Solo, But Not Alone

My One-Man Adventures with Solo RPGs

So, for years I wrote off Solo RPGs. How can you roleplay alone? Roleplaying requires back and forth, interaction - it requires people. Plural. More than one. I looked at Solo RPGs and was pretty skeptical. You either had things like Quill, which were basically glorified journaling prompts or you had things like The One Ring: Strider Mode - which read to me like a video game where dice replaced the CPU. Adventure games? Sure, but not roleplaying games. Why not just cut to the chase and write a novel or a short story?

Well, then I saw game designers I respected creating Solo RPGs and I decided to give things a second look. Sure, the ideas in games like Cyan Starlight and Kal-Arath were cool, but how did you codify an idea into a solo gaming experience that didn’t become something more than just rolling on endless random charts?

Now, you’d think for a guy like me whose life is dominated by the chaos that is raising two special needs kids that Solo RPGs would be a great way to get that RPG fix since getting a group together to play is pretty much impossible. But given my assumptions, it always felt like it was methadone to a heroin addict at best. In my mind, I’d rather have no game than “fake” Solo RPGs.

Then Substack started recommending a bunch of Solo RPG blogs to me. Now, just because I wasn’t particularly into them didn’t mean these creators didn’t have something important or useful to say. Hell, it being adjacent to (but presumably outside) my design interests was all the more reason to check it out. You’re never too old to learn something new, after all.

Well I found a passionate, enthusiastic community as anything I’d seen in traditional RPGs. I tumbled down the Kal-Ararth rabbithole - an amazing pulp sword and sandal Solo RPG by

Castle Grief

. I was still skeptical, but I grabbed the PDF and started reading. Then I made a character. Then I played.

And you know what? I died on my second day, but it was a fun little distraction I’d try again when I had the chance. So, after Teru the Wanderer died, I made Quilyn the Blade. I’m seven in-game days into playing Quilyn and to my surprise it’s just as satisfying as a traditional roleplaying gamae - just in a different way. I’m genuinely having fun and am spending 30-60 minutes each day seeing what the new in-game day brings Quilyn.

What I didn’t “get” about Solo RPGs, I think, is the human element. The human psyche craves narrative. We, as creatures, are natural storytellers. We look for patterns, themes, and threads to unite seemingly disparate events. Many claim this is the entire point of religion. It’s also why so many people gravitate to conspiracy theories. In short the human brain desperately wants A Reason. We need to know “Why.”

Solo RPGs, particularly those that use random tables as a prompting method, force us to find an answer to those questions. We get an answer to “why” each time we have to combine two seemingly unrelated results on a random table. And it’s satisfying to us as Solo RPGers because we’re curating it alone and solely to our own satisfaction. A traditional roleplaying game can provide an amazing, moving, and powerful interpersonal experience with other players. A Solo RPG can provide a similar experience, but it’s entirely personal and completely private. That’s a powerful thing.

So, I guess all this is to say, I was wrong about Solo RPGs and it took a trip to the wind-swept steppes of Kal-Arath and a handful of passionate creators here on Substack to show me the error of my ways.