The Solo

Rules for Playing Bound Alone

"You are both the person who signs the contract
and the person who enforces it.
The dice keep you honest.
The rest is between you and the silence." — Found scratched into the last page of a walker's journal

The PremiseOne Chair, One Story

Bound is a game about oaths, loopholes, and the tension between power and restriction. None of that requires another person at the table. The Contracts are still real. The Bindings still bite. The Grey is still yours to exploit — and the Arbiter Die still reaches back. What changes is who holds the world. In solo play, you hold it. All of it. And the thing that keeps you from simply winning is not a GM. It is honesty.

These rules give you the tools to play Bound alone: an oracle to answer the questions you cannot, tables to generate the unexpected, and a framework for being your own most demanding audience. The dice provide randomness. You provide the story. The space between the two is where the game lives.

The Principle Solo play is not a lesser form of the game. It is a different contract — one you make with yourself. The terms are simple: play honestly, accept what the dice give you, and never flinch from a consequence you have earned. There is no GM to surprise you, so you must be willing to surprise yourself. There is no table to hold you accountable, so the accountability must come from within. If you can do this — if you can sit alone with a story and let it hurt you in a way that reveals something true — then you do not need anyone else to play Bound. You never did.

The OracleAsking the World

In a group game, you ask the GM: Is the door locked? Does the guard see me? Is the patron watching? In solo play, you ask the Oracle. The Oracle is a single d6 roll that answers yes-or-no questions about the world — the things your character does not control and cannot decide.

The Oracle Roll

When you need the world to answer a question, decide how likely the answer is to be "yes," then roll 1d6:

Likelihood	Yes on...
Almost certain	2–6
Likely	3–6
Even odds	4–6
Unlikely	5–6
Remote	6 only

Setting the Likelihood Be honest about the odds. If you are asking whether the merchant has the rare component you need, and you are in a backwater village, the answer is Unlikely — not Even odds because you want it to be true. The Oracle only works if you set the likelihood before you roll, and if you set it based on what the fiction has established, not what you hope for. When in doubt, choose Even odds. It is the most honest default.

The Twist

On a natural 1, regardless of the question's likelihood, the answer is not just "no." Something shifts. A complication enters the scene that you did not anticipate. The door is not locked — it is missing entirely, torn from its hinges. The guard does not see you — because the guard is dead, and whatever killed them is still here. A 1 on the Oracle is the game telling you: the world is stranger than you assumed.

On a natural 6, regardless of the question's likelihood, the answer is not just "yes." There is an opportunity — something extra, something you did not ask for but the world is offering. The merchant has the component, and she knows where to find three more. The path is clear, and someone left provisions along the way. A 6 on the Oracle is a gift. Accept it.

You are fleeing through the Undercity and need to cross a canal. You ask: "Is there a bridge nearby?" The Undercity is old and crumbling — you set the likelihood at Likely. You roll a 1. The Oracle answers: not just no, but the canal is flooding. Somewhere upstream, something has broken open, and the water is rising. The question has been answered, and a new problem has arrived uninvited.

The ArbiterYour Own Contract Lawyer

In solo play, you are both the character who exploits the Grey and the arbiter who judges whether the loophole holds. This is the hardest part of playing alone — and the part that makes it worth doing.

The Arbiter Die Still Rolls

When you exploit the Grey, the rules do not change. Roll 2d6 for your action and roll the Arbiter Die as normal. If the Arbiter Die is higher than both your dice, a Reckoning occurs. The mechanic is already impartial. The dice do not care that you are alone.

Reckoning Without a GM

When a Reckoning is triggered, roll on the Reckoning table — do not choose. The d6 decides whether your patron Narrows, Tithes, Frays, or Severs. Then interpret what that means through the fiction you have established.

The Honesty Test The temptation in solo play is to interpret Reckonings gently — to Narrow in ways that do not actually close the loophole, to set Tithes that are easy to pay. Resist this. A Narrowing should make you wince. A Tithe should cost something you were counting on. If you find yourself thinking "that's not so bad," you are being too kind. Your patron is not kind. Write the harshest reasonable interpretation, then play it.

Judging the Grey

In a group game, the GM decides whether an action falls within the Grant, within the Grey, or against the Binding. Alone, you must make this call yourself. The rule is simple: if you have to argue for it, it is the Grey. If the action is clearly within your Grant's domain, roll 3d6. If you catch yourself constructing a justification — explaining to an imaginary GM why this technically counts — you are in the Grey. Roll 2d6 and the Arbiter Die. If the action clearly violates your Binding, roll 1d6. No justification will save you.

When you are unsure — genuinely, honestly unsure — use the Oracle. Ask: "Would a strict reading of my Contract consider this within my Grant?" Set the likelihood based on how much of a stretch it is. Let the dice decide, then commit.

The FrameBuilding Scenes Alone

Without a GM to set scenes, you need a structure that keeps the story moving forward without letting you steer it entirely. Solo Bound uses a simple scene-framing loop: Frame, Play, Close.

Frame

Before each scene, answer three questions:

Where? Name the location. If you do not know where the story goes next, roll on the Spark Table or ask the Oracle: "Does the next scene happen where I expect?" On a no, something has changed — a summons, a detour, an interruption that moves you somewhere you did not plan to be.

Who? Name who is present. If a new character is needed, the Spark Table can generate one. If an existing character might appear, ask the Oracle.

What's at stake? Name what the scene is about — what your character wants and what stands in the way. If you do not know, the scene is not ready. Wait until the fiction tells you what matters.

Play

Play the scene using the core rules. Roll when outcomes are uncertain. Use the Oracle when the world needs to answer. Follow your Contracts — the Grant empowers, the Binding restricts, the Grey tempts. When a scene reaches a natural conclusion — the question is answered, the conflict is resolved, the moment has passed — stop.

Close

After each scene, ask yourself two questions:

What changed? Something should be different now. A relationship, a resource, a piece of knowledge, a wound. If nothing changed, the scene was filler. Cut it and move on. In solo play, you cannot afford scenes that do not move the story.

What follows? Based on what happened, what is the natural next scene? Write a single sentence — not a plan, just a direction. "The patron's agents will come looking for me." "I need to find the healer before dawn." "Something is wrong in the district I just left." This becomes the seed for your next Frame.

The Interrupt After closing every third scene, roll 1d6. On a 1–2, the next scene is not the one you expected. Something from earlier in the story — a consequence, a forgotten NPC, a thread you left dangling — returns uninvited. This is the game's way of simulating a GM who remembers everything. Choose the thread that would be most inconvenient right now. That is the one that arrives.

The SparkWhen You Need the Unexpected

The Spark Table generates the raw material of surprise — a word or concept that you must weave into the fiction. It is not a random encounter table. It is a prompt. Roll 2d6: the first die selects the column, the second die selects the row.

	1–2	3–4	5–6
1	Debt	Stranger	Ruin
2	Betrayal	Hunger	Sanctuary
3	Memory	Pursuit	Offering
4	Silence	Contract	Flame
5	Bone	Threshold	Voice
6	Shadow	Oath	Return

The spark is not the answer. It is the seed. "Debt" does not mean someone owes you money. It means debt is relevant — perhaps someone is collecting, perhaps you discover what your patron truly owes, perhaps the ruin you are exploring was built to pay a debt that was never settled. Let the word collide with the fiction. The meaning will emerge.

Use the Spark Table when you are stuck, when a scene needs a complication, when a new NPC needs a motivation, or when the Oracle gives you a Twist and you need to know what kind. The table is small by design — eighteen words are enough to generate a lifetime of stories if you let them breathe.

You have just arrived at the patron's temple, and you need something unexpected to complicate the scene. You roll a 3 and a 5: Pursuit. Someone — or something — has followed you here. Who? Ask the Oracle. Why? That is the scene now.

The OtherPlaying Characters Who Are Not You

The hardest part of solo play is giving NPCs their own will. The temptation is to make them convenient — cooperative when you need allies, incompetent when you need enemies. The following tools help you play NPCs as people with their own agendas — and the key is treating them the way the game treats everything else: as contracts.

Quick Contracts

Every NPC — even a minor one — gets a Quick Contract. Three sentences, written in the language of the game. The same logic that governs your character governs everyone else in the world.

The Quick Contract

Want What is this person trying to achieve? Not their personality — their goal. The gate guard wants to make it through her shift without incident. The merchant wants to close one more deal before the district locks down. The courier wants to deliver the sealed letter without reading it. Want is what drives them. It is the Grant of ordinary life.

Can't What restriction keeps them from simply taking what they want? What oath, obligation, fear, or circumstance binds them? The guard can't leave her post. The merchant can't sell below cost or his suppliers will cut him off. The courier can't break the seal without losing her commission — and her reputation. Can't is their Binding, written not by a patron but by the world.

Loophole Where does the restriction bend? What workaround have they found, or what workaround might they accept? The guard could be "called away" by a convincing distraction. The merchant might "gift" an item to someone who then owes a favor. The courier might let someone else break the seal, since her oath says nothing about what others do in her presence. The Loophole is where your character enters the equation — and where the interaction becomes a negotiation, not a transaction.

This is the language of the game applied to everyone your character meets. Want, Can't, Loophole. Grant, Binding, Grey. The pattern repeats because the world of Bound runs on contracts all the way down — some signed in ink, some in blood, and some in the quiet agreements people make with circumstance to survive another day.

NPC Disposition

When you first encounter an NPC whose attitude is not established by the fiction, roll 1d6:

Roll	Disposition
1	Hostile — they want you gone, stopped, or worse
2	Suspicious — they do not trust you and will not help without proof
3	Indifferent — you are not their problem
4	Cautious — willing to talk, not willing to commit
5	Helpful — they have reason to assist, but they have their own terms
6	Entangled — they are connected to your story in a way neither of you expected

Disposition colors the Quick Contract but does not override it. A Hostile NPC still has a Want and a Loophole — hostility just means they will not offer either willingly. A Helpful NPC still has a Can't — helpfulness does not erase their restrictions. The disposition tells you how the NPC presents. The Quick Contract tells you how they work.

NPC Decisions

When an NPC must make a choice and you are unsure what they would do, do not decide for them. Instead, look at their Quick Contract. Ask: what would a person who wants this thing, who cannot do that thing, do right now? The answer is usually obvious. If it is not, name two plausible options — what you think they would do and what you think they might do — and ask the Oracle: "Do they take the expected action?" Set the likelihood at Likely. If the Oracle says no, they take the other path. If the Oracle gives you a Twist, they do something you did not consider at all — roll on the Spark Table and interpret.

The Rule of Contracts All the Way Down The Quick Contract is not a shortcut. It is a lens. Once you see NPCs as bound by their own deals — with employers, with families, with their own fears — every interaction becomes richer. You are not asking "what does this person do?" You are asking "what does this person's contract allow them to do?" That question has teeth. It means some NPCs genuinely cannot help you, no matter how much they want to. It means others can be turned, not by persuasion, but by finding the gap between their Can't and their Loophole. It means the world works the same way your character does — and that is the deepest truth of Bound.

The CryDesperate Deals Alone

Desperate Deals are the most GM-dependent mechanic in Bound. The GM chooses who answers, writes the hidden Binding, and reveals it at the worst possible moment. In solo play, you must recreate this tension without the element of surprise. Here is how.

Who Answers

When you make a Desperate Deal, do not decide who answers. Roll on the Spark Table twice — the two words together suggest the nature of the entity. "Shadow" and "Oath" is a very different patron than "Flame" and "Return." Let the words shape something you did not plan. Name the entity. Give it a want. Then play the scene of the deal.

The Hidden Binding

Write three possible Bindings — one harsh, one ironic, one that directly conflicts with an existing Contract. Number them 1–2, 3–4, 5–6. Do not choose. Roll 1d6. The die picks the Binding. Seal it.

Here is the crucial step: write the Binding on a separate piece of paper, fold it, and do not read it again until it triggers. You wrote all three options, so you know the possibilities — but you do not know which one is active. This partial uncertainty is enough. The dread of not knowing which restriction you carry is its own kind of horror, even when you wrote all the options yourself.

Triggering the Binding The hidden Binding reveals itself the first time you take an action that would violate any of the three possible Bindings. When that moment arrives, unfold the paper. If the Binding you rolled matches the action you just attempted — it triggers. If it does not, the Binding remains hidden, but now you know one thing it is not. The uncertainty narrows. The dread remains.

The RecordKeeping a Journal

Solo play benefits from a written record — not because you need to track mechanics, but because writing is where the fiction becomes real. A journal forces you to commit to details, to name things, to make the story concrete in a way that pure imagination sometimes does not.

What to Record

Scene summaries A sentence or two after each scene. What happened, what changed, what follows. Not prose — notes. The story lives in your head. The journal is the skeleton that keeps it standing between sessions.

Contract changes Every Narrowing, every Tithe, every Fraying. Track how your Contracts evolve. In solo play, this record becomes the history of your character's relationship with power — a document as important as the character sheet itself.

NPC names and wants Every character you meet, their disposition, their desire. You will forget. The journal will not. When the Interrupt brings back a thread from six scenes ago, the journal tells you who was involved and what they wanted.

Open threads Questions unanswered, promises unfulfilled, consequences undelivered. These are the fuel for future scenes. When you do not know what happens next, look at the open threads. One of them is ready.

You do not need to write beautifully. You need to write enough — enough that tomorrow, or next week, or next month, you can sit down at the table and remember where the story was going and why it mattered.

The EngineHonesty as Mechanic

Every solo system lives or dies on one thing: whether the player is willing to let the story go somewhere they did not plan. The Oracle provides randomness. The Spark Table provides surprise. The Arbiter Die provides consequence. But none of these matter if you override them with the story you wanted to tell instead of the story that is emerging.

The Contract With Yourself You are bound by the same principle that binds every character in this game: power comes with restriction. Your power is total narrative authority — you can make anything happen. Your restriction is honesty — you must let the dice, the oracle, and the fiction constrain you. Your Grey is interpretation — when the dice give you a result, how you narrate it is yours. But the result itself is sacred. A failure is a failure. A Reckoning is a Reckoning. A 1 on the Oracle is a complication you did not want. Accept these. They are the game.

Three Rules of Honest Play

Roll before you narrate Never decide the outcome first and then roll to confirm it. The dice must speak before you interpret. If you find yourself reaching for the dice already knowing what you want them to say, stop. That is the moment honesty matters most.

Follow the fiction, not the plan You will start a session with an idea of where the story goes. The dice will disagree. When that happens, the dice win. Not because randomness is sacred, but because the unexpected is where the best stories hide. Your plan was safe. The dice are not. Go where they point.

Let your character lose The hardest thing in solo play is not mechanical complexity. It is accepting that your character — the only character you have — can fail, suffer, and be diminished. They can lose a Contract. They can break an oath and face Severance. They can fall. If you protect them from every consequence, you are not playing a game. You are writing fan fiction about someone who cannot be hurt. The hurt is the point.

Honesty is not masochism. You are not trying to destroy your character. You are trying to discover them — to find out who they are when the story does not go their way, when the Binding bites at the worst moment, when the Grey closes and there is nothing left but the raw choice between two bad options. That discovery only happens if you let the game be a game. Roll the dice. Read what they say. Play honestly. The story will be better than anything you could have planned.

At the TablePractical Advice

Session Length

Solo sessions work best in three to five scenes. Fewer than three and the story does not have time to develop momentum. More than five and you risk decision fatigue — the mental cost of playing every role in the story at once. When you feel yourself making easy choices instead of honest ones, the session is over. Stop, record your open threads, and come back fresh.

When You Are Stuck

It will happen. The scene is flat, the fiction has stalled, and you do not know what comes next. Three remedies:

Consult the Binding Look at your character's restrictions. Is there a situation right now — or one you could walk into — where the Binding creates an impossible choice? Go there. The drama is in the Contract.

Roll the Spark Let the Spark Table inject something you did not expect. A word, a concept, a prompt. Collide it with the current scene and see what emerges.

Threaten something precious What does your character care about most? An NPC, a place, a principle, their Contract itself? Put it in danger. The story will move, because your character will have no choice but to respond.

Multiple Characters

You may play more than one contracted character. This is not necessary, but it unlocks one of Bound's deepest tensions: conflicting Bindings between characters you control. When one character's oath demands what another's forbids, you cannot optimize. You must choose who breaks, and you must live with the Reckoning. Play each character honestly. Do not sacrifice one to protect the other. The game is watching — and the game is you.

A Closing Note Solo play strips the game down to its engine — the Contract between power and restriction, the tension between what you can do and what you must not. Without a GM, without other players, the only audience is you. And that is enough. The story you tell alone, honestly, with dice in hand and consequences accepted, is as real as any story told at a crowded table. More real, perhaps — because no one is watching, and you chose to play anyway. That choice is its own kind of Contract. Honor it.

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Bound — The Solo v0.1
Rules for One Player & Honest Dice