My Solo RPG Journey: Status Update #3

Another pit stop on my journey, another moment of reflection. Plans and news too!

Me after yesterday’s game of Brambletrek

Hello again my dear imaginary readers. Today we are doing yet another pit spot on my journey, to reflect and consider and go over things I have discovered about myself and these games and what I am planning to do.

No more Mouse Dark Souls for me. No thanks, I choose life.

I will admit that yesterday was a bad day for me mentally. I was having a rough day at work and I had hoped to have a nice cozy adventure to chill out and instead I got…that. RNGesus did not wish for me to chill out I suppose, and I kind of let my real life rage bleed into my experience, which merged with my frustration at my usual bad luck.

It was not the game's fault. At least not fully. I still blame the game for giving me Mouse Dark Souls though. At least Crossed Paths wasn’t upset with my coverage of their games it seems.

Anyway I have a few things this time I want to go over. I want to rank the games I have played so far in terms of how likely I am to replay them here on the site. I want to talk about GM Emulators / Oracles and my stance on them, and I want to talk about the games I have coming up that I want to cover.

Let’s start with the easiest one which is my thoughts on GM Emulators and my stance on using them.

I have been on record in a few places saying that part of my goal with this project is to focus on games that specifically come with included official solo rules in some fashion. I really do not want to use GM Emulators to turn a TTRPG like DND or Pathfinder into a solo game. Not because thats a bad thing, mind you, it's a great option to have. Rather, I think people like Me Myself and Die, Dungeon Dive, and Man Alone already do that and do it way better. Hell there are plenty of great people here on Substack that do that already.

I wanted to specifically focus on the games that are designed to be played solo as part of their core rules, personally. However, I am coming to the realization that there are not a huge amount of those that are not pure journaling type games, and perhaps I need to start considering GM Emulators as a sort of backup, when I have nothing new to cover and I don’t want to go back to something else.

Funnily enough, the very first purchase I made in July 2025 when I was thinking of trying Solo Tabletop RPGs was the Mythic GM Emulator 2nd Edition. I have tried to read through it a few times and honestly my eyes glaze over. I thought maybe I was simply too dumb to get it but no, I don’t think that is it anymore.

After playing a ton of games now with their own built in GM emulation and Oracles I have gone to the conclusion that I just don’t NEED something that complex and over the top. The Mythic GM Emulator is very deep and has a ton of options, but it's all those options that make it too much for me to want to deal with. Additionally, Mythic is very vague with everything, which I am not and have never been a fan of. I like concrete ideas and answers, generally. It's much easier for me to work with something like “they have something to hide” than a random pair of words like “hidden, violence”. Sure I can come up with something, but the pair of words takes a lot more brain power and thanks to my day job I sometimes just don't have that in the moment. Mythic is the grandparent of Solo TTRPG and it has my respect for that, but its just too much for me to need.

I also recently picked up the Plot Unfolding Machine (PUM) PDF and while that is much better, it still has a lot going on that I just do not need. After playing RHBF and other games I realized that I can craft a plot on my own easily enough. I can come up with NPCs without assistance, backgrounds, all of it. What I usually need is some sort of jumping off point. A simple plot idea or maybe a yes / no question answered and very rarely I might want to randomize a who what when where why response.

So both of these systems (Mythic and PUM) turn me off by their sheer level of complexity and options right? So where does that leave me?

Funnily enough, it was reddit that gave me another idea. Someone there had asked me if I had played Mausritter at all in reference to Brambletrek, and when I told em that I focused on games with Solo Rules built in they let me know that Mausritter had its own 3rd party solo rules. I was curious, and someone else chimed in that those rules were kind of ass, and to just use Mythic or OPSE instead. I had never heard of OPSE so I had to ask what that was, and I was told it was the “One Page Solo Engine”, a single sheet GM Emulator.

I looked it up, found it here, and discovered it was free and basically a very slimmed down simple system for creating some basic plot starts, oracle stuff, and so on. This might work for me honestly. Looking at it my brain seems to get it. It's not overly fiddly with tons of options, it gives me just the bare essentials of what I might need in a given moment. And honestly, I am willing to give it a try. I also grabbed another 1 Page GM Toolkit called Ultimate One Page RPG Toolkit so I can try that later too. It has a lot going on for a 1 page toolkit.

So with all that said, what I am really saying is I might, MIGHT, try a non Solo TTRPG with OPSE later down the road, if I run out of actual Solo Focused TTRPG games such as BREAK! and Fabula Ultima and yes Mausritter down the road. But given certain authors (cough Alex T cough) and their output I don’t know if I will ever run out of games to try haha.

Especially since, well, I plan to go back and do more Actual Play of some games! So let's go over that ranking.

This list will be in order from “Never gonna touch again” to “Will absolutely play again”. I will give my reasons as well for each game as I go.

• Over War - So this one just does not grab me, mechanically. I have no actual desire to play what I see as mostly a board game in PnP form. I do think it's a well designed and creative game, but it's not what I am looking for in this space / hobby at all.

• NoteQuest - I look at this less like an RPG and more like a Roguelike in PnP form and again, it's not what I am after in this space and hobby. The sheer lethality of it alone puts me off. I want to invest in a character, not ram 100 into a wall until one lives long enough to survive a bit. So again, not planning to play this again, but for the right person? Good choice. It's very simple and easy to pick up and quick to get going.

• Four Against Darkness - Another one where I just have no interest in coming back to but for reasons that are a bit different from the last two. First, I find 4AD to be very basic and limited in its core form. It is also thematically bland. You are just 4 dudes going into a generic dungeon. While I can (and did) come up with a framework to give myself some form of story, that is not the point of 4AD. It's a game about dungeon delving, end of discussion. The other big thing is the sheer cost of making it feel more like a complete game with advancement. There is something like 20ish books JUST for the base game that expand it, ranging in price from $5 to up to $15. That means if you want every option available it's going to cost you a pretty penny and I could easily buy completely new games for like $40, that are finished products and don’t need all this. Also the author admits to using Gen AI now in his current work to help brainstorm ideas as well as touch up his own art. I don’t fuck with AI and have no interest in supporting that behavior.

• Brambletrek - I have no desire to put my fate into the cards again. I love the setting, I love the feel and vibes and concepts in this game narratively. I DESPISE the card based mechanics with every fiber of my being. Having a 50/50 shot of getting my ass beat or being given a glorious prize is not a lottery I want to participate in, especially with my luck. Whimbles will hopefully make a return in Drakonym, where at least I can have a badass dragon to help me. That's all up to Crossed Paths though.

• Salvage and Sorcery - The first game I MIGHT come back to but it’s very low on the totem pole of games I would consider. And that is mostly because of the Crit Fails and Crit Success and how they function in that game. However, I am feeling much more comfortable modding the games / houseruling them now, so when I eventually do come back to it, I will most likely change these rules to be less…horrifying to someone with my shit luck.

• Kal Arath - This is another game I might come back to later. I liked it well enough once I threw the Lost mechanics into the trash where it belongs in my opinion. If I do, I would probably add that mechanic back in but remove the disadvantage and maybe even give myself advantage the longer I stay lost. The only real thing that keeps me from for sure coming back is mostly just the setting. It's a very classic Sword and Sorcery and I am honestly not usually in the mood for that sort of thing. I grew up with it, and played in those types of settings in my early TTRPG years. It's a well worn, well trod setting style and frankly, I prefer more unique and weird stuff now. I do think that of the “Rules Lite” games I have played thus far, this is the best mechanically though.

• Riftbreakers 2nd Ed - I will be coming back to this. However, right now I am waiting for the final full release of the game before I do. I want to continue Keld’s journey but after all the finished changes for the game have been put out and its ready for the wider world.

• Ruthless Heavens, Boundless Fate - Of all the games I have played thus far this has been my absolute favorite. The theme, the vibes, the mechanics, I love it all. I am 100% coming back to this with a new character, and some house rules. I just don’t know when I am going to. This game is already complete, so other than me doing my own house rules and custom stuff for it, there is nothing else coming for it so I don’t have to worry about updates or expansions. That means I can just…vibe in the world. I will most likely try a Sharpshooter or Beastmaster as a starting class, with some custom HP house rules to give myself more survivability.

Now, what about upcoming games? Well, I have a few that I own that I still need to / want to cover. Here is what I have currently in order of what I might cover next:

• Niv Lova

• Tiny Cyberpunk

• Under Ashen Skies

• Ker Nethalas

• Ronin

• Koriko A Magical Year

• Seekers of the Shroud

• Machine Gods of the Noxian Expanse

There is one other game, and it will most likely be next. It's the upcoming Choir of Flesh by Blackoath games. It's not released yet but hopefully I will be getting access to it next week. So until I get my hands on that, well, posts will be paused. I am also wanting to cover Ashes and Drakonym by Crossed Paths, and Marching Order 2nd Ed when those are released. Whenever the hell that is.

After all those, well, I have no idea what I might do. I have quite a bit to get through when I think about it, and there are always new games coming.

There is also one more reason for me to delay any new posts…by the time you all are reading this I will be heading to the Dentist getting two teeth pulled out of my mouth. So I will be in no mood for much of anything. I will most likely spend some time reading some rulebooks (I actually enjoy reading rules and learning new systems) and watching Youtube. And working. I have to work on Sunday.

The last thing I want to say though is this: Thank you to the greater Solo RPG community for being so welcoming and accepting. My primary goal with all of this is to shine a light on lesser-known games, and to try to experiment with as many games and styles as I can to show people just what you can do in this hobby. I know Substack here has some controversy but honestly at this point what social media platform doesn’t frankly? I personally plan to curate my feed and followers like ANYONE should to avoid any issues. The funniest thing I saw was somone on reddit complaining about Substack’s reputation. They are on REDDIT. That place is a cesspool of hate and rage for fucks sake.

So again, thank you. I hope to continue to bring y'all quality nonsense. But no more Mouse Dark Souls. Unless there are dragons involved. Actually, here’s a funny little thing as I was sleeping last night. I woke up and had a great idea on how to bridge Whimbles’ story from Brambletrek into Drakonym. I need to email Crossed Paths and tease THEM for a change.

Till next time. Take care.