The most difficult mechanic of any board game is finding people to play with. The logistical difficulties of organizing a party, the influx of high-quality standalone TTRPGs, and countless other factors have led to something of a renaissance of solo tabletop RPGs; specifically, solo rules for games that would otherwise be for a full group. cluster.
To be clear, the phenomenon of solo board gaming is not new. As Polygon contributor Tom Ana explains, he started wargaming in earnest in the '80s, and slowly gained prominence over the next few decades until the quarantine period of the current COVID pandemic offered a perfect time to board games and TTRPGs. Independent TTRPGs like Tim Hutchings' historical one thousand year old vampireShawn Tompkin swornChris Bisette the unfortunateand Alone among the stars by Takuma Okada laid the foundation for solo tabletop RPG experiences.
In the five years since 2020, demand has only grown. At PAX Unplugged last month, I heard a repeated refrain: people came looking for solo RPGs. While so many great games have debuted in recent years, tabletop gamers seem to have depleted their shelves with games they may never find a group to play. To work with this, designers have begun to incorporate solo play into their rulesets, whether by creating a secondary supplement, making solo rules a stretch goal during their crowdfunding campaigns, or including them in the base game. The following three games represent the variety of approaches designers have taken to including solo rules in their games.
Swedish game studio Free League Publishing created solo rules for its Nordic horror RPG Vaesen in 2023. Written by Per Holmström, the solo version of the game contains a step-by-step guide that changes the base game's default mystery to one you discover as you progress. Using a deck of cards and the random tables from the main book, just Vaesen has players uncover the mystery by rolling dice to determine their discoveries while using the color and value of the cards to determine the outcome of their actions.
Based on the classic hook and loop game, HUNT(er/ed) by Meghan Cross and Dillin Apelyan, two players take on opposing roles of hunter and monster. Players roll 2d6 each, competing to see who can roll doubles first to advance their checker down the board. The winner then draws a card with the corresponding message, advancing the story in the same tradition as games like for the queen. The solo version of the game lasts HUNTER(er/ed)The central experience of examining the monstrosity pushes the player to move up a scale of acceptance or denial. An ambitious goal for HUNT(er/ed)In the crowdfunding campaign, the solo ruleset was written by Elliot Davis, who wrote his own solo game. Eco Projectas well as solo editions of Soul Muppet's Orbital blues and Paint the town red.
A surreal play-to-lose horror game inspired by Jeff VanderMeer. Annihilation, The Zone He leaned fully into solo play from the jump. Similarly to HUNT(er/ed), This game relies on card-based prompts to guide players through a quarantined zone filled with mutations from which only one of them will emerge alive. Each action requires drawing a “Not So Easy” card, which has a result of “yes and” or “no, but.” Advertised as a game for 1-6 people (instead of 2-6 with a GM), solo rules were always built in. The Zone. The solo rules remain largely the same, except that the single player controls multiple characters.