The Best Free Solo RPGs
You can play a complete tabletop RPG on your own without spending anything. This is a short list of free solo games worth your evening. The rules for getting on it: the whole game is free, not a demo or a quickstart that stops halfway; it is built for one player, not a group game with solo rules bolted on; and it is easy to get hold of from its maker. Two of them are ours, and they are marked. If you have never played solo before, read how to play a solo RPG first; it takes five minutes. The overview of solo tabletop RPGs explains the different kinds.
Ironsworn
The game most solo players will point you to first, and with reason. Shawn Tomkin’s Ironsworn is a full RPG about swearing iron vows in a harsh, low-fantasy northern land, and it is built so that it works solo, with a partner, or with a group and a GM. You make a vow, then play to fulfil it, and the game’s moves and oracle tables generate the trouble along the way. The complete digital package — rulebook, character sheet, asset cards and worksheets — is free from the official site, released under a Creative Commons licence. It is a big book. Give it a weekend rather than an evening.
Good for: a long campaign with a character who grows. Get it: ironswornrpg.com
Alone Among the Stars
Takuma Okada’s Alone Among the Stars is the opposite of Ironsworn: tiny, gentle and finished in an evening. You are a lone explorer travelling between strange planets, and a die and a deck of playing cards give you prompts for what you find there. You write down what you discover and how it makes you feel. There is no combat and no way to lose. It is one of the best introductions to journaling games, where the writing is the play.
Good for: a quiet first solo game. Get it: noroadhome.itch.io/alone-among-the-stars
Quill
Scott Malthouse’s Quill is a letter-writing game for a single player. You play a character writing real letters, and the dice judge how well you managed to say what you meant, with the aim of getting the response you want from the recipient. It is small, clever and a little bit literary, and it won Best Free RPG at the Indie RPG Awards. Free, with an option to pay what you think it’s worth.
Good for: people who like writing more than fighting. Get it: trollish-delver-games.itch.io
The Wretched & Alone games
Not one game but a family of them. Chris Bissette’s The Wretched set a pattern for solo journaling games about trying to survive against hopeless odds: a deck of cards gives you prompts, and a tumbling-block tower stands for the danger closing in, so every pull could be the one that brings it down. The Wretched & Alone SRD is free and lets anyone build their own game on that frame, and a great many designers have, a lot of them free. Start with the SRD’s page and follow the games built on it to whichever survival story you want.
Good for: tension, dread and a story that ends badly. Get it: sealedlibrary.itch.io/wretched-alone-srd
Foked (ours)
We make this one, so weigh what follows accordingly. Foked is a dark-fantasy solo RPG set in Hellsborough, a parallel Sheffield under a living fog, and its motto is “no magic, only violence”. It is built solo-first, with groups of two or three as the variant. Everything runs on two six-sided dice and three stats, Grit, Wit and Murk, and the stats are your health: damage comes straight off the number you roll with, so every wound makes the next roll harder. It has a solo oracle, a clock that punishes you for dawdling, and skills you earn by surviving rather than buying with points.
The core rules and the first full scenario are free. The boxed set, with the bestiary, the hex-building toolkit and three more scenarios, costs five dollars.
Good for: a grim game with real consequences. Get it: hellsborough.com/foked
The Postcard Adventures (ours)
Also ours. The Postcard Adventures are short, standalone solo scenarios, each one location in Hellsborough or the Dark Peak, a handful of creatures from the bestiary and a single bad night. A page of rules, a 2d6 encounter table and a clock of six rolls. You make a character in a minute and finish in an evening. They are all free. The first, Something in the Hole, has a complete worked example of play on its page.
Good for: your very first solo game. Get it: hellsborough.com/adventures
How to choose
- Never played an RPG at all? Start with a Postcard Adventure or Alone Among the Stars. Both take one evening and teach you the rhythm.
- Want a long campaign? Ironsworn, or Foked if you want it darker and more dangerous.
- Want to write? Quill or a Wretched & Alone game, and see solo journaling RPGs.
- Want horror? The Wretched & Alone family is full of it, and so is our own guide to folk-horror RPGs, which notes which of those play well solo.
All of these were free from their makers when this guide was written. Prices change, so check before you rely on it. For the setting behind our two, see the dark-fantasy field guide.
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