🎲 10+ New Solo RPGs and X-Mas in July
Welcome to The Soloist, a newsletter for players, creators, and curious explorers of solo and GM-less tabletop RPGs. This issue spotlights 10+ new games and crowdfunding hopefuls. You’ll also find GM-less games and tools from DriveThruRPG’s X-Mas in July sale. You can read previous issues of The Soloist here.
1. New Solo and GM-less RPGs
🤠 Tarnation
Tarnation: In the winter of 1872, a portal opened in the American West and fifty thousand people crossed into a strange land they called the Hermetic Territories or “Tarnation.” You play one of these settlers exploring a strange land. Tarnation is an episodic solo RPG played through adventure modules that contain custom tables for generating situations, objectives, and other features. A replayable intro adventure “Aflicker in the Borderlands” is included to introduce the game. Tarnation is built on the SPAR framework for single-player RPGs.
🤚 Two Hand Path
Two Hand Path: You’re a wizard searching a modern city ruined by a supernatural war. You’ll travel through a map, fighting enemies using a brilliantly simple “polyhedral-Yahtzee” combat system. Winning battles earns power-ups that you draw as tattoos and jewelry right on to your character sheet.
⌚ Against Time and Death
Against Time and Death: In a multiversal war, two organizations battle to shape reality. As an elite operative, you’ll manipulate time and space with precision or force. Two players take turns setting scenes and taking actions by writing letters. Against Time and Death is in public beta and seeking player feedback.
🥋 Solo Martial Blues
Solo Martial Blues: This is a gritty solo martial arts RPG where you play a violent loner fighting for survival on the mean streets of New Hope City. You’ll create a martial artist and guide them through years of adventures using a diceless conflict resolution system. Expect heartbreak, high drama, and intense action in this 196-page game.
☢️ ZONES
ZONES: Fans of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game series will appreciate this solo and co-op tabletop RPG set in a post-apocalyptic world. Players navigate dangerous territories and face mutated creatures and environmental hazards. Built on the Cairn system, ZONES includes new rules for guns, ammo, XP, wounds, and inventory management. The game offers tactical combat, resource management, and story development. Still in development, future updates will add monster creation, faction tracking, a sample campaign, and combat setup rules. Download the free ✅ashcan version for playtesting.
✅ Lingo check: An "ashcan" is a draft version of a game used for testing and feedback. The term originated in the comic book industry in the 1930s where it referred to low-quality, quickly produced copies created to establish copyrights or trademarks. 👹 Freak Folio
Freak Folio: The pages of this mix-and-match monster generator are divided into three sections — top, middle, and bottom — that can be flipped individually to create 216 combinations. Each section grants the creature an ability. Rolling 3d6 might result in 3, 2, 6 and give you a minotaur magic user with four arms and a hot temper. It’s great for rolling up some really weird and wonderfully illustrated encounters on the fly.
2. Crowdfunding Now
☄️ ION Heart
ION Heart: A solo mech tabletop RPG of cozy interstellar exploration with high production values and lo-fi vibes. Create a pilot and mech duo and explore the Astral Union discovering planets, solar systems, and cultures of your own making. Pilots have unique origins and skills drawing from a variety of cultures. You also have many options for constructing your mech including its previous functions, chassis size, and upgrades.
🤿 BOW, A Solarpunk Boardgame
BOW, A Solarpunk Boardgame: From the creators of Dragon Dowser, BOW is a solo or duet solarpunk tabletop card and journaling game. You play competitors in the annual Shoaling Festival, an event where elite divers search for relics from the Old World in the perilous Gasillica Ocean. The journey is fraught with dangers such as unpredictable weather, dangerous sea life, and rival competitors.
🔥 Stone Saga
Stone Saga: In this solo journaling RPG, you are a Dwarf travelling the deep roads between settlements, carrying the Sacred Flame to a newly established or reclaimed dwarven hold. You’ll navigate perils using six-sided dice to resolve events and Elder Futhark runes to provide story prompts.
🤼 5-Star Match
5-Star Match: This solo tabletop RPG is about the weird, wild, and unpredictable world of professional wrestling. It focuses on developing the storylines and match moments that make professional wrestling compelling. Taking on the role of the owner and head booker of a professional wrestling organization, you’ll build their organization, design a roster of larger-than-life wrestling stars, and book them in promos and matches that bring the storylines to life.
🤖 A Construct’s Nature
A Construct’s Nature: In this solo journaling tabletop RPG you play a newly awakened machine in a magical, overgrown world. Throughout the story, you'll make choices that open or close options. Deciding on task orders, what path to take, or how to approach an obstacle will impact your stats and discoveries. Unique to this game is an audio-narrated slideshow guiding players through journal prompts.
3. DriveThru RPG X-Mas in July sale
Through the end of July, digital game store DriveThru RPG has thousands of RPGs and supplements up to 80% off.
Solo and co-op players may want to check out:
Mythic Game Master Emulator: This is the new 2nd edition of the popular toolkit that can be used to play any RPG system on your own. PDF $11.96
$14.95Sandbox Generator: Create a fantasy world from scratch with tools for everything from maps to the menu at the local tavern. PDF $9.60
$12.00Across a Thousand Dead Worlds: One of my favorite Sci-Fi solo tabletop RPGs. Read about it in The Soloist’s Sci-Fi Special. PDF $16.00
$20.00; Hardcover color book + PDF $64.00$84.00The One Ring Strider Mode: Rules, tips, and tables to facilitate solo play in the official RPG based on Tolkien’s Middle-earth books. PDF $2.99
$4.99; Core rules PDF $14.99$24.99Solo Game Master’s Guide: A 170+ page book of solo play tips and tools for any RPG system created by the host of Geek Gamers YouTube channel. PDF $9.00
$15.00The Solo Investigator’s Handbook: A 95-page supplement for generating on-the-fly solo adventures for Call of Cthulhu. PDF $5.99
$9.99Journey: One of my favorite solo journaling games for creating details of imagined worlds. PDF $5.99
$9.99
Browse all the titles on sale by clicking the button below. Sale ends July 31.
4. 🎲 Last Roll
🕵️♂️ The Operator
Although I write about tabletop games, my career has been in video games. These days I help small indie game developers with their business strategies. One solo developer project I worked on this year, The Operator, just launched. It’s an X-Files-ish adventure game where you support agents in the field from your terminal at HQ. It’s a short game, about 4 or 5 hours, but has incredible production values, great puzzles, and is only $12.50. Check out The Operator on Steam if you like atmospheric detective and conspiracy stories.
The Operator sounds like my jam; I’ll check it out! And thank you for the sale suggestions. It always helps to have some direction when there are so many options.
Appreciated the Lingo Check on "Ashcan" which I was about to look up!