@sexybenfranklin@ttrpg.network You can PM in lemmy from the user’s profile. But it’s dependent on the UI. The default web interface has “Send Message” and “Block User” buttons. The Old and Voyager UI’s do not. I use Connect on Android and it does have PMs. Not sure about other apps. Jerboa forgets my account every time I charge my phone, so I don’t use it and can’t tell you.

I’m drawing a blank for easily portable, non-solo, RPG-like boadgames. I’m sure they exist, but only the giant-box ones are coming to mind. Look for dungeon crawl or rogue-like cardgames.

For pen and paper RPGs, I have a couple of suggestions. None of these are guided stories (except for the first scenario in Runecairn). They are all emergent stories.

Runecairn: Wardensaga is a very well done duet ttRPG - one game master (the warden) and one player. It can also be played solo, or co-op. The delve system is excellent for creating random objectives. Some of the mechanics are explicitly designed for one player, but it’s easy to come up with a workaround that works. My one complaint is that there are some mistakes and oversights in the character creation example that ran me into a wall until I asked the designer on discord.

All of BlackOath Entertainment’s currently supported games (all but the two original ones he sold the rights to) are explicitly designed to be played with or without a GM. Don’t let the death-metal vibes of the website scare you off. Alex is a softy and most of his games don’t reflect the asthetic, beyond some of the art. My personal favorites are Broken Shores and Riftbreakers. Broken Shores leans hard into solo-survivalest vibes, but there’s nothing in the mechanics that forces that. I find it to be an extremely lethal system, but many others have had long running-games - YMMV. Riftbreakers, on the other hand, is the perfect my-first-RPG - you create your character as part of the game/tutorial. It’s meant to feel like a pen-and-paper MMORPG. Travel downsides of Alex’s games are you need all of the dice, and a stack of printed tracking sheets. Both of these have “what do do next” built into the system. Broken Shores is more dealing with the next thing situation you roll. In Riftbreakers, you pick from the mission board you generate when you visit the guildhall.

Then there are the stand-by’s of Ironsworn (definitely with the Delve expansion) or Starforged (Ironsworn in space). They are excellent for building world (or galaxy) and having epic adventures in it. I don’t like the way combat works, but many people do. And they are big books, with a lot to go through in order to get a handle on the games. There is less help for story here. Instead, you pick vows for your character and try to steer the narrative towards your goals, base on positive or negative dice rolls - but you have to wrap the narrative around the rolls.

Maybe Fiasco?

Runecairn hits most of these points mechanically. Stamina is called fatigue and you can take as much as you have free inventory slots before it affects your attributes. Different weapons give you different fatigue causing dodges or attacks. Respawn at bonfires with non-souled enemies respawning. Collect souls and use them for recovery or increasing attributes. It’s designed as as duet or solo game, and doesn’t have the depth of lore that is a hallmark of souls-like games, but you could do it as an emergent lore, or pull from another source. It’s explicitly a post-Ragnarok Norse setting, but sounds like you want more of a Dying Earth setting. Place the mechanics in Worlds Without Number’s Latter Earth or the setting for Vaults of Vaarn (this might be more ruined Earth)? But I find any setting spun with the right atmosphere works better than trying to find a match.

There is also Grave, which is a souls hack of Knave 1e, but I haven’t tryed it.

No interest in 5e. My group did the PF2e started set. Not bad. I enjoyed playing an alchemist bomber. Less fun with a rogue mastermind. I did set up a Honey Heist one-shot for our group on an evening that the regular GM was busy, but too many people had to pull out that we never did it. It does look like a lot of fun.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And not just for space combat. Naval combat, too. I don’t have a good answer. I think a single-person fighter dogfights could be done almost the same as person to person tactical ranged combat. Maybe not naval here - tactical Optimist or canoe battle. ;-P Larger ships, though, are either going to be very abstract, if you’re the captain giving orders, or over-zoomed in if one following orders. A partial way around it is to treat the ships as the characters for the fight. Easy for solo. Takes agency away from everyone but the captain in a group. Which is probably realistic, but hardly fun. Even so, you can have the gunner rolling for shots fired, navigator rolling dodge, etc.

I’ve been avoiding (solo) games with ship-to-ship combat, as much as I really want to, because I haven’t felt able to do it justice, yet. I suspect I’m going to end up somewhere between Pirate Borg and Worlds Without Number ship to ship combat, but playing as the ship, once I finally do bite the bullet.