Hi there! I love this project and the possibilities and the setting and the vibes, great work!
I need advice tho, I am very bad at playing solo, I immediatelly got stumped at the first "Time Passes" roll... so... any help in how to define what happens?
I really want to play solo but this is the the point that always stop me, being unable to define what happens next
Any help is appreciated, and again, this is a great game, great setting, I will be looking closely for any update on this project
Solo role-playing can be hard, so don't feel bad! I would be delighted to help you. 🌷🌼🌻
First, context for anyone reading this answer in the future: Time Passes is the move that is triggered any time your character loses track of time, usually as part of a weak hit or a miss on an action roll. This move calls for you to 'envision how your character loses track of time'.
Now, one of the coolest things about solo role-playing is that you can be as detailed or as brief as you want, you are ultimately the boss and as long as you're having fun then you're doing it right. That being said, I've seen two kinds of approaches to dealing with Time Passes, some players like a macro approach while others prefer a micro one.
The macro approach: if you think something dramatic should cause you to lose track of time or prefer lots of drama in your stories, when you lose track of time either (a) envision something bad/dramatic to get in the way or (b) roll on an oracle to get inspiration; preferably action+theme. This approach is very involved and considerably slows down game-play, but players who love twists at every turn swear by it.
The micro approach: treat losing track of time as a transition between scenes in a movie, the camera fades to black... and then it's hours later in the narrative. Players who like the micro approach don't worry a lot about the little things that happened in between. They only 'zoom in' on moments like these when they think they are important. Otherwise they just accept they lost track of time and move on to the next story beat or action.
As you can see, there's a lot of flexibility here! Personally I use them both. I like to really think about the consequences of a big roll, but when it comes to small things I skip right past 'em. In here lies the power of solo role-playing: you have the freedom to decide how much detail you want.
I hope this comment helps! Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have more questions~
PS: Remember that if you are ever at a loss, there are a lot of oracle tables at the end of the book filled with ideas just a dice-roll away~
I was frustrated with the progress / vow system in Ironsworn, but it looks IDEAL for this game. This might actually be a better use of that mechanic than the original! Excited to dig deeper into this. Smart idea!
Hi there! I just did another play through video of Iron Valley, this time I try using it to play Stardew Valley and complete the bundles to fix the community center. It was a fun time and I made some good progress. Feel free to check it out here:
I've been loving this game and don't feel like it needs anything else, but there's some notes on your site and in the book about how you have more planned for the game and I'm curious if that's still the case. (Absolutely no pressure, though! If you never put out another update, it will still continue to bring me joy and delight.)
There's definitely updates in the future! Romance and marriage can still be expanded on and there is lots of room to add a "museum" system and I really wanna explore that. Aside from those, there's also a couple typos and I really want to make the book (a) more clear and (b) have play examples!
That being said, I'm working on quite a few things so I can't make a promise as to when this will come out, I recommend following me / my stream to stay up to date on what I'm working on! My current project (coming out this month) is an Ironsworn hack in the style of Monster Hunter ♥
The game looks so awesome but Is there a condensed version anywhere? I'd love to print it out but the font and format seems really big and spread out and would cost a bit to print with it being so many pages.
Hi there! Unfortunately at this moment there is no version of the book like that. You could print 2 book pages per real page, since the book was formatted for 6x9, though I'm not sure if this would work. I'm very touched that you would want to print my game.
That being said, if you wanted to print the book for reference while playing, I honestly don't think you need to do that! Once you get a handle on the rules the game pretty much plays itself. The only things I would strongly recommend printing is the move reference sheet and the oracles, since these are the two things you are guaranteed to need on a play-by-play basis! Hope that helps 👍
I'm not affiliated at all with Iron Valley, but I just want to second what the author said: almost all the references you need are on the printable reference sheets and fillable forms. I have the "game creation" worksheet and three* move sheets printed out single-sided because I don't like flipping pages, but you can easily condense those down to two pieces of paper by printing double-sided. Those plus the calendar (which I have as one double-sided sheet, because I only need to see one season at a time) cover pretty much everything!
Since my first session, I've only brought up the book while playing if I want to use one of the many roll tables (which you can use one of the handy oracle sites for instead) or I need to check details on one of the festival days.
*Edit: I just remembered, I think I might have condensed the move sheets into fewer pages by putting more of the tables on each page? So if you do it as-is, it's probably more than 3, but you can easily combine them to fewer printings.
Do you have any suggestions on how to narrate the very beginning of the story? I always have difficulty with this, and its not detailed much in the rules. Thanks in advance if you do <3.
(A) The Long Way Envision your character leaving the place they were in and the steps they take to get to the Valley. You don't have to do role-play or even big scenes, just go step by step the same way that I person would recall a trip. This is not my favorite way to do it, but it helps some players to have the chronological series of events. That leads to them ending up in the Valley.
(B) The Short Way Or you could also just... start right at the Valley. As a fiction author, I'm a big fan of just skipping to the fun part. Most of my actual-play sessions of Iron Valley have started with my character literally getting off a Taxi/Bus and finding themselves in the town. Anything that happened before that we need to come up with can usually be communicated in the form of brief flashbacks.
Bonus tip(s)! Remember that as part of character creation you have a series of truths that define why your character is in the Valley and where they are staying! These starting promises are a great way to direct your first days of play since your character is getting their bearings around town. Also, remember that this game is about the journey, the act of discovery, and seeing what happens--and as long as you are having fun then you are playing it right.
so far this game has been very fun. i moved into town, did some farming and fishing. opened up a fortune telling shop and traded a week's worth of tarot readings for a cow. am i doing it right? it feels right. thanks for the cool hack!
Where is the site to get fillable character sheets? I have scoured to try and find it but can't. Also, as a blind gamer, from a first glance at the main book, thank you for properly tagging this. I have just gotten this thanks to someone mentioning it on the Solo RPG reddit post about Solitaria and wanted to check it out because I'm a sucker for Animal Crossing esque games. Thanks for this. I'll report back if I run into any issues and my screen reader, hee.
Hi! I love the idea of this game so much. But I did think your animal ancestry table was a little overwhelming, so I made one based on canon Animal Crossing characters, according to this site (https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Species). All regular villagers are listed twice, and all special characters are listed once. That left one spot open, so it can be a robotic version of another animal or a human, since canon AC has only the PC as a human. Thank you for making such an amazing game! I can’t wait until I have appropriate time to play it!
A very well-designed and well-written game to play some Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon with all the advantages of TTRPG (freedom !). Can't wait to test that !
This game is so good, I love it so much that I have downloaded it on three different devices! You really can play this anyway you want or even with friends
I personally suggest this as a solo ttrpg on GoodNotes :)
Iron Valley is so cute, so colorful, so trans rights, so anti-capitalist. It's truly the chill, relaxing, full of love game we all need sometimes. It's super duper that it's name your own price, accessibility rules! That said, I did pay real money for this, and I use the oracles all the time for everything and every game.
Thank you so much for this lovely message!! These are all the things I wanted Iron Valley to be and I'm happy other people see that as well. Thank you for supporting my little game 🙇♀️💚
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Hi there! I love this project and the possibilities and the setting and the vibes, great work!
I need advice tho, I am very bad at playing solo, I immediatelly got stumped at the first "Time Passes" roll... so... any help in how to define what happens?
I really want to play solo but this is the the point that always stop me, being unable to define what happens next
Any help is appreciated, and again, this is a great game, great setting, I will be looking closely for any update on this project
Hi there! Thank you for the lovely comment~ 😊
Solo role-playing can be hard, so don't feel bad! I would be delighted to help you. 🌷🌼🌻
Now, one of the coolest things about solo role-playing is that you can be as detailed or as brief as you want, you are ultimately the boss and as long as you're having fun then you're doing it right. That being said, I've seen two kinds of approaches to dealing with Time Passes, some players like a macro approach while others prefer a micro one.
As you can see, there's a lot of flexibility here! Personally I use them both. I like to really think about the consequences of a big roll, but when it comes to small things I skip right past 'em. In here lies the power of solo role-playing: you have the freedom to decide how much detail you want.
I hope this comment helps! Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have more questions~
PS: Remember that if you are ever at a loss, there are a lot of oracle tables at the end of the book filled with ideas just a dice-roll away~
I am kind of a grimdark person, but this gets me interested somehow. Let’s see.
I was frustrated with the progress / vow system in Ironsworn, but it looks IDEAL for this game. This might actually be a better use of that mechanic than the original! Excited to dig deeper into this. Smart idea!
Thank you!! I hope you have fun with my game! Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions 😊
Hi there! I just did another play through video of Iron Valley, this time I try using it to play Stardew Valley and complete the bundles to fix the community center. It was a fun time and I made some good progress. Feel free to check it out here:
Thank you for sharing! 💚
This game has been a blessing for me as someone wanting more slice-of-life RPGs . I love it so much! It helps a lot with writing inspiration, too. 💛
I absolutely adore this game, it's stardew valley combined with ttrpg!
Also the fact that this is still being updated makes it into my favorite ttrpg. Also one of the first games that got me into solo ttrpgs!
Thank you so much for leaving these lovely comments! 😌💖
I love this game ♡
Glad to hear that! 💖💖💖
I've been loving this game and don't feel like it needs anything else, but there's some notes on your site and in the book about how you have more planned for the game and I'm curious if that's still the case. (Absolutely no pressure, though! If you never put out another update, it will still continue to bring me joy and delight.)
There's definitely updates in the future! Romance and marriage can still be expanded on and there is lots of room to add a "museum" system and I really wanna explore that. Aside from those, there's also a couple typos and I really want to make the book (a) more clear and (b) have play examples!
That being said, I'm working on quite a few things so I can't make a promise as to when this will come out, I recommend following me / my stream to stay up to date on what I'm working on! My current project (coming out this month) is an Ironsworn hack in the style of Monster Hunter ♥
Thank you for leaving such a lovely comment~!
Oh that's very exciting! I'll go check out your channel as well. Thank you for the reply! :D
The game looks so awesome but Is there a condensed version anywhere? I'd love to print it out but the font and format seems really big and spread out and would cost a bit to print with it being so many pages.
Hi there! Unfortunately at this moment there is no version of the book like that. You could print 2 book pages per real page, since the book was formatted for 6x9, though I'm not sure if this would work. I'm very touched that you would want to print my game.
That being said, if you wanted to print the book for reference while playing, I honestly don't think you need to do that! Once you get a handle on the rules the game pretty much plays itself. The only things I would strongly recommend printing is the move reference sheet and the oracles, since these are the two things you are guaranteed to need on a play-by-play basis! Hope that helps 👍
I'm not affiliated at all with Iron Valley, but I just want to second what the author said: almost all the references you need are on the printable reference sheets and fillable forms. I have the "game creation" worksheet and three* move sheets printed out single-sided because I don't like flipping pages, but you can easily condense those down to two pieces of paper by printing double-sided. Those plus the calendar (which I have as one double-sided sheet, because I only need to see one season at a time) cover pretty much everything!
Since my first session, I've only brought up the book while playing if I want to use one of the many roll tables (which you can use one of the handy oracle sites for instead) or I need to check details on one of the festival days.
*Edit: I just remembered, I think I might have condensed the move sheets into fewer pages by putting more of the tables on each page? So if you do it as-is, it's probably more than 3, but you can easily combine them to fewer printings.
Do you have any suggestions on how to narrate the very beginning of the story? I always have difficulty with this, and its not detailed much in the rules. Thanks in advance if you do <3.
There's two ways I like to go about it:
(A) The Long Way
Envision your character leaving the place they were in and the steps they take to get to the Valley. You don't have to do role-play or even big scenes, just go step by step the same way that I person would recall a trip. This is not my favorite way to do it, but it helps some players to have the chronological series of events. That leads to them ending up in the Valley.
(B) The Short Way
Or you could also just... start right at the Valley. As a fiction author, I'm a big fan of just skipping to the fun part. Most of my actual-play sessions of Iron Valley have started with my character literally getting off a Taxi/Bus and finding themselves in the town. Anything that happened before that we need to come up with can usually be communicated in the form of brief flashbacks.
Bonus tip(s)!
Remember that as part of character creation you have a series of truths that define why your character is in the Valley and where they are staying! These starting promises are a great way to direct your first days of play since your character is getting their bearings around town. Also, remember that this game is about the journey, the act of discovery, and seeing what happens--and as long as you are having fun then you are playing it right.
Hope this helps 💚
Thank you :D
I hope you have a nice day.
How long did it take you to make this? I'm asking to get a general idea of how long it might take me to make a TTRPG.
Version 1 was made in about a month as part of a game jam. The updates since have taken anywhere from a couple weeks to a month!
so far this game has been very fun. i moved into town, did some farming and fishing. opened up a fortune telling shop and traded a week's worth of tarot readings for a cow. am i doing it right? it feels right. thanks for the cool hack!
You're doing it right, specially because you're having fun 💚
I just want to say thank you for this awesome game!
Thank you for giving it a try!! 😊
Where is the site to get fillable character sheets? I have scoured to try and find it but can't. Also, as a blind gamer, from a first glance at the main book, thank you for properly tagging this. I have just gotten this thanks to someone mentioning it on the Solo RPG reddit post about Solitaria and wanted to check it out because I'm a sucker for Animal Crossing esque games. Thanks for this. I'll report back if I run into any issues and my screen reader, hee.
The fillable character sheets (made by a lovely community member) can be found on by clicking this link. Please let me know if you have any questions!
Hi! I love the idea of this game so much. But I did think your animal ancestry table was a little overwhelming, so I made one based on canon Animal Crossing characters, according to this site (https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Species). All regular villagers are listed twice, and all special characters are listed once. That left one spot open, so it can be a robotic version of another animal or a human, since canon AC has only the PC as a human. Thank you for making such an amazing game! I can’t wait until I have appropriate time to play it!
I hope you have fun with the game! Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions, also loving this custom table~ 👍💚
A very well-designed and well-written game to play some Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon with all the advantages of TTRPG (freedom !). Can't wait to test that !
This game is so good, I love it so much that I have downloaded it on three different devices!
You really can play this anyway you want or even with friends
I personally suggest this as a solo ttrpg on GoodNotes :)
Iron Valley is so cute, so colorful, so trans rights, so anti-capitalist. It's truly the chill, relaxing, full of love game we all need sometimes. It's super duper that it's name your own price, accessibility rules! That said, I did pay real money for this, and I use the oracles all the time for everything and every game.
Thank you so much for this lovely message!! These are all the things I wanted Iron Valley to be and I'm happy other people see that as well. Thank you for supporting my little game 🙇♀️💚
Just bought a copy, this is so wonderful and I cant wait to see what else you do with this! It seems like the perfect thing to play with my friends!
Thank you for your lovely comment! I hope you and your friends have fun in the Valley 💚💙