Just One Sword
A downloadable game
You have ascended the mountain, your sword sharp and your empty coin purse begging to be filled. The tower looms in the distance, but a light bursts forth from the base as a door opens. A dark, hooded figure steps out, challenging you. Against this sorcerous darkness, you realize you only have Just One Sword
JUST ONE SWORD is a 100-page Solo-RPG that combines the rules-light structure and gameplay of OSR with the narrative opportunities of PbtA into a game about delving into ancient dungeons and forgotten tombs to fight monstrosities, collect treasure, and return home triumphant. It is inspired by the greats before it such as:
- Worlds Without Number
- ShadowDark
- Dragonbane
- Ironsworn
Classless Character Creation
Your character's abilities and talents are only limited by your imagination and ingenuity. Everyone will have a background, and the reason why you have taken up the sword (or spear) of an Adventurer, but anyone can cast a spell, pick a lock, or track a bounty through the forests.
Skills
There are 30 Skills and 10 Combat Talents to choose from when designing and leveling your character to provide options for how you grow and develop, and to emphasize what you have learned along the way.
PbtA Inspired Checks
This game is built on the idea of Player Skill superseding Character Skill, but sometimes you aren't quite sure if a GM would agree with your approach, or if you are acting with all the appropriate information. To simulate this, the game provides a 2d6 + Attribute Bonus to create a Full Success, Partial Success, and Failure system derived from Powered by the Apocalypse Games.
For a solo player, this allows you to succeed at a negotiation, a test of strength, or even a chase through darkened city streets without accidentally soft-locking your progress.
Player Facing Combat
All Combat is a d20 + Attribute Bonus + Level Bonus versus an enemy Armor Class or Attack Skill. Not only do you roll to hit, but you also roll to Block, Dodge, or Resist Magic. Armor impacts your rolls, providing bonuses to Block, but penalties to Dodge, making how heavy you gear up a choice for your character.
Low-Fantasy Magic System
A full, level-less magic system based upon folk and herbal magic. It includes 36 spells, each with their own unique utility, that does not focus exclusively on dealing or avoiding damage.
Additionally, the magic must be learned and properly prepared before it can be utilized. You will not wake up knowing Turn Undead, instead you must know the right herbs and how to prepare them, as well as have the time to do it before the spell is needed.
Full Bestiary
A full bestiary of 90 monsters, some unique and some classic, to help make sure you always have something to fight. This includes snippets of their appearance and personality, as well as potentially their history and behaviors. Some enemies are more than willing to negotiate or barter, while others will simply want your head.
So Many Oracles
A huge list of random tables, oracles, and designers to help you build the entire area and everything in it for your adventures! It includes:
- Region Designer
- Settlement Designer
- Dungeon Designer
- Encounter Designer
- Treasure Generator
- Adventure Seeds
- And more!
This game is playable as 1 person being both GM and Player; or with 2 people, one being GM and one being Player.
Art by the very talented Silver Nightingale
Download
Development log
- Group Play Modifications25 days ago
- Starter Dungeon and Example CharacterSep 08, 2025
- The Editorial Update - Can't Stop Won't StopJul 11, 2025
- The Final Last Update - HirelingsMay 23, 2025
- The Last UpdateMay 07, 2025
- Hotlinks UpdateApr 30, 2025
- Minor EditsApr 24, 2025
- The Dungeon Update - I Swear I'm DoneApr 23, 2025
Comments
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Hi! I'm really enjoying this but I'm a little confused around rules for resolve the scene.
Lets say I'm dealing with a normal scene (6 progress) and I get 5/6 filled and my countdown track fills before I get the last one. I roll 2d6, vs 1(unmarked progress) + 1 for a total of 2. Am I not tracking my total for those dice but I'm tracking the value of the individual dice? E.g. I roll a 1 and a 4 gets me a partial success but if I got a 3 and a 5 in that situation is full success?
I think I'm only a little thrown off because the make a move section is right before it so I thought that those circumstances flowed into resolve the scene. Thanks in advance!
Edit: can I use any attribute + skill to make a roll? E.g. cha+swim to convince someone I'm good at swimming? Or would that be more persuasion or bluff?
Yes, you read the dice separately. So with 1 unmarked progress, your target number is 2+, meaning each die must read 2 or higher to count as a success. So yes, a 1 and a 4 is a partial with a 3 and a 5 being full. Double 1s is just bad luck.
Yes, any attribute+skill combo you can reasonably argue as relevant (players choice) can be used to make a check. So if you have Swim, and need to argue your ability, you could use your knowledge of how to swim (i.e. the Swim skill) to argue it. Skills are not tied to any specific attribute.
Any chance this will be available on a platform like lulu.com, or similar PoD site in the future?
Thanks
It's on my to-do list!
On Page 17 under Skills, it states that "Including your background there are 30 non-combat skills in the game..." beneath that and continuing to pages 18 and 19, there are 27 skills that are listed and defined. What are the other 3 "missing skills", and is there a reason they aren't defined?
Thanks
Lore is actually 3 separate skills: Religious, Sorcerous, and Local. If you want the Lore skill, you have to pick one of the subcategories. That brings it up to 29+Background, or 30
This is amazing OneTorch - thanks for creating and making so accessible. Any tips for printing the PDF as a booklet without huge margins?
Absolutely! Glad you like it
I had to print it and trim it. I think that is just a consequence of booklet printing with Adobe.
Thanks for responding. One other question - can you explain or provide an example of how step 5 of the Dungeon Exploration procedure is supposed to work? Specifically the last two sentences of that step.
5) After exploring half the waypoints, begin rolling a die equal to size at each new waypoint. On a max roll you find your goal, with each room above size adding +1. Otherwise, it is in the last waypoint.
Thank you again for making such great games and resources!
Sure! Glad you're enjoying the game!
Let's take an 8 room dungeon. So when we get to half size (4 waypoints explored), we start rolling a d8 on room 5. If we roll an 8 while exploring waypoints 5, 6, 7, or 8, we will find our goal and can leave the dungeon.
However, let's say we don't find it. So we look at all our unexplored waypoints (places where there were exits we did not take) to search last. At this point, the dungeon can no longer expand. All those waypoints have to either connect to each other, or exist as a dead-end. Let's say we have 3 unexplored waypoints.
This might mean your dungeon goal was right beside the entrance (it has happened to me), but that's a fun "I should've taken the right at Albuquerque" situation that does exist in real dungeon crawls.
Quick question, when using focus spells, can you still move around? Also I am assuming you wouldn't be able to attack because it would break concentration, but what about other minor actions?
Another way to rephrase the question, what would cause you to loose concentration?
This was a 'rulings over rules' situation in the game so I didn't want to make a specific list as it could get quite long, and I run the risk of forgetting things. "Does it make sense my character can do X while maintaining focus?" If yes, then you can. If not, then MIND save.
I would rule walking doesn't break focus as humans are quite literally built to walk. However, walking over terrain that would require your attention (rubble, steep hill, etc) would require a MIND save.
Unlocked Door? No. Stuck/Locked Door? Yes
Mostly just maintain internal consistency. Don't rule it one way one time, then another way another time.
Greetings. After creating a character, world and starting an adventure I started to wonder how my character can die?
I found that character can die by fatigue but under "Death" on page 27 there is only Attribute decrease. Should I assume that character dies if any attribute decrease to or below 0? Or just kill a character when the story see it fit?
Other than that I really like this system.
If you die from pushing yourself well beyond your Fatigue limits, there was likely a reason you pushed yourself so hard. The tension and buildup as you slowly wear yourself down hoping to survive just a little longer (like Pheidippides dying after getting the message of victory to Athens) can be a very dramatic, and satisfying end, or a result of spiraling bad decisions. Either way, it can feel earned.
Death in Combat can instead feel like rotten luck, and so I wanted to have the mechanics reflect that. At Level 1, it is possible to roll up an Encounter of 5 Levels, which could be a Dragon Warrior and 2 Footsoldiers (3+1+1). All 3 hitting and rolling average for dmg rolls would be 6 damage, which could kill a level 1 PC before they even got an action. Therefore, combat inflicts permanent wounds instead of death.
All this is to say: Kill (or retire) your PC when it feels right. You would have to drop to 0 several times, rolling poorly each time, before you had to worry about dropping an attribute down to 0, and by that point you may decide your character is just too scarred to keep going. Pass the torch to a new PC who became embroiled in your budding conflict and keep the story going.
Fair point, thank you. I get it now.
Hi, trying to work my way through character creation, and just trying to clarify, slightly confused on where the bonuses get applied..
Starting HP would just be 6+CON bonus, or the actual score? CON is 8, so HP starts at 5 for -1 bonus, or at 14?
Same for BODY. This just uses the bonus - STR 16+CON 8 ends up at BODY +1?
Echoing a previous comment that a completed character sheet might be real useful! Excited to read more!
If I don't specify Score, it is safe to assume bonuses. So Starting HP would be 5 (An 8 CON score is a -1 Bonus, so 6-1=5).
Same thing for your Saves. If your Strength is +2, and your Con is -1, then its +1.
Later on I will specify things like 2d6+WIS or something that like; that is always the bonus.
Appreciate it! Thought I was reading correctly!
After the last few updates this definitely one of the best solo games out there and I love its sense of completeness, not only from an oracle perspective but also how those are integrated in the game.
Going to try to play rules as written for a while but I can see my self attempting to create two additional tables for factions, one for the region level and the other for dungeons, to help get a sense of who we are dealing with and their want/motivation (or whatever would make sense as the second column).
Loving this game a lot! My poor wizard-in-training is having a hard time haha. One question, probably a stupid one, is how do I recover FP? It costs FP to heal says page 14, but I can't seem to find how recovering FP works.
Thanks! Glad you like it.
There is a quick summary on Page 2, details on recovering Fatigue on page 14, and 41 has details on Camping.
In short: a night of uninterrupted rest recovers 1 Fatigue. In the wilds you need a bedroll, in town you need an inn (or friendly home). If you successfully Camp, you can recover at least 1 FP per watch without a bedroll.
Superb, thank you for the quick response!
hi. i tried printing this out on lulu but it wouldn't let me because the page sizes aren't uniform. just thought you'd want to know.
I figured this one out. The document won't print as-is for 2 reasons:
To print it on Lulu, you have to print the PDF to another PDF with the option to remove bleed selected and to convert the landscape to portrait.
I want to make a few pages of my own to add on to your book when I print it out. Do you mind sharing what fonts you used?
Montserrat
That’d be awesome to the book in print, as hardcover :)
Maybe even linen wrap, Lulu has support for that ^_^
There is so much here in this single book! I'm super excited to find this as it is so much more complete that the vast majority of solo games! I was looking through and found a an item that confused me. On page 48 it refers to "generate a Placed Encounter at the waypoint" is "Placed" a typo for "Random" or is this an RPG lingo thing that should be explained more for us newbs?
I was also, wondering what changes one would have to make for this to work with 2-3 players?
Anyway, thanks again for this.
Thanks! I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
There are two encounter types in the Encounter Design (pg45): Placed, and Wandering. Placed are much tougher encounters and tend to be fixed to locations. Wandering can happen anywhere. If you review the Encounter Modifier table you'll see what I mean.
To make it work for 2-3 players:
Other than that, I think everything else will translate pretty well. Most of the mechanics and procedures should allow it to handle GM-less play pretty well, or GM'd if one of you wants to take the reigns. Good luck!
Thanks for taking the time to clarify. I appreciate it!
For combat, the instructions say "Each side rolls 1d6 and the highest roll goes first. PC’s roll initiative twice and act in full on both turns. Re-roll matching initiatives". Does this mean you would roll one time for an entire group of enemies? When it says "side", to me that implies the entirety of the opposing force as opposed to rolling for individual enemies.
Also, the rules say that "Combat is played out in rounds, with each round requiring an initiative roll". To me this means that a round includes all player and enemy turns. The following section says that "Each combat round happens in a sequence: " and then lists the five steps of the round. Does this then mean that each step is done one at a time in initiative order before moving on to the next step? For example, Step 1: Player moves, then enemy moves; Step 2 Enemy fires arrow, Step 3 Player uses magic attack etc... OR am I making this too complicated and it simply means that whomever has first initiative does steps 1-5 then whomever has second initiative then does their 1-5 steps? If so, to me its confusing to list ranged, magic, and melee as steps 2-4 as opposed to just saying "Attacks". I hope this all makes sense!
Yes, each side is the collective. You and your allies are one side, your enemies are another side. You do not roll for each individual enemy.
Yes, a round of combat includes all player actions and enemy actions. Everybody gets to do their thing per round. Roll Initiative. Side A acts in full. Side B acts in full. Roll Initiative. etc. Obviously the player character gets to Act twice, so that may be AAB, ABA, BAA
You are making it too complicated. One side does 1-5, then the other side does 1-5.
The specificity of the attacks is to help you determine the attack order for the enemies, as well as to help guide your own character's actions. Avoiding archer fire while engaged in melee has a very different feel if the Melee acts first vs the Ranged, especially if you take into account the reaction penalties to avoid multiple attacks during combat.
Awsome! Thank you so much for the answer!
Just started looking at the instructions and wanted to fill out a character sheet as I went along. Looking at the 6 attributes boxes on the sheet, why is there a slash where the values go? Is one for the main number and the other the attribute bonus? Also, what is supposed to go in the Melee and Ranged boxes? Would you happen to have a pre-filled character sheet as an example?
Yes, that is your Attribute Score / Attribute Bonus so you can track them. There may be times when your Attribute Score or Bonus will be impacted (sometimes permanently) so you need to know both.
Melee and Ranged are your Melee and Ranged Combat Bonuses provided by your STR and DEX bonus (Combat Skills, Page 7).These are impacted by leveling up, as well as magical weapons.
Thanks for clarifying! So for the Melee and Ranged boxes, which number goes in front of the slash and which number goes behind? I guess that's the part that still confuses me.
I recommend To-Hit bonus and Damage bonus since as you gain new levels and gear, those may change
Thanks that helps!
Very interested in trying this. Do you think this is compatible with other OSR bestiaries?
It is! Keep the AC the same, and AS = 11 + 1/2HD rounded down. Everything else stays the same, and use HD for the Encounter generator
Hello
Great game, I love the idea of mixing some attributes Like BODY=STR+CON.
However I am not fan of mising d20 and 2d6. I think you can get the PbTA approach but with a d20, like QQuest RPG for exemple.
Furthermore, I am note sure when to use d20 and 2d6 ... Shal I use d20 only for Body, Mind and Reflex ?
Also It would be great to have a chapter for monster convertion. In particular for the AS
Many many thanks for your game !
I originally tried to make it a pure d20 game and it just didn't work. The bell curve provided by 2d6 means you trend towards success, with each bonus making you noticeably better in your ability, and thus chance to succeed. The d20 was too swingy, making it so that, even with bonuses, your chance of success or failure felt random and divorced from your actual abilities.
This was great for the swingyness of combat, but felt bad for your skill rolls.
The d20 is for all saves and combat rolls, while 2d6 is for all skill rolls. This is explained on page 15, with relevant chapters giving more details.
For conversions: all B/X, 0D&D, ShadowDark, or related OSR games can have their monsters ported in at 1-to-1. Attack Scores are equal to 11+1/2 HD or LVL rounded down.
Thanks, and glad you enjoy it!
Thanks for your reply, I wasn't thinking of the bonus when transforming the 2d6 bell curve into a d20 distribution.
Stopping by to say...
That this game is absolutely brilliant. You've taken the best pieces of many systems, layered in some unique ideas, and combined and evolved everything into a single fantastic game. Thanks for sharing!
Absolutely! I am really glad to hear that people are enjoying the game. I am completely blown away by the amount of interest it has gathered, so thank you for giving it a try!
Are you sure this is last update? If not that's just fine by me.
Don't you tempt me with your siren songs. I can stop any time I want.
But in seriousness, unless someone else points out something glaring or broken, I'm not sure what else I can refine? Still happy to hear problems though!
I knew there would be more LOL
You did this! I almost named you on the dev update but chose not to.
For real this time though, I think I am done. I do appreciate the enthusiasm though!
How long before we see Just One Spell?
btw, continue updating your design! I like that a design evolve and improve!
The new tables in the last update are awesome!
Thanks! I had been reading some stuff about "dungeon continuity" and feel and realized that I didn't have that with my dungeon generator. Each history put all the weight on the player to sort out the specifics, so I worked up these
Hey, i love your work, one thing for me, reading through it for the first time, Sometimes you write "Cost" sometimes you write "Silver" and in the table still use gp and cp, I would just put "Cost" everywhere and put cp,sp,gp behind ecery cost instead of putting just numbers and assuming a baseline of sp.
Other than that, i really really like your game and am kinda jealous of some things you came up with ;P
Edit after reading through everything: It says that int controlls casting spells, but at no point during spell crafting or use do you need int, you craft using dex and that's it. I guess learning new spells with a mind save kinda counts for it but i found it very confusing (because learning a spells doesn't mean casting it) . The spell section also doesnt actually tell you that you know no spells if you do not take the witchcraft ability.
I think the fact that you call using a crafted magic item "casting" is confusing because I was expecting there to be a small amount of actual spells somewhere (as in, that didn't need to be crafted beforehand)
Also, scrolls, how long do the curses last, cuz some don't have a duration (jewelry curses for example) and also, do you need to roll anything to use a scroll? The item sections says you can transcribe them, does that mean you can have them all in a spellbook and sell the scroll afterwards?
Sorry for being so annoying btw x)
That is a good point on magic. There used to be a Casting roll, but I didn't like it much so I tossed it. Reading through it again though, I think it should swap crafting to +INT. I may make it +DEX or +INT, whichever is higher. Thanks for pointing that out.
Sorry, but all magic is crafted. Low fantasy setting. However, it does often require runes, ritual phrases, or actions. They don't just happen.
Curses last kind of whatever you feel is appropriate. I had just been rolling on the potions table for duration.
I had considered the transcribing so you could use it to learn the spell later, but it's up to you.
Thanks for pointing all this out!
Wow thanks for the fast answer,
I think it would make sense to make crafting an "INT/DEX whatever is higher"- roll, it's a good middle ground i think.
I assumed one would use the potion timer but maybe rolling on the jewelry curse table just means you got dealt a super bad scroll that curses you for as long as you have it just like wearing cursed items hehe.
For magical rechargable items, did you mean to leave the price one would pay a witch vague so players could come up with whatever fits the situation or is there a fixed price for that service ?
Also, for magical ennemies, the action description is confusing to me, on page 26 it says "non-mages activate their special Lvl-times max" and on page 65 it says "... Magic users attack instead" I understand now that this is a way of saying that mages use Magic as their main way of attacking but i think it could be made clearer.
You could have the tables above have two separate cells with [Non-magic user]_[Magic user] or something like that instead of having both in the same cell and having to explain the difference twice.
Again, sorry for being annoying, i just couldn't sleep and your game is way too cool haha
I left the price ambiguous. Whatever feels right for your game, and your character's relationship with the witch.
Two columns may be the right choice. I had stuck with one because it felt easier to read, but maybe I am just biased. I can look and see how two columns feel. Mostly I wanted to specify that a Mage's "special" roll of 6 had no cap. They can stab as much as they want.
Not being annoying at all! Thank you for the deep dive into the editing of the book. As the writer, editor, and playtester, I am glad someone else is picking up my slack!
I was looking into printing this, but I'm wondering if you would be willing to at least double the space between the edge of the cover and the text on the cover. It all seems really close to the danger zone when the book is trimmed.
I think you need to find a method to expand the margins. The cover was placed on a sheet the same size as the rest of the book; it is not a unique size separate from the rest.
Oh. OK. Thanks :)
Hey! On p.26 It mentions
"On a Critical Attack you deal
maximum damage, and add your
weapon effect"
But never mentions what you need to roll to achieve a critical attack. I'm assuming a 20 since I've played other OSR/D&D games
You are correct. You need to roll a 20 on your d20. I should fix that
Love how this is turning out! I especially like the recent tables that were added. Speaking of which, I know room might be an issue but if possible would love to see desert added to the travel feature table.
Room really is the big issue. I really want a desert/scrubland/savannah type column but I'm struggling with getting it in there without breaking the whole page. Working on figuring out how though! Fingers crossed!
It’s worth paying for as is. You work is great, keep it up!
I very much appreciate you giving this away for free. However, consider making this pay what you want. That means people can still access it for free and also anyone buying it for just $1 or more can have it in their Itch library (someone like me!). This is a great solo rpg. Well done!
While I appreciate the sentiment and logic, right now I have no intentions of setting it to PWYW. Maybe when I finally get some more artwork in there I will.
Okay 🙂. I’ve printed off a copy and I’m eager to try it out! Thanks again.
Any chance of an epub version?
This looks very interesting
For Saves (page 6), I assume you mean 16 or higher on a d20 and not on 2d6+bonus, right? Maybe have a unified mechanic for both (saves and skills) rolls, like 10 or higher to save.
Answering my own question: on page 13, it says to use a d20 for combat and saves. Not sure if it's a great idea to mix PbtA and d20 mechanics in the same game. I recommend sticking to one or the other. Check World of Dungeons by John Harper to see what I mean.
Good catch! Saves and combat are both d20's, which I mention on Page 13. I should definitely edit that to be more clear. I wanted them both to have that OSR swing to them while skills were on the bell-curve.
Page 26:
INCOMING DAMAGE
Can you explain why damage works differently for player characters vs NPCs or monsters? If I deal 1d8 damage with a sword to an orc, shouldn't an orc with a sword deal 1d8 damage to me?When the player character is hit, modify the damage dealt per die by dividing it in half and rounding down, then summing it together to get the total damage.
This is simply to make combat more survivable. If the enemy dealt damage at the same rate you did, you wouldn't survive your first encounter most likely
I agree with that rule. In solo with OSE, I often didn't roll the damage and went with the average. It speeds up play a little but your method add surprises (low score)!
Hey would you be interested in me making some (free) cover art for this? I love your Just One Torch solo booklet and wanna contribute if I can. If you're interested DM me on twitter or discord :)
Absolutely! I will message you on Discord