#solorpg

The plague is here. You’re the only surgeon left in town. You can’t save everyone—but you might be able to save one person. 🩺💀

THE SURGEON is a solo journaling RPG of medical survival, resource management, and dark memories.

Grab a deck of cards and a d6. The operation begins now.

Second release in a week, somebody STOP ME

'Triple-O' is my take on a one-page Player Character Emulator

⭕ Run published adventured modules as a solo GM! ⭕ Test-run your world-building, adventure, or prep ⭕ Emulate allies or hirelings

Spread the word! 😊💗

Namely I was torn between Apothecaria and For Small Creatures Such As We. Although I love me some herbalism/fantasy stuffs... I went with FSCSAW because it has fewer expansion packs and is less complicated.

Committed to the randomizer because the point is to have to make fewer decisions about stuff and to lean into the idea that the story is fun when shit goes wrong.

I really want to stress that solo rpg is one of the cheapest hobbies there is. So many rpg systems and solo systems are free or PWYW. Once you wrap your head around it, you just need a way to write things down, and some dice--and plenty of systems use six sided dice, so dice from any board game will work. Even D20 games can be hacked--roll 3 six sided die. You won't get results of 19-20 or 1-2, but that just makes your results a little less swingy.

Most of all, it's about emergent storytelling.

I've settled into using fountain pen, pencil and physical dice for most things, and using my tablet for rules reference and random tables. Being as analogue as possible is helping me enjoy it, I think. It's become precious quiet just-for-me time No one will see the results, no one will judge how I do or how I journal, it's me and the dice and my imagination.

My two current campaigns are:

Classic Traveller (facsimiles of the 1981 editions of the basic books are free, but I bought a huge bundle of supplements): I think I have spent roughly 8 hours and my main character has done two (2) things so far, bought some spice and found a patron.

Constructing elaborate stories to support character generation results and rolling and developing a subsector has been wonderful reflective creative practice. I find myself thinking a lot about it when not playing. While Mongoose Traveller felt more of a complete rpg in the modern way, Classic Traveller feels like a box of tools to create my own stories with. It's going to be amazing for solo, I think. It's already been amazing if I never play it again.

On the fantasy style of things, I've been using Microlite20 (PWYW, I chucked a couple of dollars but the suggested price is free) which is a super simplified system for D&D 3.5 compatability (other versions exist if you want to play other editions or systems). I generated a random dungeon on Donjon (free, and it also has a free copy of the Purest Essence version of the rules). I'm using Plot Unfolding Machine and Scene Unfolding Machine (paid) as oracles, but a free Oracle like One Page Solo Machine would work just fine.

Next Weeks schedule. Solo Sunday is going to be the new game Game stream is Death Mark still Art Stream is up in the air what I want to do art

You find five boys close to your age lying peacefully side by side. They have nothing in common except for one thing: They look just as tired as you.

Your excited dreams of a summer adventure feel so small and far away now.