In an update to my last post about tumbling into the rabbit hole of solo TTRPGs, I did end up buying a printer. I went with a simple Brother hl-l2420dw monochrome laser printer that does duplex printing (auto reverse side printing). It was surprisingly cheap, and the toner ink doesn't go bad like with inkjet printers when you don't use it for months at a time. No color, but *shrug*. So, printer acquired, I proceeded to go on the hunt for solo TTRPGs. To my joy, I realized I already owned several on Itch.io, thanks to a few charity bundles I purchased over the years.
The first game I printed and played was DELVE, by Anna Blackwell. With the printer and some tests, and several wasted pages, I figured out how to print booklets*. I bought a big roll of clear contact paper (usually found with shelf liners in your local box store) to laminate the cover (much cheaper than using an actual lamination machine), and sewed the binding watching a saddle stitch video from Sea Lemon. Booklet done, I dove into playing my first game.
Delve has you commanding a group of fantasy dwarves as they dig down into the earth in search of treasures. Along the way, you build rooms like barracks, a forge, a kitchen, shrines, and kennels. The game uses a deck of standard poker cards, a coin for 1d2 rolls, and a 1d4 dice. You can also just draw a card for the dice rolls/coin flips. The booklet gives you scenarios, roll tables to discover what you find in the room you bravely venture into, and to gather resources to hire more soldiers and build more rooms. As you play, you can sketch out your hold, room by room, or just track things on notebook paper. I found drawing out my hold super fun, including laughing at my own terrible little sketches.
My first run was a test, and I died early. My second run went 21 rounds, until we dug too deep and awoke a great monstrous horror, which you can only do after digging past level 5 when you put the two jokers (one is good magic, one is bad magic) back into the deck. I, of course, drew the Bad Magic one on my fifth lvl 5 pull, and got very bad juju. Emron the Earthshaker was displeased by my tunnelling into its nest, and so it proceeded to tunnel straight upwards and destroy my lucrative Crystal Cavern, before eating through my soldiers (the buttons) as side-snacks. I had neglected to build any defenses like barricades and traps, and had the extra bad luck of Emron drawing the double-health card. Losing my hold to a giant angry earthworm was some of the most fun I've had with a pen and paper game in a long time.
If you are thinking about getting into solo TTRPGs, I can recommend Delve. Also, if you've ever bought an Itch.io charity bundle, check your collections. You may already own some. The two print books I ordered last week have arrived, and I plan to play a game of Cartograph next.
*If you are interested in printing booklets - Do Not use the Booklet Printing option that is part of your Brother printer options (it tends to resize the pages poorly). It's best to take your game book PDF over to this converter. It will convert it into a booklet with the pages in the correct order (they should be jumbled because of how you fold it), then open the PDF it gives you in your browser (I use Chrome so your settings may vary), and use those basic printing options. I recommend printing 4-6 test pages first before printing the whole booklet to make sure your settings are correct. I had to re-convert it choosing the Short Edge option instead of the PDF converter's recommended Long Edge option to get it to work right for my printer.
If correctly done, you can then fold your stack of pages in half to make a booklet, then staple or sew the middle fold. I recommend sewing with a tapestry needle and cross-stich thread or thin yarn. I also recommend laminating your cover (before sewing) with the clear contact paper. You can also use the contact paper to laminate tokens and playing pieces that you can draw yourself.
Honestly, learning how to craft all this stuff has been a big part of the fun for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment