Snowshoeing Adventure: Solo RPGs in the Maine Mountains

My wife and I spent last weekend snowshoeing between different basecamps in the western Maine mountains. It was a total blast. Amazing to be outside so much and to see the winter birds in the area. But I also knew that we would have a fair amount of downtime in the afternoons and evenings, so I decided to bring along a few solo RPGs. I asked on the solo RPG Discord and got a few suggestions. I also spent time Googling. I finally landed on Last Tea Shop, Artefact, and Exclusion Zone Botanist. I selected these three because I was looking for RPGs which would be easy to carry and didn’t need a lot of dice, cards, or other such things.

Preparing

Alright, I knew we were going on this trip and it would be my first attempt at bringing an RPG with me hiking or camping. My first thought was which one I should bring. I wanted something that was rules light and didn’t need much to play. Also having something thematic is a plus but for this trip I wasn’t all that worried about that. As I mentioned above, I started with Googling and then asked about the RPG Discord. Between the two locations I had a good list, so I started to comb through them. Right away two rose to the top, Exclusion Zone Botanist and Miru. I wasn’t sure which one I wanted but after heavily skimming both I landed on Exclusion Zone Botanist.

I have a very nice leather journal from Gametee (I supported a Kickstarter of their’s years ago) that allows for replaceable A5 size notebooks. So my plan was to print out Exclusion Zone Botanist as a booklet, fold it and place it into the journal. But I had no experience with how to print something to be folded as a booklet and I don’t have anything Acrobat, so I Googled and Googled. Finally, my quest was fulfilled when I found a Mac Automator script which took a pdf, pulled all the pages apart, and then put them back together in the correct order to be printed as a booklet. It worked perfectly.

I got Exclusion Zone Botanist printed, folded, and into my journal. It was a perfect fit. So I decided to see what other games I had which were short and didn’t need a lot of stuff. I was on my work computer and not my home computer so many options were very limited. But I landed on Artefact. It was light and the right size, so I ran the script, cut it up, and put it back together as a booklet. I got it folded and into the journal and all was good.

Finally, I took the one page of rules from Last Tea Shop, cut them up, and taped them into one of the journal books I had in the leather journal. Now I had three solo RPGs to choose from. I have another journal book that hasn’t been used. All I needed was stuff to write with and a place for dice.

A few years ago, I was teaching myself to draw birds and I picked up this roll-up pencil pouch from Lochby, which has a mess zippered pocket. It is large enough to fit dice and a deck of standard playing cards. I only need 2 d6s so that leaves me plenty of room, plus pens and colored pencils. I got it all set up and I was ready to go.

Playing

I was all set up and ready to play. I got to our hut, which was really more of a lodge, and it was loud. There were a lot of people in a small common area. But that didn’t deter me. I found a seat, got some tea, and started to read through Exclusion Zone Botanist. After reading through it I thought about maybe saving it for a summer hiking trip so I flipped over to Artefact. I decided to work on three artifacts that would be passed down and eventually work their way to my two Ironsworn characters and my Eldersworn character. So I worked through them a little bit. I didn’t even get to the first keeper for any of them.

The reason that happened was because I was hit by the idea of a birding game. I had been kicking around an idea for a little while and it finally was ready to take out of the oven. So I spent about 2 hours sitting there, drafting the rules for a game about birding. The next day, when I had time I continued to work on it and while we were snowshoeing I would work through ideas in my head. It is very much not ready for public consumption and since I’ve been back, I’ve been working on it more and more. I’m happy with it right now, but it needs a lot of work before I can even give it a run, let alone let someone else give it a go.

Changes

I really don’t have any changes. I had everything nice and light with the journal and my pencil pouch. I had the game booklets all printed up and folded. They worked very well and I had selected two games which didn’t really need much in terms of dice or other materials.

I’m excited to try this set up out when I travel in a few weeks and then again in a few months when I travel internationally. Of course the real test will be when I’m backpacking this summer. I already have some ideas for lightening the load and making the entire setup even smaller, which I believe will need to happen if I’m out for extended periods of time.

Tell me about your set-up or your favorite games to play while traveling or out in the wilderness.