Daniel (@dungeondive) — disclosing that Shield Dice Studios is a Dungeon Dive patron, though he also bought this — is smitten with the atmosphere of LOOM: Portent of the Vale, a print-on-demand DIY title that’s part gamebook, part solo RPG, part madlib. You play a Craven, a dishonoured knight in monastic servitude, journeying from the southern monastery to the northern one across the fog-strewn Veil, generating an encounter on each new square of the map.
The engine is its cleverest trick: you draw playing cards whose suits point to keyword word-tables, then slot those words into otherwise static paragraphs to build a unique encounter — tallying the words’ values into that encounter’s challenge rating. A d6 tracks your position and counts down to a camping mini-game; you manage a challenge modifier, plague/poison, “Craven points,” and per-body-part HP via a command list of verbs. He repeatedly praises the writing — lush, ornate purple prose with a strong FromSoft, weird-fiction sword-and-sorcery vibe — and narrates his own run: cursed fairies, a runic-bow spirit, a fatal lone wolf at a skull shrine.
A chill, unhurried, deeply atmospheric experience he’d love to see expanded into a whole hex-crawling world.
Does a madlib-style “slot the keywords into the prose” generator appeal to you, or do you prefer encounters written whole? And how much does pure atmosphere carry a solo game for you?