Green_Knight's Solo Adventures

First Impressions: The Questgiver
(There is also a Quest Giver quest generator on itch which I may review eventually).

( Game Description )

Long game is long. Long game also needs a setting and characters and I have hundreds of games that I could play; and dozens that I really WANT to play. I also have three games I am currently meddling with, plus one I’m DMing, plus one I want to DM.

And… this is a story of betrayal. If I get it right and immerse myself, it will most likely break my heart. Right now, with the world on fire as it is, I am not seeking out heartbreak.

I am putting this game on ice until a time when I have the mental resilience to commit to a long-form game with guaranteed sadness.

What I’ve seen so far, I likes. This has 70+ pages of content, which means you’re not just shoved into a situation and told to cope; you get advice for each stage of the game and clear instructions. This puts it head and shoulders above other games for me.

Unreview: Kafka’s Cheeseburger

( Game Description )

This, unfortunately, was one of the first solo games I encountered and it put me off them for a good while.

It has an interesting mechanic where you roll a d12 for results but might be able to choose between more than one category: 1, prime, divisible by 3/4/5, so 5 can be ‘prime’ or ‘divisible by 5’
Unfortunately all prompts are cheeseburger-related.
You journal ‘this happens, what do I do’ and keep rolling until you reach an exit condition.

It’s a whimsical little thing that should not take too long to complete, but even turning this into a cheese-free vegan experience without tomatoes and without the bun (hold the ketchup) I cannot bring myself to ‘play’.

I am, in fact, so repulsed by it that a new verdict was born. I don’t actually hate spiders.

Playthrough/Review: Significant Otters

( Game Description )

There really isn’t much there there. You choose items from a 5x5 matrix (this is entirely flavour text), you roll the dice, you add up, you’re done. The game can be played in under a minute. It can possibly be stretched out if you want to imagine the life of an otter, but I don’t think I will pick this up again.

Playthrough/Review: Dig Dive Duel

( Game Description )

I reached the end without realising in less than five minutes. Next time, I’ll check the page count (24). I mean, it was kinda fun, but there’s not much there here. I definitely preferred the Shakespeare mechanics where you at least have stats and an inventory and roll for combat.

First Impressions The Cog That Remains
(Find it in the current No ICE Bundle)

( Game Description )

It's not the game, it's me. It really is. I love the system – you get 52 (and here, 54) prompts which come up randomly; you have the additional Jenga tower mechanic (which I play with a paper equivalent since a physical tower would be less fair), but this type of game demands that you create your own story. Which is great.

But.

Firstly, I am strapped for time. I would like to try a second dedicated solo adventure this month. Then I'm poking at a Scarlet Heroes hexcrawl/wilderness adventure (and am learning a lot from that), and from time to time I poke at a freeform adventure (I have no system I play with or character stats; I'll add them when I need them, but so far, I'm just exploring).

Plus I'm downloading the _No ICE_ bundle (page 15 of 48; see link above) and despite a lot of games being duplicates, Windows-only, or for systems I have no interest in (eg Mothership) that's still A LOT of games to glance at and save.

This is a game about keeping a giant mecha running. I'd struggle coming up with appropriate stories about maintaining a car, but at least I've owned cars for many decades and done _some_ maintenance, and know what you use a car for.

I know nothing about giant mechas and their pilots, and after a week of staring at my first prompts and not coming up with anything useful, I have to conclude that this game needs more prep and more story brain than I am able to give it.

Which is a shame. Prompts like
Something about the Mecha’s original construction was flawed. Pull from the tower. What limb, part, or system simply doesn’t work the way it should? How do you jury-rig a solution?
sound like they will create great stories – there's just enough substance here to spark imagination and not enough to feel railroaded.

I, however, am in the 'wait, they have limbs? What kind of limbs' stage; I have no knowledge of my own to link this prompt to, and this game feels like work. Work that I am not willing to put in, not while other settings/stories sound so much more interesting.

So, with some reluctance, I am letting this go, or rather, putting it on ice in the hope that one day I may feel bored and curious enough to go back to it.

Playthrough/Review: Shakespeare vs Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come

( Game Description )

I played through this and I only cheated twice. Once because I lost 13 rolls in a row against a much weaker opponent (still won the fight, but barely, and, really: that is not a good mechanic), and once because the game threw instadeath at me, which isn’t gameplay: if you present something as a viable option, it should be viable.

In the end, this is a gamebook: while you roll dice and make decisions, a lot of decisions are either meaningless for players (turn left or right) and the book contains a lot of ‘you do this, that, and the other, which do you do now’ – dialogue is written for you, decisions are made for you, and at the end of a scene you eventually DO get a choice, but it still feels very, very railroady, and I found it impossible to identify with the character even in my usual third person/shoulder cam perspective.

So those are faults that are part of the system itself, and while you probably can execute this better or worse, the flaws are inherent in the system.

What’s not inherent is that this is a PDF without anchors so when it says ‘go to 437’ you have to scroll manually to 437, which means there is always a chance you catch a sentence or two from other sections, which may or may not lead to spoilers. In many ways, this would be better suited to a video game or a PDF where every section sits on its own page.
Particularly annoying is that the introduction tells you that there are sections hidden within the game text, which just encourages you to read ahead.
This could have been solved much better.

I’ve also come across one incontinuity, and many plot threads are never resolved.

Plus I hoped to spend a little more time in some of the plays and found myself whisked away quickly.


This experience played out more or less as I expected. I had one ‘choose your own adventure’ book as a kid and didn’t find it very interesting then; this one had a few more choices and a few more stats plus an actual rolling/card pulling mechanism, but it still steamrolled you in places, and the fundamental structural issues are inbuilt so that a different author cannot make them go away.

All in all I am not unhappy I grabbed this in a sale (I have another gamebook hanging around somewhere that I picked up for a dollar), but while there are choices, this barely matches the definition of ‘roleplaying’,

I may go through this again in a few years, and after a couple of playthroughs, I probably will satisfy my curiosity by reading it.

I played this for most of the month – not as my only game, but I picked it up most days and continued until I was bored or had no idea which choice I should take. (Some choices seemed very obvious. Which doesn't mean I would have been right about them.) I did have fun, but more in a 'I skimmed a not very good novel' than in a roleplaying way.

Edited the 'Speciality Cards and Dice' section of Agents of Chaos with the following:


Speciality Cards and Dice
I haven’t yet encountered any games that specifially rely on a custom resource, but you can get decks with pieces of dungeons, cards that determine how an NPC will react to your character, so I felt they deserved an honourable mention.


At some point, I picked up a set of seven dice and I have been using some of them in my freeform solo play:

– Direction (d8, N/NE/E etc)
– Weather (d10, Sunny, Cloudy etc)
– Wilderness Terrain (d 12, this includes not only standard terrains but trails, towns, and castles/ruins)
– Random Emotion (d12, though some are very close, like attracted/flirting and sad/apathy, but I'm trying this out for first encounters with random NPCs)
– Dungeon Terrain (d12, from corridors to obstacles and traps)
– Dungeon Feature (d12, statues, wells, doors etc)
– Treasure (d8, potions, magical and non-magical items etc)


I've been finding it much easier to roll a die than to consult tables, and while I'll probably pivot to either a Hexflower or the Scarlet Heroes method of terrain creation in the longer run, being able to quickly create something randome instead of having to think (and overthink) or reach for the same old same old has definitely made my life more fun.

SemiReview: Scarlet Heroes

First, a trigger warning.
Previously, I have skipped over horror games because I don’t do horror. This is a dark fantasy game (post-apocalyptic within its world: a lot of bad stuff happened, lands were overrun, they had to settle in one small corner of the world) and like a lot of old-school games, it’s dark.

This one is extra dark, and after reading the built-in scenario I decided not to play within this world and I will skip the provided starter adventure. I am also not going to use the provided monsters because while some of them are your standard scary things, one random find was decidedly icky, I’m not going to give you a precise trigger warning because that would give the game away and spread the ick.

Mechanically, there’s a lot to like about Scarlet Heroes. From a setting point of view, I see no reason to choose this over a thousand other heroic fantasy settings.

( Game Description )

All in all, I like this much better than Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC); I want to try these rules to try and convert an existing adventure; I can see myself using the tables and the DM advice; I can see myself using the character I rolled up in a world where they aren't doomed to fail right from the outset. (I would not have created this character if I'd known more of the backstory. I thought I was creating an outsider, not someone who will be killed on sight in most of the setting.)

Reading this book has given me a much better understanding of how old-fashioned DnD worked in principle/game loop; I now have a better idea on how to create magic items for games that just say 'the gamemaster will make everything up, have fun', and I've taken a lot of notes on various aspects of adventure design, loot distribution, etc.

I can also see using the tables provided to spark inspiration; there's just enough content without, for the most part, being too restrictive.

The Scenario Table (3x 20 different scenarios for Urban, Wilderness and Dungeon settings) looks to hit the sweet spot for me, for instance: there are enough details in the description that something is likely to rattle something loose in my brain without feeling constrained by them, and while I am not interested in running crime adventures (most of the Urban tables are full of crimes), I want to try the game loop since it sounds super useful; I think it will solve one of my problems with how to set up adventures (but that, I think, will have to wait for another post).

All in all, I don't regret buying this, I just wish it was kinder.

(And yes, this is complex enough that a new tag was born, the semi-review. This is far more than first impressions, but it's also not a full review as I haven't actually played anything yet.)

Edited Agents of Chaos with the following:

Books
Some people collect random snippets from books and use them as oracles. I’ve seen
– a name for a character (first name they come across)
– borrow an event (this works best with gothic/fantasy novels, but mysteries can work, too. This is where you get the trapdoor or the weird smell or the hostile villagers or _something_ and incorporate them into your game.
– spark table (you roll for a location: page/line) and use those words instead of a table of random words

I have also glanced at a number of games that are based on novels, but haven’t studied the actual mechanism of gameplay.


There seems to be a number of games based on using books as a randomiser; if they come up and the mechanism is worth examining, I will update the master list further.

https://itch.io/b/3481/solo-but-not-alone-6

I promise I can stop any time.

This is definitely a bundle of solo games, and I’m getting the ‘my dance card is full’ feeling; yes, a lot of these games look very yummy, but so did the last two bundles I’ve posted and there will always be more interesting games.

I have around 80 games in last year’s bundle, and several more bundles to go through. I *do* feel I’m making progress, but at the (maximum, unrealistic) rate of 1 game a day, I probably have a couple of years’ worth of itch.io bundle games. Never mind games I got from elsewhere, solo play I’m improvising, and games I play with others.

One thing this does is cure me of FOMO. Not yet in the ‘must buy all the things’ sense; I am not quite at the point where I will not buy a dedicated solo bundle; but I’m no longer buying other games even if they’re just a quid (or a couple of quid).

But now that I have them, I find myself wanting to process them, and having made a good start (I have done reviews, however short, of 40+ games) I want to continue, so I can reduce my mental load.

That means being ruthless. My ‘one topic a month’ project is not going too well; I got side-tracked this month and started on a different game so I’ll have to re-configure everything, and I’ve found a few more games/game styles that I wanted to add, so I’m now looking at September 2027, and I’m not even *trying* to find themes.

But there’s also a tremendous sense of achievement, of taming a mountain of STUFF and turning it into a library of choices; I’m starting to get a feel for which mechanisms work for me; what I like to do when I’m out of brain, what I want to borrow for a longer campaign maybe, how I can augment my practice.

In the long run I think I’ll end up with a pile of solo journalling things along the lines of Froggy Hat, With Iron Teeth or The Disguised Frog - good, wholesome, short fun. (This selection picked by scrolling down the list of reviews); but also hopefully with a pile of games that can form the baseline for longer adventures/more in-depth stories.

In the end I suspect I will end up in a similar space as Geek Gamer in this video – not with the exact resources, but with a similar pattern of I pick a general feel, I find a way to get the story started, pick a ruleset, build a character, and do some worldbuilding in any order.

While it's only fair (and educational) to play each solo game as it is intended (games not intended to be soloed will need amendments anyway) in the end, I see myself taking note what I particularly like about each game and then taking the best bits and making a story from them.

I'm not there yet, but I'm getting closer.

Unreview: Lorekeeper

( Game Description )

I’m tired to the bone. I had all the life sucked out of me: here’s a bunch of words on a page (some missing in a mock blackout) and it appears that the game the creator envisions has nothing to do with the game I’ve caught glimpses of while reading the rules.

Indie game makers: will you please make a whole game? And then give it to someone who has never seen your game before and ask them to play it and take notes what they find clear and what they don’t? I’m no longer completely new to solo space, though I still have a literal mind.

I can’t make sense of this, I can’t make a _game_ of this, and at this point, I’m too pissed off to invest more time and try harder. Somewhere in here is an interesting game. I haven’t found it, and I will no longer try.

First Impressions: Arcana After the Fall

( Game Description )

On the one hand, Tarot. One the other tentacles, there’s no gameplay as such, though you pull only 8 cards (plus the Fool/the World); the prompts are always the same but in different order, and this is postapocalyptic with ‘you’ as the protagonist.

While I did not see anything terribly off, not all of the interpretations are quite on the nose for my tarot practice. ‘What does wonder look like to you’ doesn’t scream ‘hermit’ to me.

Add the apocalypse, and I have no interest whatsoever.

Random tables are not exactly agents of chaos, but they’re related. You use dice (and sometimes playing cards) to select items on random tables. On the other hand, there are few RPGs that make zero use of random tables; they’re extremely useful.

In this post I want to go over different types of random tables and the roles they can play in solo RPGs. Not covered are oracle tables (‘spark tables’) that give you a word or three and make you think about the narrative. What does ‘imprison, success’ mean in the context of your adventure? Only you know. And sometimes you don’t.

As far as I know, the terminology I use is my own (though I may have picked up a thing or two from elsewhere) – I just needed a way to think (and talk) about this.

( Generic vs Specific tables )

First Impressions Be Still, Archivist

( Game Description )

I’m always down for games using Tarot, and I’m always interested in making investigation fun as a mechanism, particularly for solo play. The Tarot interpretations provided look sound, and this is from the creator of the Froggy Hat game, so there's a certain amount of trust. For the time being, with a limited amount of spoons and concentration, and a certain amount of fragility, I am putting this on ice.

First Impressions: You are a bird

( Game Description )

This is a pure journalling exercise with some mildly interesting prompts (and some that are not); I don’t think there’s much replay value (you get the prompts in a specific order) and, well, that’s all there is, you answer a few prompts and the thing is over. This is very lightweight indeed.

Playthrough/Review: Dog Detectives

( Game Description )

I have a keen intrest in running mysteries, so this one intrigued me: you go to multiple locations, roll on a theme table, then roll to see whether you find a clue. When you’ve visited all locations, you try and assemble a possible explanation from your clues. The more clues you use, the better your chances of rolling a success on the deduction table.

This is an interesting approach. In the end, it depends partly on dice luck (you can get 0 clue and a setback, 0 clue and a minor setback, 1 clue, or 2 clues in each of the 9 stops). The two failure conditions also mean you reduce your investigation dice by one step. Since you start with d10/d12 (one for friendlyness the other for ferocity, you decide what kind of dog you aren and what's appropriate in that moment) that quickly takes you down to precious few clues and little option to succeed, so you might need to reset your dice and forego one location.

The themes are all over the place - adventure, abundance, jealousy, trust – and sometimes completely baffling. What does ‘payment’ mean at a school when you’re a dog?

I’m also not a fan of the resolution table. The odds are not in favour of finding your missing human, and I struggled to weave the clues into a coherent tale.
A medical worker, a deity, a token of affection, some of my favourite treats, a thief, and a piece of clothing. Put them all together and you find your missing human (or not).

I concocted a wild tale, rolled lucky, and wrote ‘the end’.

This game has taught me something about mysteries, I guess. It falls into the gap between ‘using randomisers to determine success’ and ‘using your imagination to reach your goal’. Overall, I was lucky that I managed to gain enough clues and that I could build a narrative out of those clues, and that I was successful in my roll.
Failing to reach my objective would have sucked and I kinda feel I cheated by bending narrative reality in my favour.

I don’t think I fully understand how you are meant to play this, and all in all, it was much less fun than I had hoped to find. I wanted to go to different locations based on the clues I found/the story so far, but a church/temple wasn’t available, and I’d visited the health centre before gaining clues that should have led me there.

So neither the tables nor the mechanism fully worked for me. Maybe I was just unlucky in my rolls/draws, but this does not fascinate me enough to try again under the exact same rules.

Not tagged with single session though it would certainly be possible, because I had to make myself come back and finish it – my playthrough started with setbacks and I wasn’t getting enough inspiration from the game to build more story.

So yes, I vanished for a while, am trying to finish and post the half-written posts I made earlier, and get back to blogging. I’m fine, everyone is fine, I just had zero capacity for anything that needed brain and concentration.

( Where I'm at )

I’m enjoying the casual format of this blog so far and intend to keep up this series; I love discovering new and weird games in bundles.
But I also want to be a bit more focused in my hunt for a solo practice that suits me, and thus I am going to try something new: every month in 2026 I want to focus on one play style/mechanism/type of game.

(This month, or what’s left of it, is reserved for generic Solo RPG resources).

I have no idea how long I will follow this plan, whether I'll get through all of it, and when I’ll abandon it (with the 20x24 I always seem to crash in July/August), but it’s better than no plan.

( Twelve months, one rough plan )

We'll see how it goes, and what, if anything, I will plan for 2027.

One thing I think will help is that I can pre-select resources; write down the ones that are most interesting to me and thus start each segment of the year right off the bat, instead of desperately around for resources on the day.

First Impression: Commons Rider

( Game Description )

The ‘Conflict’ system is… complicated. It involves dice pools and a lot of judgement: how expensive would it be to do this thing vs. that thing (this is akin to a difficulty class, only you have one system for deciding how many dice you roll, another what number you roll against, and then you take your successes and buy actions; you don’t roll against ‘I hit it’ directly.

I can see this system being interesting to run, but also carrying a greater-than-average mental load. This will become easier over time, but I’m not sure how smooth the negotiations-with-self will be; it would need a lot of switching between player and GM mode. The fact that this is a tag-based system where you decide what traits your character has and what those traits mean, mechanically also points to a high cognitive load, and if I needed another reason not to engage further with this game, this is it.

Playthrough/Review: Rise of the Gods

( Game Description )

The idea isn’t horrible. If you have your toolbox at the ready and you want to play among the gods, with a clear-cut mission, and this story appeals to you, you may love it, and you may end up in interesting places. I’m a writer with a million ideas churning through my brain, I can create new ideas at the drop of a hat, and while I sometimes appreciate a ready-made quest starter to give to my player in DnD, the things I look for there are simpler and things that fit into my world.

This doesn’t. There may be a day when I feel I want an epic story seed and this is it, but that day may never come, and in the meantime, this is taking up space on my hard drive and in my brain that I can use better.

Playthrough/Review: Scroll of Changes

( Game Description )

I’m happy this thing exists but it didn’t work for me at all. Part of it is that it’s just so fussy, and I had to constantly look things up. Part of it is that the instructions about what kind of event the characters meet are just a bit too vague.

A giant turn-off, the thing that made me want to not use this at all, is that it encouraged me to think about success/failure (you have to use a binary result as part of the system), and that I was rushing through the gameplay/story creation to reach the next step in the gamified system. That’s partly my fault – I wanted to simulate the use of this tool and did not want to spend days or weeks playing, one event at a time. At the same time, ‘the characters will encounter an event of this magnitude’ ruined the discovery for me, and I found myself un-inspired.

The longer I engaged, the less I liked it.

I need to go back and think about whether this type of mental oracle – what *type* of challenge am I facing – is useful and/or fun, and how this list compares to other GMing tools.

With the DM in the driving seat, I can see how determining ‘this is a skirmish’ vs ‘this is the Big Bad’ and ‘this encounter is about the party growing together’ or ‘this is about discovering a truth about the world’. (I _think_ Ironsworn works a bit like that? I’m just leaving this as a note to self). Coming at it from a player perspective, you obviously have an idea about where in a storyline you are – at the beginning, near the resolution – but emergent gameplay and unexpected complications are a big part of the fun, as are ambiguous results (you killed the Big Bad, but you lost something important, and discovered a third thing. Is this a success or a failure?

Having thought more about the process it’s entirely possible that this type of oracle – an oracle shaping the mood/theme of an encounter – would work for me; this particular resource definitely doesn’t.

Here, the Marie Kondo lens is definitely an asset. I was quite excited to try this out, but found the actual gameplay uninspiring; this does not spark joy for me.

So this isn’t a bundle, just a sale, but it’s a massive sale on drivethrurpg.com (Apparently there will be special deals on Friday and Monday, but I cannot wait, so I bought things on day one; if another reduction happens, I'll have to cope with that.)

Over the past months, I accumulated a wishlist of items that I really want; and when everything was around 1/3 off, I pounced. A couple of solo games, Diana Warrior Princess which I absolutely HAVE TO check out, a rules light game for two players called Gawain (I’m contractually obliged to get this, I don't make the rules) and a stack of books about games. Most of them Mythic. I’ve used the Fate Chart of Mythic GME, I’ve read parts of the book, and I do have a policy that if I borrow a book/read the preview to the end and like it, I will buy it. (I also have a policy of rarely buying things I can't check out. Bite me.)

And with that massive spending spree, my RPG resource collection is pretty much complete.

This doesn’t mean I won’t buy more products. I mean, let’s be real. There’ll be more itch.io charity bundles, and more Humblebundles, and the occasional product that catches my eye (some of them on my wishlist AND discounted, but my budget ran out before my wishlist; such is life). But I currently have more things than I can play in a year (because a lot of them are scenarios or game systems and while I can handle a one-page solo game in a day, or two in one week, a game system with two dozen possible adventures will Take More Time, and that’s great.
I’ve made the majority of purchases after working out how to have fun with solo games, and while I am going to tweak this to have MORE fun, I am having plenty of fun already and I can see a lot more fun in my future.

In the meantime, I’m going through my very long list of resources I’ve picked up in the last ten years or so, so I finally know what I’ve got and where I can look when I want inspiration.
(I will never use everything, and that’s ok, but turning ‘huge mountain of stuff’ into ‘organised pile of stuff, taking note of interesting settings/subclasses/rule sets’ is a huge reduction of mental load; it’s exciting.)

Dice are, by far, the most common random element in TTRPGs and solo play. There are very few games that don’t use dice at all, though some use them sparingly: throw 1d6 and otherwise, pull cards.

Dice you need

( The bear neccessities )

I cannot imagine playing RPGs and having no dice at all.

Paraphernalia

( Things that make rolling dice better )

Besides a dice tray for containment while rolling, having spillproof clear containers to keep whatever I currently use at hand and visible, I have refrained from extras.

Materials

( It's true… or not )

Thankfully, I actually love cheap acrylic dice best.

Sources

( Where should you get your dice? )

And this is how you become a dice goblin. Ooops.

Unreview:
Hell and Death and An American Guitar

( Game Description )

Drat. This looked like fun; it has a slightly weird dice pool mechanic, you’re ultimately fighting the Devil (who has, of course, 666 hit points), but a good chunk of game is missing.
I do not know how to fill the gap, so this is an unreview after all, and I’m deleting it, but I’m a bit miffed, because this could have been fun.

First Impressions: Origin Story


( Game Description )

I got to the first instruction, where you're supposed to put down your name and your superpowers, and I just froze. Instant stress reaction. Completely blocked, could not think of anything, just completely in a state of fear.

Yeah, I don't know what's up with that, either. I've always had a problem with being creative on demand.
Compare that to all of the characters I have created recently with Colorful Characters some of who were a lot weirder than your bog-standard superhero, I come, once more, to the conclusion that anything that starts with a stylized description is a bad match for me (I always freeze when character creation begins with 'name, hair colour, shoe size') even though the journey in ColorfulCharacters *does* have name as the first category, but there you're talking about why you're called that, and you may be prompted to say more about your name(s).

I bailed at the first comics panel. One day I would not mind attempting to make a comic or graphic novel (I even have a couple of ideas, though not the drawing skills), but you need a certain amount of brain to translate story into comics panels.

It's a great exercise. It's super creative, and you get great prompts. It's just not for me. I'm not keen enough oncomics OR superheroes to want to do this. So goodbye, BlueTack Woman (who can mend anything at all), I guess BlandMan (not invisible, just unremarkable; he'll blend in anywhere) wins this round.

Honourably retired. I don't think I'll ever want to play this, but it feels solid, and I think someone else will have fun with it.

This is going to be a series of posts, not in the least because I do not actually have ‘the answer’ to ‘how do I get started’.

The answer to that will be different for different people and different types of games, and depend on your mental state, time budget, and personal preferences, so expect this more like a which Discworld book should I read first chaotic flowchart than a simple ‘a, b, c’. .

The short, trial-and-error, might-be-fun-and-might-not answer is 'pick something that appeals to you, throw yourself into it, and keep tweaking it until you have fun (or until you're thoroughly bored with even the idea of solo play and give it up forever).
It's not wrong. Many people come to love solo RPGs by this route, but I would recommend that even if you're keen to delve in right now, you spend at least 10% of the time and spoons you have available researching other systems, and exploring what else you could play and how else you could play it.

( Sparking Joy )

Domain 1: Complexity

There's more than one axis here, so many games can be very simple along one axis and create a high mental load along another. If something feels too much, it's ok to walk away, sometimes for now, sometimes completely. I'm learning that lesson and will probably have to learn it again.

( Length and Prep )

Domain 2: Style of Gameplay

DnD rests on three pillars: Social, Exploration, and Combat. Solo play touches on all of these, but coming from a slightly different angle.

( Preliminary musings )

I *think* I'm tending more towards exploration than combat, especially as some of the fun parts of combat in TTRPGs – outwitting the DM by using special abilities and collaborating with other players – just don't work anywhere near as well in solo play.

Domain 3: Preparation

If you're lucky, prep is play. Otherwise, at least make it fun.

( When you can't avoid prep )

Domain 4: Gameplay Loop

I don't feel I'm familiar enough with SoloRPG-the-Hobby to say much of substance on this topic yet.

This is a problem because this is how I will find the answer to 'what do I enjoy' and 'which game should I pick right now' if I don't know what's possible?
I mean, I've been studying soloRPGs for a few months, I've acquired a huge stack of games (some cheap, some free, some in bundles); I'm reading RPGs, solo and group games regularly; I'm rolling dice to try out mechanics, I'm (finally) playing games, I'm watching playthroughs… All the time I am finding ways of playing that I like and learning what is too complicated, too boring, or just too much of a mental load, all by poking at different systems.

From that point of view, I don't regret playing things that don't work for me; I'm learning from those games, too.

A lot of people who play solo seem to have a toolbox containing multiple approaches, so they can simplify conflict resolution, bring in additional subsystems, and just doing everything to keep the story flowing, and I definitely want to develop those skills.

TL;DR:
I don't think there is a straightforward answer to 'how do I start to play' beyond 'pick up some cheap/free games and mess around and see what you like while learning as much about the hobby as you can'.

To come back to the place where I'm stuck, because I think it's a good way of illustrating how solo RPG does or doesn't work:

I am currently attempting to start a short campaign using the Tiny Dungeon rule set. It's a game that is fairly pared down, originally a group game, but frequently soloed. I have used the Colorful Characters process to roll up three characters, who promptly came alive, and purchased a set of random dungeon cards that is highly praised, to see whether a randomly-created dungeon works for me.
So the main character (two are just along for the ride; this one has a goal and motivation, which was NOT my intention) comes to the city and is looking to pick up her first proper adventuring job (She'll just happen to team up with the other two characters I rolled).
I have a fair idea of what will happen to get her to the starter quest. If I was writing a book, I'd be skimming the surface of those scenes until we get to the real action, the dungeon is entered, and the first enemy awaits.

But I have been paying attention to how RPGs work, and – see the three pillars above – I don't want to play a game where all I do is fight enemies, even though this is the mechanic I want to try out.
If I was DMing this for others, I'd describe the marketplace a little and then ask 'what do you want to do'.
And I want to bring some of that energy – the 'play' aspect – into my own game, but I am not sure how yet. Which is frustrating.
So I will take this situation away, and think about it some more, and write out what I could do and how I could address it with the tools I *am* familiar with, and decide later. In the meantime, I'll check out more games and log some more resources and fill my toolbox, but I'm just somewhat frustrated and a little bit annoyed that I just… have no idea how to proceed from here.

I have a number of books _about_ solo play, and half a million rulesets; one of them will provide the answer, but I have no patience, I want to proceed NOW.

(How would you approach this in your own game? I don't want to create a complication; I don't want a fight in the marketplace, and I know exactly what the noticeboard looks like once my character finds it, but I want her to look around, maybe notice some NPCs or future quest hooks or potential allies. It may be relevant that Futto is a 4ft goblin in a marketplace of mixed clientele; she would NOT simply turn up and get an overview and head straight for the noticeboard.)