Solo Role Playing

A quick guide

Introduction
I hope to provide a quick overview of what solo role playing is and where to find the resources to try it out. I do not intend
to explain how to play as there are already many excellent resources available. This is a signpost to those resources and a
brief overview of what the hobby is.

When I talk about solo role playing, I mean playing alone and without a Game Master (GM). Typically, role-playing games
(RPG) are designed for a GM and one or more players. In my experience, soloing is quite different from traditional RPGs as
you need to take on the role of both the player and GM.

Summary
This section is for you if you just want the recommendations and not all the waffle. There are links to these products in the
final section.

1) D&D Adventures written for solo play by Paul Bimler

2) D&D modules solo - DM Yourself by Tom Scutt
3) D&D create the story as you play Paul Bimler’s The Solo Adventurer’s Toolbox
4) Quick and dirty dungeon crawl with lots of combat- 4 Against Darkness or D100 Dungeon
5) Strong story and lots of narrative and role playing - Ironsworn
6) The full solo experience using Mythic, UNE and Raging Swan books.

I would recommend building up to the 6th option instead of diving straight in. However, there is so much great solo
material available that I do recommend reading around the topic once you get the bug.

A brief overview
There are many different rule systems and ways to play Solo RPGs but most of them share the same four elements. Three
of the elements are familiar to group RPGs and one is totally new.

The ones that you will probably be familiar with are a rule system for structuring the role playing, and a setting to provide
you with a world, location, and culture for your adventure. The third element are random tables. The wandering monster
table is probably familiar and is included in most rule systems or worlds. In soloing you will use a lot more tables to
generate ideas for the story, people, and locations.

Where things really diverge is a way to answer questions about “what happens next”. Typically, this involves a dice roll to
answer yes/no questions (using something called an oracle) and a pair of random tables to generate ideas.

E.g., “is there a person in this room?” (Yes/No). If the answer is yes, you will need an idea of who that person is. The
genius of the Oracle is generating a pair of words that are generic enough that you can use them in most situations but
specific enough that they give you an idea. Continuing our example, we might role Stern & High which might suggest a
Haughty Knight.

Using these four elements an adventure spontaneously creates itself and often goes in totally unexpected directions, but
it does require a lot of imagination. If you think this level of spontaneity would be too daunting, then choose one of the
solo adventure books mentioned later.
If you want to see how this is done in practice, look at the Me Myself and Die videos on YouTube. The first season gives a
clear demonstration of how solo play works. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtiBzkVoYrugJkrpW7_75Ag/playlists

Making the right choice

Before you can choose you really need to understand what you enjoy about RPGs. There are many types of players and I
suspect each style of player will enjoy a different type of solo rule system.

The wargamers who mostly enjoy the fighting typically using miniatures and maps will probably enjoy a system focused
on creating a location and a battle for each scene. A random dungeon creator like Four Against Darkness would be an
example.

Those wanting to create the perfect powerful character with the best abilities and powers would also like a system that
creates encounters but using their preferred game system. Combat tactics with probably be very important as you want to
pit your character against different threats rather than straight on melees. A random dungeon generator and some sort of
“Tactics guide” for getting the monsters to behave in challenging ways.

Beginners to RPGs who want to learn a new gaming system will probably want to create a few skirmishes to get used to
the rules before choosing a gaming style that they prefer.

The beginner, wargamer and character developer are playing skirmishes and probably will want to spend little time
working on story and plot so there is less need for Oracles etc.

Adventurers who want to replicate the experience of playing with a GM who reveals the adventure as you progress will
enjoy adventures and modules specifically written to be played solo. Alternatively, they might choose to play an
adventure designed for group play but use DM Yourself to convert it to solo play.

Role players who prefer writing a story and acting out the conversations and interactions will want a system that allows
the story to develop organically and go in unexpected directions. You might want to play something self-contained like
The Solo Adventurer's Toolbox or Ironsworn. Alternatively, they could use individual solo tools like Mythic, Adventure
Crafter or The Covetous Poets Adventure Creator.

Players who are experienced GMs who love creating worlds, stories, settings, monsters, and treasure might want to
explore Player Emulation instead of GM Emulation. Something like the video game Dungeons 3. It is an idea that I have
seen mentioned but I haven’t seen any rules to make it work. In many ways this makes sense as there are plenty of
Adventure Modules out there so you could create a random party and emulate their decisions. I suspect an Oracle and an
idea of your characters goals and strengths would be enough to make it work.

Most players will probably want a combination of these play styles and will want to incorporate ideas from all these
suggestions. Some players end up with many resources and use little bits of each. Others prefer an all-in-one system which
has been woven into a coherent whole. I would suggest you try to ease yourself in gradually and then “read around the
subject” and add in extra’s that you like. I would also consider using something specifically written for soloing before
progressing to something totally freeform.
Links
Most people coming to solo role playing have played in a group before. You are probably familiar with one of the major
games like Dungeons and Dragons, Rune Quest, Traveller or Savage Worlds, etc. You have the choice of using something
they you know or trying a different system. I would suggest using either your favourite or something specifically written
for soloing.

There are so many options that I am only going to mention a few to get you started. Once you start looking you will
discover a wealth of options.

This Facebook group has many great suggestions so check out the Announcements and Files Page as well as reading
through previous posts. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1534486549964104/announcements and
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1534486549964104/files

There are plenty of lists of solo resources on the internet like this one https://www.dieheart.net/solo-rpg-resources/

Dungeons and Dragons

For Dungeons and Dragons, I would recommend the following:

The Solo Adventurer's Toolbox - is an all-in-one tool to allow you to play D&D solo.
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/252355/The-Solo-Adventurers-Toolbox

DM Yourself is designed to allow you to play existing Adventure Modules as a solo player.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/331912/DM-Yourself--solo-roleplay-for-5e-DD-and-OSR-
adventures?src=hottest_filtered&filters=0_45723_0_0_0_0

Solo D&D Adventures – DmsGuild has a range of solo adventures for D&D. e.g.
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/220997/DD-Solo-Adventure-The-Death-Knights-Squire

Traveller
For Traveller I suggest looking at Solo by Paul Elliott. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/207164/Solo

Specific Solo Systems

If you want a system that is specifically designed for playing solo, there are a few that I know of:

Ironsworn is built from scratch to be played solo and contains everything you need to play. It is free and can be
downloaded free from https://www.ironswornrpg.com/ It is very strong on story and narrative twists but quite different
from traditional RPGs. If you want to see it played search YouTube for “Me Myself and Die” and watch series 2.

D100 Dungeon is another more traditional dungeon crawler. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/244214/D100-

Dungeon?fbclid=IwAR1F6MydK0xesaEJ4Hsm2mxf6CALH6c-w_u0jIPD5T0s19rmeq-184aO_Vk

Four Against Darkness is another game for creating a dungeon on the fly. The base game is focused on a quick and fun
combat romp. There are many expansions that add to this simple game play.
http://www.ganeshagames.net/product_info.php?cPath=1_55&products_id=295

Tunnels and Trolls is a venerable RPG that has many solo adventure books.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/152613/Deluxe-Tunnels--Trolls-2015-edition?filters=0_2140_0_0_0. This was my
first ever introduction to RPGs in the 1980’s. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/210214/Arena-Of-Khazan-TT-
solo?term=arena&filters=44297_0_0_0_0

There are many more listed here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Solo_Roleplaying/wiki/solitairegames

Generic Solo Tools and Oracles

Mythic was the first oracle and the inspiration for the later systems.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product_info.php?products_id=16173&it=1&filters=0_0_0_0_0&manufacturers_id=480
UNE is The Universal NPC Emulator that has a nice system for dealing with people you meet. The same author created
BOLD which has a nice system for creating conversations between your party members.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/134163/UNE-The-Universal-NPC-Emulator-rev?src=hottest_filtered

Random Tables
The Covetous Poet's Adventure Creator and Solo GM Guidebook has some excellent random tables for generating plots,
adventures, scenes, and NPCs. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/129909/The-Covetous-Poets-Adventure-Creator-
and-Solo-GM-Guidebook?term=covetous+

The Adventure Crafter is a system for generating adventures and has some great random tables. It also has sections on
using it with Mythic for solo play. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/261479/The-Adventure-Crafter

It has a sister product called Location Crafter for creating random dungeons, castles, and other locations. It is not a list of
random tables and more a system for allowing you to create an area for solo play that is revealed gradually.

GM's Miscellany create a range of books of random tables which add detail to your locations.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/3311/Raging-Swan-Press

An Online Random Dungeon Generator – is available on Donjon https://donjon.bin.sh/adnd/dungeon/

Creating interesting monster encounters can be helped by giving them goals and tactics.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/331956/Monsters-Tactics and http://spyandowl.com/the-monsters-know

An online Random Name Generator is great for adding flavour to your games. https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/