Like all hobbies, the world of solo tabletop RPGs has its own vocabulary. Here are a few common terms you’ll run across (as I understand them!):
Actual Play (AP)
A written, audio, or video log of a game playthrough. It’s basically recording the campaign as it happens- whether that’s a full-on prose story or just bullet points of a session’s action. Different people log with differing degrees of intensity, so if you find someone whose style you like, give them a follow!
Crunch
This is a way of describing how many rules and mechanics you have to wade through to make a move.
- Low crunch: You think of what you’d like to do, and you roll to see the outcome.
- High crunch: You think of what you’d like to do, calculate your character’s strength minus what he had to eat this morning, add his relationship with his mother, and multiply by how many fucks you have to give. (The answer for me is always zero.)
Hex Crawl
A style of exploration where the game map is divided into hexagonal tiles. Moving from hex to hex allows you to map out unknown wilderness, discover new locations, encounter unexpected enemies, or scavenge for resources.
Journaling RPGs
This is a quickly growing category of solo gaming, and my personal favorite! These are games where narrative writing is the core gameplay loop. You are essentially journaling in character to build the story. One of the most famous examples is Thousand Year Old Vampire, where you play as… yep, a thousand-year-old vampire.
Oracle
A tool used to answer questions and replace the Game Master in a solo session. An oracle might give you a simple binary answer (Yes/No), yield a pair of prompt words to interpret, or spark a random event to move the narrative forward.
Random Table
A numbered list of possible outcomes, prompts, or events that you roll or draw from randomly. Random tables can determine everything from ambient weather and dungeon encounters to unique character flaws and world-altering plot twists.
Rules-Light
A rules-light game has simple, minimal mechanics. You don’t have to pore over the rulebook like it’s an ancient text and you’re the only one who can decipher the hieroglyphics to stop the mummy’s curse.
OSR (Old School Renaissance / Old School Revival)
Game systems inspired by the lethal, player-driven frameworks of early 1970s and 80s tabletop games (like early editions of D&D). OSR is a massive rabbit hole in itself, and honestly, I find the whole debate a little boring, so we won’t get bogged down here. Famous examples include Mörk Borg and Old School Essentials.
Ready to put this vocab to use?
- Check out my Guide to Discovering Solo RPGs to see how these mechanics fit together in a real game.
- Looking for lightweight rules to try tonight? Read 5 Free Solo RPGs That Aren’t Ironsworn.
Leave a Reply