solo ttrpgs – Page 13 – PopCult Reviews

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Starforged: Abyss of Shadows Part One

When I first started playing Starforged earlier this year, I wasn’t keen on just using the setting that came with the game. The beauty of Sean Tomkin’s Ironsworn system is that it is incredibly modular and easily adaptable. So, I wanted to play a science fiction-style game and did a rough sketch of the type of universe it would be. I wanted the entire toybox of popular science fiction tropes and subgenres, but all in one reality. This is what I refer to in my notes as the Megaverse. The physical distance between these places in a singular galaxy is vast, something abstract that keeps them separate enough but can allow for fun crossovers.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Dark Space/Cthulhu Dark Part Two

Purchase this game here.

Read Part One here

In the same way, I randomly rolled for crew members, I chose a similar method of exploring the Orpheus Station. On an earlier roll, I failed to get a map of the station from the tight-lipped AI, so our characters would wander through the facility trying to find an explanation for the sudden disappearance of thousands of people & the origins of the strange gray dust littering the floor everywhere.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Dark Space/Cthulhu Dark Part One

Purchase this game here.

Read Part Two here.

In space, no one can hear you scream, they tell us. Popular media has certainly given us lots of scares set among the stars. Dark Space is a collection of science fiction/horror scenarios compatible with the rules-lite Cthulhu Dark, with eventual support coming for Mongoose’s Traveller system. The rules for Cthulhu Dark are included at the back of Dark Space but are also available for free online. The game would also mesh well with any of the Cthulhu-themed rpg systems on the market.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Dungeon World Solo Part Four

Begin with Part One here

In my last session, I managed to develop the mysterious purple orc that randomly came up. My thinking behind this character is that I dislike the Tolkien orcs as actual characters. They work as mindless hordes to throw at the heroes, but orcs, as characters in fantasy stories, have a lot of potential. I’ve always liked Warcraft’s handling of them much better, giving them a richer & more complex culture, showing they are not mindless savages but have a whole society of their own. I also liked the idea of Ukrom being an ancient mage (I rolled prehistoric on an Age table) and a reminder of what orcs used to be. While they will pop up near the end of this session, I do have ideas for the species when I continue this Dungeon World solo campaign in the future.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Dungeon World Solo Part Three

Read parts one and two first

During the last session of Dungeon World solo, two random elements came up that I immediately flagged as important parts of the story going forward. The first was the band of pirates along the Mondeo coast. It made sense to connect them to the Larcenists Society danger. They are the naval branch, and their leader, Captain Molly Rhys, feels like a decent bad-guy boss to face off with at the end of this series. The second was the magically infected orc living within The Sunken Tower. I had no idea he would be in there when I used the Perilous Wilds tables. One descriptor from my rolls stood out the most to me, and that was “primitive,” which made me think not of “unsophisticated” but “prehistoric.” What would a prehistoric orc be doing in this Tower? I had some ideas.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Dungeon World Solo Part Two

Make sure to read part one before this and part three next.

During my Dungeon World solo playthrough, I extensively used Perilous Wilds. While Parts Per Million’s Dungeon World Solo book is helpful, it only looks at Dungeon World. Here’s the thing about DW: it’s a fine game, but I have always felt it was underbaked. There’s very little about dungeon crawling in the core book, and some of the mechanics (Hirelings in particular) are confusing and not fun. Perilous Wilds feels like the missing portions of the game, providing revised rules for hirelings and tools to build dungeons as you play and even create monsters on the fly. These tools helped make this playthrough fun; I never knew what lay in store for me next.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Dungeon World Part One

Read Part Two here and Part Three here

Of all the games under the banner of “Powered by the Apocalypse,” Dungeon World is probably the most well-known and played. It’s a variation of the classic dungeon-crawling tabletop rpg games that dominate the hobby. While games like Dungeons & Dragons rely on skill checks and rigid combat systems, Dungeon World takes a fiction-first approach, with all rolls being player-facing. Everything in the game happens as an extension of the player’s actions. There are no modules with structured adventures; instead, Dungeon World encourages improvisation and, at most, a simple dungeon starter outline. As with all the PBtA games, the focus is on playing to discover what happens without having all the steps written down beforehand.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Host: Until the Light Takes Us

Host: Until the Light Takes Us (Running from Skeletons)
Written by James Boychuk & Dylan Richardson
You can purchase this game here

Halloween means horror and there is no shortage of scary tabletop RPGs. This one is a very simple story generator centered around the end of the world & visions that predict its coming. I found this very similar to games like Alone Among the Stars where the mechanics simply provide a jumping off point for the player’s own imagination. This is not a game that takes you by the hand and guides your experience. Instead, it demands the player really dig deep and find an interesting story to tell from the inspiration given.

There’s not much more to say about it, so here’s my play through:

Patron Exclusive: Screenplay Episode One

Our first episode of Screenplay is here, exclusively for our patrons. In this podcast, Ariana & Seth collaborative sketch out a world for our tabletop role playing experience, sharing tropes we like from media, building out NPCs with motivations & conflicts. Make sure to join PopCult Reviews’ Patreon now to listen to this and other exclusive podcasts.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Frontier Scum: Lonesome Drifter Part Two

Read Part One of this series.

The story of Hamsor Pang comes to a tragic ending, however we continues things a little further by shifting our perspective to a new protagonist.

(Oracle question: Is the upside-down silver cross worn by the bounty hunter in the cabin? Likely odds. Nat 20. Yes)

Pang takes a breath of the fresh, snowy air outside the mountain cabin. He turns back and looks at the dark mouth of the doorway. He remembers the necklace the bounty hunter wore, the upside cross. Something itches in his brain, that this could be useful to have in his possession. Taking a deep breath, Pang steps back into the abattoir and after a few minutes of searching finds the necklace still hanging from the butchered corpse’s neck. He takes it.

(Luck check DR14 vs. 6, 5. Failure)