Best solo RPGs?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

How do you define a solo rpg if there is no roleplaying, since it is solo. Does fighting fantasy count?

I think it's a spectrum. Fighting Fantasy is definitely an RPG in my mind, as ideally you'll need to use what your character knows of the environment to succeed (this is less true in the earlier books, which are much more random in their settings) and manage character resources to succeed. That's certainly about as much roleplaying as many D&D games feature.

I will say that my playthrough of Thousand Year Old Vampire is much more engaging than that. Even if the only roleplaying is between me and the page, it's pretty intense.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Yeah, I was completely surprised at how deeply a journaling game affected my headspace when playing it.

I will say that my playthrough of Thousand Year Old Vampire is much more engaging than that. Even if the only roleplaying is between me and the page, it's pretty intense.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm probably at about the 60% mark of my daily run through TYOV (today's prompt is number 39), and I'm amazed at how much I know about the world, including the origin (and original owners) of weird magical artifacts, who else is running around the world and unmet, and information about my vampire's sire's sire, who has never shown up in the actual adventure. I may have to write up a mini-gazetteer in case I ever want to use any of this in a Vampire: The Masquerade/Requiem game.

 

[Fenris-77]

Thousand Year Old Vampire is fantastic, and the author is a cool dude.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Thousand Year Old Vampire is fantastic, and the author is a cool dude.

I can't imagine he's interested in making the same kind of thing twice, but I would snap up a similar product from him in a heartbeat.

I think I'm only two or three rolls away from finishing, assuming the dice don't play hokey-pokey with me again. It's been 576 years since my vampire was turned and he's barrelling toward the Enlightenment and maybe the Age of Exploration. He's had multiple big purges of all the mortals he's known and most of his early life he only knows of from his damaged second diary (the first was lost). He has no personal memories of ever having been human and even his diary only has fragmentary information about that time.

Fingers crossed he somehow makes it to 2022.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Oh, man. He's made it to the late 20th century, but my dice rolls are bouncing around in the high 60s, meaning any given roll could be the last one of the game. (End game rolls run from 72 to 80, and the player rolls 1d10 and subtracts 1d6 from it to get their next prompt.)

 

[overgeeked]

Mythic GM Emulator. Turn any RPG into a solo RPG.

Colostle. Ennie Award winner for best rules this year.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Colostle. Ennie Award winner for best rules this year.

That looks amazing, like a mash-up of Infinity Train, Piranesi, Gormenghast and The Castle.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Posting all of my Thousand Year Old Vampire turns and character sheets to the Story Hour forum.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That looks amazing, like a mash-up of Infinity Train, Piranesi, Gormenghast and The Castle.

In fact, a bunch of stuff already jumped into my brain about a Colostle character and game, so I guess I'm getting this one next rather than a quick game of Ruins of the Undercity, which I'd been planning to dust-off a convention character to play through.