THE

WANDERING

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KNIGHT

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A SOLO RPG BY GIN LUNAR
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 The Wandering Knight is a solo role-playing game
system for a single player. Mixing narrative concepts
and OSR mechanics, the Wandering Knight highlights
the psychological evolution of the hero through the

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main adventure. This game offers simple mechanisms
to manage conflict and to build story lines.

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These rules are not set in stone and I encourage you to
modify them as you please.

The Wandering knight assumes that you are already

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familiar with the basic principles of solo rpg, especially
the concept of scenes and oracles
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PLAY, SHARE !
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The solo rpg is still a very young discipline. There is a

lot of potential for improvement. Don't wait for the big
publishers to get more involved, YOU can also
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contribute to its development. So we invite you to join

the community and share your experiences. Become an
actor of this great adventure! WE NEED YOU! It's by
sharing that we will succeed together to make the solo
rpg great.

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 INDEX
Rules.................................................................................4

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The Wandering Knight .............................................5
Allies ............................................................................5

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Rolling the Dices.........................................................7
Injuries .........................................................................7
5 STEPS ADVENTURING ............................................8
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Script Considerations .................................................9
1. Slow start .............................................................. 10
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2. Pinch Point ........................................................... 11
3. The hero's counterattack .................................... 12
4. Climax .................................................................. 12
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5. Ending .................................................................. 13
False Climax ............................................................. 14
Set up a random scene ............................................. 14
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The Hero's Journey ...................................................... 16

Moral dilemmas ....................................................... 18
Emergence of the Need ........................................... 19

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RULES
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 THE WANDERING KNIGHT
Whatever the universe you play in, you play as the
Wandering Knight, a hero in search of personal
fulfillment.

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Your hero is unhappy because he has a WEAKNESS

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that he is afraid to face. The adventure he is going to
live must allow him to discover a NEED that will allow
him to find serenity. It is not a question of transforming
weakness into strength, of curing an illness, but of
discovering "something else" which will enable him to
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accept his weakness. This revelation should give him
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the necessary motivation to overcome and fight his
own weakness.

Your knight has 2 characteristics

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▪ LEAD: indicates the number of

allies the character can have in his
team
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▪ HEALTH: indicates the

number of wounds the knight can
receive before dying
A balanced character has 4 LEAD
points and 3 HEALTH points.
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 ALLIES
The Wandering Knight can meet allies during his
journey and decide to integrate them into his team.
Allies are at the service of the Knight Wanderer. They

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have no story line, no weaknesses or needs and share

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the same goal as the main hero.
This does not mean that allies are robots without mood
or desire.

Examples of allies
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▪ WARRIOR: add +1 to your combat rolls
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▪ THIEF: add +1 to your acrobatics or discretion rolls
▪ MERCHANT: add +1 to your rolls when talking,
convincing or tricking
▪ PRIEST: can heal a wound once a day
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▪ ARCHER: can shoot arrows before a fight starts

▪ WIZARD: can cast a spell once a day
▪ PALADIN: add +1 to your LEAD score
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▪ BODYGUARD: add +1 to your HEALTH score

This is a non-exhaustive list of basic characters. Feel

free to add your own creations or to make your allies
level up.
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 ROLLING THE DICES
When you do something with an uncertain outcome,
roll 2d6 and add any relevant bonuses.
▪ 5 or less: The action is a FAIL. The difficulty is not

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overcome. Someone is hurt.

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▪ 6-8: Action is a PARTIAL SUCCESS, difficulty is
defeated. Someone is hurt or add a higher price than
expected, an unexpected difficulty
▪ 9 or more: the action is a CRITICAL SUCCESS. The
difficulty is overcome. Nobody is injured
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INJURIES
Each time you suffer a wound you can either:
▪ Reduce the Knight Errant's health total by 1. If the
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health total reaches 0, the Knight Errant dies

▪ Sacrifice an ally: your ally receives the wound. Roll
1d6:
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▪ 1-4: the ally dies.

▪ 5-6: the ally is wounded.
A wounded ally is neutralized as long as he is not healed:
its bonuses are no longer added, it cannot sacrifice itself
again.

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5
STEPS
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ADVENTURING
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 One of the major problems that solo rpg players face is
to lead their adventures to their end. While it's easy to
start, it's just as easy to get lost in digression, to run out
of ideas, and finally to give up when you get bored.

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In this chapter, we offer you an adventure framework
that will allow you to easily lead your story from the

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beginning to the end. This adventure framework is
suitable for short adventures. Feel free to make your
own modifications.

SCRIPT CONSIDERATIONS
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Whatever hook you choose to involve your hero in the
adventure, a good script must have a problem to solve:
[Someone] [does something] [to achieve a certain goal]
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There is gold in the dungeon (hook). As the scenario is

explored, it will reveal itself. [A black mage] [recruits
monsters] [to conquer the kingdom]
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 1. SLOW START
Start the adventure without pressure. Explore, discover
the world, build your team, get stronger. At this stage
don't hesitate to multiply the secondary threads. Take

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the time to enjoy this stage and enrich the adventure

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background.

GOLDEN RULE: Each scene is useful and brings

something to the scenario. So each scene can potentially
allow to:
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▪ Increase the strength of the hero (recruit an ally, find
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a treasure...)
▪ Get a clue to the main story
▪ Open a secondary thread
▪ Enrich the background
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HOURGLASS TECHNIQUE
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To end this freedom phase, increment a counter at the

start of each scene:
1-3: add 1
4-6: add 2
When the counter reaches or exceeds 6, go to step 2
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 2. PINCH POINT
The villain takes action! The hero's next scene or
destination is interrupted by an impressive action of the
antagonist or its minions. The hero can take part in the

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scene or be too late and only discover the devastation.
The village where the inn is located has been burned

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down by the antagonist.

This step helps to refocus the action on the main thread.

By showing the power of the antagonist, your story
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changes its tone. No more walking around! The serious
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stuff begins.
Get some clues that will allow the hero to develop a
strategy.
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 3. THE HERO'S COUNTERATTACK
From this phase, the character becomes a real actor of
the adventure. In the previous steps, the character's
choices were made in reaction to something. From this

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step, the character acts according to his own will. It’s

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the hero's CHOICE to develop a counterattack strategy
and take action.

From now on, don't develop new threads. Instead, try

to close secondary threads or link them to the main
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thread. Also, reduce the number of random encounters.
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The hero attacks the antagonist's base: he should have
enough troubles as it is.
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4. CLIMAX
The hero goes to confront his antagonist in a final
battle. This is the big show of your story, the battle that
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will decide who is right or who is wrong. Pay special

attention to the background: an epic battle must take
place in an epic location. Don't hesitate to describe this
last fight over several rounds.

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 5. ENDING
Whatever the outcome of the final confrontation, the
world has recovered its balance. It is a new balance,
different from the one that existed before the beginning

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of the adventure. The background has changed (for the

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better or worse, depending on which character won the
final battle)

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 FALSE CLIMAX
You can lengthen your story by replacing the Climax
with a Twist or False Climax. While the hero is on his
way to the final confrontation, the villain totally foils

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the hero's plan. The situation seems lost and the villain

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will implement the final phase of his plan. The hero
suffers a defeat that forces him to change his strategy.
This defeat should always result in a significant loss in
the game.
Then loop back to the Climax described in step 4.
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SET UP A RANDOM SCENE
When you start a scene, you usually have a clear idea of
what will happen. But it' s also possible that the scene
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includes an unexpected element.

When you need to get something random, we suggest

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that you take your favorite oracle and interpret it

according to the following tables.

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 WHAT THE ORACLE THE EVENT IS :
REFERS TO? 1-2: Negative
1.Object 3-4: Neutral
2.Location 5-6: Positive

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3.Information
4.Magic RANDOM EVENT %

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5.Unexpected event Trip: d6(3-6)
6.Monster / NPC Scripted scene: d6 (6)

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Examples of interpretation: you draw a flower on the
oracle table
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▪ Object & negative : a poisoned perfume
▪ Location & neutral : the place you arrive in is covered
with roses in honor of someone or a tradition
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▪ Information & positive : you get an alchemical

formula, a potion
▪ Magic & negative : giant roots have invaded the place,
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destroying the houses

▪ Unexpected event & neutral: a wind of flower blows
surprisingly on the village
▪ Monster / NPC & positive: an herbalist offers to join
your team
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THE HERO'S
JOURNEY
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 The strength of the solo rpg is to be able to create a link
with its characters to create emotion. Unlike other
games, The Wandering Knight proposes to work on
the character's initiation journey, on his transformation

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into a hero.

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THE WEAKNESS
At the beginning of the adventure, the Wandering
Knight has a weakness. It is a mental, psychological
weakness. This weakness ruins his life and he doesn't
know how to face it.
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Hektor, your character, needs money. He feels
like a loser because he blames
himself for not earning
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enough money to feed his

family.
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The adventure hook is essential

in the character's journey into
the status of a hero. The hook
is the disruptive event
that will give the
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 character the opportunity to leave his/her current
situation to embark on an adventure. This choice is his
first heroic act. It is also a point of no return: going back
is impossible, the character must win or die.

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Hecktor learns that there is gold in the dungeon. The
winter has been very hard this year and his family is

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going to starve. (Although hook forces him to act), he
makes the choice to go and get the gold.

In the Slow Start stage, don't worry too much about this
weakness.
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Hecktor is going to discover a universe that is totally
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unknown to him. This discovery (be it wonderful or
terrifying) will make him forget his daily problems.
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MORAL DILEMMAS
Moral choices are likely to arise. Your character may be
acting like a coward - he is not yet a hero and is morally
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protected by his weakness.

In the dungeon, Hektor discovered that the black mage
wanted to attack the kingdom. He had the choice to run
away with the gold or to warn the guard. He preferred

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 to flee with the gold (which can be justified by his
weakness)

It’s the Pinch Point stage that will bring the character

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back to his weakness. This weakness will explode in his
face and provoke a real moral dilemma in him. An

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internal conflict must appear.

Hektor, decides to go have a good time in the village inn

before going back home. Bad luck, the antagonist
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decided to test his monster army on this village. Hektor
discovers a burning village. Hektor knows that he had
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the ability to change things. But he made another
choice. What if the antagonist's next target was the
village where his family lives?
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EMERGENCE OF THE NEED

From the scene of the hero's counter-attack, these
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contradictions lead the character to question himself on

what is the most important and on the values that
should animate him.

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 The character's contradictions must bring out a NEED
so powerful that the character will overcome his fear
even when all hope seems lost.
For Hektor, it's no longer about money, it's about

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saving an entire kingdom

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In the Twist or False Climax stage, the character's
defeat should make him lose all fighting will, all hope of
victory.
Climax is no longer a question of strength
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or statistics. The road has already
been traveled. It doesn't matter if
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the hero has lost all his allies. It's just a
matter of will.
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Will the Knight Errant become

a hero? Will he
become rich but remain a
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coward? Will he find

death in the process?

Now it's up to you

to say!
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 CREDITS
AUTHOR: Gin Lunar

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PUBLISHER: Doppelgänger Publishing

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All images used are in the public domain
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COMMUNITIES
https://mewe.com/group/5bbbfc02a40f3002b3637fdc
https://www.reddit.com/r/Solo_Roleplaying/
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AUTHOR'S BLOG
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