I backed a kickstarter for a “solo RPG” which just got mentioned on the SUSD podcast (which I haven’t listened to before).
The game is Thousand Year-Old Vampire, and it’s a book of prompts for you to write the story. And… that’s it, you are given some events and skills depending on dice that you roll, and you create the world and history of a Vampire who lives for 1000 years, slowly forgetting their early memories and trying to survive. It’s melancholy and dark and funny, and relies entirely on your own creativity.
I backed it at PDF level and I think I’m going to go and order a physical copy, because when the PDF arrived I realised that the book is ridiculously beautiful.
Here is the main site which includes some photos of the pages, scroll down and have a look:
You can buy as PDF (from DriveThru as well) or a paper book, and there are 300 “community copies” where you can download the PDF for free, for people who can’t afford to pay.
Tom talks about playing it at 27 minutes in here:
And more photos / details, especially in the update posts, from the original kickstarter page here:
Has anyone played it?
Does anyone know the (quite fascinating) print-n-play adjacent world of “Solo RPGs”, and have any other good ones to recommend?
They seem like the perfect lockdown activity.
I have sooo many pdf of free (I never dared to take the next step of buying one) PnP solo game. I find the concept amazing, and have read a lot of them. However, I never actually tried to start one, never finding the time to do it. It feels a bit weird to do so, like sit down to write a story just for me. I’m not a writer at all, so that does not help.
Some of them also blurs the line between what is a RPG and what is a ritual, something to do to put word on feelings and put a stepping stone in your life path in a way. things like a wish for something better from Anna Anthropy is almost like a solo therapy session.
One day I’ll do it; I just have to find the right one that makes me dare to plunge. Maybe it will be Quill, where you have to write yourself letters…
I’m really interested in the whole format, especially anything that uses a deck of cards as prompts. I’ve got some PnP games, but they’re mostly “construct a dungeon, fight monsters” instead of this “Journaling game” type where you write the story from prompts.
Here’s another journaling game, “Princess With A Cursed Sword”, which uses a tarot deck to guide you around ruins and dungeons:
One I’m tempted by is the The Wretched, which involves using a deck of cards and a jenga tower to plot the story of the last survivor on a broken down spaceship with an alien onboard.
(I’m eagerly waiting for my physical copy of the Artefact after backing the recent KS)