The toughest mechanic of any tabletop recreation is discovering folks to play it with. The logistical difficulties of organizing a gaggle, the inflow of high-quality indie TTRPGs, and numerous different components have given rise to a renaissance of kinds for solo tabletop role-playing video games — particularly, solo guidelines for video games that may in any other case be for a full group.
To be clear, the solo tabletop phenomenon just isn’t new. As Polygon contributor Tom Ana explains, it began in earnest with wargames within the ’80s, slowly rising in prominence for the following few a long time till the quarantine interval of the continuing COVID pandemic provided an ideal second for board video games and TTRPGs. Standalone TTRPGs like Tim Hutchings’ historic Thousand 12 months Outdated Vampire, Shawn Tompkin’s Ironsworn, Chris Bisette’s The Wretched, and Alone Among the many Stars by Takuma Okada laid the groundwork for solitary tabletop RPG experiences.
Within the 5 years since 2020, the demand has solely grown. At PAX Unplugged final month, I heard a repeated chorus: folks got here searching for solo role-playing video games. Whereas so many nice video games have debuted in the previous few years, tabletop players appear to have maxed out their cabinets with video games they could by no means discover a group to play. To work with this, designers have begun incorporating solo play into their guidelines units — both by making a secondary complement, making solo guidelines a stretch aim throughout their crowdfunding campaigns, or together with them within the base recreation itself. The three video games under symbolize the vary of approaches designers have taken to together with solo guidelines of their video games.
Swedish video games studio Free League Publishing made solo guidelines for its Nordic Horror RPG Vaesen in 2023. Written by Per Holmström, the solo iteration of the sport comprises a step-by-step information that shifts the bottom recreation’s pre-determined thriller to at least one you uncover as you go. Utilizing a deck of playing cards and the core ebook’s random tables, solo Vaesen has gamers uncover the thriller by rolling cube to find out their discoveries whereas utilizing the colour and worth of the playing cards to find out the end result of their actions.
Primarily based on the traditional hook and ring recreation, HUNT(er/ed) by Meghan Cross and Dillin Apelyan has two gamers take opposing roles of hunter and monster. Gamers roll 2d6 every, competing to see who can roll doubles first to advance their token throughout the board. The winner then pulls a card with a corresponding immediate, pushing the story ahead in the identical custom as video games like For The Queen. The solo iteration of the sport takes HUNTER(er/ed)’s core expertise of inspecting monstrosity and pushes the participant to maneuver alongside a scale of acceptance or denial. A stretch aim for HUNT(er/ed)’s crowdfunding marketing campaign, the solo rule set was written by Elliot Davis who has written his personal solo recreation, Venture Ecco, in addition to solo editions of Soul Muppet’s Orbital Blues and Paint the City Crimson.
A surreal play-to-lose horror recreation impressed by Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation, The Zone leaned totally into solo play from the bounce. In the same strategy to HUNT(er/ed), this recreation depends on card-based prompts to information gamers by a quarantined, mutation-filled zone from which solely one among them will make it out alive. Every motion requires drawing a “Not-So-Simple” card, that has a “sure, and” or “no, however” end result. Marketed as a recreation for 1-6 folks (slightly than 2-6 with a GM), solo guidelines had been at all times baked into The Zone. The solo guidelines keep largely the identical, besides the only real participant controls a number of characters.
