Sparkbound: Solo Journaling RPG

     Recently I've been playing a game called Sparkbound. It's a solo journaling RPG, which is something I never thought I'd try. I've always been a map and miniatures kind of player. So, to sit down with a notebook, some dice, and a open mind was a nice change of pace. To me, it's almost like a mental exercise and I'll explain what I mean below.

    First, about Sparkbound. As I've stated, it's a solo journaling RPG. What does that mean? It means all you need is paper, pencil, and some dice. It's genre agnostic so you can use any setting you'd like. For me, I have a fantasy, Star Wars, and black powder horror playthroughs. Some days my mind is stuck on fantasy, then other days it's lost in space fighting during the Old Republic era. That's the beauty of Sparkbound. Character creation is pretty easy as well. You make your character and give them what's called personas instead of the "standard" skills. You assign a D12, D10, D8, or D6 to these personas based off how important to your character they are. You'd roll a D4 for anything outside of your personas. An example is my Mercenary, Jag Fletcher. I gave him the persona of "wandering swordsman" and assigned the D12 to that. That means any check or event related to combat or swordplay, I'd roll a D12 with the target number always being 4+. (For all checks, the target number is 4+. So the bigger the dice to roll, the better chance you have of passing). On the lower end, Jag has the persona "Haggler" which is a D6. He can ask for more money for jobs or try and get better deals at shops by rolling a D6 and getting a 4+. Which is a bit harder than making a D12 with a 4+ but that's what happens when you're a rough looking Merc and not the best with words. See how your characters come alive with these personas? It's also how it's genre agnostic. You would just use personas related to the genre you're playing in. Starfighter pilot for Sci-Fi or Occult Researcher for Horror. The creator also has examples and possible list of personas that comes with the download.

    For Sparkbound, you also roll what is called a "spark die" when you make checks and saves. The spark die is a D6 that you roll along with your persona die and based of weather it rolls above/below a 4, the story could shift. This is where, to me, it gets fun. On a 4+ on the spark die, you get to roll on the spark verb & noun table and interpret the result. On the D20 chart, lets say we roll the verb: Support and the noun: Escape. Now for the mental exercise, how do those two words progress this story. The first thing that comes to my mind is my character has to help someone escape or cover someone as they flee. Who? Could be a fellow party member, local civilians, or a wounded NPC. It all depends on what's currently happening in your own story. The random story shifts or surprises help keep things random but constantly moving forward. On the other hand, you can fail checks and saves. If both your persona die and spark die roll under 4, you roll on the complication table. If you roll 3 fails in a row, the story ends for your character. Whatever that might mean to you. Could be character death or maybe they just give up and go into hiding forever. It's all up to you.

    Another way I use Sparkbound is to see what happens to certain characters or NPC's in-between DnD sessions. I could just make it up but it's fun to use the spark system to see where the random rolls take me and the character. I'm a huge advocate of letting the dice tell stories. Let the random rolls lead you down a path you'd normally never take and now have to find a creative way out. I mainly play at work during lunch break to give my mind something else other than work to think about. It's current a couple dollars on DrivethruRPG.com and to me, is worth every penny. Between all the word charts and examples, you'll have everything to start your journey. Wherever or whenever that might be      

May the dice forever be in your favor, occasionally they're in mine.