Mythic Game Master Emulator ~How do I play TTRPG by solo?~

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“There’s a TRPG system I really want to play, but nobody’s recruiting for it… Sad.”

“I really want to play this scenario, but our schedules never line up… Maybe I should just play it alone?”

For everyone out there who wants to enjoy TRPGs solo, today I’m taking a look at the Mythic Game Master Emulator.

So, What Is the Mythic Game Master Emulator?

Created by Tana Pigeon, the Mythic Game Master Emulator is a universal tool designed to work alongside an existing TRPG system, allowing you to play it solo or without a GM.

Mythic Game Master Emulator Second Edition

It makes solo TRPG play possible by letting you ask questions called Fate Questions to randomly decide what is true in the game world.

It also includes random tables called Meaning Tables, which you can use to improvise events, twists, and new developments.

Mythic is especially good for the kind of play where you start a campaign with absolutely no scenario preparation and just make everything up as you go.

Once you have created a character using whatever system you want to play, you can simply follow Mythic’s procedures and keep playing solo for as long as you like.

You do not see many examples of Mythic being used in Japan, but in overseas solo TRPG communities, it is one of the absolute classics.

Because of that, you will often find people using it with major systems like Dungeons & Dragons 5e, Pathfinder RPG, and Call of Cthulhu.

Among slightly more niche systems, Savage Worlds is especially famous for having a number of very enthusiastic players who swear that it works amazingly well with Mythic.

The first edition came out nearly twenty years ago, and veteran solo players are still discussing different ways to use it, sharing advice, and posting their own hacks on Reddit to this day.

It is sold as a PDF, so even if you are not confident in your English, you can run it through a translation app and still use it without too much trouble.

Fate Questions

What Is a Fate Question?

Fate Questions are the heart of Mythic.

“Is the door locked?”

“Can I see any zombies when I look down from the window?”

“Has another adventuring party already looted the treasure chest?”

For questions like these, you first decide how likely the answer seems based on your own impression of the situation.

Something like:

“Could go either way.”

“Yeah, that seems pretty likely.”

“There’s almost no chance of that.”

You then apply the appropriate modifier, roll the dice, and let the result decide what is actually true.

For example:

Fate Question: “Is the door locked?”

Modifier: It seems “Likely,” so add +1 to the result.

Dice roll: 2d10 → 12

After adding the modifier, the total becomes 13.

So the answer is:

“Yes. The door is locked.”

Fate Questions do not only give you a simple Yes or No.

You can also get results like Exceptional Yes or Exceptional No, which give you a much more extreme version of the answer.

How Do You Interpret the Answers?

Let’s say you ask:

“Does the swordsman attack me?”

You might interpret the results like this:

Exceptional No: The swordsman trips, loses his balance, and falls off the cliff.

No: The swordsman hesitates and does not attack.

Yes: The swordsman attacks.

Exceptional Yes: The swordsman’s allies were hiding behind him, and they all jump you at once.

The important part is that you interpret the result based on the situation and the context of the scene.

You Do Not Have to Ask About Everything

By asking Fate Questions whenever you genuinely do not know what will happen, you can generate the world and the story in a semi-automatic way.

“But does that mean every scene has to turn into something completely unexpected? I still want events to follow naturally sometimes.”

No worries.

By default, Mythic recommends treating scenes as Expected Scenes, meaning that they begin more or less the way you expect them to.

Fate Questions are mainly there for moments when:

You honestly do not know what happens next.

Moving the Story Forward With Scene Generation

Mythic also includes procedures for generating Altered Scenes, where the scene you expected still happens but something about it has changed, and Interrupted Scenes, where a completely unexpected event barges in and takes over.

That makes it easy to create developments like:

“You are about to open the door when an NPC you left behind in town calls you and begs for help.”

“A zombie suddenly collapses, and a special forces team in protective suits arrives to collect it as a specimen.”

The two important tools here are the Event Focus and the Meaning Tables.

The Event Focus, which is also determined randomly, tells you the general direction of the event.

For example:

“Something bad happens to an NPC.”

You then roll on the Meaning Tables and get words such as “life” and “illness.”

From that, you might interpret the event as:

“An NPC’s chronic illness suddenly gets worse.”

By taking these loose prompts and interpreting them in context, you can keep pushing the story forward.

Threads and Characters Help Build a Campaign Automatically

Mythic uses Threads Lists and Characters Lists to help a campaign develop a sense of continuity.

They work like this:

Threads List: A list of the player characters’ current goals and objectives

Characters List: A list of important NPCs, organizations, locations, objects, and other relevant elements

As you play, you add important information to these lists.

Later, something from one of the lists might be randomly selected as the focus of an Altered Scene or Interrupted Scene.

That can lead to developments like:

“That character from earlier was secretly the mastermind all along.”

“The dungeon from the previous session turns out to have an unexpected connection to the NPC you just met.”

In other words, things that happened in the past naturally come back into the story later.

This helps the campaign maintain a sense of theme and continuity while still constantly producing new twists and directions.

You are free to decide what should and should not go on the Threads and Characters Lists.

You can even add the same entry more than once to increase the chance that it will be selected.

So if there is a character or plot thread you really want to bring back, you can make it more likely to appear while still leaving the exact form of that reappearance up to chance.

Giving the Story Rhythm With the Chaos Factor

One of Mythic’s most distinctive mechanics is the Chaos Factor.

It is basically a number showing how chaotic and out of control the current situation has become.

The Chaos Factor goes up when the player fails, runs away from enemies, or generally loses control of the situation.

It goes down when the player keeps things under control and makes steady, safe progress.

The current Chaos Factor affects things like the chances of rolling an Exceptional Yes or Exceptional No, as well as the chance of an Interrupted Scene occurring.

Because of that, the probabilities that control the game keep changing in response to what is happening during play.

The more chaotic the situation becomes, the more likely the game is to throw new problems and unexpected developments at you.

This allows the story to branch out in all kinds of different directions.

The Huge Reddit Community Makes It Easy to Ask for Help

The first edition came out nearly twenty years ago, and Mythic has more or less established itself as the de facto standard for this kind of solo play.

On Reddit, you can regularly find beginners asking experienced players how to use the system, people sharing their own techniques and house rules, and others simply chatting about their campaigns.

What are everyone’s favourite RPGs to use with Mythic? — r/mythic_gme

For example, the thread above asks:

“What are your favorite RPGs to use with Mythic?”

As of July 16, 2026, it has 37 comments.

People in the community mention systems such as Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder 2e, and GURPS as their favorite games to combine with Mythic.

You Can Use It With Published Adventures Too

Mythic is not only for completely improvised campaigns with zero preparation.

It also includes rules and tips for making small changes to existing published adventures.

This directly tackles one of the biggest problems with playing a published scenario solo:

“I’m both the player and the GM, so I already know everything that is going to happen.”

With Mythic, you can introduce just enough uncertainty and change to play through a favorite scenario while still getting something close to that first-time feeling.

The system is surprisingly flexible.

You could even use it for something like:

“I want to recreate Episode X of my favorite anime as a campaign, but let Mythic add twists and change how the story plays out.”

A Few Things to Know Before Buying

You can buy the Mythic Game Master Emulator online through DriveThruRPG, one of the biggest online TRPG marketplaces.

Mythic Game Master Emulator Second Edition – Word Mill Games | Mythic | DriveThruRPG

The option at the top is the PDF edition.

The other options may be physical books or bundles that include both the physical book and the PDF, so make sure you choose the version you actually want.

Depending on how comfortable you are with English, the PDF version is probably the easiest option.

You can drop it into a translation app and get a reasonably readable translation almost immediately.

What a time to be alive.

Final Thoughts

And that is my introduction to the Mythic Game Master Emulator.

I would be really happy if this article helped bring a few more people into solo TRPGs in Japan,or gave someone the confidence to openly say that solo TRPGs are one of their hobbies.

I have also written other articles introducing systems made specifically for solo TRPG play, so feel free to check those out too.

Until next time, enjou your gaming life!

Thanks so much for reading all the way to the end!

View Mythic Game Master Emulator Second Edition on DriveThruRPG