One Page Solo Engine
A downloadable game
One Page Solo Engine is a minimal, all-in-one toolkit to play your favorite tabletop RPGs without a GM. It was designed to be incredibly concise and minimalistic, but still have all the essential tools required to run a game without a GM.
There are a great many excellent tools out there to run a solo RPG game. I always found, however, that many of them were overly complicated. You shouldn’t have to read a dozen pages of rules and make 10 dice rolls just to determine what the guards in a room are doing. One Page Solo Engine was designed to provide every tool needed to run a solo game using any game system while using as few words as humanly possible.
One Page Solo Engine Online is free to use and share. We hope you will use it to experience the many exciting adventures solo roleplaying has to offer.
Official Apps:
Community Integrations:
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Development log
- OPSE 1.6Mar 12, 2021
Comments
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I am loving using OPSE. My only problem is I'm not able to install the Foundry intregration
Hi ! I'm Gael23 on foundry, maintainer of the foundry module.
I'll try to see why it won't work for you. Can you open an issue on GitHub to tell me what is wrong ? Click on "manifest URL" to land on the GitHub when you are on the foundry page.
Hello, I have created and formatted an Italian version of OPSE, which I would like to share with the community. Can I send it via email?
That's great! Thank you for taking the time and effort to translate OPSE so more people can enjoy using it. Please send it to business@inflatablestudios.dev and I will post it on the OPSE page.
Done!
Could you also be interested in an Italian version of the text in the app?
Hello, did you receive the email with the Italian version of the One Page Solo Engine attached? If there's anything you don't like, I can fix it. I've worked on it really hard, and I'd be happy to share it with the community. Alessandro
I noticed that a few people have difficulty with the suit domains in 1PSE not providing enough information to work with, so I put together lists of alternative domains for each suit using a few sources (primarily Peach Garden Games’ Carta).
The final options for each suit were included with Ironsworn specifically in mind, but should work with other systems.
Hope this helps someone.
I’m using OPSE a lot, and wanted to give you a huge thank-you, especially for the iOS app. With the app and another one for dice rolling, I was able to live whole adventures while waiting in boring lines. :D
That's great! I'm so glad to hear you're enjoying OPSE. Adding a dice roller is one of the top requested features, so maybe that will be coming to the mobile apps soon!
Hello, there, I'm here to express my gratitude for making this toolkit.
I tried using it with Tiny Dungeon and it works really well. I will try using PbtA and other game system in the future too. Not just helpful for solo-roleplaying, it also helps brainstorming for ideas that can be used in oneshot or campaign.
So, thank you for creating this toolkit.
Great to hear that you're enjoying OPSE! I also like using it for brainstorming ideas and for group games.
My only complaint is it’s free, you should be making some money for it!!
Thank you for the nice comment! I'm happy as long as people can use and enjoy it.
You have accomplished your mission then!
Started using OPSE for my Cairn solo playthrough. I love how you can do journaling in the app itself. Just need to export from time to time to save progress. Very useful tool for playing solo RPG / enhance your GMing repertoire.
Great! I hope you've been in enjoying OPSE. I use it for GMing as well and I think its a great way to make group games feel less... railroady. :)
My problem is with the Android implementation. If I need to switch apps in the middle of a 'Player Action' without closing the action (so I can make a roll from my dice roller on my phone), when I switch back, it wipes what was written when the app becomes foregrounded. That's killing me. So is not being able to reopen a prior event (I can delete it, but not edit it). If you accidently hit ok, you can't go back and finish that event. And by trying to back out of an action you accidentally triggered, I now have an empty box (no text, no ability to delete the empty box.
My suggestions:
1) Find away to keep existing text in a player event (or other activity) so that you can go deal with something else (dice roll, email, etc) without losing what the player had typed even if it has not been committed with an 'ok'.
2) Let me add more to an entry that I accidentally said 'ok' with.
3) When any action is triggered by me selecting the chosen activity, have 'back out/cancel' instead of just 'ok' to get out of the that activity without forcing me to say okay and then delete afterwards.
Otherwise, I'm very glad you've done this, I just need the Android app to let me NOT lose text all the time without having to seal off an action that I'm in the middle of just because I backgrounded and then re-foregrounded...
If you want to make 'ok' always required before a switch, then I really would need 'edit' so I can bring it back up and continue in that event.
I do want to say *thank you*, not only for doing this on your own initiative, but for making it available and free. With everything being monetized nowdays, that's a great thing.
kaladorn at gmail dot com (Tom)
Hi there! Thanks for your comments and for using OPSE. I'm always happy to hear when people are using it to its fullest.
So, I have some good news! A new version of the OPSE app is in development that fixes everything you mentioned and then some. The new app will include a built-in dice roller, the ability to edit entries, save and load multiple story chains, and create your own custom tables. It will also likely include some new wording to make suit domains easier to read and understand along with a number of other quality of life improvements.
I really appreciate you taking the time to give this feedback!
I was wondering if there were any news regarding the new version of OPSE, and found this comment. Those are fantastic additions to the app!
Hey! Awesome!
I'm a dev, but I haven't done phone stuff or game stuff (not counting network layers). I'm glad you can take this on and am looking forward to the new release. Honestly, if you can set it up as PWYW or $2.00 or something, I'd throw in a bit (a coffee?). I'd pay more but haven't worked for a while due to family losses and disability, but your work is appreciated.
Have an extra thought:
I sometimes want to be able to just make a note. The individual OPSE actions provide stuff, but somewhere you'd like to have a note ability that is accessible if another action is up (like Player Action). I'd like to flip back and forth between a 'note' page that I can refer to while figuring out the action.
For instance:
Thorn has reached Greenport. A random event sees a neutral being in trouble - interpreted as Thorn seeing someone mugging the merchant. Thorn wades in (Player Action) .... and then realizes he's forgot the merchant's name. He can abort and garbage the Player Action just to get the merchant's name (because that is a while back) and when in Player Action, you can't bring up a note in which you'd have all your NPcs encounter (for example) because Player Action is foregrounded and I can't go look at another action/etc (the cards?).
So what I'm asking for is the ability to step out of the current action and look into another (like note page). I also hope there can be a 'note' which has no resolution involved - its just a data sack that can be looked through for NPC's names or names of houses or etc....
I know I could do this on paper, but I know it'll get drowned or tossed accidentally. I also think that if I had a note capability (me just putting things I need to recall), it makes OPSE capable of being fully mobile - without any paper or pen.
Something to think of.
OPSE works great with Tricube Tales - perfect lite ttrpg combo!
In Mythic GME, when asking questions, rolling doubles under the Chaos Factor would generate a random event. I like it coz it simulates a GM throwing a wrench in the works.
How would you treat that in OPSE? A Pacing Move whenever I draw a certain combo of cards? (The Chaos Factor is optional).
Glad you're enjoying OPSE! One way to add in unexpected random events is to leave the jokers in the deck and then add a Random Event (Action Focus + Topic Focus) when you draw one. You could add a Pacing Event as well if you wanted. I think a Pacing Event would tend to escalate the current situation and a Random Event would move it in a new direction.
Thanks for the tip!Will test this out 🙂
Keep creating, bro!
Is there a variant planned for this that uses tarot cards instead of regular playing cards?
It's quite easy to adapt.
Just drop the trump cards (aka major arcana), and use the remaining Tarot deck. Treat Knights as Jokers.
If your Tarot deck does not use French suits, you can use the correspondences:
♥ = cups,
♦ = pentacles = bells,
♠ = swords = leaves,
♣ = wands = acorns.
If you have a divinatory Tarot deck, you can keep the trumps (major arcana) as a separate deck and use them for generating topics according to their divinatory meanings, maybe instead of Topic Focus.
If you have a playing Tarot deck, you can treat trumps as fifth suit (XI = Jack, XII = Knight [i.e. Joker], XIII = Queen, XIV = King, like in Tarot soliatre) and assign it some meaning (e.g. following the idea that trumps are the strongest card, we can get something like Authority [influential, hierarchy]; or maybe you can use something like "same suit as the last non-trump suit drawn"). Then only cards from XV to XXI (Mond) need to be dropped.
highly recommended tool for various genres of solo RPG
Great tool and very versitile. Used this on a revent playthrough of a game and it went really well. The tables are clear and easy to use. I liked the optionsbof dice and cards provided in the engine.
Why is One Page Solo Engine 3 pages or at least 2 if printed double sided?
A good question! The first page is the oracles themselves and is technically all you need to play. That is the one page in One Page Solo Engine. For people who want a bit more, I also added a second page of optional Generators. The third page is just some information on how the system was built and some tips on using it.
Like Mythic GME, One Page Solo Engine is a complete system for solo rpg play. It covers the whole range... from concept to scenes to oracle questions. The companion OPSE Android app is a fantastic addition too.
I'm so glad I discovered this! :-)
This tool, and its predecessor (I think) the Apocalypse Solo Engine are what convinced me that solo and GM-less roleplaying was within reach! This engine is more than a single tool, but an entire toolbox to be taken out and used as needed.
I've used it to inspire my own adaptation of the Engine for the Genesys RPG system, as well, which features uses of the narrative dice and tables for them.
Oh I bet the narrative dice are great for this, I would love to see that
I would absolutely love to share, so here it is! It's been expanded a little, but I did try to retain the original document's brevity.
It's here! https://genesys-toolbox.notion.site/Genesys-Oracle-b5a381f8780743f797156f025b8c2...
Thank you!!
Nice! +1, very useful! Even if I don't know Genesys (heard of it over the years, just not familiar with it), what you've done is pretty hand in other systems.
Wow... I've just found this tool. It is amazing. I was using in my tablet.
Really great job!
Does it have a Windows installer? or
Do you have plans to have it on Windows Store?
I would like to record my sessions by using it together with some VTTs.
Thanks for the comment and glad you like it! There's an app version that you can use in the browser or on mobile. I haven't planned to release it for Windows, but there's no reason I couldn't if people want to use it like that.
It might be easy to pass up on this one, till you realize everything you need is right here. The real genius is the Pacing moves: you don't see them very often. I didn't realize I was looking for this in my quest to stop being a bookkeeper and start being a solo storyteller, but I'm looking forward to using this with the UNE NPC emulator. <3
This is amazing!
This is terrific little tool. I often sit at my desk while I'm waiting for a program to load and just randomly riff off characters and events for fun to kill a few minutes. I'm still working up to using it as a legitimate gaming tool but the utility and value of it is already quite clear.
Good set of tools here. Going into my toolkit for sure.
I have been using this Engine to run and play all sorts of TTRPG, either in solo or duet games. It is really helpful in making the game stay immersive and unexpected.
Thank you so much for making this available to all of us Inflatable Studios team.
Best regards.
I've been using it with great success for a while now, so thank you for this! I will say that having more than one word for each suit, much like your older Apocalypse Oracle, is really useful. I've transfered a couple of words from the older to the more recent oracle to help me out.
Thanks for this!
Thanks for the feedback! I've added back in some of the extra interpretations for each suit in version 1.6. It should hopefully be posted in the next few day.
Hi, just saying, it's still my preferred GM emulator, it holds up!
very nice! Short to the point but still usable!
It’s a gift! (Insert Boromir picture).
Seriously it’s a very useful tool for the Solo RPG community. Thank you for this.
Soy un gran fan del Apocalypse Oracle! Jugarlo Online es Genial. Muchas Gracias Sr. H.
I want to ask yu about using bits of this in a forthcoming game. Can I contact you somewhere?
That would be awesome! The document is licensed under Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA 4.0), so you are free to use it in your own games, even commercially, as long as you give appropriate credit and share the changes you make to it.
This is simply one of the best solo game engines, period.
This is good, really good. Well done!
Thanks for checking it out! I'm loving Space Aces, by the way. Great work!
This is one of the solo rpg oracles that I always anticipated.
Thank you.
Just wanted to say that this is exactly the kind of tool I was needing to start adventuring into the solo rpg world, something to keep track of everything without needing to be constantly looking for tables through pages.
Thanks for that!