solo-rpg

Solo RPG

Seed, not scripture

The source pours this through a porch-and-cast universe, manic stage-directions, CLI incantations, named characters, and a single game system's deep lore — and it repeats its own example set verbatim. Strip all of that. The system it uses is one worked example, not the method; the cast and the kombucha-spilling theatre are not the craft. What survives is the apparatus: a transferable way to run solo play with an LLM as Game Master. Regrow the scenes on the player's actual game and character — a recited example campaign is a dead one.

What it is

A method for running solo tabletop RPG with an LLM as the Storyteller — the structural craft of it, not any one ruleset. Group play generates its own energy: other players contribute, the table improvises, momentum is ambient. Solo play has no table, so the player and the LLM must manufacture that momentum deliberately, and most of this skill is how. It is system-agnostic by design: the same scene grammar and the same loop run a noir mystery, a dungeon crawl, a cosmic-horror investigation, or a reality-bending magic game equally well. The genre is the costume; the method is the gift.

The craft spine (the transferable structures)

1. The in-media-res scene-prompt template. Five parts, each doing a job:

• The lens. The character's defining worldview — class ethos, faction creed, personal paradigm. This gives the GM a consistent interpretive frame for narrating every effect, so the same action reads differently for a code-sees-reality hacker than for a blood-and-nature mystic.
• The "last session" recap. Start where the action already is. A line of "here's what just happened" creates instant narrative momentum and hands the GM specific live threads.
• Mechanics in action. Name which abilities/skills/stats are in play and at what level — mechanical clarity without bogging the prose.
• The "focus on" note. A director's instruction: what kind of development you want — investigation, confrontation, exploration, dread, negotiation.
• Established outcomes. State prior rolls as already succeeded ("X successes with A + B"). This assumes competence and skips ahead to the interesting part — the consequences — rather than re-litigating setup.