Thank you so much for taking the time to play Loner and for writing such a thoughtful review! I truly appreciate your honest feedback, especially given the challenges you've faced this past year. Your health and well-being come first, and I'm genuinely glad you found the game portable enough to consider for travel or hospital stays.
I wanted to address your central observation about Loner feeling like "writing a story rather than playing a game." This is actually a fascinating point that touches on what makes Loner different from both traditional RPGs and journaling games.
Loner isn't designed as a journaling game or creative writing tool: it's built around emergent narrative. The key difference is this: in creative writing, you're the author making all the decisions. In Loner, the Oracle and the Twist Counter are specifically designed to subvert your expectations and push the story in directions you wouldn't choose yourself.
When you rolled to see if Sable's escape would work, you weren't just writing "what happens next", you were genuinely asking a question whose answer you didn't control. That's the game element. The Oracle could have said "No, and…" forcing you to deal with the drone discovering your deception, or "Yes, but…" meaning you escape but leave behind critical evidence. These outcomes would have surprised you and forced adaptive play rather than authorial control.
I completely understand your point about crunch, and you're absolutely right that Loner deliberately minimizes it to keep the focus on Fiction First and Fictional Positioning. The "game" in Loner isn't in tactical complexity but in the tension between what you hope will happen and what the Oracle reveals, amplified by the Twist Counter building toward narrative disruptions you must navigate.
Your experience with Sable actually demonstrates this beautifully: you made choices based on her traits (Misdirection), the Oracle determined outcomes you didn't control, and the story emerged from that dialogue between intention and result. That's emergent narrative at work: different from both predetermined story outcomes and pure creative freedom.
That said, not every game is for everyone, and that's perfectly okay. Your preference for more mechanical depth and established lore is completely valid. Games like Ironsworn or Starforged might offer that middle ground: more crunch while still supporting solo play.
I'm genuinely grateful you gave Loner a fair try and shared your experience so thoughtfully. Reviews like yours help other players understand whether the game matches their preferences, which is incredibly valuable to the community.
Wishing you all the best with your gaming adventures, and I hope you find the perfect system that brings you joy!
Thank you for taking my review in the spirit of grace in which it was offered, Roberto. I appreciate your thoughtful comments, especially after a less-than-ideal weekend following your most recent release! I do believe Loner is a wonderful project and the "right game" for lots of people and hopefully my review will direct a few more people to Loner.
Thanks for writing this review. Loner is one of those items on my "to buy" list and I'm glad to see an example of what it can play like.
For the poll, I voted for the Across A Thousand Dead Worlds, but I'd also like to see Achtung! Cthulhu. I just started playing that one myself, and I'm curious to see another solo take on it. It is VERY crunchy!
"the game itself could be distilled down to an 8-page pamphlet" I agree with you and I don't think it's a negative other than the physical book size. I buy pdfs mostly and for Loner, I've gone through the trouble of copy/pasting the tables into a spreadsheet so I can print them off in a smaller zine size. I'm not a graphic designer and I'm sure it's not so easy to get readability and maximum real-estate use in one go. I think the one who has somehow nailed that riddle is Knave 2e.
"am I playing a game or writing a story" - For me that answer is always, Yes - both. Like you, I can see using Loner on it's own when traveling and space is a factor. Outside of that, I've incorporated Loner into my Franken-Sworn gameplay. I like Loner version of the Yes, No oracle and twist table very much. And other tables are handy - the theme specific Verb / Adjective / Noun tables are really where the "What Next" gets answered.
I also like the "everything is a character" concept and use that for my NPCs. The Concept, Skill, Frailties, Motive, Goal, Nemesis, and Gear can all fit on one-side of an Index card and give me a quick refresh as to "who is this one again?"
For your Poll, I voted for Across a Thousand Dead Worlds. That's so crunchy, you'll chip a tooth.
I got this from the OG version from this game. Instead of asking "I ask the oracle. If I throw the datapad at the window, will it confuse the drone long enough for her to make her escape? " I would ask the question, “ after I throw the data pad at the window, would I have enough time to escape?"
Hi Paul,
Thank you so much for taking the time to play Loner and for writing such a thoughtful review! I truly appreciate your honest feedback, especially given the challenges you've faced this past year. Your health and well-being come first, and I'm genuinely glad you found the game portable enough to consider for travel or hospital stays.
I wanted to address your central observation about Loner feeling like "writing a story rather than playing a game." This is actually a fascinating point that touches on what makes Loner different from both traditional RPGs and journaling games.
Loner isn't designed as a journaling game or creative writing tool: it's built around emergent narrative. The key difference is this: in creative writing, you're the author making all the decisions. In Loner, the Oracle and the Twist Counter are specifically designed to subvert your expectations and push the story in directions you wouldn't choose yourself.
When you rolled to see if Sable's escape would work, you weren't just writing "what happens next", you were genuinely asking a question whose answer you didn't control. That's the game element. The Oracle could have said "No, and…" forcing you to deal with the drone discovering your deception, or "Yes, but…" meaning you escape but leave behind critical evidence. These outcomes would have surprised you and forced adaptive play rather than authorial control.
I completely understand your point about crunch, and you're absolutely right that Loner deliberately minimizes it to keep the focus on Fiction First and Fictional Positioning. The "game" in Loner isn't in tactical complexity but in the tension between what you hope will happen and what the Oracle reveals, amplified by the Twist Counter building toward narrative disruptions you must navigate.
Your experience with Sable actually demonstrates this beautifully: you made choices based on her traits (Misdirection), the Oracle determined outcomes you didn't control, and the story emerged from that dialogue between intention and result. That's emergent narrative at work: different from both predetermined story outcomes and pure creative freedom.
That said, not every game is for everyone, and that's perfectly okay. Your preference for more mechanical depth and established lore is completely valid. Games like Ironsworn or Starforged might offer that middle ground: more crunch while still supporting solo play.
I'm genuinely grateful you gave Loner a fair try and shared your experience so thoughtfully. Reviews like yours help other players understand whether the game matches their preferences, which is incredibly valuable to the community.
Wishing you all the best with your gaming adventures, and I hope you find the perfect system that brings you joy!
Warm regards,
Roberto
Thank you for taking my review in the spirit of grace in which it was offered, Roberto. I appreciate your thoughtful comments, especially after a less-than-ideal weekend following your most recent release! I do believe Loner is a wonderful project and the "right game" for lots of people and hopefully my review will direct a few more people to Loner.
Thanks for writing this review. Loner is one of those items on my "to buy" list and I'm glad to see an example of what it can play like.
For the poll, I voted for the Across A Thousand Dead Worlds, but I'd also like to see Achtung! Cthulhu. I just started playing that one myself, and I'm curious to see another solo take on it. It is VERY crunchy!
Cool. What method are you using to play Achtung Cthulhu?
I'm currently using Mythic GME and scaling the encounters to reflect one PC rather than a party. I'll be posting an actual play soon!
Excellent. I look forward to reading about it. I really feel drawn to the lore and concepts of Achtung Cthulhu!
"the game itself could be distilled down to an 8-page pamphlet" I agree with you and I don't think it's a negative other than the physical book size. I buy pdfs mostly and for Loner, I've gone through the trouble of copy/pasting the tables into a spreadsheet so I can print them off in a smaller zine size. I'm not a graphic designer and I'm sure it's not so easy to get readability and maximum real-estate use in one go. I think the one who has somehow nailed that riddle is Knave 2e.
"am I playing a game or writing a story" - For me that answer is always, Yes - both. Like you, I can see using Loner on it's own when traveling and space is a factor. Outside of that, I've incorporated Loner into my Franken-Sworn gameplay. I like Loner version of the Yes, No oracle and twist table very much. And other tables are handy - the theme specific Verb / Adjective / Noun tables are really where the "What Next" gets answered.
I also like the "everything is a character" concept and use that for my NPCs. The Concept, Skill, Frailties, Motive, Goal, Nemesis, and Gear can all fit on one-side of an Index card and give me a quick refresh as to "who is this one again?"
For your Poll, I voted for Across a Thousand Dead Worlds. That's so crunchy, you'll chip a tooth.
Yes, I thought the yes/no oracle from 2d6 is golden. I probably should have made more of that in the post...
I got this from the OG version from this game. Instead of asking "I ask the oracle. If I throw the datapad at the window, will it confuse the drone long enough for her to make her escape? " I would ask the question, “ after I throw the data pad at the window, would I have enough time to escape?"
FYI, I just started what could well end up being my journey towards a shelf of shame of my own - 4 new games incoming 😬
That’s a lot of reading to get through!
One bite at a time