#4 Interview with Croaker RPGs
We talked to Thomas Lopez from Croaker RPGs about solo roleplaying, his newsletter (which has over 500 subscribers!), and about his solo games.
Thomas Lopez is the person behind Croaker RPGs. He plays, writes and designs solo RPGs. You can follow and learn more about him and his work on The Lone Toad Newsletter and his itch.io page.
Mario | La esquina del rol: Croaker RPGs, welcome to La Esquina del Rol!!! Thank you very much for be here! I am big fan of your Solo Actual Plays, and your The Lone Toad Newsletter!
I'd like to start this interview by asking you about Who Croaker RPGs is, What your background is, and How did you get into TTRPGs?
Thomas Lopez | Croaker RPG: Hello and thank you so much for having me on your newsletter for this interview. It’s an honour to be included among such excellent TTRPG designers and creators.
Croaker RPGs is me, Thomas Lopez! A solo design shop where I focus primarily on Solo RPGs through my Newsletter the Lone Toad and my own designed RPGs such as Queenless and The Lost City of Cargoth.
I have quite a background, I’m originally from California but followed my heart (and my wife) to Australia where me and my family live. I don’t have a particular background in design, writing or games, but I consider RPGs a fantastic creative output for myself and something that I’ve become quite passionate about.
Like a lot of people, I discovered RPGs during the pandemic. The city I live in had the distinction of being the most locked-down city in the world during the pandemic. Going slightly crazy stuck at home, especially during our long winter nights, I decided to give that whole ‘D&D’ thing a shot. Well, I played a few D&D games, and while that was fun in all I felt D&D didn’t quite fit with the kind of games I wanted to play.
I quickly started looking for other RPGS to play, which was where my love of Indie RPGs started. I had a great time GMing some excellent campaigns such as Spire: The City Must Fall, Alien, Mork Borg, and many more.
Mario: What a coincidence! When I was a teenager, I knew a friend whose name was almost the same as yours: Tomás López. I remember him very well. I haven't seen him for a long time because he moved away (not to Australia, of course hahaha!).
Thomas: Wow! What a coincidence! I would like to explore my Hispanic ancestry a bit more and I think it would be interesting to do it through an RPG. It would also give me the motivation to explore my family tree and connect with that side of my heritage.
Mario: Now, I understand what you were telling me before the interview about your hispanic ancestry. That's great. I've been amazed at the number of creators and designers who have Hispanic heritage or even speak a little bit of Spanish. It is very interesting. My next question is about your name Croaker RPGs. Where did this idea of calling you Croaker RPGs come from?
Thomas: Croaker RPGs comes from a favourite character I have from the dark fantasy series the Black Company by Glen Cook. Croaker was the surgeon and also the chronicler who kept the history of the Black Company that was the company's soul. That character spoke to me and when it was time to pick an RPG design name that is what I chose.
I quickly discovered people that I just loved frogs a lot. So I leaned into that, making my logo a Frog on a D20 and naming my newsletter the Lone Toad.
Mario: Well, I think your logo is great!
Thomas: Thank you! This logo was drawn by my friend and fellow solo designer and Actual Play writer Eric Dill. He writes a newsletter also that I recommend!
Mario: I love your actual plays that you share on your blog, and your newsletter. I would like to ask you What is your approach to play SOLO RPG?
Thomas: For me, Solo RPGS are internally driven. Since there isn't anyone around to hype me up on playing a game, I have to be inspired to pick it up and put pen to paper. This is the reason I play solo RPGs that have a ton of theme and art to go with it. So like Mork Borg, every time I pick that book up I immediately want to start playing it solo or with a group.
Sundered Isles, the recent expansion to Starforged by Shawn Tomkin was the same. The idea of building a whole world with dangerous isles, rough seas and rampaging pirates inspired me to immediately start playing.
Mario: Do you like to play with official solo friendly supplements or do you prefer generic oracles?
Thomas: I tend to rely on games that have custom built oracles. I am starting to prefer games built solo first or that are created solo friendly as a start. I find when a designer considers solo play at the start of their design, the following solo play is well done and more entertaining.
When that isn't the case I like official or unofficial solo products. Free League has done a number of great solo modules for their games, especially for Dragonbane and The One Ring that I've enjoyed in the past. In fact Strider Mode for The One Ring was the first solo game I wrote an actually play for.
Only when a game isn't built for solo play and doesn't have a module will I find a more generic GM emulator. I had a great time using the Game Master's Apprentice by Larcenous Designs and pairing it with Basic Dungeons and Dragons.
Mario: I see you mentioned more “traditional” games in your previous answer for solo RPGs, what do you think of journaling solo RPGs, What experiences have you had playing them, and Which of this type of game do you prefer: traditional or journaling?
Thomas: Oh, I love journaling games! The first game I ever designed (I Come From a Land Down Under about a post-apocalyptic landscape based on the lyrics from the song Down Under) is a journaling game. The other journaling game I've done is called Dead Stick and has you take the place of a flight crew member during a world war.
Journaling games are fantastic for creating thematic games where you ask players to think and feel deeply about a subject, story or other aspect. Some people would argue that journaling games aren't really RPGs, but more like creative writing prompts. And I see their point of view to an extent, as many journaling games lack RPG mechanics. I don't get hung up on labels so much. They are fun and I love getting stuck into one when I have a chance.
I'm playing a solo game right now (well not right now) called Princess with a Cursed Sword.
I wouldn't say I prefer a traditional RPG vs a Journaling games. They are different types of games for when I'm in different moods. Plus, you can take many traditional games and do journaling play with them. This works well for a game like Ironsworn/Starforged, but you could do it with Dungeons and Dragons or Cyberpunk just as well. I have struggled to journal play games that have extensive mechanics and lots of dice rolling like 4 Against Darkness, but people have certainly done it.
Mario: I like to know this flexibility you have to choose the game according to your mood, I think that's important. For me, I find it a bit harder to play the journaling RPGs, I like them but there is still something I am working on to enjoy them more. Speaking about your published games. One of the goals of my interviews with game designers is to unravel their design processes. With that in mind, I wanted to ask you how you approach the design process for your games?
Thomas: My design process can be pretty chaotic, especially when view from the outside. It all starts with the spark of an idea. That spark, I really can't predict it just hits me. For Queenless it was watching bees from my daughter's bedroom window, for The Zoo it was based off an adventure I made for my group.
After I have a spark of an idea I work on it a bit, do some free writing to turn the spark into a game concept. I get distracted easily so I do a lot of writing on the train when I'm commuting to work. I don't write for hours at a time but often come back to the project to 'peck' away at it for a number of weeks.
Solo RPGs have a built-in advantage because you can play-test them on your own without having to include other people, at least in the start. So once I have a first draft done I do some play testing to see if the game works how I think it should.
Oh and at some point I make a mock cover page. That is an important part of the process. A cover for the game makes it feel 'real' to me, more than just writing but a project waiting to be completed.
Following that it's off to layout and design, which I used to struggle with but I think I've come a long way.
Like I said, it's all a bit chaotic but that's the way I like it. If you locked me in a room for a week and asked me to make an RPG and do nothing else I'd probably go crazy and make a bad game.
Mario: Something that has caught my attention about you are the adventures you write to play Ironsworn in solo mode. I would like to talk about it because they have really worked well for me and the truth is that there are no things like that in Spanish to play. What design principles and philosophy did you have when writing them that made them work so well?
Thomas: Creating scenarios for the Ironsworn system is a pretty big challenge actually. The key to the Ironsworn system is the ability for player to create adventures that are completely customisable to their own interests. When you pick up dice in Ironsworn, you can take the story in any direction you want. So how do you design an adventure for that type of game? Well I've tried two different methods.
The first method is creating a setting for people to play in. So for Sea Beast! I created a village that was under attack from a monster. I created the area around it, people in the village, a threat and some potential enemies. And then I tell the player to go and have fun! They can decide to hunt down the monster, or see what else is going on it in village. They may step into the village, and then decide the solution is somewhere else and leave immediately. When I'm designing these settings (sometimes called Fronts in PBTA games) you have to hope the threat and the setting are interested enough that players will follow through with it.
The second method is challenging and I'll admit I'm still working on it. In this method I create an adventure site, a Lost City far from civilisation or a space station floating in the black of space. This means the players cannot easily take their character away, they have to play in this adventure. Then I create a premise that hopefully demands to be completed. In the middle I try to make the location as interesting as possible, with NPCs, foes, points of interests and side quests.
In the second method I'm banking on the story being compelling, because if it isn't player won't just take their characters to a different location, they will stop playing. But if the player guys in, I'm confident they will create their amazing story and have a fun time.
Mario: Honestly, it would be great to have them in Spanish at some point. I think you have solved in very interesting ways how to write adventures for Ironsworn. Now, I would like you to tell us a little bit about the solo games you have written.
Thomas: Yeah, I've written and designed a few games, solo modules and other supplements. I'm probably most proud of Queenless, which is a cozy exploration game where you play as a Bee trying to save their colony after their queen has died. It's built in the Firelights system created by Rene-Pier Deshaies or Fari RPGs. For Queenless I wanted to make it look like you are reading a nature magazine, down to the art I found which is all from the public domain.
Another game I'd like to highlight is Dead Stick, which I did for a game jam. It is a solo journaling game that puts you in the shoes of an aircraft ground crew member in a world war. It asks you to think about all the stressful and awful things they would experience through that time.
I've also just made Sea Beast and Night Terror Pay What You Want in celebration of getting 500 subscribers on my Solo RPG newsletter.
Mario: Night terror is awesome! I love that you write solo adventures. Hey Thomas, what would be your three favourite mechanic, in terms of SOLO RPG design?
Thomas: That is a great question. The first mechanic that is useful for Solo design is the weak hit. Often used in PBTA games, it represents success but at a cost and gives the RPG designer and the player something more to work with than a binary pass or fail system you'll see in games like Dungeons and Dragons.
The second isn't a mechanic as much as a design tool, and that is a gameplay loop. So Solo RPGs obviously don't have a Game Master to keep things moving along, so it's important to show players exactly what they need to do at each step of the game. A strong and expressly mentioned gameplay loop is essential for Solo RPGs. Ironsworn has a great example of this (called the Flow of Play).
The third is the use of random tables to inspire creativity for the solo player. Random tables go all the way back to Original D&D but I think they are especially important for Solo Play. Designing solo RPGs you want players to always have an idea of what is next and hopefully not get stuck because you've drawn a blank with the next scene. Useful random tables in the form of oracles can help inspire that creativity and keep players playing!
Mario: Those are very good answers, Thomas. Sometimes people come up to me and ask me, "What is solo role-playing and how do you play it? When someone asks you the same question, what do you say?
Thomas: It's hard to define solo Roleplay in any concrete way. Many people consider reading RPG books, thinking about them and preparing to play a game is play, so Solo Roleplay is just taking all those daydreams about potential RPG characters and stories, and playing them out in some structured way by yourself.
I try not to get hung up on the whole 'Solo roleplay isn't real roleplay'. For the record, I think it is roleplay, but I don't debate people or get caught up on labels.
My advice for anyone thinking about solo RPGs is to give it a shot! I was a sceptic too once. It took a boring night and a copy of Ironsworn to convert me to a solo RPG fanatic! So try a few Solo RPGs- a journaling game, a traditional game with a GM emulator, and a solo first game, and see how it goes. If it isn't for you? Fine! But you may find you've opened up a whole new way of exploring fictional worlds and amazing characters.
Mario: Thank you for this advice for our readers. Now I would like to move on to another topic. What is the idea of your newsletter and what can people who read it find in it?
Thomas: The Lone Toad is all about solo RPGs! I think about, play and design Solo RPGs so I felt people might like to read my thoughts about them. I write two newsletters a month. The Lone Toad Monthly Edition covers a specific a solo RPG topic or has a bunch of recommendations, along with updates from my game designs and a smattering of RPG news from around the world.
Ribbiting Adventures takes a specific topic from solo RPGs and digs deep into it. I interview solo RPG creators, do game reviews, or dive deep into a specific aspect of solo play. It's a great mix of fun light-hearted subjects with deep intellectual analysis of solo RPGs.
And I give away free games to people who subscribe to the Lone Toad. I gave away The Lost City of Cargoth, my Ironsworn adventure and in the next couple of months Identity, a dark game of introspective horror will be free to readers also!
Mario: I really enjoyed talking to you, it was great. I've told you before: I really like what you do with your newsletter and your games. Besides your next game, called Identity, are there any other projects or things you want to share with us?
Thomas: I have more game project ideas than I can count! The hard part is deciding which I have time to publish. But yes, I have a few projects I'm working to. The Lost City of Cargoth (free if you subscribe to my newsletter) will be getting an enhanced version calle Cargoth: Ruinious Edition. It will have 25% new content including a trap mechanic, new assets, and more adventures!
I've mentioned Identity already which will have a free version for my newsletter in August.
Then later this year my newsletter will get a large Starforged: Ironsworn supplement called The Void Chorus. In that game you'll be stuck on a space station where insane and unethical experiments have been done. Will you escape, destroy it all or take the experiments for you own?
After that I'm not sure. I have some ideas but nothing concrete yet. I want to create a sequel to Queenless, and I have ideas for a horror film-based solo RPG. Like I said, too many ideas and not enough time!
Well, he is the amazing Thomas Lopez from Croaker RPGs! Until next time!
