The idea was a web series

Before Sol was a game, the plan was a show. We never made it. Kyle and I had both made a lot of movies in high school and both went to college for film, so a web series kinda made sense.

It was called The Crew: a sci-fi series that would show the stories of the working class people on a starship, rather than the captain and the higher officers. The closest things to it are Star Trek: Lower Decks or Firefly.

It was a cool idea and all, but we didn’t have the resources to achieve it, and we weren’t even in the same state.

At the same time I was watching a lot of Urealms Live, a simplified, card based take on Dungeons and Dragons played on stream. I saw him and his friends making content and stories with his game and thought, why can’t I do that?

So I suggested the idea to Kyle, he agreed we should do it, and we got to work making the game.

▶Watch the devlog · 2023I'm Remaking My Game After 8 Years

Making the game

Sol started taking form in Fall 2015. The first rules used four stats (Strength, Agility, Intelligence and Endurance), a twenty sided die for almost everything, and cards for every race, class, ability and item.

Most of the inspiration came from Urealms, plus the video games Kyle and I were playing at the time, Diablo 3 and League of Legends. Believe it or not, the first roleplaying game I actually played was Sol.

• Class · Thief
• Ability · Guerilla Tactics
• Item · Laser Sights

From the Sol Beta 0.9 deck, December 2015.

Making a character in 2015

1. Roll a d10 each for Strength, Agility, Intelligence and Endurance.
2. Adjust by lowering one stat by 2 to raise another by 1.
3. Pick a class and choose 3 of its 5 abilities.
4. Go shopping with $1,000 in starting credits.

The first campaigns

None of this was public. We played Sol at a table with friends, and every campaign doubled as the test for a patch: run it, watch what broke, rewrite the rules, run the next one.

The first test was a prison arena, built to prove the combat loop before anything else got made. Sol saw its first full game at the beginning of 2016 with Breaking and Entering, which ran across two patches: a space station around Jupiter, then the research base on the moon below it.

• Patch 0.9 Arena: Testing Grounds
• Patch 1.0 Eon Station
• Patch 1.1 Ios Research Base

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Onto Tabletop Simulator

We played Sol on Tabletop Simulator, and put every card, board and die up as a free mod on the Steam Workshop, Sol RPG (Official), where you can still play it today.

After Breaking and Entering, patch 1.2 changed almost every class:

• A new A.I. race, and a new class to go with it: the Computer Specialist.
• The Infantry and Mercenary merged and became the Marine. See, I can get rid of classes too.
• Multiclassing became the Human race passive, since humans aren’t the only thing in the galaxy.
• The Psychologist was reworked, because no one played them.

Then came The Unusual Suspects, a noir murder mystery that tested whether Sol could run a session with almost no combat in it. Every player got a secret backstory sent to them privately, and the rules changed to suit: no free healing between fights, and a handful of locations instead of one board.

• Early 2016 The Unusual Suspects
• Early 2016 Nomad Ship

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▶Watch the devlog · 2023Reworking ALL 21 Classes of My Table Top RPG

The item update and the trait update

Patch 1.3, “The Item Update,” came after The Unusual Suspects. All 237 items were reworked, more than 50 new ones were added, and every card got a new look. Drag across the card to compare.

Beta 0.9 Patch 1.3

Items got rarities, colour coded so they’re easy to read at a glance. Fifty of the new items were inspired by Diablo 3’s legendaries: items that change how an ability works. We affectionately called these diablofied items.

• White · Common
• Yellow · Rare
• Red · Legendary
• Purple · Relic

▶The devlog on rarities · 2023How I Create Interconnected Game Systems

1.3 also renamed the SEAL to the Marksman, added a new alien race (the Biss, with the Craftmaster and Heartblind subraces), and brought in a way to dual wield any two weapons using their weight. It’s the best worst mechanic in the game.

▶The devlog on dual wielding · 2023The BEST WORST mechanic in my game

Patch 1.4, “The Trait Update,” added traits: small bonuses picked from your stats, in four categories with five subcategories and five tiers each. It also added loot dice, and the Engineer became the Robotics Engineer. Sol 1.4 is the version on the Steam Workshop today.

• Trait · Athletic
• Trait · Discreet

Loot dice, patch 1.4

Roll both when the crew finds loot. One says how rare it is, the other what kind of item it is.

You found: a Legendary Ranged item

Roll the loot dice

▶Watch how to play · 2023How to Play Sol 1.4

Shippy McShipface

In September 2016 the crew got a ship of their own, a Mule Class cargo ship called Shippy McShipface, and we started the longest campaign yet. It ran fourteen missions.

Yes, that’s really what it was called. This is what happens when you let your players name the ship. Very much in the spirit of Boaty McBoatface.

Instead of running one story we ran a mission board. Jobs went up, the crew picked one, and what happened carried into the next. That turned out to be the format Sol was best at, and it is the reason this one lasted a year while the others lasted a few sessions.

• Sept 2016 Warehouse Raid
• Oct 2016 Outset Station
• Nov 2016 Binary Star System
• Dec 2016 The Radiance Rescue
• Feb 2017 Going to Hell
• May 2016 Trials of the Ganarb

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Late 2016 is also when Kyle animated the Sol title sequence playing at the top of this page.

The crew’s story ended with The Return of Blackskull, the last chapter of the Shippy McShipface campaign. It ran through 2018 in two parts and wrapped up that December.

• Feb 2018 Eon Station, again
• Nov 2018 Kaiser’s Castle

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The update that was never released

We had known for a while that Sol had some major problems, along with some things we just didn’t like. The goal of Sol 2.0 was to start from the ground up and change everything to fix them.

• Concentration became action points: 3 at the start of combat, 1 back each turn. A DJ could use Drop the Bass for 3, or attack three times for 1 each.
• 26 classes, each with a signature ability, including new ones like the Gunslinger, Fencer, Bulwark, Keeper, Drunk, Hunter, Nanomancer, Magnetist, Mentalist and Mixologist.
• Traits grew to 80, with every subcategory reaching tier 5.

The 2.0 rules got their own campaign, a school one called My UCS Academia. I built it back in 2017, but we didn’t actually play it until The Return of Blackskull was over. The academy had three majors (Infantry, Cavalry and Science), a whole faculty, and 26 students, each playing a different class.

• Oct 2017 My UCS Academia

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“So why was this version never released? Well, besides the fact it wasn’t finished, I just wasn’t happy with it. While all the changes felt cool and were better, it still felt like more of the same.”

On Sol 2.0

▶Watch the devlog · 2023Why This Version of My Game Was Never Released

A design philosophy

After almost 30 sessions, the game needed to grow up with its players. Instead of patching it again, Kyle and I stepped back and wrote down what Sol should actually be.

That became a design philosophy in April 2019, and it still guides the remake:

1. Narrative is keyThe mechanics are meant to serve the narrative.
2. Gameplay is seamlessMechanics shouldn’t change between “out of combat” and “in combat”.
3. Simple at heartUtility should be favored over numbers. Math is inherently bad for the gameplay experience.
4. Meaningful optionsPlayers should always have impactful options to choose from.
5. No perfect strategyPlayers should never be able to repeat the same set of actions ad nauseam.
6. Diverse charactersNo two characters should feel the same.
7. UniqueWe aren’t looking to remake D&D or GURPS. The game should encourage a unique sci-fi, narrative driven experience.

▶Watch the devlog · 2023Design Philosophy Behind Creating A Tabletop RPG

Starting over

In January 2023 I started a devlog series, flipped the table in Tabletop Simulator, and began remaking Sol. The first nine devlogs pulled apart every old version to work out what to keep. Then the new game started to take shape.

• A deck builder. A roleplaying game like Dungeons and Dragons, but with the deck building mechanics of Slay the Spire. Start combat with 6 cards and 3 concentration. Out of combat, use any ability at any time.
• No more d20. Six stats (Strength, Finesse, Agility, Willpower, Intelligence and Charisma), each rolled with a d4 up to a d12, against someone else’s die.
• Damage you feel. A slot based inventory tied to health: as you get hurt, you lose access to the items in those slots.
• Mad lib magic. Nano programs and nanites you mix and match. Okay fine, it’s basically magic under the guise of technology.
• Yes, and. When you get hit, you get a say: “yes, you hit me, but I deflect the sword into my shoulder, narrowly missing my head.”

In 2024 I opened a sign-up for playtesters. Sol 3.0 still isn’t finished, which is why this page is a history. I’m writing the next chapter in the devlogs.