Solo TTRPGs: the field guide to playing alone

Solo tabletop roleplaying was a fringe within a fringe until roughly 2020; five years later it is one of the fastest-growing corners of the hobby, driven by pandemic-era isolation, journaling-game breakthroughs like Ironsworn, and the realization that a lot of what makes TTRPGs great does not actually require other humans. This is a working map for somebody arriving from group play who wants to know what solo can and cannot do, and for a curious lurker who wants a way in. I have deliberately not included AI-driven prose generators posing as TTRPGs; they are their own category and conflate two different value propositions.

Solo-first RPGs designed to be played alone

Games written from the ground up as solo experiences. Not adaptations of group games; games where playing alone was the design brief.

  • Ironsworn (Shawn Tomkin)
    The single most important solo TTRPG of the last decade. Fantasy sword-and-sorcery, oracle-driven, playable solo or coop or with a GM. The free PDF is complete; the Delve and Starforged expansions are the whole extended universe. Start here.
    webpage
  • Ironsworn: Starforged (itch.io)
    The science-fiction sibling of Ironsworn: bigger, more polished, tighter oracle tables, clearer campaign structure. If you know you prefer sci-fi over fantasy, start with Starforged instead of Ironsworn. The first chapter is a free download.
    webpage
  • Mausritter (Isaac Williams)
    Small mice adventuring in a big world; explicitly solo-friendly with published solo scenarios and an active hack community. The free rules PDF plus the Estate expansion is a complete solo game. Beloved by non-hobbyist adults introduced to TTRPGs.
    webpage
  • Ker Nethalas: Into the Midnight Throne
    Dark-fantasy solo dungeon crawler with unusually deep procedural generation. The mechanics feel closer to a solo board game than most TTRPGs. Not the friendliest entry point; the right choice for people who want crunch.
    webpage
  • Rowan, Rook and Decard (publishers of Spire and Heart)
    The studio behind Spire: The City Must Fall and Heart: The City Beneath, both of which have official solo modes. Story-heavy, atmospheric, best played journaling-style; the settings alone are worth the price of entry.
    webpage

Journaling games, the form that made solo TTRPGs popular

One-page or short games structured around writing rather than playing. Often draw a card, roll a die, write a paragraph. The gateway into solo for a lot of players.

  • Alone Among the Stars (Takuma Okada, itch.io)
    The two-page journaling game that quietly seeded the whole genre. Draw cards, explore planets, write. Playable in a single sitting; the format that inspired dozens of hacks. Name-your-own-price.
    webpage
  • Thousand Year Old Vampire (Tim Hutchings, itch.io)
    The single most acclaimed journaling game. Live and die across a millennium, lose memories as prompts, watch your character become a stranger. Won the ENnie; the hardback is a beautiful object, the PDF plays identically.
    webpage
  • The Wretched (Chris Bissette, itch.io)
    The alone-on-a-broken-spaceship game that became the template for the Wretched and Alone genre. Play with a Jenga tower; when it falls, you die. The single hour it takes to play is unforgettable, and it ships with its own soundtrack.
    webpage
  • Anamnesis (Samantha Leigh, itch.io)
    Memory-loss journaling game played with a tarot deck: five acts, three draws each, every card a facet of who you were. Meditative rather than mechanical; ENnie-nominated. Free community copies are always stocked.
    webpage
  • The Widow's Tale (Oliver Darkshire, itch.io)
    A short, sharp journaling game from the Sotheby's-bookseller-turned-writer behind Once Upon a Tome. One of the best examples of how much atmosphere a few pages of prompts can carry.
    webpage

Solo tools that turn group games into solo games

Oracles, GM emulators, and random tables that let you run D&D or Call of Cthulhu or Blades in the Dark solo. If you have a game you already love, this is the path.

  • Mythic Game Master Emulator (Word Mill Games)
    The oldest and still the best GM emulator. Feed it your prepared scenario, ask yes-or-no questions, let the fate chart improvise. Works with any game system. The second edition is the one to buy.
    webpage
  • Solo Adventurer's Toolbox (Dungeon Masters Guild)
    Tables and structures for running D&D 5e solo. Worth the price for the encounter tables and hex-crawl frames even if you already have Ironsworn. The 5e-specific hooks make it feel like a supported product, not a workaround.
    webpage
  • GM's Apprentice cards (Larcenous Designs)
    Deck-based oracle for solo or group play. Draw for outcomes, draw for descriptions, draw for names. More organic than a d100 table; the hardcopy deck sits nicely at the table.
    webpage
  • Mythic GME Digital (Jason Holt, itch.io)
    The official digital companion to Mythic: fate chart, meaning tables, scene tracking, journals. The tool that replaces a table full of reference sheets with one app. Also on iOS and Android as Mythic GME 2e.
    webpage
  • The Perilous Wilds (Lampblack and Brimstone)
    Dungeon World supplement that is really a system-agnostic solo hex-crawl toolkit. Tables for terrain, encounters, discoveries, factions. Use it under any OSR or story game and it just works.
    webpage

The Wretched and Alone genre

The SRD Chris Bissette open-sourced in 2020 spawned a whole genre of Jenga-tower solo games. Bleak, personal, thoroughly readable in an evening.

  • The Wretched and Alone SRD (Sealed Library, itch.io)
    The system-reference document underlying every Wretched and Alone game, written by Matt Sanders in consultation with Chris Bissette. Free, remixable, permissive. Read this before writing your own; many solo designers cut their teeth on Wretched hacks.
    webpage
  • The Wretched and Alone Bundle (itch.io)
    The curated bundle collecting the genre's standouts in one purchase. The best single buy to sample the form; you will find one or two games in it that stay with you for years.
    webpage
  • CHVLR (Susanah Grace, itch.io)
    A Wretched and Alone game about a knight's vigil, and one of the clearest demonstrations that the SRD's Jenga-tower engine can carry tones far from survival horror. Short, striking, frequently cited as a favorite hack.
    webpage
  • The Wretched Jam (itch.io)
    The game jam that birthed the genre: dozens of designers hacking The Wretched's engine in a burst of 2020 creativity. Browsing the submissions is the fastest way to grasp the genre's range, and everything is cheap or free.
    webpage
  • Wretched and Alone community collection (itch.io)
    A maintained community collection tracking the genre as it grows. Where to look after the bundle, when you want the newer and stranger entries the anthologies have not caught up to.
    webpage

AI-assisted solo play, the honest current state

LLMs as oracles, prompt libraries, and the debate about what AI-augmented solo TTRPG can and cannot be. Skeptical about the marketing; useful about the tools.

  • r/Solo_Roleplaying: AI tools wiki
    The community-maintained page on what actually works with LLMs as a solo-TTRPG oracle, and where they fall over. The most honest overview in the space; updated as the underlying models change.
    webpage
  • Mythic GME Tools for Foundry VTT
    The Foundry Virtual Tabletop module that wires Mythic's oracle directly into your VTT: automatic fate rolls, event tables, GM Apprentice card support. The right setup if your solo play already lives in Foundry.
    webpage
  • The complete solo player's guide 2026 (Dungeons Deep)
    A current and unusually honest map of the six ways people play solo in 2026, from paper oracles through chatbots to purpose-built AI GMs. Read for the taxonomy; stay skeptical of any one tool's marketing, including the host's.
    webpage
  • Five AI solo-TTRPG tools, compared (char-gen)
    A working comparison of the current AI-GM platforms with their actual failure modes named. Useful as a snapshot of where AI-assisted solo play genuinely is, versus where the demo videos pretend it is.
    webpage
  • AI Oracle Prompts for Solo RPG (Aaron Ainsworth)
    PDF of curated prompts for using LLMs as solo TTRPG oracles. Practical rather than theoretical; skip the introduction, use the prompts. The most cost-effective way to try AI in your solo game.
    webpage

Communities, YouTubers, and further reading

Where the solo TTRPG scene actually lives. Reddit and YouTube run the discourse; podcasts run the deeper interviews.

  • r/Solo_Roleplaying
    The subreddit that grew from a few thousand members in 2019 to over 100,000 in 2026. The best place to find recommendations for your specific mood or system. Uneven quality, but the volume is the reason to be there.
    webpage
  • Me, Myself, and Die (YouTube, Trevor Devall)
    The best solo TTRPG actual-play channel. Trevor plays through campaigns solo with running commentary on his oracle interpretations. Watch a full campaign to see how good solo play actually looks.
    webpage
  • Geek Gamers (YouTube)
    The most-viewed solo TTRPG YouTuber. Wide coverage across systems, thoughtful reviews, and the person most credited with growing the solo scene during the pandemic. Long-form actual plays are the meat.
    webpage
  • Me, Myself and Die! Season 1, Episode 1 (video)
    Trevor Devall playing Savage Worlds solo with Mythic GME, with running commentary on every oracle interpretation. The single best demonstration of how good solo play actually looks in practice. Watch this before buying anything on this page.
    video
  • Shawn Tomkin: designing Ironsworn (interview, YouTube)
    Long-form interview with the designer of the most influential solo TTRPG of the decade. Watch after playing at least one full Ironsworn scenario; the design decisions land differently once you have played them.
    video
  • DriveThruRPG solo category
    The single largest catalog of solo TTRPG products. Filter by highest-rated to find the good stuff; the volume is overwhelming without filters. Bookmark and return periodically.
    webpage