2024-03-22

rpg

Solo and Weird TTRPGs that I like

I have a collection of solo and weird RPGs. One thing I learned, is that just like books, buying TTRPGs and playing them are totally separate hobbies. I have way more games than I can actually play, but here is a list of some of the ones I like the most at the moment.

Thousand Year Old Vampire

A solo roleplaying game of loss, memory, and vampires.

In Thousand Year Old Vampire you chronicle the many centuries of a vampire’s existence, beginning with the loss of mortality and ending with inevitable destruction. Prompt-driven play and simple resource tracking provide easy rules for exploring your character’s human failings, villainous acts, and surprising victories. Expect gut-churning decisions and irreconcilable acts.

The game mechanics are simple and intuitive. Play progresses semi-randomly through a book of Prompts which let you explore your vampire’s wants and needs, resolve problems, and chart the decline into senescence. Play can happen entirely within the character sheet or can become a journaling activity--both work equally well.

That's straight from their page.

I love how you write your journal and then destroy pages of it as your own memories are lost through the ages.

Apawthecaria

A forest of beasts need your help!

Play as a tiny animal from the Guild of Poulticepounders, making remedies for local beasts as you go on grand journeys with your Familiar sidekick.

Explore Scotland’s varied landscapes as seasons change, reagents bloom and fade and the beasts of the Bristley Woods adapt to survive.

Go on adventures spanning all four seasons, across bogs, lochs, mountains, ancient titan ruins and devious behemoth barrows.

A quest game that gets you exploring woodlands always conscious of your resources, the environment, and those you can help. It is a hard game but soooo cute.

Four Against Darkness

Four Against Darkness is a dungeon delving game. You build four characters and put them through dungeons until you find the final boss or you’re forced to escape. The mechanics are simple and easy to learn and just reading the core book and maybe watching a couple videos on YouTube is enough to get you started. I really recommend checking the tutorial videos by Livi and the dungeon playthrough by the Tabletop Engineer.

I posted my first adventure here

Alone Among The Stars

The first solo game I played. Super easy, all you require is a pack of playing card and dice. It is a simple journaling game you can learn in ten minutes and it is a delight to play. There are so many hacks built upon its simple premise, you can get a bundle of them called Alone On A Journey on itch. There is a version for two players called Together Among The Stars.

The play is basically journaling about your journey on strange planets and environments.

Alice is Missing

An immersive RPG played entirely via text message.

Alice is Missing is a silent role-playing game about the disappearance of Alice Briarwood, a high school junior in the small town of Silent Falls.

The game is played live and without verbal communication. Players inhabit their character for the entirety of the 90-minute play session, and instead of speaking, send text messages back and forth to the other characters in a group chat, as well as individually, as though they aren’t in the same place together.

Hauntingly beautiful, deeply personal, and highly innovative, Alice is Missing puts a strong focus on the emotional engagement between players, immersing them in a tense, dramatic mystery that unfolds organically through the text messages they send to one another.

This is a deep and hard game. One to be played with a group of friends you trust.