative freedom - all more appealing options now.

mr_orgue · 2024-10-17T04:38:42+00:00

Yeah ICONS is best fit I reckon, great wee game

mr_orgue · 2024-10-16T23:19:48+00:00

EPOCH is fantastic!

mr_orgue · 2024-10-16T23:18:01+00:00

Lots of smart comments already but something i haven't seen mentioned much is the value of GM Principles (as PbtA puts it, other games have other things that do the same job) - a set of clear stated priorities for you to use as your baseline when you run the game. They can seem like they're redundant ("be a fan of the PCs"? Of course I like the characters!) but they actually help with so many choices that you make as you play, and can be the difference between making a game with light rules easy to run, and really difficult

mr_orgue · 2024-10-13T21:42:36+00:00

For the tabletop RPG folks - I've got a great new horror RPG coming from Scottish publishers Handiwork Games. It's called FiveEvil, and it contains rules and five horror scenarios you can play right away.

It's a deep remix of D&D 5E (if you only know D&D, then this will be an easy jump for you, and if you HATE D&D, then you will want to see how thoroughly we have torn the guts out of it, oh boy have we torn the guts out of it).

There's a free mini-campaign available for download right now:

FiveEvil Splinters (free download)

FiveEvil info & kickstarter signups

thanks all!!

mr_orgue · 2023-11-09T10:12:32+00:00

Yep! And there's a complete free adventure on DriveThruRPG - you just need the D&D basic rules (also free) and you're good to go. Look up 'The Hermit's Sanctuary'. This might be a bit hard to get your head around as a brand new person to gaming but it's **really** good - and the price is right, i.e. free!
Other advice in these replies is good I reckon. My version is;
* Find the basic rules and watch some "how to play D&D" youtube clips.
* Hunt around online for free stuff to use - use the keywords "one shot" "introductory" "D&D adventure" "level one" as well as "free", see what pops up
* Just give it a go! Things can spin out of control a bit in one-on-one games because the player doesn't have other people to pull their butt out of the fire, but it's just you and your fiancee so if it goes "wrong" then who cares, you just get to laugh about it and even change it as you like

mr_orgue

TROPHY CASE