…I was playing with a group of friends. We played AD&D 2ed (Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Birthright), Shadowrun, Call of Cthulu and Star Wars.
It was the ’90s, we were teenagers, gathering to play once per week.
Time passed, friends changed, TTRPGs were put aside, stored in a warehouse. Computer RPGs and gaming scratched that itch a bit.
More time passed, family came along. CRPGs no longer could scratch the itch, but there simply was no time. I remembered how hard it was to get to play once per week, even with that tight group of friends, even when our only responsibility was to studying for school. But the love for TTRPGs was still there.
One day I stumbled upon a reddit post on solo roleplaying. At first I was sceptical. Then I found a subreddit, blogs from other fellow lonewolves. Solo roleplaying was something that worked, and there were tools designed to enable it.
Finally I decided to give it a go. I pulled my old Star Wars the Roleplaying Game (West End Games) books from the storage, found my dice, got some pen and paper, and journeyed to my first adventure. So this is my blog, where I will talk about all things relevant to solo roleplay gaming from my perspective.
Edit: This site is in the affiliate program of drivethruRPG, so the respective links include the affiliate id. It’s a small help with my hobby budget to try more new things.
I’ve painted more of the Brite Minis I had printed in 15mm scale. This time various Elves. A couple wood elf archers, a couple high elf warriors and several adventurer type elves (sorcerer, mage, mercenary, bard).
The wood elf scheme was close to my previous wood elves I had painted from Demonworld. Went with light greens, and red accessories.
For the High elves I went with a white and red scheme (wanted pink but guess I missed the mixing of paints in proper ratio, so I just went with it).
For the adventurers I focused on vermillion and turquoise with some variations.
Printing was okay bar the sorcerers staff head which was corrupted during printing so I turned it into a flame.
Continuing with a selection from Brite Minis, here are a few peasants, villagers and townsfolk ready to defend their land.
Scaled 60% for 15mm. Supportless models from Brite Minis. Printed on a Bambu Labs A1 mini with a 0.2mm nozzle. eSun PLA+HS Filament. 0.06mm layer height. High Quality default presets.
Halfling butcherBakerTownsfolk with rolling pin Villager with clubArcher womanPeasant archerPeasant archer Peasant Spearman
I’ve been tampering with print settings a while now, but I don’t want this post to be another 3d printing guide. I’ll just give settings and information and proceed to the miniatures painting stuff. Perhaps I will make a separate 3d printing post later in the future.
I’ve collected several town-guard style sculpts from the Brite Minis catalogue.
Scaled 60% for 15mm. Supportless models. Printed on a Bambu Labs A1 mini with a 0.2mm nozzle. eSun PLA+HS Filament. 0.06mm layer height. High Quality default presets.
For paint scheme I went with a mix of earth tones (browns for leathers, gambesons, wood) and a Green (Permanent Green Light) and Yellow (Azo Yellow Medium) for the uniforms (capes, overcoats, pants, shirts). I free handed a tower in the shield with a Yellow/Green background.
I spent the extra time for details like moustaches, beards and buckles as needed. Overall I really like the end results, and will be proud to field them alongside my Blighthaven Town Guard.
Spearman Guard CaptainTownguardHornblowerDrummerSpearmanMan at armsMan at armsMan at armsMan at armsSpearman
Took me a while to get this Five Parsecs from Home: Bug Hunt game played, photographed, cleaned up and blogged, but here it is. It was really frustrating having to play the same mission again, which delayed me in setting everything up, and then doing the work as doing something repetitive usually takes the fun out things, but I must say beforehand that I actually enjoyed it.
Mission: Re-take Star Port (sheltered)
1. Special Assignments
Ariana: Officer Training Course: Failure Kato: Marksman Training : Success Ulla: Harsh Environment Course: Success
– Planetary militia – Technical Training – Leadership Training
– Anti-pirate operation – USS Astral Monarch Campaign
Kato Minoru
6
5
Military Outpost
– Ground forces (Scouts) – Survival Course – Harsh Environment Course – Physical Training – Marksman Training
– Police Action – USS Astral Monarch Campaign
Ulla Voight
5
6
Trade Hub
– Naval forces (Security) – Physical training – Marksman Training – Harsh Environment Course
-Anti-pirate operation – USS Astral Monarch Campaign
Name
Missions & Injuries
Status
Ariana Raschke
S2E1, S2E2
Kato Minoru
S2E1
Service Pistol +1″ Range
Ulla Voight
S2E1, S2E2
Post-battle
1. Determine Casualties and Lost Marines
Ariana: Minor Injuries 1 Turn in Sickbay Kato: Torso Wound: 4 Turns in Sickbay
2. Update Completed Missions
Done
3. Check for Mustering Out
Ariana: Muster Out! Kato: Failure
4. Determine Reputation
23 Initial -1 For Support Points +1 For Rescuing 1 Troopers +1 For 2 Objectives Completion +1 For Objectives Roll +1 For Hanie Riffin Origin 26 Final
5. Experience and Leveling
Ariana: MVP (she sacrificed herself to Hack the objective) 2 XP Kato: 1 XP, will increase Speed to 7″ Ulla: 3 XP, will increase Toughness
6. Roll for Operational Progress
1 Support Point Claimed: 7 Total Enemy swarms: Industrial Zone: Place 2 additional Contact markers at the beginning of battle
7. Roll for Military Life
Kato: You’re getting in shape, at least. You may immediately raise Speed by +1 for a cost of 5 XP (can’t…)
Session Summary
I had to use 2 Movie Magick cards: Evac Called & Reinforcements. I did not want to drag this battle out or fail it, so I used everything in my power to win.
I may have missed bringing up a Screamer or two of the variants, but I don’t think it would have much of an impact to the end result.
Well I finally got a character to muster out – and the one who didn’t have any advance to her Combat skill at that, also she doesn’t get to muster out with the service pistol, so I will have to spend her blood-earned Story Point to get it. On the other hand, she has a high Savvy score, and received Leadership training, which means she’s a perfect fit for a crew leader figure.
This means I will be switching to a regular Five Parsecs from Home campaign going forward.
I did spend some time preparing my crew for the Five Parsecs from Home campaign, and you can find a teaser shot here. I custom-designed Ariana’s civilian version using Titancraft and some digital kitbashing in blender. She also has her hair dyed differently this time – guess she didn’t want something that loud in her civilian life.
Since I commited so much time in printing and painting terrain for Bug Hunt (I burned out actually while painting my industrial zone terrain) and I really want a tough trooper like Ulla to be part of my crew (Combat skill +3!) I may continue running the Bug Hunt campaign on the side, and may get her to muster out as well. Should that happen, there’s always going to be a spot for her in Ariana’s crew.
I am still getting the hang of this comic-book approach. It takes a bit longer to edit and process, but I really like the new refreshing look.
For Bug Hunt specifically I will continue on this level of detail. As I have said before, Bug Hunt is resouce intensive on the solo player. Lots of bookkeeping which I have reduced via the use of tokens. I have also reduced the journaling of all those rolls and movements of blips as it is tiresome, and I need to have this balance between enjoyment and effort.
When I return to regular Five Parsecs from Home, I intend to perhaps have some more detailed mechanics text alongside with the comic panels, for a better understanding. It remains to be seen though, as planning doesn’t always mean it’s good in practice.
Pre-battle Roster
Name
Reactions
Speed
Combat Skill
Toughness
Savvy
Ariana Raschke
1
6″
+0
4
+2
Kato Minoru
3
6″
+1
5
+1
Ulla Voight
1
5″
+3
4
+1
Name
Completed Missions
XP
Origin
Training
Service History
Ariana Raschke
7
5
Trade Hub
– Planetary militia – Technical Training – Leadership Training
– Anti-pirate operation – USS Astral Monarch Campaign
– Naval forces (Security) – Physical training – Marksman Training
-Anti-pirate operation – USS Astral Monarch Campaign
Name
Missions & Injuries
Status
Ariana Raschke
S2E1, S2E2
Kato Minoru
S2E1
Service Pistol +1″ Range
Ulla Voight
S2E1, S2E2
Session Summary
Although low priority, the mission wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. Since I am focusing on mustering out my team, I really take care of not placing them too much into harms way, and the rest of the troops are more dispensable. My main characters almost have plot armor in this regards, but things can always turn sour, as you never know if the dropship will arive in time. Having this bad roll on the Enemy Movement was a bit disheartening as I need to fight another battle to gain the starport sector, and this time at a higher priority level. On the other hand this gives me some extra time to prepare my industrial zone terrain (printed, primed, but not painted yet) and have a full assortment of terrain to cover all sectors.
Another of Sablebadger’s terrain sets. This is the Sci Fi Outpost. Once more it is scaled down to 60% for 15mm scale. The buildings are a bit on the smaller side, but they’re bunkers/hubs so it’s to be expected. I did the red painting with an airbrush and red acrylic ink, masking away the parts to be painted different colours. Using ink instead of diluted paint in the airbrush, was a blast as coverage was immensely easier to achieve. Removing the masking tape or white tack was a pain, and perhaps the whole process would take the same amount of time had I used stipple drybrushing (didn’t have my acrylic markers back then), but it wouldn’t look as good. I gave the whole outpost a blood angels look, inspired from the days when I was playing Dawn of War on the PC.
What begun as a simple paint job got more and more detailed as time went by. I really love how these tech gothic ruins from Sablebadger turned out. Again printed at 60% scale, in black PLA. Spray primed dark grey and airbrushed zenithal and various grey ones. Washed with a brown black wash mix, drybrushed tan. I went above and beyong and did some window glass panels using PVA glue undiluted into the window panels. Followed with some spot washes for grime and sealed with a matt spray sealer, which gave a foggy effect to the windows. I am thrilled with how they turned out. I have enough to fill out a 2×2 table in 15mm.
Yes, you just need thick enough PVA so that it stays in place and doesn’t flow down. The size of the small panes matters as it can’t grab a really big gap.
Grid city sci-fi ruins I had gotten as sampler from Saucermen studios. Printed in black PLA, and painted in grey tones with metallic details and added rust effects.
I mixed and matched to create different builds but I failed to also Mirror the clones, and break the uniformity even more.
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Solo, Pen, Paper and Dice 
Onibaba 2:39 pm on July 16, 2025 Permalink |
Amazing as always, thx for the effort! At least Jake managed to get out of it in one piece
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Onibaba 3:24 pm on November 5, 2025 Permalink |
Great BR as always!
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