CAPERS SOLO

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This product requires CAPERS RPGs.
For more information see Nerdburgergames.com

Written by: Peter Rudin-Burgess

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Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
You are free to:
❖ Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
❖ Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
for any purpose, even commercially.
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Parts Per Million Under the following terms:

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license,
and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner,
but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

Elements of these rules were first created by Karl Hendricks and releases as
www.ppmgames.co.uk
the One Page Solo Engine CC BY-SA 4.0
CAPERS SOLO
Introduction
CAPERS is a 1920s themed Supers game. The core mechanic uses standard
playing cards for random numbers in place of dice.
These solo rules maintain the use of playing cards, and as much as
possible, it keeps to the same core rules. If you are familiar with playing
or running CAPERS, you should have no problems with the use of the
cards.
If you bought these rules, you are probably familiar with CAPERS.
Still, you possibly not so familiar with solo role-playing or even if or
how such a thing is possible.
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What is Solo Roleplay?
Solo role-play just another way of enjoying role-playing games [RPGs]. RPGs
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are often associated with groups of friends sat around a table sharing in beer
and pizza. In our busy modern lives, that ideal is often harder to achieve than
we would wish with work and family commitments and often people we played
with for years at school or college moving right across the country.
Today many role players only get to enjoy their hobby playing
online using chat apps such as Discord or forums such as Rolld20 and
RPOL. Other people give up on pen and paper role-playing games and
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turn to computer RPGs.
Online games for popular games are easy to find and join. Still,
with the loss of all the non-verbal communication that you get around a
table, they can often seem shallow or stilted. There are often scheduling
problems, and the sound quality can be an issue. Forum or Play by Post
offers a much richer experience but at a much slower pace with turns
taking days to play out.
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Solo play and Game Master-less [GM-less] play offers an
alternative. If we look at GM-less play, first of all, it is often easier to
visualise.
In a GM-less game, the rules in this booklet fulfil the role of GM. If
you have two or more players, the rules are passed from player to
player and when you would normally ask the GM a question about the
world the player currently holding the rules draws the card from the
GM deck and interprets the answer. The rules and deck are then passed
to the next player. In this style of the game, everyone gets to play, and
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no one has to be exclusively the GM.
Solo play takes GM-less play to the natural minimum of one player
and no GM. You start with your character and an interesting entry
point to the story. When you would ask your GM a question, you ask the
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rules instead and draw the card. It is then down to you to interpret the
result.
There are two separate tools in this booklet. The first is called the
Oracle. This is a common term in solo play, and it is a way of generating
an answer to what should be a yes/no question. Only we all know that a
GM will rarely give you a simple yes or no answer!
The second tool is called a Seer. Seers give you answers to more
complex questions. Questions such as What are they talking about? Or
What has she written in her diary? Yes or no is not going to work in this
situation.
Whichever tool you are using you draw a card and look up the
answer on a table and then use that answer in your game.
How to Solo Play
Solo play sounds strange at first, and when you first try it, it will probably be
slow progress. This is just because it is new, and you are not familiar with the
tools or style of play. Don’t worry!
You start with your character, and you put them into a high-stress
situation. You know the sort of game you want to have, and you know
your character. Maybe they are tied to a chair and have a light shining
in their eyes, maybe it is a rooftop chase, and they are shooting at you.
You take a leaf out of Hollywood’s book and start right in the thick of
the action. You then play through this scene in your imagination. You
‘play out’ actions and conversations with NPCs exactly as you would if
you were playing a regular game of CAPERS. All the normal rules of
CAPERS apply so you will make trait and skill checks as per the rules.
Pretty quickly, you will reach a point where you would normally ask
your GM a question, only you don’t have a GM to ask.
This is where the oracle comes in. Most questions will be yes/no.
You ask the questions that are best for the game and not necessarily
best for your character. You draw a card and get an answer. What you
 THE ORACLE
do now is put your improv skills to work. What does that answer mean
right now? Take into account; the story so far, the type of story you
want to have and the answer you have drawn. It is most often best to go

with the first thing that comes into your head, a bit like word
association games. Now you have your answer you carry on the game.
Sometimes the answer will not be what you expected, or it will
twist your storyline in new directions. That is the fun of solo play. You
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The Oracle is the tool that you will use the most. If you want to know if the
cops are outside that is an oracle question, are there any witnesses, that is an
oracle question. Asking a question is really a three-step process. You need to

will never know where the story will take you.
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decide on how likely a yes or no answer is. If you have just had a shootout
downtown, the street is covered with broken glass and bystanders are running
around screaming; asking the question are the cops on the way is very likely to
be a yes. Somethings are going to highly unlikely, and most things will be
somewhere in between. If you honestly have no idea it is a straight 50/50 oracle
check.
The likelihood is on a scale of plus or minus one to five but should
normally be on a scale of one to three. Plus or minus four or five is
reserved for questions where the answer is almost certain. Running into

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a police precinct and asking the oracle if there is a police officer in sight
is an almost certain yes.
Below is the Oracle table. Take a look, and afterwards, I will
explain how it works.

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Oracle
Draw One Card
Pip Value Answer
2-5 No
6-8 A Complication
9-A Yes
If Your Oracle Check was a Yes:
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Suit Modifier
Spades Yes and…
Hearts Yes
Diamonds Yes
Clubs Yes but…
If Your Oracle Check was a No:
Suit Modifier
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Spades No, and…

Hearts No
Diamonds No
Clubs No because…

The “pip value” of a card is the number (or jack, queen, king, or ace)
shown on the card.
 Taking the pip value of the card, you will get one of three possible Example Two, you draw the nine of clubs, a yes but… answer.
results; Yes, No or A Complication. If you have a Yes or No you need to There are two goons here, but they seem tetchy and on their guard. One
check the suit of your card for the final answer. is constantly checking and rechecking a pistol in his waistband. The

We will look at the yes-no answers first and then complications
afterwards.
Yes and No should be self-explanatory. The modifiers there come in
three forms and…, but… and because….
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but… modifier has made your task here more difficult. You have your
goons, but they are alert and are going to be hard to trick.
Example Three, the five of spades is a No and… You want to pump
these goons for information. As you push your way into the joint, you

❖ and…: The answer is more than you expected. It could be much worse
than you expected with a No and… or much better with a Yes and….
❖ but…: The but modifier only affects Yes answers, and it tones down the
yes so it is not quite as good as it could be. Yes, you have found an
automobile, but it is nearly out of gas, that sort of thing.
❖ because…: The because modifier forces you to think of a why the
answer is a No and ideally one that your character could react to or
overcome to turn the No into a Yes. It prevents the No from becoming a
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see a couple of workers carrying out the tables and chairs and dust
sheets being thrown over the bar. It looks like this place is being shut
down. It looks like you have lost your lead this time.
Example Four, The two of clubs, As you are about to enter the
speakeasy two officers of the law push open the door and frog march a
goon out and into a patrol car. The answer is a No because the police
got there first but could your character get a few moments alone with
the goon in the back of the police car?

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dead stop. Example Five, you draw a seven and the suit doesn’t matter as you
have drawn a complication. You push your way into the speakeasy, and
Complications as your hand is on the door a newsie from down the street shouts your
A complication is something has happened that will force your character to
name and waves a paper trying to get your attention, everyone within
change their immediate plan. You could have walked into a speakeasy looking
50’ seems to be looking between you and him. Not the most subtle of

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for some goons to pump for information. You ask the oracle, and it says
Complication. An easy option is to say that Mr Big is sat right in front of the entrances, but how does he know you and what is he so desperate to tell
bar. What do you do now? you?
The point of a complication is to force your story to take a twist or a
turn and hopefully in a direction you had not initially thought of.

So What Do You Do With Your Answer?

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You have your answer, but that is just one of three pieces of information you
need. The second is your story so far. The answer needs to make sense in the
current context. The third is the kind of story you want to have. Using all three
parts, you decide what does that answer mean in this situation?
I am going to use the example of walking into a speakeasy and
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looking for a couple of lowlifes to spill the beans on their bosses plans.
Example One, you draw the Queen of Spades. That gives you a Yes
and… result. You walk in, and there are a couple of goons sleeping off
too much booze, clutched in the hands of one is a manila envelope. The
yes and result has put two goons in your hands and the potential that
the envelope contains more useful information.
THE SEER
Shall we find out about that envelope? We ask the Seer again, what
role does the envelope play? I draw the Ace of Clubs and get “Planning”
+ “Physical”.

The Seer is another single card draw. This time you do not need to set any
difficulty. When you need to ask an open-ended question, draw a card from the
deck. Use this table to inspire the answer and interpret it within the context of
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My immediate reaction was that the envelope is supposed to
contain the blackmail money, but it is stuffed with newspaper. This and
the goons are part of a set up to trap the blackmailer and put a stop to
them forever.

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the current scene. This is how the oracle and the Seer can introduce entirely new side
Pip Value Meaning plot to your games.
2 Seeking
3 Failing
4 Opposing Keeping Track of Adventures
5 Taking
6 Communicating As your CAPERS adventure proceeds, you will find that the number of NPCs
7 Abandoning you have created starts to grow. The number of these side missions or plots
8 Moving also starts to accumulate. Normally the GM would have all of this information

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9 Assisting in their game notes, but there is no GM.
10 Harming Nearly all solo role players keep some form of a journal. How much
Jack Changing you write in your journal is a personal choice. Some players visualise
Queen Creating
the next scene, ask a few questions, draw a few cards and then write
King Deceiving

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Ace Planning
out the scene in long-form almost like the chapter in a novel. These solo
Suit rules can be used as a writing tool in that way if you wish. Other
Clubs physical, strong, constructed players write very little. The journal of my games tends to be little more
Diamonds mental, plotting, technical than bullet points of key facts, the questions I asked and the answers. It
Spades magical, intuitive, strange serves as a memory jogger and would mean very little to anyone else.
Hearts personal, social, emotional How much of a journal you want to keep is up to you. I find the less
time I spend writing, the more immersed in the story I can stay.
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Scenes
Making Sense of the Answer It is useful to think of your story in scenes. A scene has an entry point and an
end when the director would shout Cut!
Using our examples from earlier. This time you have pinned down your goons In solo play, you really don’t need to play every scene. You can hop
and using your Charisma trait and skills you have forced them to talk. You about and only play the bits you want to play. You can just make
draw a card and get the nine of hearts. The Seer says “Assisting” + “personal, assumptions about what happened in between.
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social, emotional”. I cannot see these goons helping the mob boss with a social
or emotional problem, but the personal stands out to me. So these two goons
are on a mission for the mob boss that relates to a personal issue, not his
criminal schemes. That sounds like blackmail to me. That would also suggest
that the manila envelope contains either blackmail money or maybe photos?
A scene starts when you pick up the action and is often preceded by
a couple of Oracle questions to pin down details. Scenes that start with
complications, you rolled A Complication in answer to a simple Oracle
question, can completely change the direction of the game. In a recent
GM-less game we were heading to the town hall to file some papers and
one player asked the Oracle if we get there without incident. The oracle
said Complication and the player blurted out “Someone has probably
blown it up!” and that is what we went with. All of a sudden, we were Loose Ends
dealing with an armed insurrection. Loose ends are the result of either Complication that you didn’t follow up or
Most new scenes will not be so dramatically different. Remember Seer answers that hinted at other things going on. If you are hunting down a

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that complications could be as simple as missing a train or meeting killer and it appears that the mob boss is being blackmailed do you switch
someone you know and wants to chat or as game-changing as the focus? Are they related?
example above. The loose ends list is a place to keep all those loose ends, but more
When you create a new scene, you ask any questions that importantly, you will review this list.

immediately spring to mind and then play out the scene.
Scenes tend to end when the action moves to a new location or the
focus changes significantly.
In the back of this booklet is a record sheet for scenes. It is helpful
to keep a list of scenes, briefly what happened and who was there. Like
your journal, this helps you to visualise the flow of your game. Still,
more importantly, if you revisit a location, you can instantly see what
was the last scene to take place there. If it was a super-powered brawl
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At the beginning of the end of your solo session, it is a good idea to
look over the list of the loose ends and see if any of them could be
related. These can often imply that another plot or storyline is going on
that your character is not directly involved in.
I suggest when you identify possibly related loose ends that you
take a highlight marker and colour them. You can then write a brief
suggested outline of what this subplot really is.
This will add a new layer of depth to your game, and in future when
you roll a complication, you may want to tie it into this new plot as a

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between Exceptionals, then the place is probably going to be a mess,
and you may not be too welcome! way of hooking your character into the story.
Looping back to existing loose ends for your complications can also
NPCs
stop your game world becoming too complicated with too many loose
I would strongly recommend creating a small supply of NPCs. Not only does
ends subplots and unexplained happenings.

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this help you get to grips with character creation but having a selection of
Regulars, Exceptionals and Capers for both Criminals and Law Enforcement
on hand saves you breaking off your game when you suddenly need a new
NPC.
At the back of this booklet is a record sheet for NPCs. Its primary
use is to track who you have met and where. This helps you keep your
world consistent, Jimmy the Fence is always at the dog track, so you
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know where to find him. It also helps you to reuse NPCs. If you had to
create a Regular taxi driver, then just reuse the same taxi driver. Most
of the time, I wouldn’t even create a regular like that. Still, if the NPC
gets caught in the crossfire and you need to save them then you start to
have a relationship with them, maybe you know their name, and they
look out for you when you are downtown?
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Reusing NPCs keeps your NPC list shorter and adds an element of
flavour to the game. You know the name of your fence, you know the
name of the taxi driver. You may get to know their vices. Some may
even get elevated to an Exceptional if they survive their encounters
with you.
 Jokers For Good and For Bad
You have a good Joker and a Bad Joker. When you draw a joker, it is a cue to
try and end the scene. It doesn’t mean you just stop dead. As normal you take
everything into account, but you think what could cut this scene short? What
would break up the party? Finish the fight? End the interrogation?
The good Joker ends the scene in a way that is helpful to the
character, it sends in the cavalry if you are losing the fight, it cracks the
hoodlum under interrogation or bursts a tire of the automobile you are
chasing.
The Bad Joker lets the bad guys getaway, it jambs your weapon, it
brings down the ceiling just as you had the mob boss on the ropes.
Jokers exist to move your story on. They should add to the action,
but they do not necessarily add complications or plot twists.
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Solo Role Play Hints & Tips
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The golden rule is ‘do not ask too many questions’. Ask a question and possibly
a follow up if you are still not sure but then just start to improvise.
Do not ask game-breaking questions. Don’t ask if you wake up and
the Mona Lisa under your bed or you have $10,000 in your valise case.
If you need these things, just add them to your character sheet. It is
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your game, no one will ever know!
Playing as a solo hero in a game designed for parties of 6-8 heroes
is hard. You may want to add a couple of major advancements to your
character to keep your character on top of their game. This also adds
more scope for skipping back into your characters past to play
flashbacks.
Don’t start your first solo play sitting in a speakeasy or your other
quiet location. Take a leaf from Hollywood and start right in the thick of
the action, a rooftop fight against hoodlums, in a runaway automobile
careering towards a crowd of innocents. You know the sort of adventure
you want to have. Start there and start in the thick of it.
The first time you solo plays, it will probably be slow and stilted as
you don’t know the rules or what to expect. Don’t worry, this is normal,
and the more you play, the faster and more fluid it all becomes.
It is useful to have a stock of pre-generated NPCs. When you are
learning a new game, it is useful to make a few characters to try and
get an idea for how the rules work. Keep those characters and use them
when you need an NPC. That saves breaking up your game to create an
NPC at a crucial moment.
Narrative Description is your friend. Have you ever had a character
in a barroom brawl and asked the GM if there a bottle or chair at the
table you can throw? Or maybe you asked is the chandelier secured by a
rope, when you wanted to swing across the hall. In solo play, the
answer to all these questions is yes. It is your story, your adventure,
you are the star and director. The props will always be in the right
place.
Fail Forward. If something goes wrong and the adventure would
end, or there is no way out, ask the oracle. In the movies, the hero faces
seemingly impossible situations all the time and somehow gets out of
them. You are the hero, it is OK to save yourself.
The questions you ask should be the ones best for the game and not
what is best for your character.
 ANATOMY OF A
SOLO GAME
New Scene

Imagine the scene from your

characters point of view.

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Yes or No

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Do you need No Do you need Yes
to make a more Ask the Oracle
Trait or Skill information?
Check?

A Complication
No
Yes

Use the normal

game rules.
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from your characters
No

Does this
force a
Yes
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point of view. new scene?
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End of Scene

For some people, all that description of scenes
and complications is too wordy and too fuzzy. The
diagram above hopefully helps show how the game
works.
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There are two basic cycles. The first
happens if you need more information at any
point in the scene. You use the oracle and then

take the answer and add that into the scene. If

If the diagram is not for you, then look
away now, it will not hamper your game in any
way.
You will always start by imagining the
opening of the scene.
you are then happy to play the scene the game
moves on.
When a trait or skill check is required, the
normal CAPERS rules apply. These solo rules
never take precedence over the standard
CAPERS rules.
Eventually, the scene will be played out, or an
Oracle result will force the end of the scene. At that
point, you loop back to the top and start the next
scene.
 Scene List
Location Objective Detail Who is here, what happened?

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 NPC List
Name Location Traits Identity/Virtue/Vice

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 Loose Ends List
Who? What? Where? Connections?

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