There’s a concept called ‘solo journaling RPGs’ - the idea is that it’s essentially a very lite set of rules that you use to generate writing prompts for yourself. The game gives you some loose guidelines for what to write about, and then you write journal entries as if you had experienced that thing, with the details being very largely open to your own imagination and interpretation.
Edit: In fact, if this concept is interesting to you, itch.io is currently offering a bundle to raise money for the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, which includes a lot of solo journaling RPGs, in addition to some other things.
To add, aside from solo journaling games, there are also proper solo ttrpgs with a lot of rules and tables so that the dice have a lot more say. Ironsworn and its off-shoots (Starforged and Sundered Isles) are a great example.
EDIT: Some cool solo journaling examples include “1000 Year Vampire”, which can really push you to write things you might not be comfortable with, and Star Trek: Captains Log if you are into Star Trek. Journaling games really exercise the imagination and can really help your roleplaying in your regular games.
Writing a book means planning out plot and character arcs and going back to edit and such. Solo RPGs are an entirely different beast. They can inspire books, but they are not an authorial exercise.
There are a lot of solo games. Its kind of funny that there seems to be a market for “group games minus the group.”
There is probably some psychological angles here, like people are too introverted or whatever to find and join or just create a local group fornthese sorts of games.
Despite the funny meme, a lot are intended to be game like, with dice rolls and such to create some unintended spontaneous events and results.
Many however also are basically just a writing prompt. Or a writing prompt where the prompt has a dice roll at the start.
I didn’t really play any but Instarted collecting up solo games a few years ago.
There’s a concept called ‘solo journaling RPGs’ - the idea is that it’s essentially a very lite set of rules that you use to generate writing prompts for yourself. The game gives you some loose guidelines for what to write about, and then you write journal entries as if you had experienced that thing, with the details being very largely open to your own imagination and interpretation.
Edit: In fact, if this concept is interesting to you, itch.io is currently offering a bundle to raise money for the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, which includes a lot of solo journaling RPGs, in addition to some other things.
To add, aside from solo journaling games, there are also proper solo ttrpgs with a lot of rules and tables so that the dice have a lot more say. Ironsworn and its off-shoots (Starforged and Sundered Isles) are a great example.
EDIT: Some cool solo journaling examples include “1000 Year Vampire”, which can really push you to write things you might not be comfortable with, and Star Trek: Captains Log if you are into Star Trek. Journaling games really exercise the imagination and can really help your roleplaying in your regular games.
Yep, this is the post I was looking for.
Writing a book means planning out plot and character arcs and going back to edit and such. Solo RPGs are an entirely different beast. They can inspire books, but they are not an authorial exercise.
Also, let’s not forget gamebooks.
my brother got into the choose your own adventure books. i got to read one of them when he was done, and it was fun, but y’know.
There are a lot of solo games. Its kind of funny that there seems to be a market for “group games minus the group.”
There is probably some psychological angles here, like people are too introverted or whatever to find and join or just create a local group fornthese sorts of games.
Despite the funny meme, a lot are intended to be game like, with dice rolls and such to create some unintended spontaneous events and results.
Many however also are basically just a writing prompt. Or a writing prompt where the prompt has a dice roll at the start.
I didn’t really play any but Instarted collecting up solo games a few years ago.