🐲 Gen Con Solo Games & X-Mas in July

Welcome to The Soloist, a newsletter for players, creators, and curious explorers of solo and cooperative tabletop RPGs and boardgames.

1. My Gen Con 2025 List

The largest tabletop gaming convention in North America kicks off July 31 in Indianapolis and The Soloist will be there for the first time.

Why it matters:

• Gen Con draws more than 140,000 attendees annually.

• Now in its 58th year, it features 500+ exhibitors and 16,000+ events, including RPGs, board games, card games, live-action roleplaying, and more.

• For solo gamers, Gen Con is a great chance to demo unreleased titles, discover new systems, and meet the designers building games for us.

I’ll be there all four days playing games, checking out the solo RPG library, hanging around Games on Demand, and looking for surprises. Here’s what I’m watching:

Top 10 Solo-Friendly Boardgames

• Vantage
  An open-world solo or co-op game from Stonemaier, publishers of Wingspan, where you explore a massive planet from a first-person perspective. With nearly 800 interconnected locations on cards and over 900 other discoverable cards, the world is a massive sandbox.

• Final Girl: Shriek
  Final Girl is a popular solo-only game that casts you as the fearless female protagonist of a horror movie. Shriek is the newest “Feature Film” add-on, clearly inspired by the movie Scream. The slasher theme isn’t for me, but Final Girl comes up every time I ask solo boardgamers what they recommend.

• Ace of Spades
  A solo or a two-player co-op game that uses poker mechanics to resolve dangerous duels against the worst spawns from Hell.

• The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship
  This promises to be Matt Leacock’s most mechanically-rich Pandemic-style game to date. Gather heroes to defend the havens of Middle-earth from advancing shadow troops, complete objectives that change each time you play. I’ve already pre-ordered Fate of the Fellowship to play with family, but I’m also interested in the solo mode designed by Matt.

• Hercules & the 12 Labors
  A solo card and dice game where you become the legendary hero. Battle mythical beasts, overcome challenges, and strive for redemption to claim your place among the gods in this epic Greek mythology adventure.

• The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era
  A solo or co-op campaign game set in the world of the popular video-game RPG. Players take on the role of guild agents questing, battling, and exploring over three connected sessions.

• Unstoppable
  A solo or two-player co-op card-crafting game set across three planets, where you train, upgrade, and fight to survive a world-ending menace. It’s not on Renegade Game’s official Gen Con demo list, but I’m hoping it makes a surprise appearance.

• Western Legends: Stories
  Start as an anonymous character in the Wild West and build your legend through your deeds. The campaign is replayable, as each scenario, depending on your choices, has various events and narrative developments that may or may not occur. Even the campaign’s conclusion can vary. If you’ve played other Western Legends games from Kolossal, note that Stories is more narrative and is stand-alone.

  

• Conservas (English Edition)
  A solo bag-building game which made its English debut a few months ago. In it you fish the Spanish coast, draw from a sea bag each round, trying to harvest without depleting the ocean. If you overfish, you lose.

• Age of Galaxy (Second Edition)
  A lightweight 4X game that places you in control of an interstellar alliance consisting of three factions (out of 30 available) with unique powers. You can explore systems, colonize planets, research technologies, build ships, and more. This edition introduces an enhanced solo mode, new graphic design, and improved components.

Dungeon World 2 Alpha

• The original Dungeon World was my intro to modern indie tabletop RPGs and has been an inspiration and foundation for many designers. Dungeon World 2’s Alpha Playtest will be at Gen Con and hopefully I’ll get a chance to play.

Solo RPG Library

• The wizards at Wizard Staffing Co have amassed a large collection of solo RPGs for players to read and play. I’ll be exploring the collection and hopefully meet some readers of The Soloist while I’m there.

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If you’re at Gen Con and have a game to show off or just want to say hello, send me a message here or on Bluesky. I’ll be handing out the Soloist Wanderer stickers while they last!

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2. DriveThruRPG X-Mas in July Sale

This is the last week of DriveThru RPG’s biggest summer sale which has thousands of games and supplements 30% to 75% off. Here is a curated list of solo RPGs that I either already owned or picked up during the sale:

• Playing God: A GM-less RPG inspired by mythologies from around the world and fantasy fiction. Instead of playing a mortal hero, you are a god. After you create your deity, Once you're ready to play, you can perform wonders, like creating worlds, people, titans, cataclysms, and more. I’m excited to give this one a try.
  $13.97 $19.95

• Ker Nerthalas: A deep purpose-built fantasy solo game. It’s a dense game at first, but once the systems click, it runs fast. For solo players looking for grit, challenge, and tension, Ker Nethalas delivers. One of my favorites.
  $10.50 $15.00

• Across a Thousand Dead Worlds: From the creators of Ker Nethalis, Across a Thousand Dead Worlds is a (446 pages big!) solo-first, horror sci-fi RPG. I did a deep dive on it in the 2024 Sci-Fi Special Edition and give it a strong recommendation.
  $14.00 $20.00

• The GameMaster's Apprentice 2e: Base Deck: A deck of 60 double-sided cards with more than a dozen randomizers. Difficulty generator, yes/no oracle, prompt icons, sensory snippets, names, traits, and much more. I have the fantasy and cyberpunk decks and love their convenience.
  $6.99 $9.99

• Five Leagues from the Borderlands: In this solo adventure wargame, you take the role of a warband of adventurers exploring a grim fantasy world following a procedurally generated campaign. Play with a handful of miniatures (any will do) on a 2x2 or 3x3 table. Perfect for your first minis game.
  $14.00 $20.00

• Flint: A Cairn 2e Solo Handbook: Plug Flint into a standard Cairn adventure to transform it into a great solo campaign. With a tarot deck and the Cairn 2e core rules, you’ll generate your own campaign, character arc, and fate.
  $6.29 $8.99

• 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.
  $10.47 $14.95

• Mythic Magazine Compilation 7: The creators of the Mythic GM Emulator publish a fabulous monthly e-zine with rules, tips, and other goodies for the system. I get these through Word Mill Games’ Patreon and have found many of the articles can be applied to solo gaming in general.
  $10.47 $14.95

• SOLO Second Edition for Traveller: This is the new edition of Zozer Games’ best-selling supplement to Traveller (Mongoose, Cepheus, and earlier editions). It uses campaign frameworks for different play styles and campaign types. The new edition adds more solo tools, two new campaigns (mercenaries and salvagers), and stats for all the ships required in the game.
  $8.39 $11.99; Core Traveller rules $21.00 $30.00

• Sandbox Generator: Create a fantasy world from scratch with tools for everything from maps to the menu at the local tavern.
  $8.40 $12.00

• The One Ring Strider Mode: Rules, tips, and tables to facilitate solo play in the official RPG based on Tolkien’s Middle-earth books.
  $3.74 $4.99; Core rules $17.49 $24.99

Non-solo Recommendation

• Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme: I haven’t played it, but it’s been my favorite gaming book to read this year. As a Python fan, I deeply appreciate the care, creativity, and absurdity the writers brought to it. Spam, spam, spam!
  $28.00 $40.00

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3. 🎲 Last Roll

• Curators from the Victoria & Albert Museum unbox six historic tarot card decks.

• The creator of The Blades of Gixa provides an update and walks through his amazing and insane megadungeon project.

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