solo ttrpgs – Page 15 – PopCult Reviews

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Fiasco + Mythic GM Emulator Part One

Fiasco 2nd Edition (Bully Pulpit Games)
Designed & Written by Jason Morningstar

Mythic GM Emulator 2nd Edition (Word Mill Games)
Designed & Written by Tana Pigeon

You can purchase Fiasco here
You can purchase Mythic GM Emulator here

As I’ve mentioned, my first foray into tabletop gaming didn’t happen until I was in my late 20s. Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition had just come out, and I was curious. I found pdf scans of the three core books online and tried DMing as my first outing. I never really liked how many rules there were, and I found they got in the way of trying to tell stories. I still wanted to roleplay, but it would have to be with a different game. This is around the time I stumbled across Fiasco on r/rpg. It seemed like the perfect fit, and I had a lot of fun in multiple sessions of this game. I was all-in when the Kickstarter came along in 2019 for a 2nd card-based edition. Due to COVID-19, I never played it with anyone until the previous weekend, from when I wrote this. I brought it over for dinner at a friend’s house in the Netherlands. Fun was had by all. But I was wondering if Fiasco could be done single-player. It would not be the same game, but it could be a robust storytelling tool.

Solo Tabletop RPG – Mork Borg: Solitary Defilement Part Three

Mork Borg: Solitary Defilement (10d+5)
Written & Designed by…? (no specific names on the document)

Read Part One, where I explain the rules/tone of Mork Borg and this solo supplement.

You can get this set of solo rules here.
This playthrough also uses the Mork Borg Core Rules and the Feretory supplement.
Our next player character is Von the Fanged Deserter. Here is the description I was given when I generated them in Esoteric Hermit.

Your earliest memories are of following an arm in eastern Wästland.

You have thirty or so friends who never let you down: YOUR TEETH. Disloyal, deranged, or simply uncontrollable, any group that didn’t boot you out, you left anyway. But your parliament of teeth — enormous, protruding, thick, and sharp — have always been your allies.

Nihilistic and suspicious. Starved: gaunt and pale. Permanent phlegm deposit in throat. Continuous cough, snort, spit, and swallow. Banished and disowned for unspecified deeds. Can never go home.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Fake Guru, Real Vice

Fake Guru, Real Vice (Sealed Library)
Written & Designed by Sealed Library

You can purchase this game here.

Based on Chris Bissette’s The Wretched, Fake Guru, Real Vice asks the player to imagine they are someone who has influenced the thoughts & behaviors of the masses. You may be a famous self-help figure, a tech billionaire turned motivational speaker, or an influential megachurch preacher in my game. You’ve accrued a lot of material wealth and skeletons in your closet. Those skeletons are about to break out, starting with a popular gossip magazine’s story exposing just some of them. Your PR team has assured you they are taking legal action and that nothing more will come out. However, when you are honest with yourself, you admit much more is about to explode.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Mork Borg: Solitary Defilement Part Two

Mork Borg: Solitary Defilement (10d+5)
Written & Designed by…? (no specific names on the document)

Read Part One, where I explain the rules/tone of Mork Borg and this solo supplement.
You can get this set of solo rules here.
This play through also uses the Mork Borg Core Rules and the Feretory supplement.

Our next player character is Prügl the Occult Herbmaster. Here is the description I was given when I generated them in Esoteric Hermit.

From a little witches’ cottage in Galgenbeck.

Born of the mushroom, raised in the glade, watched by the eye of the moon in a silverblack pool.

Nihilistic and wasteful. Cataracts slowly but surely spreading in both eyes. Best friend is a skull. Carry it with you, tell it everything, you trust no one more.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Lineage: Epoch Edition

Lineage: Epoch Edition (WYH Games)
Written & Designed by G. Johnson

You can get Lineage here.

Additionally, I used the following “quality of life” supplements: Family Tree Worksheet and For the Ages.

Like Ex Novo, Anamnesis, or Artefact, this game is more like a tool to aid in worldbuilding that is also fun to play with. If you’re searching for something parallel to a character-focused adventure, this isn’t that, though you could use this to establish a monarchy in your fantasy kingdom with a rich backstory for both the people and the land. What Lineage is, is a royal family history builder. Using a couple six-sided dice, you will roll on a series of tables to determine everything from the descriptive sobriquet of the ruling royal to how many children they have to the events that occur within the kingdom during their reign to the cause of their death.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Supersworn Part Five

Supersworn Pre-Alpha
Designed & Written by Ben Adams

You can check out this game and many other hacks of Ironsworn here.

Read part four of our Supersworn actual play here.

Once again, I used Mythic GM Emulator 2ed tools to set up this session along with Starforged’s built-in Start of Session move. That latter move generated this for me: “Unforeseen aid is on the way or within reach.” I got this at the start of the last session in the context of a comic book adventure; I interpret this as another hero guest-starring. I had a list of names and randomly picked one: The Forever Kid. So at some point, we will meet The Forever Kid and learn what he is about. Then, I decided the Chaos Factor from the last session had gone up from 7 to 8 and rolled on Mythic’s scene table. I was told to go with an Altered Scene with the prompt “Remove a character.” This was the moment I decided to just reveal the phone call from Aunt Laurie was an illusion removing her from the moment.

Solo Tabletop Actual Play – Little Town Part Three

Little Town
Designed & Written by Gustavo Coelho

You can purchase this game here.

Read part two here.

For this second chapter, I decided to pick a character introduced in the last session and continue the story from their perspective. The one I settled on is Richard Robertson, the father of Liza, the girl who is currently in a coma after being struck by a car after she ran wildly out of the Twin Rivers State Park late one night. I knew he had secrets when I introduced him last session but didn’t flesh them out until this one. Rolling on the book’s table told me he had two, and I tied them both to his profession as a psychiatrist: 1) he’s currently having an affair with Lucy Hayward, one of his patients, and 2) he’s become an addict, and because this takes place in 1996, his drug of choice is OxyContin which had been seen as a miracle narcotic upon its release in 1995. Being an incredibly flawed & complicated character is more interesting to play than some perfect golden boy type.

Solo Tabletop Actual Play – Supersworn Part Four

Supersworn Pre-Alpha
Designed & Written by Ben Adams

You can check out this game and many other hacks of Ironsworn here.

Read part three of our Supersworn actual play here.

Before I started this Supersworn series, I decided to delve into Tana Pigeon’s The Adventure Crafter and see if I could incorporate elements into this. It has worked really well. The Adventure Crafter has the solo player organize a list of Themes in order of priority for their game: Action, Mystery, Tension, Social, and Personal. Then, to create a plot point, you roll to determine the Theme and then roll a d100 to be given a random plot element related to that Theme. Each plot point can consist of five of these elements, and they generate hooks to get a story going. In the spirit of classic Spider-Man comics, I have a list of five plot points, each following a separate story, that I have randomly rolled on to see if we pivot from where we are to something else. I hoped it would create the sense of a vibrant living world populated by a host of characters, and it has certainly felt like that while playing.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Little Town Part Two

Little Town
Designed & Written by Gustavo Coelho

You can purchase this game here.
Read part one here.

Since our last post, Little Town’s creator Gustavo Coelho has updated the pdf with links. That has made navigating the book far easier and was a desperately needed quality-of-life upgrade.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Supersworn Part Three

Supersworn Pre-Alpha
Designed & Written by Ben Adams

You can check out this game and many other hacks of Ironsworn here.

Read part two of our Supersworn campaign.

Here is a map of Forge City with essential locations marked that we have visited, will be visiting, or may visit in the future.

Slingshot travels to South Gardens, where he lives with his Aunt Laurie and sister Mari. He slips in through the upstairs window, which Sling leaves unlocked each night when he goes out on patrol. Stepping gingerly, he attempts to make sure not to wake anyone. It’s 4am, and now, back in his Chris Kelly persona, our hero decides to skip his first class. This is risky as he’s missed so many sessions of his MWF Investigative Journalism classes that the teacher, Professor Mercer, has given him both a verbal and written warning that he is in danger of failing. However, Chris’s body screams at him for rest. He disinfects & bandages his wounds with a first aid kit. He hides in his closet and finally collapses into the warm embrace of his bed. Sleep comes like a wave, washing over him.

(Oracle question: Is anyone in the house when Chris wakes up? 50/50 odds. Answer: No)