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Solo TTRPG and dungeon/hex crawl reviews

I play solo-focused tabletop games and gamebooks of all sorts, and rules-lite RPGs that I can turn to solo play using oracles and GM emulators. I need somewhere to note what's good and what to recommend to friends, or I forget and revisit stuff I already played.

Take the scores with a big pinch of salt. They're to remind me what I want to re-play. If your tastes differ - if you enjoy journaling or like PbTA games, say - then your scores will differ.

Solo RPGs, journaling games and oracles/GMEs

RPG rules and settings designed primarily for solo play. Using modules/adventures/oracles, journaling or freeform.

Alone Among the Stars

  • Very little to it, even for a light game.
  • Doesn't warrant the price. I don't know how it became such a darling of the scene.
  • Good for a quick writing prompt but could be expanded greatly to prevent repetition, using e.g 2d20 with columns and rows instead of card suits and values.
  • It does have a lovely meditative feel to it. Like reading haiku.
  • Score: 2\5 won't play again

Apothecaria

  • Delightful cozy journaling game about being a new witch/healer in a village. Lends itself to slightly whimsical semi-comic gameplay like a Gibli movie setting. There's nothing overt; it's just the way the tone feels.
  • The gameplay loop gives slightly ambiguous results in places but you can just make sensible rulings; it's slightly more creative writing than game anyway.
  • It needs a character sheet, so I made one (ask me for a copy).
  • Good if you like journaling more than game in your journaling games (I don't), solid value and nice thematic presentation. Worth buying the paper copy.
  • Score: 3\5 might play again

Cartograph

I don't know why I bounced off this. The mechanics are good on reading and the game as a whole seems well thought out and balanced. I think... Mmmm... I think the presentation was too gamey and mechanical where it needed to inspire me to journal, and too light and journaly where it needed to interest me in the gameplay loop. I don't know, and it fell so hard between the excellence of TYOV and the quite good Apothecaria, it just didn't really do anything best.

  • Score: 2\5 won't play again

Foundation

  • Little bit clunky for the results
  • Good writing prompts, but it would work best as that - a little booklet of worldbuilding prompts.
  • Good explanation of race vs species vs culture, worth quoting elsewhere.
  • Score: 1\5 won't play again

Ironsworn (and Ironsworn Delve)

  • High quality, free (in PDF), PbTA based
  • It's all put together beautifully with a large section specifically for solo play, and the Delve add on which is a dungeon crawling gameloop. It's fantastic if you like PbTA systems.

I wanted to love this but I never got in with PbTA. In principle it seems so easy but in practice I can never remember my moves and I have difficulty deciding if moves are too narrow or broad for my current turn. But that's a very personal peeve. If you get on with PbTA this is one of the pinnacles of solo freeform RPG play.

  • Presentation: 4 attractive, clear, thematic.
  • Gameplay (for solo use): 3 it provides amply for the solo play but PbTA is a bit marmite.
  • Value: 5 any very good game that's free is superb value.
  • Total: 12\15 = 4\5 likely to play again (if I liked PbTA)

Sandbox Generator

  • Hard copy is nice enough
  • Biomes don't flow naturally making the resulting lands disjointed, and the number of biome types are very limited.
  • There are better terrain tools in other games or stand alone. Not awful though.
  • Score: 2\5 won't play again

Thousand Year Old Vampire

This is the perfect journaling game for me. I don't usually get on with journaling but TYOV is mechanically satisfying in a way that prompts you to write and guides you onward, keeping the story and character developing. The only house rule I use is, when I begin to tire, I only accept rolls that move me toward the end of the story. I only write a sentence or three for each prompt, and that works fine.

Playthroughs are fun, creative endeavours and at the end if you sort entries chronologically you get a lovely memento of your game.

  • Score: 5\5 will play again

Tricube Tales/Tricube Tales Solo Rules

  • High quality, available in a great value bundle on DriveThru RPG.
  • The main system is simple, flexible and narrative-focussed, with enough crunch to feel like a game. It was originally designed to introduce a child to RPGs and has retained that clarity and ease.
  • There's a set format for single page settings and adventures, and the bundle comes with LOADS (57) of them, all high quality and inspiring. They'd all make great one-shots.
  • The solo rules and guidance just work.

I ad-libbed my first TT adventure to get used to the system. I don't usually enjoy playing solo without a gameplay loop and enough crunch and bookkeeping to keep me on track; for me, roleplay is for group play (and I no longer group play). But the solo rules carried me and kept me on track and brought the sessions to a conclusion when it was time. There are two mechanisms for solo play - one using playing cards with a variable length, and one with a six scene structure. Both work great.

TT would be equally good for group play, especially for one-shots. There's an expansion for more tactical/OSR type combat, also in the bundle; I felt no need to use it.

  • Presentation: 5 attractive, clear, thematic and the many single-page settings are completely coherent.
  • Gameplay (for solo use): 5 provides excellent solo rules.
  • Value: 4 It's not free, but it's great value for the price.
  • Total: 14\15 = 5\5 will play again

Dungeon and hex crawls

Solo games with a more structured gameplay loop. They play somewhere between an RPG and a board game. The settings and events are usually procedurally generated by the gameplay loop.

2D6 Dungeon

About 2D6 Dungeon

  • It's on https://www.drgames.co.uk as both PDF and hard copy in various covers and bindings.
  • Type: Pure, if complex, solo dungeon crawl
  • To play you will want the hardcopy books. There's a LOT of flicking about and through tables.

Review

Quality and presentation are great. But the nature of the rules is there's an awful lot of searching through tables and also sketching rooms. You'll want a big table area and you'll want to buy the paper books and cards.

The combat is some of the most fun in any game. Characters and enemies have specific manoeuvrers they want to achieve on certain 2d6 combinations, and an amount they can shift the dice to get there. As combat progresses a fatigue countup allows the combatants to shift the dice more and more, so they can hit more often and harder.

Other than combat, the mechanics are somewhat crunchy with a lot of bookkeeping. This is a game for long sessions and repeated play before you've forgotten the rules and where you left off playing.

It's a great crawler and I liked it far more than 4AD, which I bounced off without playing it.

Scores out of 5

  • Presentation: 4 plenty of formats, attractive. Feels like it could be clearer around the tables but I'm unsure how.
  • Gameplay (solo): 4 it's good if you like medium-crunch, long sessions and repeated play. The gameplay loop is pure dungeon-crawl.
  • Value: 3 it's neither unusual value nor crazy expensive for what it is.
  • Total: 11\15 = 4\5 likely to play again

HEX and Doom: Semper Fidelis

Great for travel or to sit on a desk for short breaks. Well presented and well balanced. The gameplay consists of resource management and luck of the dice. There's not much to say - in one click from here you can see the whole game on a page.

  • Presentation: 4 attractive, clear.
  • Gameplay (for solo use): 3 mechanics clear but there's little gameplay
  • Value: 4 any good game that's free is great value, but there's not tonnes of gameplay here.
  • Total: 11\15 = 4\5 likely to play again

Solo Gaming Sheets

These are perfect bite sized mechanical crawls, or dungeon and wilderness creators. You can use the included ultralight dice system or any OSR style system you want. They fit on a page but with more heft than something like HEX (above). You can blast through a dungeon in an hour or take your time and spend an afternoon. If interrupted you can re-learn the rules in 3 minutes and take up where you left off.

  • Score: 5\5 will play again

RPGs without solo focus

Rules-lite and OSR systems I've tried for solo play, though they're primarily designed for group play.

Cairn (1st ed.)

About Cairn

  • Edition 1 is free. 2nd is in review at time of writing. Cairn Cairn game files
  • Type: TTRPG. OSR but minimal rules.
  • Plenty of advice about general roleplay and ethos.
  • To play you just need the free PDF of the main rules.

Review

Quality and presentation are great. Only small changes to the layout could be made.

Main mechanic is a d20 roll under a 3d6 stat. There are just 3 main stats. Combat has automatic hits and is dangerous. This isn't great for solo play.

The mechanics flow. The mechanics are the right crunch vs flexibility and lightness for solo play.

I think I would simplify this even more. Or add a specific sentence to each section for solo play. Maybe shorten the section on principles of play, or use the SRD.

Cairn is great if you want to use OSR rules for solo play, that aren't really designed for solo play. Say, running a group campaign where you might do solo content on the side.

Scores out of 5

  • Presentation: 4 plenty of formats, attractive, clear.
  • Gameplay (for solo use): 3 mechanics clear but not always suited
  • Value: 5 any good game that's free is great value
  • Total: 12\15 = 4\5 likely to play again

Gamebooks

Good, old fashioned, numbered-paragraph, roll and find the page books. Like Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf.