Debrief: Solo TTRPGs for the RPG-Curious

Ever wished you could role‑play on your own terms—no scheduling headaches, no thick rulebooks, just a notebook, a deck of cards, and your imagination? We dive into the art of solo tabletop RPGs and how a few elegant systems can turn small moments into big stories. From late‑night radio confessionals to crumbling castles and whispered hallways, we share the titles that pulled us in and the tricks that kept us playing.

We start with Void 1680 AM, a music lover’s dream that turns card draws into setlists, caller requests, and memory‑soaked journaling. Then we head to Lighthouse at the End of the World, where a Jenga tower stands in for your sanity as you help lost spirits find rest. Builders will love In Ruins, a map‑first experience that has you sketching castles before time skips forward and factions fight over what’s left. For those craving quiet dread, Whisper in the Walls offers a slow, unsettling tour through an abandoned home told entirely through your notes and reactions. We also spotlight Cairn—a concise fantasy system with a solo option—and What Lies Beneath, a roll‑and‑learn dungeon crawler that throws you into Encounter 1 on page one.

Along the way, we talk practicals: how one‑shots lower the barrier to entry, why prompt tables beat blank pages, and where to find these gems (Tabletop Bookshelf, Bannerless Games, Fervent Workshop). We shout out the creative solo community—especially Soloist Venture—for inspiring spreads, sketches, and playthroughs, and we float a remote‑friendly curiosity: Alice Is Missing, a text‑message mystery that’s perfect for long‑distance friends.

If you’re RPG‑curious, love journaling, or just want a thoughtful way to unwind, this tour gives you approachable starting points, mood‑rich systems, and replayable paths. Press play, pick a book, and let a single prompt open the door. If you enjoyed this guide, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review—then tell us which solo world you’re stepping into next.

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open, Sick Mics, Baby Drama
• 1:04 Why Solo Tabletop RPGs
• 1:54 Void 1680 AM: Radio As Journal
• 4:03 Haunted Lighthouse With A Jenga Mind
• 5:37 In Ruins: Draw The Castle
• 9:33 One‑Shots, Prompts, Easy On‑ramps
• 10:23 Whisper In The Walls: Quiet Horror
• 12:14 Cairn And Lightweight Systems
• 13:28 What Lies Beneath: Roll And Learn
• 16:21 Why Solo Works: Reflection And Flow
• 18:09 Publishers, Where To Buy, Community
• 20:47 Alice Is Missing And Play Remotely

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

Welcome to the Operation Game Hat podcast. There's a baby crying right outside my door. Joining me as always is my co-host, Clayton Gable. How are you doing, Clay?

SPEAKER_01: 0:24

Doing good. I'm sorry about your crying baby, but I can't hear it, so we can just press on. Forget about her.

SPEAKER_00: 0:31

I'm wondering if she crawled down the hall and is just sitting outside my door crying. Oh man. Well, I'm gonna go ahead and press with this podcast and be a bad father.

SPEAKER_01: 0:40

So everybody look at the sacrifices he's making for you.

SPEAKER_00: 0:44

I know my child's well-being for the sake of the podcast. Yeah. Uh if you can't tell already, I am a bit under the weather and uh my throat hurts. So if I go offline, Clayton's gonna cover and maybe scat into the microphone a little bit so that I can cover and get back on track. But today we're talking some solo tabletop RPGs. I have mentioned on the podcast before that I have been RPG curious. Um, maybe Dungeons and Dragons, maybe root RPG, uh, but I have been kind of scouring the internet for ways that I can do this solo. And of course, as gamers do, they always adapt things to people's needs. And I found a whole bunch of solo tabletop RPGs. Uh, what that means is I'm not building models and stuff in my bedroom. I am just reading these books, typically flipping cards that drive actions, and then I'm like, it's like journaling, basically. They're like journaling prompts that you do, and you kind of keep track of your character that way. Uh, but I've got some really cool ones I want to share with you today. We'll start with the uh the first one is Void 1680 AM. And this is kind of a different one, uh, probably not the best place to start, but you are the new owner and operator of a uh radio show, a like radio station, and you are broadcasting into the ether, and your of course your uh frequency is 1680 a.m. But basically, what you're doing is you're taking requests for songs and like journaling which songs go into your set list, and the actions are driven by cards. Most of these, like the solo RPGs, are driven by card draws, so you keep a deck of cards and your little like journal, however you want to do it, and you're just drawing cards that will say, like, uh, depending on the suit, it'll do different things, but like diamond diamonds are your second song block. Um, let's say you draw the three of diamonds, a song where you misunderstood the lyrics for years, you think your version is better, and you just kind of like think about it. Like it's somebody who loves music, this is great. Um, the cool thing about Void 1680 AM is that uh there are certain cars that you draw where you get like callers on the show. People will call into your radio station to make requests, and they have set up this kind of like online blog where people can write prompts and be your callers. So you can you can come up with a caller stuff on your own, uh, whatever they're asking for. And there's different things in the back of the book that say like what the requirements for the callers are. Um, but they have a website where you can just go online and look at what other people are asking for, and they can become your callers. So kind of cool, pretty simple. Um somebody who loves music, void 1680am is a I wouldn't really say it's an RPG, you're not like leveling up or anything, but it's kind of a cool reflection on music if you like that. Okay, wow. Okay, this one's really cool. This is called Lighthouse at the end of the world, and it's kind of got like dark, spooky cover art on it. Yeah, I'm scared already. Yeah, in this one, you are a lighthouse keeper that has kind of run away from society to go man this lighthouse at the edge of the world, and you are going about your journey through card draws, and as you draw cards, you are running into like spirits of uh souls that have crashed on the rocks throughout the years, like these people that are lost in the in-between that are kind of haunting the lighthouse, and you are trying to resolve their conflicts to help send them to the afterlife. And the cool thing about this one is there's like a sanity meter that you can kind of keep track of, and what they're what they recommend is you get like a Jenga tower, like a towering blocks, and as you draw these cards and interact with some of these spirits, you are drawing uh blocks off the Jenga tower that represents your sanity. Oh if the tower falls, then you've like lost it, you've gone insane. It's a cool like re-implementation of technology that you probably have lying around your house. And I've been I've been tinkering with this one a little bit, and I was looking through my games to Cole, and I found an old Jenga tower in our shipment that just showed up. Yeah, and I'm like, man, maybe I hold on to this Jenga Tower for just a little bit longer, just for that RPG. That's cool. It's a cool, cool implementation. Uh, the next one is called In Ruins. This is not solo only, uh, this can be played up to six players, and in this one, this is like an architect's RPG because you are using points at the beginning of the game to build out collectively the map. So, like you don't really have a dungeon master, you are picking a faction that you want to play as, and then you collectively you're taking turns drawing the map that you're going to be playing on. So you are like drawing floor plans for the castle. Uh, this is like blurring this for some reason. You're drawing floor floor plans for the castle, and you're labeling all the different rooms, and like the you're getting points based on how many rooms you can connect to other rooms so that the map flows and you can navigate it easily. And then you are determining like what your entry point into the castle is for your faction, and then there's a time jump where your faction and like the the civilization, whatever it is, like the kingdom, has gone into decline, and nobody lives in the castle anymore, and then your faction of like ghouls and zombies and skeletons and whatever, they're take they're trying to take over the castle and like fight one another for control of this like dilapidated castle. Oh man. Cool, it does have a solo mode. Um, and then there's rules specifically for solo, but this would be a cool one for like just anybody to sit down and do. It says it plays in two hours, but I imagine a lot of that is the teach because it takes it takes some time to draw out floor plans and to teach people how to like make good floor plans, and uh yeah, they have like pre-made factions in here that you can just pick up and play. They all have special abilities and stuff. You got bandits, cultists, the undead, goblins, slimes, cabalds, like they have pre-made stuff in here that you can just pick up and play. And as somebody who loves drawing floor plans and engineering type stuff like that in ruins is a great uh RPG.

SPEAKER_01: 7:51

So are these like one shot? So like uh one session type game.

SPEAKER_00: 7:57

I imagine like uh like void 1680am, you can try and play it again and again and like evolve on it. Most of these are just one-shots, though. Like you just kind of pick up, you create a character, whatever. A lot of the journal type ones, like the solo ones, they will uh recommend how to create your character and stuff. They have like they know that a lot of this stuff is for beginners, and so they have tips on how to create your character and how to create a backstory. They're like, if you can't decide the name of the city that you came from, you can roll some dice and it'll tell you what the name is. Um but yeah, most of them, most of them are one-shots. You're not creating a character that carries over throughout. Uh, the next one, this is called Whisper in the Walls. This is a horror solo tabletop RPG. Um this one, you open the book and it has like a warning right up front that says like this has some dark material in it. But it is largely an exploration game where you are exploring this abandoned house to figure out what happened. The inside covers like spooky, scary writing that says like forgotten, burdened, lost, forgotten, trampled, hopelessness. It's not a fun, happy RPG. This is like kind of spooky, kind of scary. You are flipping cards to go to these different rooms that have events that happen, and a lot of the prompts read similar to um uh haunting at House on the Hill. Betrayal at House on the Hill. I'm sorry. Betrayal at House on the Hill. Yeah, like the prompts read very similar to Betrayal at House on the Hill. You're kind of going through and like trying to discover what happened in this house, and you run into creatures and uh spirits and all sorts of stuff. But this is like a strictly journaling game where you are writing down the events that happen and how you react to them. Um yeah, I have not gotten into that one much, but since it is October and it's spooky season, maybe I'll get into that one a little bit later. Give me just a second.

SPEAKER_01: 10:15

Yep. Uh as promised, my musical interlude has begun. This is a great day to talk about RPGs. Travis is doing I cannot uh freestyle like the guy that was just on America's Got Talent. Have you seen that? No, I have not. Dude, you should watch that on YouTube. Side note, side note. This dude was on America's Got Talent, and he can freak they just like hand him random prompts and he rapped for like two minutes, and it was crazy. Dang. Yeah, that's impressive. I've never seen anything like it. I thought he should have won, but whatever.

SPEAKER_00: 10:56

Uh okay, next one, real quick. Kairn. Kairn is uh very highly regarded in the tabletop RPG community. Um, it's not quite as popular as like Dungeons and Dragons and stuff, but the book is super short, and there's like uh supplements to it that you can get, like Bestiary, where you are just opening up and it has ideas for things that you can run into in this world. There is a solo version of Cairn. Uh I haven't really dug into this one much, but it seems pretty simple and straightforward, and they have all the characters built out for you, and you can just go on a little mini adventure in Cairn. I I really want to dig into this one because I see stuff about it all the time on the internet, but I haven't really tried it out or read through the book yet. Nice. Finally, this is a solo one. Uh, it's called What Lies Beneath. And it is a solo dungeon crawler of dice decisions and death. Oh god. And you are rolling dice to see what happens on each of these instances. This one is really cool because you literally pick it up, you open up to the front page, and it has encounter number one, like on the very first page, before you get into rules, before you get in how to play, and it kind of teaches you as you go, which is great. Like, pick this book up and just go. And uh it says all you need really are dice and uh and a uh a pad of paper to write on setup. You roll two dice, it tells you what your class is and what your stats are, and then you just run. It's it's great. I I've gotten through a couple of scenarios in this one. I definitely want to sit down and give that one a real shot because it is, I mean, it's the thickest book that I've bought out of all of these. Yeah, and uh it's got tons of scenarios in here. It seems like that one's got some real replayability. So I want to give that one a shot. I have not been disappointed by any of these solo RPGs. I you know, I've talked about it on the on the podcast before. Amanda actually sent me like a book that was published of one shots, and there's like another Kickstarter out that's like a supplement or sequel to the book of one shots. And man, if I can just like sit down, I I enjoy like journaling as it is and kind of just jotting down notes and whatever throughout the day. And if you like journaling or if you like just kind of reflective thought, uh solo RPGs are apparently the way to go because it like flexes that imaginative muscle that I don't get to use very often. Um and some of them are so simple. You literally like draw a card and it tells you what the prompt is, and you react to it, and you can pause whenever you want and just like go do other stuff. You're not sitting at a table for four hours trying to play a one-shot RPG. So, man, I've I've really enjoyed these. I do want to shout out where did I get these? Uh, so a lot of these are bannerless games as the publisher. Um Fervent Workshop does what lies beneath. And I give me just a second, I want to shout out where I bought these from tabletop bookshelf. Tabletop bookshelf is where I bought these from. And they're like, you can get digital only versions if you want to just like download them on a Kindle. Uh and though those are super cheap, but I I like my physical books. Um and I also want to shout out there's an Instagram account called Soloist Venture, and it's this girl out there that loves just solo RPGs like this, and she does them all the time. She has like all the new books, you know, publishers are sending her stuff for reviews and everything. But I have to give this girl credit because she plays so many of these solo RPGs, and she will do like art and stuff in her notebooks while she goes through it, and she is not shy about sharing some of her creativity with the world. Like, if I drew something in a notebook, there's no way I would publish it on the internet. But like her art, her, you know, she gets better all the time, she's constantly sketching and stuff. She's very clearly a very creative person, but she is not shy about sharing this stuff with the world, and uh, she does these like drawings and doodles and sketches for her RPGs that are just great, yeah, works on dungeon building, like drawing out those floor plans and stuff. Um, so yeah, I I don't have a mind for that yet. Maybe I will if I continue to play some of these, but I just wanted something to do kind of in the fall that felt spooky, and some of these are a little spooky, so yeah. Any interest in doing solo RPGs, Clayton?

SPEAKER_01: 15:38

I am very interested. I have talked a lot about Vantage lately, and yeah, that has kind of been like a gateway drug for me in terms of soloing and kind of exploring that I wouldn't call it a role-playing game, but you do get presented with decisions and you kind of get to decide what you think you should do. And I've enjoyed just sitting down and doing that by myself. And the fact that there's a lot of material out there in other worlds to explore besides just the one in Stonemeyer Games' vantage is an exciting prospect to consider, and there's so much creativity and flexibility that I think it's definitely worth giving a try. I there's been an RPG, I maybe it's not have you heard of Alice's missing? Yes, I have actually. I've been uh super curious about trying that out. Apparently, it's like all via text message. Okay, yeah, and I've seen it before, I've heard it talked about, and I was like, I really want to play this game, and maybe it's something we could we could play even virtually because a silent role-playing game, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:57

Interesting. Oh, yeah, utilize their phones to send text messages to each other as they figure out what happened to Alice.

SPEAKER_01: 17:04

Yeah, I think we can play that just you in Alabama and me in Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_00: 17:10

Yeah, that'd be a good way to do it. Yeah, dang, we should see if uh one of the friends of the show wants to hop on. If you are listening to this and you want to hop on some Alice is missing, yeah, hit us up on Instagram or text us if you have our numbers. Yeah, because yeah, this is great. And the box is like four by four inches, yeah. It's tiny, and it's only twenty bucks, dude. Let's run this. This is all right, this would be great. I'm into it. Okay, I'm convicted. Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. Uh when I when we played Vantage at World Series of Board Gaming, it's like it's a gateway drug into RPGs like this because you you're using your imagination to flesh out the world as you go, you do it with simple card turns, basically. That's basically what this is, but with less great art because it's just a deck of cards. So yeah, you kind of have to bring that art yourself through your imaginative creation. But uh yeah, I've been really enjoying these. It's kind of a cool way to like unwind at the end of the day, or you know, sometimes I wake up before the family and and we'll run through a couple of cards. And yeah, I I'm interested to keep going with them. I might start what lies beneath anew because I am interested to dig through more of these scenarios, and there's like hundreds of them. I think there's 240 some scenarios in here, so yeah, interested to get more of that played, especially during the month of October.

SPEAKER_01: 18:40

I am gonna look for these when I go to the game store next time. I'm gonna I don't know if they carry solo tabletop RG RPGs there. I've never looked in the RPG section. I'm I was scared, but now I am not. I'm brave now. I'm gonna have to look. I might even ask store owner, yes, if they have solo tabletop RPGs.

SPEAKER_00: 19:02

I think that was like my biggest holdup was you go into these stores where they have RPG stuff and they have all of the hottest IPs out there, you know, like the Lord of the Rings I, you know, IP, RPG. They have like I man, I don't know, all the Dungeons and Dragons books, all the and it's it's kind of like jumping into comic books, right? Like you never know where to start. Yeah, and I think that these are a great way to start, these solo RPGs. These books are like maybe 30 pages tops. Um, what lies beneath is obviously a bit longer, but man, what an easy way to get in. Uh Karen, Karen has like a solo version, but these books are again maybe 50 pages, and they have supplements. Like you can get the bestia or you can get like uh a book that's just encounters and stuff. They make it so easy to just pick up and play without reading hundreds of pages and and uh dissecting you know 80, not 80 years, 50 years of Dungeons and Dragons, you know. Yeah, so yeah, uh I would highly recommend to anybody that's interested in solo RPGs or RPG curious. Yes. All right. We did it.

SPEAKER_01: 20:19

I'm gonna say we did it because I can't talk anymore. Yeah, you've done a great job, Travis. You're an inspiration to us all.

SPEAKER_00: 20:27

Well, thank you for sitting down and listening to me talk about solo RPGs. This has been Operation Game Night. I have been Travis, he has been Clayton, and we're out.