🧛 Thousand Year Old Vampire Sequel

Plus one-page solo RPGs, game jams, sales, news, and more

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1. So You’ve Met a Thousand Year Old Vampire

Tim Hutchings, the creator of the award-winning solo RPG Thousand Year Old Vampire (TYOV), has launched a crowdfunding campaign for a sequel that sinks its teeth deeper into the themes that made his original game a hit.

The original: In TYOV you play a vampire who lives for centuries, from the loss of mortality to inevitable destruction. Through prompt-driven play you make tough choices about which memories to keep and which to leave behind.

The sequel: In So You’ve Met a Thousand Year Old Vampire (SYMA) you play a regular person who has met an ancient bloodsucker. Your relationship develops through prompt-driven play as the vampire shares stories and interacts with you and your acquaintances.

SYMA is crowdfunding on BackerKit through September 7 and has already secured over $200,000 in funding. You get:

• A 600+ page hardback book

• Hundreds of pages of handmade collages to inspire answers to prompts

• Suggestions for multiplayer play

Interview with Tim Hutchings

Tim Hutchings (on left), creator of Thousand Year Old Vampire

Recently I had a chance to speak with Tim about some of the mechanics of the sequel and the emotional intensity of solo journaling games.

Betrayal: A big part of SYMA is the uncertainty of your relationship with the vampire.

• “The game actually has mechanics that make established facts untrue. You might think, ‘We’re best friends and we’re kissing,’ and then the next entry is a betrayal—suddenly, the vampire’s being cruel, and everything changes.”

Check the coffin: At the start of the game, you roll a hidden die—the Death Die—representing your character’s potential doom. As you play, you accumulate Skulls, increasing the likelihood of a deadly outcome when you’re instructed to check the coffin.

• “In one playtest, I took the role of a young woman from the British aristocracy who never suspected the vampire was dangerous. She kept checking the coffin. She was so close to death so many times, but she survived all the way to the very end. It was incredibly, miserably tense!”

Collages as catalyst: SYMA includes hundreds of Tim’s handmade collages.

• “The collages are made from materials that were essentially abandoned by others. I’m taking these forgotten things and giving them new life, or in some cases, killing them in a different way. If you’re stuck on how to answer a prompt, just flip to a collage, focus on a few elements, and let that guide your response. It’s all part of the narrative.”

The intensity of solo vs. multiplayer RPGs:

• “When I play D&D, it’s often about clever problem solving, clever jokes, and signaling our pop culture knowledge. But when I'm entirely operating on my own, I can’t name my character McFart Pants and get social value. I don't get social value out of being the most clever person at the table.”

• “When you’re alone with a piece of paper, a book, and some dice, you’re going to have an experience that sticks with you for a long time. That’s a totally different set of values because there’s no other asshole in the room that you need to entertain.”

Tim believes the emotional intensity of a solo game isn’t softened by shared humor or responsibility and is particularly compelling in games with darker themes.

• “If I play Call of Cthulhu and something scary happens, I'm going to make a joke about it. But there's no joke when you're playing SYMA because there's no recipient. I can't diffuse it.

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2. One-Page Solo RPGs

The 2024 One-Page RPG Jam wrapped up this week on the indie game marketplace itchio with an astounding 667 entries. I’ve listed a few highlights with descriptions by the game creators. Most are “name your own price” (NYOP). You can browse all the entries here.

• 😈 Caveat Emptor | NYOP: You are an Assistant Demon selling secretly-cursed items to humans in medieval Germany. Greet new customers and offer them an item from your inventory that seems too good to be true. Secretly twist it with a curse, and close the deal. Avoid suspicion and maximize sales before your manager returns.

• 🎁 The Present | $5.00: A solo journaling game designed to help you reconnect with your younger self with kindness, compassion, and awe.

• 👶So You Are Going to Be a Girl Dad | NYOP: A solo journaling game where you leave memories for your future daughter. Write or record anecdotes, advice, or joyful stories based on your life. This game can serve as a collection of memories for her or as a self-reflection exercise if you’re about to become a father.

• 🐺 Michigan Dogman | NYOP: For over 100 years, accounts of the Michigan Dogman have frightened those in the lower peninsula. Will you be the next to witness this elusive beast or, worse yet, its next meal?

• 🎲 Triple-O | $4.90: A one-page player character emulator perfect for running published adventure modules as a solo GM, for test-running your prep and world-building, or for emulating hirelings and allies.

• 🩸The Outsider (El Extraño) | NYOP: This is a game that confronts you with your own inner demons, as you seek to define who you are and what you are doing here. It is a horror game not suitable for children or sensitive people.

• 🛒 HAWKER | NYOP: A solo hexcrawl merchant RPG focusing on exploration and selling your wares to settlements along the way. Gain coin and renown, and discover a route that elevates you to the status of legendary merchant.

• 🔗 Reference Hopping | NYOP: As an intern of the Multiversal Library System, you must travel between branches via word association to complete your tasks. Journaling is captured on incident reports (form provided).

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3. Crowdfunding Now

Miami 86

Miami 86 is a rules-light, action-packed RPG designed for 2 to 6 players with tools for solo play. It’s inspired by iconic classics like the film Scarface, the TV series Miami Vice, and the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Character generation is quick and random, allowing you to dive straight into the action. For GMs and solo players, there are tools to randomly generate adventures. Intro solo adventure Grand Theft Boat-o can be included as an add-on to the core rulebook when backing the crowdfunding campaign.

• The creators of Miami 86 released a minimalist demo of the game as a free download as an entry in the One-Page RPG Jam.

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4. Indie Game News 📰

• René-Pier Deshaies of Fari RPGs is hosting a game jam around his latest creation: Songs and Sagas, a solo-friendly and OSR-inspired one-page tabletop RPG. To celebrate surpassing 120 jam participants, RP has made the game available for free! Plus, he’s offering free templates for Affinity Publisher and Canva to help you craft your own adventures.

• Every year for Free RPG Day, 9th Level Games publishes Level 1, a print collection of short indie TTRPGs given away at participating game stores. If you missed out on the print edition, you can now get the digital version for free from the publisher.

• To celebrate the movie release of Alien: Romulus, Free League Publishing is offering 50% off Alien RPG books and modules through DriveThruRPG. The offer runs through the end of August.

• The 8-Page Pocket RPG Jam is running from September 8 to 14 on itchio. Pocket games are made from a single piece of paper. Templates and examples are provided. A recent example is GrimRogue, a pocketfold solo RPG.

• Mylon Pruett of the How to Solo TTRPG substack has been sharing ShadowDark play over the summer. A recent post dug into Mylon’s tips for improving some of the rules.

• Shawn Tomkin has released a free character background table for Ironsworn. Rolling on or picking from the table provides starting assets (abilities, companions, and items with benefits) for various character roles. A Hunter, for example, gains the Bind and Fletcher abilities and a Hound companion.

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5. Last Roll 🎲

My Nostromo cap, circa 1980

I was in my hometown last week and met up with two of my high school buddies to see Alien: Romulus. We loved the production design, most of the fan service call backs, and the Classic Traveller set-up of Corp workers stuck in their contracts on a sunless planet.

Earlier that day while helping my mom clean up the basement I came across my old Nostromo hat. The shape and white stitching are a close match to the hat worn by Harry Dean Stanton in the original Alien. I picked it up at Archon, St. Louis’s (and for a time the Midwest’s) top sci-fi convention. I wore that hat for years.

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