Unleash Your Imagination: Engaging Solo Tabletop RPGs for When Friends are Absent

The most challenging aspect of any tabletop game is locating individuals to participate with. The complications involved in assembling a group, the surge of exceptional indie TTRPGs, and numerous other elements have contributed to a kind of renaissance for single-player tabletop role-playing games — particularly, solo rules for games typically designed for a full assembly.

To clarify, the solo tabletop trend is not a recent occurrence. As Polygon contributor Tom Ana notes, it truly gained momentum with wargames in the ’80s, gradually increasing in visibility over the following decades until the lockdown period of the ongoing COVID pandemic provided an ideal backdrop for board games and TTRPGs. Independent TTRPGs such as Tim Hutchings’ historical Thousand Year Old Vampire, Shawn Tompkin’s Ironsworn, Chris Bisette’s The Wretched, and Alone Among the Stars by Takuma Okada established a foundation for individual tabletop RPG adventures.

In the past five years since 2020, the interest has only intensified. During PAX Unplugged last month, I heard a consistent theme: attendees were seeking solo role-playing games. Although many exceptional games have launched in recent years, tabletop enthusiasts appear to have filled their shelves with games they might never have a group to enjoy. In response, designers have started integrating solo gameplay into their rules frameworks — whether by creating an auxiliary supplement, making solo rules a stretch goal in their crowdfunding efforts, or embedding them within the base game itself. The three games mentioned below illustrate the variety of approaches designers have adopted for incorporating solo rules into their creations.

The Swedish game studio Free League Publishing developed solo rules for its Nordic Horror RPG Vaesen in 2023. Authored by Per Holmström, the solo version of the game features a detailed guide that transforms the game’s predetermined mystery into one that players uncover progressively. Utilizing a deck of cards along with the core book’s random tables, solo Vaesen allows players to reveal the mystery by rolling dice to ascertain their discoveries while leveraging the color and value of the cards to dictate the results of their actions.

Drawing inspiration from the classic hook and ring game, HUNT(er/ed) by Meghan Cross and Dillin Apelyan allows two players to occupy the contrasting roles of hunter and creature. Players each roll 2d6, competing to see who can achieve doubles first to advance their token on the board. The victor then draws a card with a corresponding prompt, advancing the narrative in a manner akin to games like For The Queen. The solo version of the game takes HUNTER(er/ed)’s fundamental experience of exploring monstrosity and encourages the player to navigate a spectrum of acceptance or denial. A stretch goal for HUNT(er/ed)’s crowdfunding initiative, the solo rules were crafted by Elliot Davis, who has also created his own solo game, Project Ecco, as well as solo adaptations of Soul Muppet’s Orbital Blues and Paint the Town Red.

A surreal play-to-lose horror experience, The Zone was fully committed to solo gameplay from the outset, drawing inspiration from Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation. Similar to HUNT(er/ed), this game employs card-based prompts to navigate players through a quarantined, mutation-laden area from which only one can escape alive. Every action entails drawing a “Not-So-Easy” card, which yields a “yes, and” or “no, but” outcome. Marketed as a game for 1-6 participants (instead of 2-6 with a GM), solo rules were an inherent part of The Zone from the beginning. The solo regulations remain largely unchanged, except the singular player controls several characters.