Solo RPG recommendations

[Shinizak]

I recently came across the concept of Solo RPGs (RPGs where you're the only player, and the book is the "DM") and I'm gonna order apothecaria (https://blackwellwriter.itch.io/apothecaria) pretty soon. I was wondering if you all knew of some other free versions to tide me over until my order comes in.

[Marcloure]

Ironsworn is the best solo RPG I have ever played. Its dice mechanics, tables, and moves can generate an incredible game by yourself or co-oping with a friend. Also, it has an incredible expansion (Ironsworn: Delve) for dungeon delving, which have procedurally created some of my favorites dungeons. It also has a space hack in production named Starforged.

The game is not exactly free, but each person that buys the book also puts a free copy for the community. It's not hard to find one waiting to be picked.

[Theoboldi]

I'll also recommend Ironsworn. It's actually completely free if you're okay with getting the pdf only.

While I can't say its my absolute favorite system for solo-ing, it's definitely one of the best designed, and will give you a lot of fun, gritty adventures. Fair warning, it's heavily designed around gritty low-fantasy adventures in a nordic-esque setting. You can swap out the setting with optional rules that are part of the core rules, but the gritty feeling will remain.

You'd only need to pay for Delve if you want the expansion, which I would say is very worth it. Check out the base game to see if it's worth your time, I'd say.

Now, I personally enjoy solo gaming the most with a generic rules-light system and a GM emulator. The gold standard for the latter is Mythic GM Emulator, though that one is paid only. As such, I would instead recommend the One Page Solo Engine. It has most of the same features, with the only downside being that it's less newbie friendly.

For systems, I myself like Tricube Tales or Freeform Universal (Of which I've made a customized hack for myself by now.) but I've seen people play games like Savage Worlds in this format too. Anything you're comfortable playing without much preparation works.

The upside of this is that you can play any genre in any setting without much trouble, and can even swap systems easily if another would better fit a story you want to play out.

For fully playable, generic solo systems I know two off the top of my head. I haven't yet tried them out myself, but they are Commonsense RPG and Loner, both of which are 'pay what you want'. These take a relatively freeform approach to the matter, so they may feel pretty unguided to start with, though.

Ironsworn of all of these likely is the most newbie friendly.

Now, I've noticed the game that you linked appears to be a journaling game in particular. Since those are a specific nicge in the solo roleplaying genre, I'll recommend two of those as well.

Alone among the Stars is, though pretty simplistic, a classic, and just a fun exercise in journaling overall. It's about exploring space and writing about your discoveries.

Quill is a game about writing letters in hopes of achieving something, and then determining the results, all based on some prompts, the letter you write, and some character statistics.

And that's about all the free stuff I can name at the moment. Hope some of this helps.

[137beth]

I'm quite fond of Mythic Roleplaying, although it's not free. It's also on the rules-lite end of the spectrum, and I don't know if that is what you are looking for.

[KorvinStarmast]

Man, Iron sword looks very good.