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Indie game/book/software website itch.io is currently offering a bundle of 493 tabletop RPGs for a minimum purchase price of 5 USD (you can pay more than this, and I would encourage you to do so if you can spare the money! The average purchase price is $9.45 at the time of writing and the highest is $1,000).
All the money (minus payment processing fees) will be split between two Texas-based charities supporting trans people (the state government of Texas have recently made some horrific legal proclamations that are specifically designed to harm trans children and anyone who cares for them).
You can view and buy the bundle here.
This site provides a better interface for searching and filtering what's available.
I wanted to support the bundle, because it's supporting a cause that I feel extremely strongly about, but I've never played any TTRPGs before and my (mistaken) belief was that you needed a large group of dedicated players in order to enjoy them. Looking through the bundle, I was intrigued to see several items tagged 'solo', the majority of which describe themselves as 'journalling games'. For those who, like I was, are unaware of what this means, essentially you get a setting and some rules and write (or otherwise record) something based on that. They seem to vary a lot and I've only played one, so I can't be more specific yet! I'll describe the one I picked in a bit more detail below. I've not done any creative writing since school, which is a long time ago now, and always found writing stories quite difficult. I gave one of these games a go though and was surprised at how enjoyable it was, with the rules of the game providing just enough structure to help push me along, without being too prescriptive.
A figure stands in an ancient ruin, bare feet on crumbling stone. Her gown far too fine, her sword much too dark. She can not put down the sword until she finds where it came from. So she has come.
This is the game I picked, partly because the setting sounded interesting and partly because it all fits on a single page of A4, which seemed like a good introduction for a complete newbie like me! You need two coins, a deck of tarot cards and some way to write your story (e.g. pen and paper or a computer). If you don't already have a tarot deck, you can buy them quite cheaply online or you can use my new 'random-tools' page, if you want a free option!
(As a side note, I was only (dimly) aware of tarot as a sort of fortune-telling mechanism, but apparently it's used for popular card games in parts of Europe and actually originated as that - the mystical stuff came hundreds of years later.)
You can download the game here, with a pay-what-you-want model (including free). The bundle mentioned above unlocks the $3 tier that gets you an extra document of the creator's design notes:
https://w.itch.io/cursed-sword
The game starts with some questions about the main character, then you proceed into the main game loop, where you draw a card and write a short paragraph based on the suit (Major Arcana, Wands, Pentacles/Coins, Cups or Swords) and card image - the game rules give a range of meanings for each suit. There's also a challenge mechanic based on flipping coins to determine the level of success.
You can read the result of my first play-through here. I would personally strongly recommend playing it yourself, before reading my (or anyone else's) attempt, to avoid influencing your own decisions. Bear in mind what I said about me not doing any creative writing since my school days and please don't judge the game poorly based on my limited writing talent!
I found this example of another person's play-through on the web
I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed playing this and will definitely look at playing more solo tabletop games (especially since I already own absolutely loads of them via various itch.io charity bundles!) A quick search of geminispace brought me to lettuce's post on solo RPGs:
gemini://gemini.ctrl-c.club/~lettuce/solo-ttrpg.gmi
I'd also love to hear from anyone with suggestions of similar games they enjoyed (especially, but not necessarily, if they have been included in any of the big itch bundles). If you play through Princess with a Cursed Sword and post your resulting story online, then I would also love to read it! You can contact me via the link below: