Green_Knight's Solo Adventures

This is a random post. Sorta. It’s more a post about randomness. I will go into more depth about individual random techniques later, but I wanted to throw this up as a master post. For me, a random element is a vital aspect of ‘play’ in RPGs. In a group, that random element can be partly other players at the table, but I am having a hard time imagining a game without a random element that still feels like a game. (Choose-your-own-adventure can be fun, but they’re different things.)

Dice. Dicess, precioussss
Very much associated with TTRPGs. DnD uses a 7-dice polyset (d4, d6, d8, d10, d%, d12, d20) and any number of extras, especially as you level up (even magic missile uses 3d4) so if you’re playing DnD, you will have at least one set of dice and a grab bag of extras.
Many solo games use D6 instead, and I’ve gotten a few sets of 3xd6 with spots on, which I find easier to read.
Mechanics vary greatly, so there’s a lot game designers can do.
If you have hoarding tendencies, be warned: shiny mathrocks are addictive.

Playing Cards
A surprising number of solo games call for a standard deck of playing cards, with or without jokers. Sometimes you remove other cards. Especially for journaling games, this gives you a mechanic of four groups of prompts. In Ice Station Zero, this was Interior/Exterior/Crew/The Other; it’s a useful pattern.

Tarot Cards
This is playing cards on steroids. You get the four suits and their meanings, but you also get pretty pictures to spark your imagination and the Major Arcana to provide additional archetypes. There are many MANY tarot decks available, as readers of my journal will know, and the right steampunk or fairy tale or wizardry deck can get you into the mood. If the illustrations are detailed enough, you may get inspiration from a background element. Maybe it’s not the ‘2 of Swords’ that matters, but the fact the character is holding two sporks. (Trash Panda Tarot).

Jenga Tower
This is a surprisingly popular mechanism in solo games. I’ll definitely make a proper post about this because I have very mixed feelings about physical towers.

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)



Scrabble Tiles
I haven’t seen this in a solo game yet, but The Far Roofs (currently on Bundle of Holding) uses Scrabble tiles.
Have not even read, yet alone played, and might be screwed: our choice is between Welsh Scrabble and German.

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.

???
It’s entirely possible that there are further random mechanics that I haven’t discovered yet. If so, I will edit this post further.

20/1/26: Added the 'books' entry.
8/2/26: Amended the 'speciality cards and dice' entry.

Egil

(Having introduced the not-a-game tag, I promptly need ‘probably-a-game’. Indie games are weird)

( Game Description )

I came to the marketplace at noon,
You’ll hear the sorry tale too soon,
priest I met drinking, a monk.
For that meeting, I must atune,
There in Holmguard he cast his last rune.
He badmouthed the old gods and swung his fist,
considering himself immune
to any demands to attune.
I did not care that clearly, he was drunk
My own fists I raised, rough-hewn
Hoping he would change his tune
He failed to dodge. I’ve never missed.

Not a head I want to spend much time in, and I'm not sure I want to do this again.
Loved the 'roll all dice other than %' mechanic and I want to steal it at some point.

(I'd edit this, but I've committed to posting my raw notes, and it's not good enough TO polish but the second line was definitely me spinning my wheels.)



Verdict:
Honourably Retired 🚂
This one is weird 🍭

This sounded interesting and came recommended, but it’s a modified card-of-the-day draw using a pack of playing cards where the purpose is to reflect and work on yourself and hold yourself accountable.

This might work for some people, but I already draw a tarot card of the day, and I have my own procedure for that, which includes making draws ephemeral. I don't want to log what I've pulled and crunch numbers to see what came up most often.

Verdict:
Retired due to lack of interest. 🎪 (= Not my circus, not my monkeys)
Very zen. 🪷
Not a game 📟 (that's a pager, for those of us who remember them)