🥳 New solo RPGs, reader survey results, and Roman artifacts

Welcome to The Soloist, a newsletter for players, creators, and curious explorers of solo and GM-less tabletop RPGs. You can read previous issues here. “Getting started with solo RPGs” is perfect for new folks. Subscribe for free to get new issues in your inbox every two weeks.

1. New solo RPG releases

Art by Galen Pejeau for the expanded version of Songs and Sagas

• Songs and Sagas,

  René-Pier Deshaies
  ’s OSR-inspired tabletop RPG of axes, runes, spirits, and legends, releases May 21. You and your party are fierce northern warriors forging a new life in an unforgiving frozen wilderness. While built for GM-led play, Songs and Sagas includes solo mechanics.

• What Lies Beneath from

  Chris Scaffidi
  is a solo dungeon crawl that combines a 200+ page choose-your-path adventure book with traditional RPG mechanics and mini-games.

• Dead Ends by kay w. is a solo tableltop RPG about a road trip that never ends. In it, you play someone hunted by the Shape, trapped in a continuous loop through the same four stretches of highway. Your only option is to keep driving, hoping to find an escape.

• Blurred Lines by Lantern’s Faun is a solo RPG inspired by the 1960s Italian “Giallo” films which feature intricate murder mysteries, masked killers, and intense psychological themes, all set against surreal cinematography. In the game, you play a crime photographer hunting down a serial killer using a map of a real city you choose. Blurred Lines isn’t a new release, but it’s new to me!

• If you like the idea of a tabletop RPG setting set in a weird stone age world where humans fight for survival alongside dinosaurs, aliens, and elder creatures, you should check out Diogo "Old Skull" Nogueira’s Primal Quest. The game is getting a solo supplement, Feral, written by Peter Rudin-Burgess releasing on June 1. But if you check out Old Skull’s substack, you can get a pre-release copy at 50% off.

• There are a few new games coming out of the Shit or Get Off the Pot solo game jam. My favorite so far is You are the Parent in a Children’s Book.

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2. Crowfunding now

• 👻 Wraithound by

  Cezar Capacle
  is a solo/GM-less RPG for 1-3 players where you join an ancient order of ghost hunters with supernatural abilities. Explore haunted locations, investigate spectral phenomena, and confront the horrors. The game offers zero-prep rules and a variety of tables. One interesting oracle generates mysterious prophecies guiding your investigations. Campaign ends June 7.

• ✒️ Death of the Author by

  Sam Leigh
  is a solo journaling RPG where you play as a Character fighting for agency against their Author. Using a tarot deck, navigate through five Chapters of Scene Prompts, editing them to defy the Author and shape your own narrative. Illustrated by Victor Winter with title work by James Hanna, this game is a hack of Sam’s Anamnesis. Campaign ends May 28.

• 🙏 The Kingdom of Prester John by Frederic Walker is a solo journaling RPG where you play a Christian cleric on a quest from Rome in 1177 to find a mythical kingdom. Following “temporal knowledge”, you will encounter historical events, characters, and lands. If guided by “spiritual knowledge”, you will find lands inhabited by mythical peoples and creatures from illuminated manuscripts and fantastic bestiaries. Campaign ends May 27.

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3. Fresh solo resources

• Ironsworn resources: Awesome Ironsworn is a categorized collection of high-quality Ironsworn projects, tools, and resources. Don’t let the fact that this is on GitHub, a site used for collaborative software development, scare you off. It’s essentially a list of links and descriptions.

• Creating solo game case studies:

  Alfred Valley
  goes through his process for making solo rules for other designer’s non-solo games in two cases studies. Part 1 looks at his process for This Ship is a Tomb and Part 2 looks at Constant Downpour, both adventure modules for the sci-fi horror RPG Mothership.

• Spanish solo RPG guide: Rol En Solitario is a new companion for solo gaming with tools, resources, and advice for first-time and advanced gamers.
  😡 EDITOR’S WARNING: Native Spanish speakers believe that this is an AI generated “guide.” Proceed with caution. The link has been disabled.

• 7 Approaches to Journaling is a solid video overview that includes:

  • 📑 Traditional Journaling: A detailed narrative of events in each scene

  • 🔴 Bullet Points: Concise notes with just enough info to jog memory later

  • 🍿 Movie Summary: Writing like you were explaining a movie

  • ✨ Sparks: Key words that can spark memories of an entire scene

  • 🕵️ Investigative Reporting: Only critical facts for reconstructing events

  • 🎙️ Audio Recording: Recording narrative flow as you play

  • 🚫 Do Not Journal: Emphasizing that journaling isn’t required

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4. ✍️ Reader Survey Results

The last issue of The Soloist included a reader survey. The feedback is helping guide plans for The Soloist’s 2nd year.

• 🥰 Most enjoyed: Links to tools and resources, game reviews, previews and news, and tips for improving play are the areas that respondents said they enjoyed the most.

  • My takeaway: I will be increasing emphasis on tools, tips, and advice. I also want to provide more full reviews — not simply list games and descriptions.

• 🎁 New features: The survey pitched 7 ideas for expanded features (Discord channel, podcast, etc). The idea of solo gaming “kits” for new tabletop RPGs was a concept that 74% of respondents were excited about.

  • My takeaway: I have been tinkering with the idea of providing a set of original tools and resources to make new multiplayer RPGs accessible for solo play. My goal is to publish one this summer.

• 📅 How often: Respondents were evently split between receving The Soloist once a week or every two weeks (both 41%) with 15% prefering once a month.

  • My takeaway: I will be doing my best to stick to the two-week cadence.

• 🐲 Favorite genres: Fantasy is the most popular genre, played by 95% of respondents. Science Fiction was the runner-up at 87%. No surprise there.

  • Superhero games were the least popular, played by 20% of respondents. This surprised me given the popularity of superhero media and the natural fit for solo tabletop RPG play and the genre’s lone vigilante characters. You might want to check out

    Jeff Stormer
    ’s GM-less Anyone Can Wear the Mask. It can be played solo, but sings with three where one plays the hero, another the villain, and a third runs the city. Listen to Jeff playing the game on his podcast Part of One.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to fill out the survey! It was great to read your comments. If you ever want to chat about what you’re playing or creating, 🗣️ join the subscriber chat!

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5. 🎲 Last Roll

• Cypher System Bundle and solo rules: Humble Bundle is running a promotion for Cypher, the popular tabletop RPG from

  Monte Cook
  . Cypher is a traditional GM-led system, but there is a 3rd party GM emulator for solo play called Chaos.

• A real zine: Artist, designer, and solo RPG guide

  Chaoclypse
  has launched Chaos Crawl #1, a glorious zine full of weird OSR goodies: maps, settings, characters, and much more.

• Romans vs Cthulhu: Cohors Cthulhu: Tactics is a solo and co-op miniatures wargame of Roman soldiers fighting the cults of the Cthulhu mythos, coming to Kickstarter soon. Modiphius has published a free prologue PDF where you take on the role of Roman cohort ambushed by monsters. Three scenarios introduce the rules of this quick-to-play solo and co-operative game.

UTERI/FELIX/VIVAS: Speaking of Romans, I recently visited the British Museum’s Roman Legion exhibit. It’s worth the extra ticket. The swords and crocodile armor were all great, but my favorite artifacts were a dice tower and a little mouse figurine blowing a trumpet while covering his ears.

The Vettweiss-Froitzheim Dice Tower, AD 300 - 400. The steps at the bottom ring little bells. The inscriptions read: The Picts defeated…the enemy has been destroyed…play in safety…Use and live with luck.”

Copper mouse playing a Roman straight horn called a tuba.

We’ve been playing with dice and minis for a long time.

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