Journey: A Solo Roleplaying Game and Worldbuilding Tool for Writers, Game Masters, and the Uncommonly Curious

By Luke Miller

Hello, Traveler

Journey is a solo roleplaying game that puts you in the role of an explorer in the worlds of your own creation. Discover new details of these amazing places and gather new inspiration from what you find. This game is perfect for writers, designers, game masters, and the uncommonly curious.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Luke Miller
• Release date: Mar 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9780578893709

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 Luke Miller

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-578-89370-9

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.

There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.

Terry Pratchett

A Hat Full of Sky

For Roman.

The rock my world rests upon and the tether that guides me home from the journeys on which I inevitably find myself.

I love you, always.

Hello, Traveler

Introduction

Journey is a solo roleplaying game focused on world building and creativity, one that has been crafted to guide you on excursions through the fantastic places that exist solely in the world of your imagination.

Often, when building worlds for various creative endeavors, we touch on locations, objects, and people fleetingly and lightly, and only for the time it takes to understand what’s needed to advance a story.

Journey has been built as a vehicle of the creative mind that has the capabilities to guide you deeper into these ephemeral spaces and help give them greater depth and form in both your mind and your work. Taking a Journey is an exercise in imagination and visualization, using standard roleplaying game mechanics and concepts to guide you through the worlds of your own creation.

The various pieces of Journey have been taken from my own practices of exploring the worlds in my writing, game design, and other creative projects. They’ve served me for years in helping me to see more deeply into the worlds I’ve crafted, and have provided a lot of fun in that very act of exploration.

After you’ve completed a session of Journey, you will have been guided through amazing and impactful parts of your world you may not have considered before, and might just be inspired in new ways.

It’s time to leave on a grand adventure.

Are you ready?

Throughout this book, asides that look like this will show Keon, our illustrious example Traveler, as they move through the process of planning and going on their Journey. These examples should help make the various pieces of Journey clear.

If you’d like to read a full example Journey to get an idea of what yours could look like, you can read through Keon’s full Journey in Appendix D.

Want some free templates to jump start your Traveler’s Journal? Learn more about these freebies and how to grab them here.

The Journey

Supplies

There are a few things you need in order to embark upon a Journey. Aside from this book, you’ll need the following supplies in your metaphorical pack:

Your imagination. Get it warmed up and ready to go, as a successful Journey will require it to be in good working order.

A quiet place where you’ll be able to focus during the length of your session. Ideally, you should plan to set aside an hour, but a session can be as long or short as you’d like. Play some music,