How to Play Solo Tabletop RPGs: A Beginner's Guide

You’ve heard about solo tabletop RPGs — maybe from a corner of Reddit, maybe because your group fell apart and you still want to play. The idea sounds strange at first: who’s the Game Master? The short answer is that you are, sort of, but so are the dice. This guide will show you how the whole thing works and get you to your first scene tonight.

What makes a solo RPG different from a regular one?

In a group RPG, the GM invents the world, controls every NPC, and decides what happens when you kick in a door. In a solo RPG, a tool called an oracle does most of that work. An oracle is a set of tables — usually a yes/no engine plus a random-event generator — that you consult instead of asking a GM.

You ask the oracle a question: “Is the merchant still in town?” You roll dice, cross-reference a table, and get an answer: Yes, but… — he’s there, but he’s being watched by someone you don’t recognise. You didn’t decide that. The dice did. That’s the mechanic that makes solo play feel genuinely surprising rather than like writing a story you already know the end of.

The oracle tradition has a long history. Ironsworn (Shawn Tomkin, 2018) and Mythic GME (Tom Pierson, 2003) are the two most influential systems, and Soliloquest is built squarely in that lineage — see how Soliloquest compares to other approaches if you want to dig into the differences.

The three things you need to start

1. A character with a problem

Solo RPGs live and die by stakes. Before you roll a single die, write down:

• Who your character is — one sentence is enough.
• What they want — a concrete goal, not a vibe.
• What’s in the way — an obstacle, a rival, a mystery.

Example: Sera is a disgraced cartographer trying to recover her stolen survey maps before the Duke uses them to raze the border villages. That’s a character, a goal, and a ticking clock. You can run a whole campaign off three sentences.

2. An oracle (or a system that includes one)

You need something to answer your questions honestly. Options range from a simple d6 table you draw on an index card to a full system like Ironsworn or Soliloquest. What matters is that the oracle’s answers surprise you. If you’re fudging the results because you “know” what should happen next, you’ve become your own GM — and you’ll quickly run out of ideas.

A good oracle has at least:

• A yes/no engine with degrees (Yes, No, Yes-but, No-and, etc.)
• A random event table that fires occasionally to derail your expectations
• Some kind of tension or chaos tracker that makes things escalate

Soliloquest’s oracle is built on those same pillars; you can read the mechanics in the oracle docs before you commit to anything.

3. A way to record what happens

This is the piece most beginners skip, and it’s the one that makes solo RPGs worth playing long-term. Even a plain text file works. Write in the past tense, like a journal entry, after each scene. You’ll be surprised how quickly a readable story accumulates.

Soliloquest calls this a story you keep — at the end of a campaign you export readable prose, not a chat transcript. But even if you’re playing with pen and paper, the habit of writing it down transforms a session from a private game into something you might actually want to re-read.

How a session actually flows

Here’s the loop you’ll repeat until the session ends:

1. Set the scene. Where are you? What’s the immediate situation? Write one or two sentences.
2. Act. Your character does something — asks a question, picks a lock, follows a lead.
3. Ask the oracle. Does it work? What complicates it? Roll and read the result honestly, even when it hurts.
4. Interpret and write. Turn the oracle’s answer into a sentence or two of fiction. Let it surprise you.
5. Advance. Does the scene resolve? Move to the next one. Does a random event fire? Fold it in.

That’s it. The loop is simple enough to do in twenty minutes or rich enough to fill three hours. You control the pacing.

A worked example

Sera reaches the Duke’s archive room. She needs to find the maps before the guard rotation changes.

• Ask the oracle: Are the maps still here? Roll: Yes, but…
• Interpret: The maps are here, but they’ve been partially copied — someone got here first.
• New question: Is the copier still in the room? Roll: No, and…
• Interpret: They’re gone, and they’ve left a trap on the map case.

Two rolls, and the scene is already more interesting than anything Sera planned. She now has to disarm a trap and figure out who beat her here. The oracle gave her a story; she didn’t invent it.

Common mistakes beginners make

Asking leading questions. “The guard is asleep, right?” is not an oracle question — it’s wishful thinking. Ask neutrally: “Is the guard awake?” and accept the answer.

Ignoring bad results. The oracle’s value is in the No, and… rolls — the ones that wreck your plan and force you to adapt. Fudging those is fudging the whole game.

Over-planning before play. You don’t need a world map, a faction list, and a ten-session arc before session one. Start with a character and a problem. Let the oracle build the world around you as you go. This approach — sometimes called Mythic-style play — is faster and more surprising than front-loaded prep.

Stopping when you’re stuck. When you don’t know what happens next, that’s an oracle question: “Does something unexpected interrupt the scene?” Roll. The answer will unstick you almost every time.

Choosing your first system

If you want…	Try…
A complete game with its own setting	Ironsworn (free PDF)
A GM-emulator to bolt onto any game	Mythic GME
An AI-assisted oracle that writes with you	Soliloquest

Soliloquest is worth mentioning specifically for beginners because the AI Storyteller handles the oracle interpretation step — it reads the dice result and weaves it into prose for you, which removes the biggest friction point for new players (turning a table result into a sentence). The dice still decide; the AI just narrates. See how it works in practice if you’re curious.

Your first session checklist

• Write your character’s name, goal, and obstacle (three sentences)
• Pick an oracle (Soliloquest’s free credits get you started at no cost)
• Open a text file or grab a notebook
• Set a single scene: where is your character right now, and what do they want in the next ten minutes?
• Ask your first oracle question and accept the answer

The hardest part of solo RPGs is trusting the dice. Once you do, you’ll find that the story the oracle tells is almost always more interesting than the one you would have told yourself.

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Ready to try it? Start a free Soliloquest campaign — no subscription, no credit card required to begin. Or explore the oracle docs to see how the mechanics work under the hood.