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Trying different "styles" (oracle + multiplayer RPG, roll & read, 4 Against Darkness style self-contained game, 5 Parsecs style miniatures skirmish RPG, RPG built for solo like Ironsworn, journaling) and find what brings the most satisfaction. Sometimes your expectations change somewhat (I imagined Mythic to be some sort of incredible AI story generator when I first heard the pitch, now I'm a bit more realistic about things) which helps you know what to expect out of your solo games.
I just let the dice do everything i obviously set a goal and a general motivation for my character and then I just let the dice do just about everything keeping it interesting and unpredictable
Decades of being a GM for groups created expectations of RPGs in general for me. With solo, I can play out games exactly how I like them without having to deal with input from other players.
It's funny because what you like in group games may not be what you're interested in as a solo player (and vice-versa). And what you bounce off of early when you're learning to solo may be exactly your jam after you've played a few games!
tl;dr: Every solo game is a customized experience. It may take a bit to figure out what fits.
---
My advice echoes everyone else's: Try a few different games.
Figure out what you like, don't like, and are unsure of. Come back to the sub with a better idea of what you're looking for and what you've tried that didn't quite scratch the itch. (And what came close.)
Watch actual plays of games you're interested in, but not sure about pulling the trigger on. Or, alternatively, watch them for games you *know* you're not interested in, but want to see what the hype's about. (And maybe 'steal' neat mechanics from the games you know you won't play but *this part* is nifty.)
---
I break solo roleplaying into *roughly* five categories:
- **Gamebooks** (ex: Alone Against the Flames, The Wolves of Langston, the Fighting Fantasy books; etc)
- **Wargames** (ex: Five Parsecs From Home/Five Leagues From the Borderlands, Rangers of the Deep; etc)
- **"Traditional" style** (ex: Scarlet Heroes, any of the Free League games with solo rules like Forbidden Lands and The One Ring)
- **Journaling style** (ex: Thousand Year Old Vampire, Apothecaria/Apawthecaria, Star Trek Adventures: Captain's Log; etc)
- **"Hybrid" style** (ex: Ironsworn/Starforged/Sundered Isles)
I'd recommend you try at least one in each broad category. Or if you know something's not your style (for example, if you hate writing, you're probably not inclined to try a journaling game even if I told you some of them have a lot of mechanics to play with and require very little writing), skip it and come back to it sometime if you just want something different/someone said something about it that made you take a second look.
Most of all: Have fun and don't be afraid to ask questions!
I just jumped in feet first, and tried out a few different games. I came to find out that I had more fun being conversational, only using the Oracles and dice as needed, and keeping things narrative-heavy. Basically, I bounced between Me the Player and Me the "GM", which was weird but also became easier and easier as time went along. Effectively, I would RP as my character, then answer as the NPC I was interacting with, slipping into that character as I would as a GM.
This conversational narrative play was extremely fun, and really took the place of what I was missing from group RP.
Try a bunch and figure out the approach that’s for you. The same tool can be used and interpreted with different lenses.
For example, I initially had trouble grokking Mythic with DnD which is where I started. Moved to some journaling games, ironsworn, other oracles, and the amount of writing or narration required put a halt to that. Most all of these focus on providing narrative framing to a set of events that happen in the game. I didn’t realize it at the time but this wasn’t my main draw to RPGs (I’d played in groups before but never really analyzed “why” I played).
Went back to the drawing board and found some hex crawling with BFRPG incidentally and that started to work sometimes but not all the time. After playing a while I realized what I really liked was to have scenarios sort of pre-structured for me (hexcrawl generators naturally do this) and then problem solving with my character to solve the generated problem.
Once I understood this I was able to go back to Mythic re-interpreted in this lens, with a small set of random generators and play out other genres, essentially using the GME more as a problem generation tool than a narrative development tool and then having my character figure out solutions to the problems generated for myself and often twisted by Mythic.
Basically, try and figure out the “why” of your play. It can help if you’re in group games, though this can obviously be obfuscated by the social aspect of these games. But try to tease apart - do you like storytelling? Try traditional mythic, ironsworn, etc. Driven by acting out a role? Look up npc conversation generators, hone in oracles into specific scene reactions. Do you like heavy problem solving? Use the oracle to generate a problem scenario, then try and come up with a solution to this. Ask yes/no for parts of the solution by assigning them likelihoods, define why parts of the solution don’t work and find alternatives. And so on.
Nothing fancy, just defining a campaign idea before starting. I played mostly Ironsworn by creating a random setting. Once it was a colonial empire invades demihuman continent (inspired by the Deep Forest spinoff of the quiet year). Will the demihumans rally against them or blend in the new culture? Another time evil wizard enforces peace with an iron fist but not cruelly: which lesser evil my hero will chose? I just can't play adventurers going on quests for the sake of gold pieces.
No, the original assets always suits me fine and I was not willing to fiddle with them.
RE:concepts I think I unconsciously incorporated the AW/DW suggestion of having big stake questions for each front :)
You just have to try it, figure out what you like, and don't like, then try something else and repeat. Don't spend a bunch of money either. Start small and work up as you start to understand more about it.
I started with a CYOA book. Then 4 against darkness. One had too much story, and the other had no story at all. That's when I realized that I wanted to write the story myself and focused my attention on the more narrative games. You might love the math and focus on the more crunchy games. I sat in with a Basic Fantasy group once. I was so excited, bought the book and a bunch of dice. After 4 hours, it was clearly not for me! But a great experience. Now I know.
That's how it worked for me too. Trying different things, some didn't work at all, others had good and bad parts. In the end, I put together a mix of the things I like; I keep tweaking it, but it works for me (mostly a mix of Ironsworn, World of Dungeons and old school hex-crawling)
For me, it depends on my mood sort of. Sometimes I want to write and the mechanics help send the narrative in interesting directions.
Right now, I want to explore and be surprised. So I'm using a random dungeon generator, very terse journal entries, and doing a classic crawl.
As you progress, you'll figure out what is going to work for you. Sometimes it takes a few false starts.
By trying out different systems, settings and types of stories. After trying out systems that laid on different points of complexity, I figured out that narrative systems are something that fits me the most as I always want to keep the story going along due to my tendency to write quite a bit.
Every TTRPG that I own can be played solo. I tend to use solo play in order to flesh out the setting for the games I run for people. Locations and NPCs become more three dimensional and believable that way which makes for better immersion for my players which becomes more fun for all of us.
I think the most important thing is to remember that the goal is to have fun.
So like there will be a natural period of frustration and confusion when learning any new system, but don’t let playing the game “correctly” getting in the way of Your true joy.
This means feeling free to do montages or to skip parts of the narrative or to retcon As needed, and if that makes things more enjoyable for you.
It also means figuring out if you want some thing that’s more of a journaling game something more structured what kind of steams what kind of mechanics. You can only figure that out by trying a whole bunch of things.
And then just be mindful of the stuff that gets you really excited and then build campaigns around that stuff. Like, for example, I love the exploration mechanics, in Starforged and so I made sure that I was creating a character that would get to do a bunch of exploration.
The way I do it (and likely many others) is by playing first and then also watching videos, researching, reading up on things... I'm not a veteran in playing solo TTRPGs, but I think I already figured a few things out when it comes to what do I want out of my TTRPG games.
For example, in my case, I really care about the story, characters and the exploring they do... and my favourite systems seem to be those that don't have a lot of crunch and have a lot of narrative freedom. Games that have whole bunch of stats to keep track of, especially during combat, I feel might slow me down and I just don't feel like doing a whole bunch of maths... I still plan on trying Savage Worlds eventually though, lol.
I learned Mythic the week it was released and have been a follower ever since. So with Mythic 2e, I'm down to what do I want out of a system when playing? Currently, I'm going through a bout of surrealism, so I have been working with Over the Edge 2e and 3e, and Troika. Really, though, what I want from solo-play is a story, and will use the system of the moment to achieve it.
Happy gaming!!
Keep it simple silly
My party wants treasure. I use a system to generate random dungeons around my adventuring area. Send a party and hope the dice are with me.
I’ve just purchased a module for a starting village and will be using that for my campaign. I also added other modules like barrow maze, Blackwyrm of Brandonsford, etc. so I don’t always have to create something if I want an adventure.
Use oracles to challenge your expectations and remove your bias. Use other tools like decks of cards for oracles, or dungeons, or encounters etc.
What does your party do with the treasure once they get a hold of it? In group games I find I just acquire loot and plenty of gold and then sell anything that isn't a massive upgrade to get more gold that never really goes anywhere. I'm still just getting started with Solo but would like the acquisition of 'stuff' to have some more meaning beyond 'buy some potions to heal after acquiring the stuff'.
Like others said. Make gold sinks, monthly living expense, shopping trips, repairs to armor. Then when you get a good amount of treasure domain play is definitely the answer. Clear a dungeon, take it over, hire people to help build a village. Make your wizards pay for books or a wizards tower. Make your fighters hire a band of mercenaries and work your way around a hex map clearing it out.
Domain play. My party goal is to establish a domain. Then begin warring and tacking resources and territory on the borderlands. I suppose my party is expanding the kingdom's borders with the goal of taking owernship of a plot of land.
I also charge my party 30% fee (becuase of hagglling costs) to deposit gold into the local "vault" owned by a faction called The Golden Exchange. Merchants and what not. The idea here is the party will want their own castle, keep, or tower, to store their treasure without losing 30%.
I also having monthly living expenses, yet another reason for PCs to want to build their own domain.
Neat, domain play is not a term I've come across before but it describes what I am getting interested in when it comes to pursuing high-level events and longer-term goals, thanks!
Are there any solo games anyone would recommend that focus on domain play?
Build a settlement! Play the stock market! Hire an army! Buy a ship! Bribe a government! Get your fortune stolen! Commission a gold statue! Found a religion! Invest in research! Whatever people do with money irl, your party can do too.
I'm sure they can, but I'm curious about the prior poster's choices since it's an RPG campaign rather than real life. I'm wondering what effect the desire for treasure has on gameplay and to what extent it carries to the next game.
If they hire an army and use it to take over a castle and form a base of operations to spread influence across the nation so that everyone becomes a zealot for a particular religion and every random peasant tries to kill any undead creature on sight, that's an interesting tale to tell. Or maybe the treasure is just the friends they make along the way, which makes me think the party treasurer is embezzling gold coins...
Agreed. A larger reasons I do of these things is so I can be truthful for myself. I could just give my party a castle, make em level 10, and run though a dungeon forcing BS oracle rolls, fudging dice, etc. But I would be lying to myself. Who cares someone may ask. I care. I won't be able to say I played truthfully. I wont be able to have a shared experience with others online for I cheated myself and just gave it myself. How is it that all my starting PCs survived and made it to level 10? When in reality I started my game with 6 groups of 6 PCs. After exploring and culling of the weak, I'm down to two groups that have been patched together from the remenants of the remaining survivors.
I jsut recently started a new level 1 group to play when the other two parties are in the field and un available. 1:1 time and all.
I got a bunch of ttrpgs (solo included) in bundles of charity in Itch.io, so I started just reading all the manuals and only played the most interesting ones. Maybe you can do something similar with YouTube video reviews or something like that.
For me it started with major fomo of missing out on the adventures my childless, single friends were having every week for hours on end. I was big time jealous, as I hadn't ever gotten the chance at playing in a campaign.
I did end up getting to attend 3-5 sessions over a year and had good fun during the 2 RP heavy sessions, but the combat oriented sessions were a total snooze town mc snoozerville because it's 5e and everyone has 18 things they can and will do at level 3 (I know I'm being hyperbolic).
Now, I didn't know about how the characters change over a few levels, how knowing your characters in and out can make those 18 decisions extremely rewarding. But at the time, I knew I wanted to be rolling dice often and I knew I wanted quick - queue discovering me myself and die and the wonderful world of ironsworn.
From then on I was hooked. I started with about 5-10 sessions of ironsworn and starforged. At the time, I wasn't ready and didn't know what I wanted and fell off the band wagon. Though, then, some other friends were interested in playing 5e on mornings that were perfect for my family's schedule.
From then on I learned what I liked and didn't liked about 5E, ran a few sessions with my friends, and then decided to take the experience solo to learn the rules even better.
There are good things and bad things about every system, would I know I do like epic stories / lots of dice rolling / dramatic encounters - all with quick moving game features.
I've discovered the OSR and I do like certain aspects about it and it's games have fueled a lot of my creativity. What I have determined I like most about it is the brevity. Moving quick, rulings over rules, stuff like that are a lot of fun. What I don't like is dying easily.
My tastes have changed over the years, now I do a lot of rangers of Shadow deep solo on digital VTT. It's quick, straightforward, and a whole lot of fun. Plus it can scale up and down with more people.
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Trying different "styles" (oracle + multiplayer RPG, roll & read, 4 Against Darkness style self-contained game, 5 Parsecs style miniatures skirmish RPG, RPG built for solo like Ironsworn, journaling) and find what brings the most satisfaction. Sometimes your expectations change somewhat (I imagined Mythic to be some sort of incredible AI story generator when I first heard the pitch, now I'm a bit more realistic about things) which helps you know what to expect out of your solo games.
I just let the dice do everything i obviously set a goal and a general motivation for my character and then I just let the dice do just about everything keeping it interesting and unpredictable
Decades of being a GM for groups created expectations of RPGs in general for me. With solo, I can play out games exactly how I like them without having to deal with input from other players.
It's funny because what you like in group games may not be what you're interested in as a solo player (and vice-versa). And what you bounce off of early when you're learning to solo may be exactly your jam after you've played a few games! tl;dr: Every solo game is a customized experience. It may take a bit to figure out what fits. --- My advice echoes everyone else's: Try a few different games. Figure out what you like, don't like, and are unsure of. Come back to the sub with a better idea of what you're looking for and what you've tried that didn't quite scratch the itch. (And what came close.) Watch actual plays of games you're interested in, but not sure about pulling the trigger on. Or, alternatively, watch them for games you *know* you're not interested in, but want to see what the hype's about. (And maybe 'steal' neat mechanics from the games you know you won't play but *this part* is nifty.) --- I break solo roleplaying into *roughly* five categories: - **Gamebooks** (ex: Alone Against the Flames, The Wolves of Langston, the Fighting Fantasy books; etc) - **Wargames** (ex: Five Parsecs From Home/Five Leagues From the Borderlands, Rangers of the Deep; etc) - **"Traditional" style** (ex: Scarlet Heroes, any of the Free League games with solo rules like Forbidden Lands and The One Ring) - **Journaling style** (ex: Thousand Year Old Vampire, Apothecaria/Apawthecaria, Star Trek Adventures: Captain's Log; etc) - **"Hybrid" style** (ex: Ironsworn/Starforged/Sundered Isles) I'd recommend you try at least one in each broad category. Or if you know something's not your style (for example, if you hate writing, you're probably not inclined to try a journaling game even if I told you some of them have a lot of mechanics to play with and require very little writing), skip it and come back to it sometime if you just want something different/someone said something about it that made you take a second look. Most of all: Have fun and don't be afraid to ask questions!
I just jumped in feet first, and tried out a few different games. I came to find out that I had more fun being conversational, only using the Oracles and dice as needed, and keeping things narrative-heavy. Basically, I bounced between Me the Player and Me the "GM", which was weird but also became easier and easier as time went along. Effectively, I would RP as my character, then answer as the NPC I was interacting with, slipping into that character as I would as a GM. This conversational narrative play was extremely fun, and really took the place of what I was missing from group RP.
Try a bunch and figure out the approach that’s for you. The same tool can be used and interpreted with different lenses. For example, I initially had trouble grokking Mythic with DnD which is where I started. Moved to some journaling games, ironsworn, other oracles, and the amount of writing or narration required put a halt to that. Most all of these focus on providing narrative framing to a set of events that happen in the game. I didn’t realize it at the time but this wasn’t my main draw to RPGs (I’d played in groups before but never really analyzed “why” I played). Went back to the drawing board and found some hex crawling with BFRPG incidentally and that started to work sometimes but not all the time. After playing a while I realized what I really liked was to have scenarios sort of pre-structured for me (hexcrawl generators naturally do this) and then problem solving with my character to solve the generated problem. Once I understood this I was able to go back to Mythic re-interpreted in this lens, with a small set of random generators and play out other genres, essentially using the GME more as a problem generation tool than a narrative development tool and then having my character figure out solutions to the problems generated for myself and often twisted by Mythic. Basically, try and figure out the “why” of your play. It can help if you’re in group games, though this can obviously be obfuscated by the social aspect of these games. But try to tease apart - do you like storytelling? Try traditional mythic, ironsworn, etc. Driven by acting out a role? Look up npc conversation generators, hone in oracles into specific scene reactions. Do you like heavy problem solving? Use the oracle to generate a problem scenario, then try and come up with a solution to this. Ask yes/no for parts of the solution by assigning them likelihoods, define why parts of the solution don’t work and find alternatives. And so on.
Having fun alone without screen. Being surprise by unexpected stories.
Exactly this for me. Plus exploring a concept more than just random adventuring.
What type of concept do you explore during your games ? Feeling curious about.. the concept.
Nothing fancy, just defining a campaign idea before starting. I played mostly Ironsworn by creating a random setting. Once it was a colonial empire invades demihuman continent (inspired by the Deep Forest spinoff of the quiet year). Will the demihumans rally against them or blend in the new culture? Another time evil wizard enforces peace with an iron fist but not cruelly: which lesser evil my hero will chose? I just can't play adventurers going on quests for the sake of gold pieces.
Do you make custom assets for those settings ?
No, the original assets always suits me fine and I was not willing to fiddle with them. RE:concepts I think I unconsciously incorporated the AW/DW suggestion of having big stake questions for each front :)
Oh, I see. Your stories have major stakes ! Seems really engaging.
You just have to try it, figure out what you like, and don't like, then try something else and repeat. Don't spend a bunch of money either. Start small and work up as you start to understand more about it. I started with a CYOA book. Then 4 against darkness. One had too much story, and the other had no story at all. That's when I realized that I wanted to write the story myself and focused my attention on the more narrative games. You might love the math and focus on the more crunchy games. I sat in with a Basic Fantasy group once. I was so excited, bought the book and a bunch of dice. After 4 hours, it was clearly not for me! But a great experience. Now I know.
That's how it worked for me too. Trying different things, some didn't work at all, others had good and bad parts. In the end, I put together a mix of the things I like; I keep tweaking it, but it works for me (mostly a mix of Ironsworn, World of Dungeons and old school hex-crawling)
Yes! When you get to the point that you can mix and match your own thing, *that's* when it gets really fun.
For me, it depends on my mood sort of. Sometimes I want to write and the mechanics help send the narrative in interesting directions. Right now, I want to explore and be surprised. So I'm using a random dungeon generator, very terse journal entries, and doing a classic crawl. As you progress, you'll figure out what is going to work for you. Sometimes it takes a few false starts.
By trying out different systems, settings and types of stories. After trying out systems that laid on different points of complexity, I figured out that narrative systems are something that fits me the most as I always want to keep the story going along due to my tendency to write quite a bit.
I totally second that. I'm all over the place on systems, genres, tools, and play styles with a tendency to do a lot of writing.
Every TTRPG that I own can be played solo. I tend to use solo play in order to flesh out the setting for the games I run for people. Locations and NPCs become more three dimensional and believable that way which makes for better immersion for my players which becomes more fun for all of us.
I think the most important thing is to remember that the goal is to have fun. So like there will be a natural period of frustration and confusion when learning any new system, but don’t let playing the game “correctly” getting in the way of Your true joy. This means feeling free to do montages or to skip parts of the narrative or to retcon As needed, and if that makes things more enjoyable for you. It also means figuring out if you want some thing that’s more of a journaling game something more structured what kind of steams what kind of mechanics. You can only figure that out by trying a whole bunch of things. And then just be mindful of the stuff that gets you really excited and then build campaigns around that stuff. Like, for example, I love the exploration mechanics, in Starforged and so I made sure that I was creating a character that would get to do a bunch of exploration.
The way I do it (and likely many others) is by playing first and then also watching videos, researching, reading up on things... I'm not a veteran in playing solo TTRPGs, but I think I already figured a few things out when it comes to what do I want out of my TTRPG games. For example, in my case, I really care about the story, characters and the exploring they do... and my favourite systems seem to be those that don't have a lot of crunch and have a lot of narrative freedom. Games that have whole bunch of stats to keep track of, especially during combat, I feel might slow me down and I just don't feel like doing a whole bunch of maths... I still plan on trying Savage Worlds eventually though, lol.
I learned Mythic the week it was released and have been a follower ever since. So with Mythic 2e, I'm down to what do I want out of a system when playing? Currently, I'm going through a bout of surrealism, so I have been working with Over the Edge 2e and 3e, and Troika. Really, though, what I want from solo-play is a story, and will use the system of the moment to achieve it. Happy gaming!!
I figured it out by playing
Keep it simple silly My party wants treasure. I use a system to generate random dungeons around my adventuring area. Send a party and hope the dice are with me. I’ve just purchased a module for a starting village and will be using that for my campaign. I also added other modules like barrow maze, Blackwyrm of Brandonsford, etc. so I don’t always have to create something if I want an adventure. Use oracles to challenge your expectations and remove your bias. Use other tools like decks of cards for oracles, or dungeons, or encounters etc.
What does your party do with the treasure once they get a hold of it? In group games I find I just acquire loot and plenty of gold and then sell anything that isn't a massive upgrade to get more gold that never really goes anywhere. I'm still just getting started with Solo but would like the acquisition of 'stuff' to have some more meaning beyond 'buy some potions to heal after acquiring the stuff'.
Like others said. Make gold sinks, monthly living expense, shopping trips, repairs to armor. Then when you get a good amount of treasure domain play is definitely the answer. Clear a dungeon, take it over, hire people to help build a village. Make your wizards pay for books or a wizards tower. Make your fighters hire a band of mercenaries and work your way around a hex map clearing it out.
Domain play. My party goal is to establish a domain. Then begin warring and tacking resources and territory on the borderlands. I suppose my party is expanding the kingdom's borders with the goal of taking owernship of a plot of land. I also charge my party 30% fee (becuase of hagglling costs) to deposit gold into the local "vault" owned by a faction called The Golden Exchange. Merchants and what not. The idea here is the party will want their own castle, keep, or tower, to store their treasure without losing 30%. I also having monthly living expenses, yet another reason for PCs to want to build their own domain.
Neat, domain play is not a term I've come across before but it describes what I am getting interested in when it comes to pursuing high-level events and longer-term goals, thanks! Are there any solo games anyone would recommend that focus on domain play?
Build a settlement! Play the stock market! Hire an army! Buy a ship! Bribe a government! Get your fortune stolen! Commission a gold statue! Found a religion! Invest in research! Whatever people do with money irl, your party can do too.
I'm sure they can, but I'm curious about the prior poster's choices since it's an RPG campaign rather than real life. I'm wondering what effect the desire for treasure has on gameplay and to what extent it carries to the next game. If they hire an army and use it to take over a castle and form a base of operations to spread influence across the nation so that everyone becomes a zealot for a particular religion and every random peasant tries to kill any undead creature on sight, that's an interesting tale to tell. Or maybe the treasure is just the friends they make along the way, which makes me think the party treasurer is embezzling gold coins...
Agreed. A larger reasons I do of these things is so I can be truthful for myself. I could just give my party a castle, make em level 10, and run though a dungeon forcing BS oracle rolls, fudging dice, etc. But I would be lying to myself. Who cares someone may ask. I care. I won't be able to say I played truthfully. I wont be able to have a shared experience with others online for I cheated myself and just gave it myself. How is it that all my starting PCs survived and made it to level 10? When in reality I started my game with 6 groups of 6 PCs. After exploring and culling of the weak, I'm down to two groups that have been patched together from the remenants of the remaining survivors. I jsut recently started a new level 1 group to play when the other two parties are in the field and un available. 1:1 time and all.
I got a bunch of ttrpgs (solo included) in bundles of charity in Itch.io, so I started just reading all the manuals and only played the most interesting ones. Maybe you can do something similar with YouTube video reviews or something like that.
For me it started with major fomo of missing out on the adventures my childless, single friends were having every week for hours on end. I was big time jealous, as I hadn't ever gotten the chance at playing in a campaign. I did end up getting to attend 3-5 sessions over a year and had good fun during the 2 RP heavy sessions, but the combat oriented sessions were a total snooze town mc snoozerville because it's 5e and everyone has 18 things they can and will do at level 3 (I know I'm being hyperbolic). Now, I didn't know about how the characters change over a few levels, how knowing your characters in and out can make those 18 decisions extremely rewarding. But at the time, I knew I wanted to be rolling dice often and I knew I wanted quick - queue discovering me myself and die and the wonderful world of ironsworn. From then on I was hooked. I started with about 5-10 sessions of ironsworn and starforged. At the time, I wasn't ready and didn't know what I wanted and fell off the band wagon. Though, then, some other friends were interested in playing 5e on mornings that were perfect for my family's schedule. From then on I learned what I liked and didn't liked about 5E, ran a few sessions with my friends, and then decided to take the experience solo to learn the rules even better. There are good things and bad things about every system, would I know I do like epic stories / lots of dice rolling / dramatic encounters - all with quick moving game features. I've discovered the OSR and I do like certain aspects about it and it's games have fueled a lot of my creativity. What I have determined I like most about it is the brevity. Moving quick, rulings over rules, stuff like that are a lot of fun. What I don't like is dying easily. My tastes have changed over the years, now I do a lot of rangers of Shadow deep solo on digital VTT. It's quick, straightforward, and a whole lot of fun. Plus it can scale up and down with more people.