The Tools I Use to Play Solo RPGs
The tools make the person, or something like that. | The Lone Toad Newsletter
I’ve been playing Solo RPGs for about 4 years now and that has given me enough time to experiment with lots of different types of games, genres, and formats. But one thing that I keep evolving with is How I actually play Solo RPGs. I’ve played using many different tools, whether digital, physical, or hybrid. For me, it’s a constantly evolving situation as I experiment with different techniques and ways of playing Solo RPGs.
How do you play your Solo RPGs? Do you use physical only? Some combination? Do you chat your play as you are surrounded by candles and pentagrams? I’d love to hear it!
Digital Pure
In the beginning, there was only digital for me. And I think this is a great way to start for anyone who is just getting into Solo RPGs.
Digital Pure is (by my totally just made up now definition) only using a computer to play your solo RPGS. We are talking PDFs of games, digital note-taking tools like Notion or just Google Docs, digital dice, digital life baby.
The reason I think this pure digital set-up worked for me and that it would work for anyone new to Solo RPGs is the incredibly low cost of entry. Most of us have a working computer they can access, and that is all you need, even if your computer is a potato.
In my digital pure set-up, I had a simple PDF viewer where I downloaded the PDF of Ironsworn (free) and played using the awesome Iron Journal by Nick Boughton. Iron Journal was great for a newb because it had everything built into it, including rules references, a note-taking section, and a dice roller. At that time, I was so new to RPGs that I didn’t even have a full set of dice!
Eventually, I evolved to using a note-taking service like Notion when I expanded past Ironsworn games.
There are some huge advantages to using Digital Only
Ease of use and accessibility - Most of us have a computer and internet connection, so using digital tools is easy
Custom-built tools - Things like Iron Journal and Star Gazer are excellent!
Saved progress - Cloud-based tools mean your progress is saved, and you can switch between devices and continue where you left off.
Smaller footprint - If you don’t have room for rows and rows of books, you can easily have hundreds of PDFs on your device at any time.
But I did find some disadvantages
PDFs - Personally, I think PDFs aren’t always the best format for large rule books where you're trying to look things up.
Distractions - Using your computer means you're exposed to all the distractions of the digital world.
The Computer itself - I sit at a computer for my job, so sometimes I just want to leave screens when I want to relax and play Solo RPGs.
So from here I swung to the other extreme of things and went…
Physical Pure
From my pure digital start, I quickly started acquiring some physical Solo RPG books and playing aids. I still remember my glee when my full Sundered Isles kickstarter pack came (along with all the Starforged stuff too!). I also had some other great physical solo RPG books like the Dragonbane starter set and Twilight 2000 4th Edition box set.
All these had some great materials for playing physically, such as cards, standees, maps, and preprinted character sheets. I know you can use many of those resources online using virtual tabletops, but I was also wanting to remove myself from the distractions of devices and instead focus on my solo RPG play.
Thus, I entered my physical pure phase. No devices (except for some music). I had a nice notebook for writing notes and a good-sized play area to spread out all my maps, books and other play aids. It was glorious.
However, it did affect how I played. When I played digitally, I more treated my gameplay as a story and wrote it as I went. But I can't handwrite nearly as quickly as I type, so I had to instead move to dot points and have a lot of the detail play out in my head.
I also like to switch between different solo RPGs relatively often. Which meant each solo RPG I was playing required a new physical notebook or some other way to keep track of gameplay.
Pros of a physical pure play style
- Fewer distractions and a more imaginative play session
- Interact with the amazing physical products some RPGs have
- (With Dot point playing), you can move through stories quicker
- Allows you to experiment with other storytelling mediums like painting and sketching
Cons of the physical-only path
- More expensive as physical RPG books are not cheap (especially if you live outside the USA or the European Union)
- Takes up more space with all your new fancy books and notebooks
- It can be hard to switch between campaigns and different RPGs
- Needs more space than just a computer
There are other ways to play physical.
uses a type writer. How cool is that?
Hybrid (Can’t we all just get along?)
My evolution of Solo RPG play continued, and like a frog that can live both on land and in water, I have learned to work with both physical and digital tools. This approach takes the best of both worlds, in my opinion. It takes the 'everything is in this magic computer box' of the digital approach, with the 'I like touching nice things (phrasing) of the physical approach.
The key to this way of playing (for me at least) is an E-ink writing tablet. What is that, I hear you asking? It's simply a tablet that uses e-ink (think a Kindle or Nook) instead of the traditional screen thing, and it has a stylus that allows you to handwrite on it. The tablet comes with a way to organise notes and export them.
Now this isn't a device review channel, but last year I got a Kindle Scribe (1st edition) for a decent price and have been using it for Solo RPG playthroughs, general note-taking, RPG ideas, etc. And so far, I love it!
The Hybrid aspect of this is that I still use all my fancy books, but I don't have to worry about juggling different notebooks anymore. Also, because RPG books are expensive, I can upload PDFs onto my tablet and read them there. Sometimes that works well, and sometimes it doesn't, as my Scribe only displays black and white.
Colour E-Ink tablets are becoming more common, and they seem to work pretty well. Still more expensive that a regular e-ink tablet, maybe they will be the standard in a few years when I'm ready to upgrade?
Pros of the Hybrid Lifestyle
- All my gameplay notebooks in one place.
- Easy to play on the go with one device
- Can also be used for sketching
- Allows you to digitally export your writing, and some can even (attempt to) convert your writing to text
Cons of Hybrid play
- Adds another device to your electronics family
- Don't lose that stylus, it's expensive!
- Not as good as physical writing, but getting pretty close.
- Can't upload every RPG book onto it, especially if it has a lot of colours (Just go and try with Mork Borg or Cy_Borg)
So, there you have it, my evolution of playing solo RPGs. What is next on my journey? I honestly don't know. I think some RPGs favour some ways of playing. The way I like to play Ironsworn games really benefits from having a computer to write the story as I imagine it. Whereas a physical notebook would be perfect for a journaling game like Thousand Year Old Vampire.
Look for the set of tools that work best for you and how you want to play your games. That is the key.
And want a cool new Solo to try out your new way of playing? Check out Infiltrate. Survey. Perceive by Friend of the Toad Reyes Makes Games.
INFILTRATE. SURVEY. PERCEIVE. is a Solo Observation TTRPG where you plant little stick-figure operatives around your house without getting caught by those you live with. It is inspired by games like Luke's (aka Æther Corp's) Field Agent Handbook: Observancy Department.
I love how you bring the game into the real world! What a cool concept.
Next Lone Toad will be chock-full of Ironsworn content with tons of tips and tricks for using the Ironsworn family of games in your favourite fantasy and sci-fi setting!
That’s it for this week! Until next time, Toad Warriors!
There is a new app called Roll N’ Write, it’s only for iPad so that obviously ups the entry point cost (the app itself is a couple bucks and a free version is available). I followed the same journey as you and I have found this app to be the perfect mix. I can open a pdf next to my journal, write on whatever I want, roll dice on the app, but I can also do anything physical I want (I have books out and at least some d6 if not additional dice). It allows me to play at my desk, or even in bed after the kids are down for the night.
I ended up making a pdf of some of my most frequently used tables from multiple sources, and a character sheet, and then use physical copies of the actual core books. It has only been a week but I’ve found myself managing to get time to okay every single day since starting with the app.
I didn’t make it and don’t know the person who did, I just stumbled across it in a post on Reddit and have been really impressed.
Like others, I’m in the hybrid camp, although barely. I do have the physical rulebooks (more for supporting the creator than anything else), but I mostly use the PDF anyway because ctrl+f is hard to beat.
For my ongoing Ironsworn campaign, I’m using Iron Journal to track all the stats, assets, vows etc. Then I have a separate folder in Obsidian where I track NPC’s, lore, plot hooks, locations etc. I do most of my rolling digitally but if I want, I do have the dice available to roll physically as well and I usually do for Oracle rolls.
I’ve tried journaling and physical only but it doesn’t seem to work for my brain - I kind of need to have the narrative written out for myself and the conversations and all that, so I can reference back to it if need be later. And writing 1500 words per session by hand AND playing it out would be A LOT of work compared to typing it out on a computer.
Now, I do IT work for a living so I sit in front of my computer a fair bit anyway, so when I play I usually grab my laptop and play somewhere else than in my office room. I like the idea of pure physical and got Kal Arath purely to try it but I found out osr and Ironsworn are quite different and I had virtually no idea how to actually play it since not everything is explicitly spelled out for me in the rules. For sure a me-problem, though.