Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – A Torch in the Dark

A Torch in the Dark
Written and designed by NotWriting

You can purchase this game here

Last year, I attempted to play Blades in the Dark using Parts Per Million’s solo guide. While there was some helpful advice in that book, it still felt like I was emulating a whole table of players rather than a singular protagonist. I had fun, but I wanted something that provided an actual solo tabletop experience. I decided to try A Torch in the Dark, a game that takes the systems of Blades and tweaks them for a solo play. There is a lot here I like a lot, but there were also elements of Blades that were missing, and I felt the game was lacking as a result. It provides a roguelike experience and uses 52 standard playing cards. 

Unlike Blades, which centers on a criminal crew pulling off heists, A Torch is a dungeon delve with a singular character. You can find companions as you play; if they survive, you can bring them with you on additional delves. For the most part, you will be playing as your character, and that’s it. The gameplay loop is basically the same as Blades – you pick a dungeon from the nine pre-made ones provided, explore for as long as you can, and you can retreat if needed or keep going to find Treasure. If you survive you get to have Downtime where you spend as much of your Stash as you’d like to reduce Stress and Corruption or remove Conditions.

Dungeon delves are managed with the playing cards. You pull a card and find its match on the specific dungeon’s oracle. Numbers are general encounters, while face cards represent specific singular challenges. You aim to pull the Jack and make successful rolls to defeat that challenge, completing the dungeon. You must always have at least one Torch in your inventory; if that is removed for any reason, you die. 

The game provides several opportunities to mark various resources to absorb harm, from giving yourself Conditions to Corruption (subtracting dice from your pool when encountering Demons) to reducing or removing items from your inventory. If you don’t have enough Stash to clear as much of this as possible during Downtime, your next delve will be all the more difficult. 

Dice pools are built by selecting a relevant Skill and Inventory item. You can Push Yourself, adding another die to the pool, but you have to Mark Stress for this. To overcome a challenge, you must roll at least one 6 on the dice. The face cards require their challenges to be defeated with a series of rolls, either two or three. If you roll multiple 6s in a single roll, you can count that towards the other required rolls. The game makes these riskier multi-roll challenges optional but tempts the player with Treasure as the result of success. The only non-optional pull would be the Jack whose defeat closes the dungeon off. 

The rules were very clearly written, and I immediately understood the gameplay loop. A setting here, Kyneburgh, is introduced through the facsimile of a newspaper front page out of the 19th century. A civil war is ongoing between Imperial forces and Revolutionaries. Along with this, the dead have begun to arise, plaguing parts of the land. Beyond this, Kyneburgh doesn’t get much more development or any mechanics that push the player to develop it further. That would be fine, but A Torch in the Dark is missing a key piece from Blades: the faction management and build-up of outside threats.

I had fun playing the game, but when I left the dungeon and engaged with the Downtime mechanics, they were not nearly as fun as rolling Heat and marking various factions’ views on me, helping to foreshadow story beats to come. This is something solo ttrpgs are still figuring out. I’ve encountered several games that are more about resource management than emergent storytelling. I don’t need a system to dictate a story, but I like some mechanics that inspire a narrative framework around what I am doing. When I play ttrpgs, I am not looking to recreate the feeling of playing a video game; I want to have the feeling of discovering a story. This is why Ironsworn: Starforged serves as a personal benchmark for what a solo ttrpg should provide – a good balance of mechanics and story.

I think A Torch in the Dark successfully figures out a way to do the “heist” portion of Blades that works seamlessly as a solo experience, forcing the player to choose from several resources to absorb harm. But I never felt like I was in a living setting with other characters to interact with. You could do this game as a journaling with dice involved, but I find myself less enamored with journaling solo games and more interested in finding gameplay loops that can provide a morsel of the same experience found at a table with others. I want to see a world emerge as I play. The solution might be to find a separate faction system and plug it into this game, but it would need to feel connected to delving and Downtime that already exists here.

Here’s the session I played, exploring my first dungeon:

Thrasius Gnash is a spell-slinger whose mastery of arcane power is matched only by his deadly aim. With a glare that can break spirits and magic that bends reality, he leaves his enemies cowering before the smoking barrel of his weapon.

Gnash was a brutal enforcer for the Revolution, using his arcane prowess and deadly aim to root out Royalist spies and break enemy morale through fear. But when the Revolutionary Council seized power, they labeled him a liability, too ruthless, too unpredictable, and cast him aside like so many others who had done their dirty work. Now, abandoned and haunted by the ghosts of his past, Gnash delves into the cursed dungeons of Kyneburgh, seeking treasure to buy his way out of the city and vengeance against those who betrayed him.

The Vault of Viscount Alard Hund is a tomb filled with the remains of farmers the Viscount enslaved in life and entombed in death, some before they had even died. Now overrun with desperate delvers, deadly traps, and restless undead, the vault holds both dangers and riches for those brave enough to enter.

First Draw – You smell ash and sulphur. The air around you is suddenly hot enough to burn parchment. A scaly humanoid form emerges from the darkness with wings made of smoke. Their eyes burn with violet light as their massive mouth grins down at you. It’s a demon. Risk it! x3

1st roll – Arcana, Arcane Implements, Push Myself (1 Stress) – Gnash chants a series of protection spells he learned just in case he encountered one of these beasts. He must open his mind to the divine to an extreme degree causing him to feel his life being sapped a bit.

Roll: 4, mixed success, 
Consequence: Gain Condition – Anxious

Gnash protection spells sting the flesh of the demon as it attempts to leap at him, mouth open wide, blackened fangs bared. 

2nd roll – Shoot, Pistols, Push Myself (1 stress) – Gnash pulls his blessed pistols and opens fire on the demon, smiting them with the holy water dipped bullets.
Roll: two 6s, double successes

The demon cries out as the bullets rend its flesh. Gnash grins as he hears its screams and the monster dissolves into a cloud of ash. 

Second Draw – An undead knight stumbles around in the dark. It hasn’t spotted you yet. Risk it!

Gnash stands in a crumbling stone corridor, the air thick with the scent of damp rot. Shattered farming tools and skeletal remains litter the ground beneath the flickering light of his torch. Sir Edric Hollowgaze lumbers through the darkness, his rusted armor fused to decaying flesh, the remnants of a noble crest barely visible beneath layers of grime. His empty eye sockets glow with a violet light. Skeletal fingers twitch restlessly around the hilt of a notched longsword.

Roll – Shoot, Pistols – Gnash reloads his pistols and blasts at the exposed parts of Sir Edric’s rotting flesh.
Result: 4, mixed success
Consequence: Expend Item – Pistols (2 load > 1 load)

Gnash wasn’t expecting to have to shoot so much. His bullets are getting low. 

Third Draw – You hear a large and hungry swarm of rats closing in on you. Risk it!

The narrow passage ahead is choked with rotting grain, spilled from cracked stone urns. Damp husks squirm as countless red-eyed rats burrow and feast. Their shrill squeaks echo through the vault as the swarm surges forward. A churning tide of matted fur and gnashing teeth, ravenous for anything warm and living.

Roll – Shoot, Pistols
Result: 5, mixed success
Consequence: Mark Corruption (1/5)

Rat’s blood spatters across Gnash’s coat. He staggers back as it stings on his face a bit. Those glowing eyes. These weren’t normal rats. Gnash kneels down, inspecting the grain. The rot is unnatural, seeped in the dark magic that haunts this tomb.

Fourth Draw – The ceiling above you collapses, and the hall begins to flood with rotten grain. Risk it!

With a thunderous crack, the sagging wooden beams above splinter and give way. An avalanche of rancid, mold-caked grain cascades into the corridor, choking the air with dust and the stench of decay. The weight of it threatens to bury Gnash alive.

Roll – Arcana, Arcane Implements
Result: 2, failure
Consequence: Expend Item – Torch

Gnash makes a silent prayer to a demonic patron who had blessed him before he entered the tomb. Silence from beyond. Perhaps he was tricked by the diabolic fiend. A torch clatters to the ground, extinguished.

Roll: Shoot, Pistols
Result: 5, mixed success
Consequence: Mark a Condition – Sore

Gnash opens fire, blasting the door on the other side of the grain-flooded room open, allowing him to tumble out on the other side. His body aches from the weight of the grain on his lower half, nearly crushing his legs.

Fifth Draw – You see traps set in the walls ahead: scythes and rakes that swing from the walls. Risk it!

Rusty metal hooks in the ceiling hold various bladed and pointed farm instruments upside down. Gnash detects a presence in the room, perhaps the ghost of Lund himself. The scythes and rakes begin to move, momentum pushing them back and forth until the room is filled with the clattering. Gnash attempts to bob and weave through.

Roll – Arcana, Arcane Implements
Result: 4, mixed result
Consequence: Expend Item – Arcane Implements (3 load > 2 load)

Gnash doesn’t rush himself. He tears the sleeve on his left arm and lets the ceremonial blade break the skin. Blood drips into a small goblet he brought. He prays to the lords of Hell to show him the path through these blades to emerge unharmed. When Gnash opens his eyes the path glows before him.

Sixth Draw – The Viscount forced his farmers to give him their best livestock. They were buried here with him, to serve him in the Hereafter. Now their twisted undead bodies bleat and cry and bite at anything that moves. Some of them have collars fashioned from gold links and gems. Risk it? If you do gain 1 treasure.

Roll: Shoot, Pistols, Push Myself (Mark 1 Stress)
Result: 4, mixed result
Consequence: Take Corruption (2/5)

Gain 1 Treasure

Gnash loads his pistols and walks among the abominations of nature writhing and screaming before him. He unloads the weapon into their heads until all are dead and black, steaming blood pools thick in the center of the floor. Gnash vomits, feeling the darkness of the tomb pull him in deeper.

Seventh Draw – You hear a large and hungry swarm of rats closing in on you. Risk it!

Another swarm of rats pour forth from various cracks in the walls. They seem hungry to feast on the corrupted flesh of these dead animals. They’ll also eat Gnash if he isn’t careful.

Roll: Shoot, Pistols
Result: 5, mixed result
Consequence: Lose Item – Torch

Holy bullets fly and rats scatter to all corners. Many end up as bloody splatters across the wet stone floor.

Eighth Draw – The stone coffin for the captain of the Viscount’s personal guard remains unopened, though you can hear the sounds of metal scraping on stone from inside. If you open it, Risk it! x2. If you do, gain 2 treasures from inside the coffin.

The crypt is still, the air thick with the acrid tang of rusted iron. Torchlight reveals faded carvings of battle scenes and the grim, hollow-eyed visages of forgotten warriors. A low, rhythmic scrape echoes from within the captain’s sealed coffin, like a blade slowly being drawn against rock.

1st Roll: Arcana, Arcane Implements, Push Myself (Take 1 Stress)
Result: 6, success

2nd Roll: Shoot, Pistols
Result: 1, failure
Consequence: Mark Condition – Cold

3rd Roll: Shoot, Pistols, Push Myself (Take 1 Stress)
Result: 5, mixed result
Consequence: Mark 1 Corruption

Gain 2 Treasure

Thrasius feels himself worn down and cannot keep going. He works his way back to the entrance of the tomb and stumbles back home as the sun is just cresting the horizon.

Sells 3 Treasure to get 3 Stash

Gnash’s apartment is a cramped, squalid alcove tucked above a crooked alleyway. The single window is choked with grime, allowing only a sliver of daylight to creep in. A battered cot, its straw stuffing long since flattened, holds his weary form as Gnash collapses into it, boots still on. Sleep swallows him. 

When he wakes at midday, aching and hollow-eyed, he pulls himself to the rickety table where tomes of curling vellum and ink-stained pages await, the sigils within writhing in the flickering candlelight as he studies, preparing his mind for another descent into the dark.

Spent 1 Stash

Relieve Stress Roll: 3, remove 1 stress

Thrasius Gnash finds the healer in a candlelit hovel reeking of herbs and rot, a place where silver buys silence as much as mending. As the bone-setter’s stained hands work on his wounds, pain lances through him.

Spends 1 Stash

Remove Conditions Roll: 3, remove 1 Condition