Like many players, I love the cozy journaling vibe of Fox Curio's Floating Bookshop, but found the Rules-as-Written economy disconnect frustrating (having a busy day with 10 customer cards only to roll low on the abstract earnings table).

I wanted a house rule that ties customer cards directly to sales without adding complex spreadsheet math, while still keeping a fun element of luck. Here is the simple system I came up with:

House Rule: The "River Economy"

Core Principle: 1 Book Sold = 1 Coin Earned

1. Calculate Daily Potential (Add up drawn cards)

• Number Cards (2–10 & Ace): 5 books / coins
• Face Cards (Jack, Queen, King): 10 books / coins

(Example: Drawing 9 number cards + 1 King = 45 + 10 = 55 potential books/coins)

2. Roll the Daily Outcome Die (1x D6)

• 1–2 (Slow / Browsing Day): Move decimal point 1 place left (round up). (e.g., 55 becomes 6 books / 6 coins)
• 3–4 (Solid Day): Keep value as is (1:1). (e.g., 55 stays 55 books / 55 coins)
• 5–6 (Bestseller Day): Double the value! (e.g., 55 becomes 110 books / 110 coins)

Why this works well for me

• Logical Scaling: High-foot-traffic days create higher earning potential.
• Narrative Synergy: A low roll means folks came in just to chat, stay warm, or browse. A high roll means bulk orders or expensive collectors' items sold!
• Quick & Cozy: Takes less than 10 seconds to calculate at day's end.

Hope this helps anyone looking for a balanced economy fix!

Finally grabbed some cheap and free solo games to play leading up to Halloween. The free mini game Prey looked interesting, just a little brochure-sized set of rules. I just now played two games (i called them parts 1 and 2) and found Prey quite cool. Just a d6, some imagination and a little journaling. Its up to you to decide what the monster is thats following you, as well as your role. I chose to be a paranormal investigator in an unfamiliar neighborhood, being tracked by a werewolf, my favourite of all the monsters. The game begins at midnight, and you must survive til sunrise at 6am. I survived night 1 but was still trapped though hidden during that day. Not only did I get through night 2, but I escaped. But I shall return! Anyone else play and enjoy Prey?

https://hooverd.substack.com/p/crimson-rust-session-26?r=4bbbdm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

I'm looking for some suggestions for a solo game that would be really crunchy and have a lot of book keeping. I like a lot of fiddly systems in my games, and enjoy things that play on a simulation level. I'm specifically looking for something that is focused on economics and trading, as well as land ownership. I'd also love a system that involves managing buildings, trading, wealth, workers/crew, wages, environmental influence, disasters, basically as crunchy as I can get 😂. Really, anything that can fit at least some of these things would be great though.

So far I've seen 2d6 realm has land ownership and building up your realm, though I'm not sure how crunchy it is.

I've also seen that d100 dungeon can be kind of crunchy and has a system for investments, but I'm not sure that's quite what I'm looking for.

I've seen people mention Star Trader in my research, but I'm looking more of a fantasy, or especially low fantasy setting rather than sci fi. I would love anything that involves sea fairing though.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

I've picked up a physical copy of Apothecaria in my own language (didn't even know it existed) and I just started playing, but I'm not sure I understood the foraging and exploring/events mechanics correctly.

Let's say I have to find an ingredient that says Lake (2). I draw a card and check the event pages for the Lake. The card is king of hearts and the related event talks about the lord of the lake emerging and scaring me off (because of its hurting teeth), and the prompt asks me how I get away.

What I don't understand is if I fail in finding the ingredient or not. The wording of the prompt makes me feel as if it has a negative outcome, but my card value was K, so that technically means I find the ingredient in one go (K > 2). Is this the correct interpretation?

Another event in the forest (10) tells me I faint and wake up in a fairy circle and the prompt asks me what do I think has happened. It also says I lose 1 foraging point. But if I have drawn a 10 and my ingredient was Forest (3), does that mean I still find the ingredient (10 > 3)? To what number to I subtract the -1 foraging point?

Thanks for whoever can help!

EDIT: Additional question: how do you deal with repeating prompts/events? Some seems quite specific and it feels weird to have the same thing happen multiple times

I play solo campaigns with an AI as the GM. The writing is good. The memory isn’t. A few sessions in, the clerk has a new name, the knife I took off him is gone, and the guard I swore revenge on says hi like we’re old friends.

Longer prompts didn’t fix it. Neither did “remember this” notes or starting fresh chats. The AI keeps the whole world in the conversation, and the conversation drifts.

So I wrote it a set of rules. Dice are rolled by a small Python script, not made up. There’s a fixed record of what exists in the world, and saves you can actually check. If my money or HP doesn’t match what happened, the save shows it. The AI still narrates and makes the calls; it just can’t quietly change what’s already true.

Longest runs so far: 197 rounds on one campaign, about 188 on another, and 156 in a single chat on a third. Mostly on ChatGPT 5.6 and Claude Opus 5.5.

It’s not an app. No install, no UI. You attach the files to a normal chat and tell it which world to start. The chat does need to be able to run code for the dice. There are 9 ready worlds in the repo (Call of Cthulhu in Shanghai, Cyberpunk RED, Skyrim, and some of my own), or you can build your own from the template.

It still breaks. The GM is better at following rules than at story logic, and I’d rather hear where it breaks for you than keep fixing it alone.

https://github.com/west132/AI-GM-Engine.git

I wanna see a solo rpg that tackles that. Like playing a puzzle or a resource management game. instead of creative writing. Im a fan of hostage negotiator boardgame, and hot damn! it was good... and i discovered that I love the feeling of slight stress and pressure on a game (call me a machocist or something, i dunno how to call people like us) 😂 and I wanna see if there is a solo rpg like that. something that tackles decision making in a very critical situation with a little bit of narrative. well any gmless or journalling game is welcome 😊

I feel like I’ve seen a game or games like this, but can’t find one now.

Is there a game where you play someone exploring a forest (or another area) and record plants? So you’d record the physical and medicinal (maybe magical) properties of plants.

I’m not thinking of a game like Apothecaria where you hunt for specific known plants to use or Exclusion Zone Botanist.

I did a search here and found a bunch of tables that’d be useful for identifying (or making up, I guess) plants, but no games where creating a catalog of plants is the goal.

So I've kind of hit the wall that everyone else probably has it by the time they finally start looking for advice. I have a well written lore that I'm still developing. Several tables and randomizers ready to go. A full list of rules, checks and a few redundancies. The issue I'm having though is that it's now gotten too much for the AI. Even with different files, character cards, and previous interactions saved as an easy, and portable save file.

I've gone to the point now where I'm looking at trying to find something that can accurately read the rules before replying. And be able to look at the character cards and previous scenes while being able to manage all three of those things. Because after several weeks of gameplay it takes a entire chat for three responses. Any advice, tools or ideas on how to build something would be greatly appreciated. I've used a combination of Grimoire Google documents and a few plugins to help manage stuff but I'm at my wits end.

I've used chat gpt and gronk. I like gronk a lot but I feel like it goes into talking like it has a stroke and Chadgpt seems to do good and then start freaking out about memory.

Any advice or suggestions to start somewhere with creating my own thing would be greatly appreciated. I have hundreds of files with millions of words so creation isn't the issue. It's implementing it.

I'm playing Shadowdark, and the game has a lot of dungeon crawling. Do you guys build the dungeons as you go through, or build the whole dungeon and then adventure through it?

Right now I'm playing Cy_borg and after a particularly cool session I sat down and sketched a moment from my play through.

Jiro:
A Wild Dancer class (from RONIN ttrpg by Slightly Reckless) pulled into the city of Cy as part of a task force charged with closing rifts in space time that are popping up all over the city and unleashing unknown terrors upon an already crumbling society.

He doesn’t know if he’s been re-slabbed into a body that looks uncannily like the one he’s used to or if he himself fell through one of the rifts that opened in his time (around 1603) and spit him out here.

Tonight would’ve been the first step to getting some answers from an exec he’s been tracking that has ties to Fideistic Transformation’s cyber sentience arm.

It WOULD’VE been the first step if I didn’t completely fumble the first traversal roll and end up with a Bounty Hunter gunning for me on the way to North Central.

Jiro got the first shot off and ended up escaping with 1HP, the droids left hand, and a plot thread to pull later on down the line.

I hope he patches himself up good before work tomorrow…

I ran the first adventure HMS Brutus and really liked it. I barely survived but the gameplay and mechanics are really easy to pick up. I will order the next adventure Moonfall. I highly recommend this game.

Hey everyone, I got a ton of updates and people asking me what I was playing so I figured id give you a closer look and spill the beans. The game i am playing is regular ol 5e. The reason for the funky game map is because I am playing a solo adventure module that has special rules for travel and the placements of towns and such. I modeled everything myself except for a few things I got some help from Creative commons models (no ai in this bad boy) , i painted it myself. Its my own adventure module, and my own rules variations. Feel free to ask me anything about it if you are curious! ​

I wanted to try tabletop RPGs, but I've never played before and don't have a group.

I found a Lord of the Mysteries fan rulebook based on GURPS and built an Android companion for it using Claude Code.

It handles character sheets, dice rolls, combat, and progression while a separate AI handles the GM side.

It's free and works offline. There's also a browser version to check it out without installing anything.

Browser: https://chaudhary-lakshay.github.io/pathways-casefile-ttrpg/

GitHub: https://github.com/chaudhary-lakshay/pathways-casefile-ttrpg

I've spend the year playing solo games. I've enjoyed the sketching and map making RPGs. I realize most boardgames are not for me. Can you recommend any games that would be considered dice games? And are dungeon themed?

My LGS has

Substratum Protocol by Pandion Games

Whispers in the Walls by Pandion Games

The Librarians Apprentice by Daniel Bronson-Lowe

Tainted Grail Journey in Avalon

I prefer to get stuff from my LGS instead of online so I want to get one of these 4, I was leaning Substratum Protocol because I enjoy a lot of Sci-fi settings but am willing to try any if someone has good experience with one and can recommend it.

I’m completely new to the world of solo games, I love board games and am a big fan of puzzles. I LOVE those murder-mystery-in-a-box type kits and was wondering if anyone had recommendations for a solo play book that was similar!

I’d love something that gives me a mystery to solve, some puzzles to get there, clues, etc. dice rolls and card draws are fine but not necessary. I’d love to uncover some grand mystery in the end, so it doesn’t need to be replayable either.

I’m a horror fan, but also love a cozy atmosphere so I’m pretty flexible with general vibes and themes.

So at some point I'd like to do a long term solo dnd or role-playing game campaign, I know you only need one character but for the purposes of writing a story I'd like to include a crew, a pirate crew. How do I solo rpg a long term campaign in a way that I can eventually turn into my own story or show like the mighty nein or vox machima? I'd like to specifically make the story about pirates and in a more modern setting? I'd also like it to take place in one of the worlds I created. What things would I need? Please no ai-related suggestions

I’m a Supernatural fan, and I wanted to see how Dean might look as a Hunter in World of Darkness. I adapted a Vampiro Life character template and made an importable "Progeny" like file.

I built him around his combat skills, investigative instincts, and the way protecting people drives him. The file is dean_winchester.json.

This is for a vampire-only setting, so Dean's hunting vampires rather than the other monsters from the show. Still, I think it’d be pretty cool to play him this way.

As the title says.

Im looking for a soloable RPG where i can play as a merchant.

Buying, selling, running a shop that kind of thing... any ideas?

https://hooverd.substack.com/p/crimson-rust-sesson-25?r=4bbbdm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Hi,

I am not sure whether they are called keepsake games, but I am looking for games where you use an object as part of the game, so like the jenga in wretched and alone, the journal in Project Ecco.
Would love recs, or alternatively an idea of what to search for on itch, as keepsake is not getting me where I want to go! Is there a game where I make a piece or art? or music? or collect twigs from outside? or similar!

Thank you!

I noticed this morning that there's a Humble Bundle deal on this game; I wasn't previously aware of the line, and am wondering how suited it is to run for solo games.

Does anyone have any experience with it, especially as regards its solo-friendliness?

After a tiring four day trek through plains, forest and finally swamp, the party has discovered

the possible entrance to the lair of the kidnappers plaguing the village of Crowdale. The hole

shows a slimy, wooden stairway that disappears into the bowels of the earth.

https://paulrobinson25.substack.com/p/the-bladesworn-chronicles-a-dungeons-314?r=76wg7