The Great Solo Endeavour (*Tentative Title) is underway!
Clear back in the 2nd Edition AD&D days, I was doing some solo roleplaying. Of course we didn’t have the Internet, and the Raptor Express was pretty slow to deliver the mail sometimes because the mounts kept eating their riders, so we didn’t know there were oracles and the like. I just pulled scenarios out of The Book of Lairs 1 or 2, converted the monsters, and played through the scenarios.
Yes/No questions were usually settled with a coin toss or an odd/even roll. We had Morale tables and Reaction tables for a lot of the NPC stuff. I made my own random encounter tables for travel. (How I wish I had kept those.) Basically I was doing the solo roleplaying thing without really knowing that’s what it was called. I had notebooks with exploits of two different groups, one for Basic D&D and one for the 2nd Ed game that was my favorite.
Fast forward 30+ years.
Twilight Sword, the 8 Bit TTJRPG from 2 Little Mice, just dropped their solo emulator today before I wrote this. I’ve included a link to the Starter Set if you’re interested in learning more. It’s a really trippy little game and I’m so excited to be sharing more about it soon.
While I was waiting for the solo rules, I was working on my own oracle and engine for NPC reactions, morale, and some travel tables. I’m also interested in the Triple O concept quite a bit, which is a player emulator as opposed to a GM emulator. With that in mind I’m building some combat tables that will be system neutral but sorta geared toward Twilight Sword at the same time. Same with a lot of the NPC reactions, too.
While I love Twilight Sword and Radia is great, I’m also looking forward to sharing some of my own 8 Bit goodness with the Created At Twilight (CAT) License when it becomes available. The Great Solo Endeavour (*working title) is going to be system neutral with an eye toward that sort of niched down video game genre emulation. I have plans for a Dragonbane version as well.
I think it’s great they finally released the solo rules for Twilight Sword.
Now that I know what I’m working with over there, I can really dig into my own rules to fill in the gaps left behind. Props to them for getting it done, but much like Solodark for Shadowdark RPG, it feels a bit rushed and lacking real depth and substance. I’m sorry, Kelsey, but I feel like I really overpaid for Solodark. Sometimes it’s a case of me being too picky, and in other cases it’s just because I think a great designer rushed the job and didn’t do their best work.
While 2 Little Mice did a nice job on the Twilight Sword Solo Rules, I think I can offer more with a similar feel to it. I don’t think they gamified it enough. I thought the oracle, although sorta similar to mine, didn’t go far enough down the rabbit hole like mine does. I’m not saying mine is better, only that TGSE is going to go farther into detail, for better or worse.
Lots of research and planning going into this one.
2026 has been a rough year up until the middle of October. I’ve realized that I haven’t been working on any of my DriveThruRPG projects. I have a huge list. Then Twilight Sword happened and another huge list. I can envision completed projects, but I have a ton of work to do yet.
I think I need a staff of about three of my clones to get through all of this stuff at this point. If only I had an assistant of some kind capable of helping me stay focused and track all the details of various projects in my life, maybe fill in some research, maybe generate some art since I can’t afford an artist or draw to save my life. I heard there are several assistants out in the world, but the TTRPG Luddites on various social media platforms threaten to cancel anyone who uses them. Strange…
Anyway, I’ve been engaged in some solo roleplay with Dragonbane and Twilight Sword characters. Right now I’m trying to come up with the $12 for Triple O because I’d like to more solo Game Mastering. Yeah, I’ve learned that’s apparently a thing. I’ve just always run with a group of characters and done what I think most rational parties would do. I mean I’m usually “rational” when I’m a player, so that works, right? Sure. Rational or something.
Seriously, though. I’m actually enjoying all of the research in reading solo games, oracles, testing dice, watching solo YouTube roleplay (there are a LOT more than I ever knew,) and looking at probabilities for various dice. It’s probably my favorite task, but it does cause me to become distracted if I’m not careful, which is how I’ve ended up with a non-stop list of projects that stretches well into the next decade already and my children might have to finish some of them. This whole solo project came from one such sidetrack.
This one is getting done.
I know if I say it on here, there’s a way better chance of TGSE to get finished. That, and I’m having fun growing this one. I think people will enjoy having just a simple oracle, simple charts, a way to deal with NPC’s and some avenues for exploration.
Oh, and for those wondering, there won’t be any art. None. I’ll draw some nice straight lines and borders on things in Affinity while I’m laying it out. That’s all. No one can complain about AI art if there is no art. Will it hurt my bottom line? Sure. I think my peace of mind is worth it for now.
I don’t have a time frame yet. Hopefully before the end of the year. November is historically my worst month of the year in terms of unexpected plot twists in the real world. So far I’ve stayed on track. That’s what I’m doing if the blog seems extra quiet for a while.
I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.
With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!
