I AM THE (only) WEAPON.

Or: How Zak S. unknowingly created the greatest superhero/fantasy/sci-fi/anime/literally-any-genre-where-you-kick-ass Solo (and beyond) RPG in existence. 

I work in a call center. Cellphones are uncool in a call center so I turned to solo RPGs (fucking loser). 

(Einar Baldvin)

Anyway. 

Mythic GM emulator is pretty rad and it's what I used in-tandem with Zak S.'s I Am The Weapon. 

Mythic is simple. You've got a d% that hangs out called your Chaos Factor. You "ask" Mythic questions you'd ask, it gives you a yes/no answer with varying frequencies of complication depending on what's rolled and where your Chaos Factor is at. Keeps things exciting. Tons of alternative options to tweak and move the scale of randomness; it gets the game cooking. In theory, Mythic can even accommodate any random answer or idea you'd need regardless of genre. 

BUT. I'm not here to add to that circle jerk (much).

(it neat)

I Am The Weapon's tables are objectively the best for games about scheming dickheads and the gigachads that take them out. Without re-treading too much old territory, I Am The Weapon doesn't get the ball rolling, it takes the ball and replaces it with a snowball already at full mast boulder-level and tells you to kick it down the mountain and see what happens. You'll get the powers of your protag, those who they would oppose and the locale or mystery that needs interacting with. IATW gives you a substantial amount of randomized detail that Mythic only implies or can function to expand upon. Or more specifically, if shit is a question or in doubt, IATW's got you covered; if it doesn't, Mythic's got IATW's back. 

"But I Am The Weapon is a SUPERHERO RPG, what kind of BULLSHIT are you selling here?" 

Let's not pretend that 5e D$D isn't characterized like not!MCU superheroes. Just ask Chris Pine. The burden of playing that fucking system and its strict character classes is a bitch and I don't want to reinvent the wheel to play my action hero games. IATW is rad because it doesn't reinvent the wheel nor does it want you to; IATW gives you a circle-shaped sketch and asks you to invent the wheel in the first place like the caveman you are and put some sick flame decals on that muhfucka while you're at it. Don't sweat it, but do lift with your legs.

(Moore's Promethea)

IATW and its older sister Demon City work on active-conversation-based gameplay. You are expected to always be thinking about the world and where you are in order to discuss/argue for why you've got a leg up over your enemy or whatever is preventing you from being sick-awesome. You cannot play a solo game any other way. If you neglect the world that you yourself are solely responsible for facilitating/imagining, unless you're playing an old school gamebook, what are you doing? The fun part of adding Mythic into the mix is its tables on how potential NPCs or enemies react if ever a-doubt. Depending on your personal bias (read: theming), this may lead to your Protag having an unfair advantage. Which is fine. Most comic runs give the Protag some level of plot armor and it'd be pretty shit to kick the bucket in your first combat encounter. Your game, your rules, Solo-Chad. 

Character creation in IATW, while advertising itself as a superpower, can easily be retooled to operate as: the will of a mythic hero's god, the shots of a blaster in not!Star Wars, or whatever bullshit anime powers you've decided on. In fact, IATW actively encourages all of these things, heavily emphasizing the want to narrow down and define your abilities after choosing/rolling them in order to give identity to your character. That is, of course, if you're feeling up to being creative; shit out of luck if not, I guess.

(top-left, by Philip Gelatt and others) 

My go-to character for solo right now is is my former solider and "fate-cursed" hero "Enbil of Babylonia." Whenever he takes a life, his "Time Travel" power kicks in and he is shunted forward a number of years equal to the number of years that that individual would have lived were it not for Enbil's actions. This has given me a fun excuse to plop him in random situations and locations pulp-style where he tries his darndest to solve shit without killing. Simultaneously his other powers kick in when he manages to travel and protect one with one "pure of heart," further deepening the desire to not be thrust forward in time.

Enbil is the kind of character concept that can only be really explored (in a game at least) in the medium of solo RP. Anywhere else would just be a drag. 

(uh)

With how ubiquitous superhero comics are with solo runs, soloing a superhero TTRPG seems like a no-brainer. IATW introduces systems that do nothing but compliment the solo-process and GM Emulators (like Mythic) facilitate the opportunity to explore characters that would be more of a burden than anything else in a group or even with a 1-on-1 game. 

Solo That Shit, yo.