Crimson Longinus
Legend
I am really perplexed by solo playing RPGs. So much of RPG play is basically just people interacting that I can't imagine how that would work. I can get solo playing board or strategy games.
Which RPGs did you play in 2023?
This year I
Alternately ran and played in a 5E Rappan Athuk campaign (still going; I had to trade off running it due to schedule conflicts, tho).
Ran Starfinder for a few months but the same schedule conflicts derailed that campaign.
Have been running Shadowdark mostly weekly for a couple months.
Ran SWADE as a convention campaign.
Ran Starfinder as a convention campaign (and the capstone to three previous convention campaigns).
Ran Shadowdark as a convention campaign.
I wanted to run The One Ring 2E but, again, my schedule got tied up. I am hoping that it will clear up by the time Moria comes out.
I am planning to start a Pathfinder 2E Abomination Vaults campaign intended to let me learn the game and see if it is something i want to run long term. We may get to that before the new year, but the holidays being what they are I would not be surprised if we held off to New Year's.
Alternately ran and played in a 5E Rappan Athuk campaign (still going; I had to trade off running it due to schedule conflicts, tho).
Ran Starfinder for a few months but the same schedule conflicts derailed that campaign.
Have been running Shadowdark mostly weekly for a couple months.
Ran SWADE as a convention campaign.
Ran Starfinder as a convention campaign (and the capstone to three previous convention campaigns).
Ran Shadowdark as a convention campaign.
I wanted to run The One Ring 2E but, again, my schedule got tied up. I am hoping that it will clear up by the time Moria comes out.
I am planning to start a Pathfinder 2E Abomination Vaults campaign intended to let me learn the game and see if it is something i want to run long term. We may get to that before the new year, but the holidays being what they are I would not be surprised if we held off to New Year's.
The Soloist
Adventurer
First, we both agree that it's not the same type of experience. The AD&D DMG has a section to randomly generate a dungeon. Many people have used that to play solo since the 80s. The venerable Tunnels & Trolls is mostly a solo game but can be played with a group.
To solo play you need to clearly define the characters' personalities and goals with keywords or a short sentence. Once you do that you use an Oracle system to create the story semi-randomly based on the characters' goals and questions you ask. You define character actions/reactions to events using the keywords and determine the outcome with skill or attack rolls. My BX campaign with five characters is now level 5-6. The journal of events I keep is at 11,000 words.
Trevor explains it very well on his solo channel Me, Myself and Die. He is a very entertaining voice actor. He helped me perfect my solo technic.
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Ralif Redhammer
Legend
Hmmm...not all that many, when I think about it:
D&D
DCC RPG (in flavors of core, Lankhmar, and Shudder Mountains)
Mork Borg
Pirate Borg
Nancy Druid
D&D
DCC RPG (in flavors of core, Lankhmar, and Shudder Mountains)
Mork Borg
Pirate Borg
Nancy Druid
aramis erak
Legend
Let's see...
MegaTraveller
Alien
D&D Cylcopedia+Gazetteers
Twilight 2000 4e
Monsters Monsters
L5R 5e
WFRP1E (TEW)
GW Judge Dredd
Savage Worlds (Deadlands Reloaded)
Blade Runner (They liked the system, but were floundering in the setting).
10 RPGs, 8 in minicampaign or longer.
Judge Dredd and Monsters! Monsters! were one shots.
Blade runner was dropped after 3 sessions.
2 games/week for most of the year, 3/week for part of spring
MegaTraveller
Alien
D&D Cylcopedia+Gazetteers
Twilight 2000 4e
Monsters Monsters
L5R 5e
WFRP1E (TEW)
GW Judge Dredd
Savage Worlds (Deadlands Reloaded)
Blade Runner (They liked the system, but were floundering in the setting).
10 RPGs, 8 in minicampaign or longer.
Judge Dredd and Monsters! Monsters! were one shots.
Blade runner was dropped after 3 sessions.
2 games/week for most of the year, 3/week for part of spring
hawkeyefan
Legend
I’ve been pretty lucky the past few years, I’ve gotten to play more than I have in a long time.
My longstanding group plays online every Monday. The bulk of the year was the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign. Then we played another 5e game that was homebrewed. Yesterday we started Descent Into Avernus.
Every other Friday, my longstanding group plays in person. Those are the games I GM. The very beginning of the year was our last few Spire sessions. Then we played a campaign of 13th Fleet, which was more fun than I was expecting… just ridiculous and over the top. Then we started our Stonetop game, which is still running. I think I probably overstated how many sessions of each.
Finally, I have an online group of folks I met here on ENWorld and we play online weekly. We played a ling campaign of Stonetop, then short games of Dogs and Thousand Arrows. Followed by a medium campaign of Mouse Guard that ended last week. Tonight we’ll start The Between.
Between those three games, a session is missed here or there, but for the most part we play regularly. So each two week period I have five games.
Campbell
Relaxed Intensity
Blades in the Dark
Cortex Cyberpunk Hack
Cortex Exalted Hack
Conan 2d20
Girl by Moonlight (GM)
Masks (GM)
Stonetop
Mouseguard
The Between (Starts Today)
Mork Borg
City of Mist
Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition
This was between 3 different weekly groups (though scheduling especially this time of year can be difficult). Some were shorter runs (3-5 sessions). Other were 3-5 month runs. Probably played/run around ~115 sessions this year.
Part of what helps us get so much variety of play is that my two in person groups have 3+ GMs in them and we actively encourage players who have never GMed before to take short runs where we help mentor them.
Cortex Cyberpunk Hack
Cortex Exalted Hack
Conan 2d20
Girl by Moonlight (GM)
Masks (GM)
Stonetop
Mouseguard
The Between (Starts Today)
Mork Borg
City of Mist
Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition
This was between 3 different weekly groups (though scheduling especially this time of year can be difficult). Some were shorter runs (3-5 sessions). Other were 3-5 month runs. Probably played/run around ~115 sessions this year.
Part of what helps us get so much variety of play is that my two in person groups have 3+ GMs in them and we actively encourage players who have never GMed before to take short runs where we help mentor them.
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We played the following this year:
1. Mutants and Masterminds 3e, a campaign of paranormal investigations for a street level game PL7. We are currently rotating GMs. We are currently looking at Prowlers and Paragons as a replacement for this system as even after 5 years, or so, and almost 40 sessions we still get that deer in the headlights look whenever we ask some players what they are going to do.
2. D&D5e, I finally just finished the Mines of Phandelver campaign. The first time I have GMed a D&D game, and probably the last. Probably the most boring campaign I have ran, though there were some memorable moments.
3. During a hiatus of the M&M game I ran a few one shots using the Twilight 2K 4e system. Weird history mostly. Short descriptions: Survivors of the lost army from the first Anglo Afghan war escaping into the mountains, being chased by giants, cave monsters and finally finding a lost world sort of place. Fighting cultists during the evacuation from Sevastopol during the Russian revolution. Barbarians eking out an existence in a barren wasteland and fighting “wizards” that find out they are actually the descendants of spacefarers that had crashed on this planet and split from the wizards in a feud long ago.
4. Call of Cthulhu, just had our session 0 for a new campaign after playing the Haunting.
^2
1. Mutants and Masterminds 3e, a campaign of paranormal investigations for a street level game PL7. We are currently rotating GMs. We are currently looking at Prowlers and Paragons as a replacement for this system as even after 5 years, or so, and almost 40 sessions we still get that deer in the headlights look whenever we ask some players what they are going to do.
2. D&D5e, I finally just finished the Mines of Phandelver campaign. The first time I have GMed a D&D game, and probably the last. Probably the most boring campaign I have ran, though there were some memorable moments.
3. During a hiatus of the M&M game I ran a few one shots using the Twilight 2K 4e system. Weird history mostly. Short descriptions: Survivors of the lost army from the first Anglo Afghan war escaping into the mountains, being chased by giants, cave monsters and finally finding a lost world sort of place. Fighting cultists during the evacuation from Sevastopol during the Russian revolution. Barbarians eking out an existence in a barren wasteland and fighting “wizards” that find out they are actually the descendants of spacefarers that had crashed on this planet and split from the wizards in a feud long ago.
4. Call of Cthulhu, just had our session 0 for a new campaign after playing the Haunting.
^2
Kannik
Hero
If memory serves, this is what I played for this year only:
D&D 4e
D&D 5e
Cortex Prime (in 2 different campaigns)
Aurora RPG Engine (of my own devising, for a Star Wars game)
BRP/Call of Cthulhu (one-shot to test it out)
PF2e (two one-shots to test it out)
PbtA (for an Avatar game)
No purely tactical games this year (Heavy Gear, Battletech, etc), alas.
D&D 4e
D&D 5e
Cortex Prime (in 2 different campaigns)
Aurora RPG Engine (of my own devising, for a Star Wars game)
BRP/Call of Cthulhu (one-shot to test it out)
PF2e (two one-shots to test it out)
PbtA (for an Avatar game)
No purely tactical games this year (Heavy Gear, Battletech, etc), alas.
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