u/Aspiring_Serf

I am exploring the idea of using Solo RPG mechanics as a practical way to explore my setting from a ground-level perspective. The goal is to use game loops to experience the world dynamically rather than just writing passive encyclopedia entries.

I am heavily considering using the Ironsworn SRD to play through a narrative arc to see how the factions, geography, and lore hold up under real mechanical pressure.

I have a few questions for the community:

• Have you tried this? If you have used a solo game to build your world, did it actually help you flesh out the finer details?
• Ruleset Recommendations: Aside from Ironsworn, what other CC0, system-neutral, or open-license rulesets are excellent for creating a 'lived-in' feel?
• The Tradeoffs: Does playing a game inside your own world expand the lore naturally, or does it restrict your creative freedom too much?

I would love to hear your experiences, workflows, or any open-source tools you use to bridge the gap between worldbuilding and solo play!

I am exploring the idea of using Solo RPG mechanics as a practical way to explore my setting from a ground-level perspective. The goal is to use game loops to experience the world dynamically rather than just writing passive encyclopedia entries.

I am heavily considering using the Ironsworn SRD to play through a narrative arc to see how the factions, geography, and lore hold up under real mechanical pressure.

I have a few questions for the community:

• Have you tried this? If you have used a solo game to build your world, did it actually help you flesh out the finer details?
• Ruleset Recommendations: Aside from Ironsworn, what other CC0, system-neutral, or open-license rulesets are excellent for creating a 'lived-in' feel?
• The Tradeoffs: Does playing a game inside your own world expand the lore naturally, or does it restrict your creative freedom too much?

I would love to hear your experiences, workflows, or any open-source tools you use to bridge the gap between worldbuilding and solo play!

I use LLMs to bounce ideas around when developing lore, but managing copy-pasting between separate chat interfaces and text files is tedious. I am a solo developer building ELI, a desktop-first worldbuilding application for Windows and Linux that attempts to fix this workflow loop.

ELI is built on a local SQLite database model. The tradeoff of this architecture is that it does not support real-time web collaboration with other users, and if you want to sync data across your own devices, you must host the synchronization server backend yourself using an open-source tool like PocketBase. The benefit is complete data privacy; your notes live on your local hard drive.

Here is how the system handles data extraction and structure:

• PDF Document Extraction: The application uses a local PDFium wrapper to read text from uploaded reference documents, like system manuals or adventure books. It executes a multi-pass text scan to build structured database entries for Cultures, Settlements, and States. It scales coordinates from a map image to place interactive pins, and it uses a word co-occurrence scanner to build typed, reciprocal relationships between those entries.
• Schema-Validated Generation: When generating character or location profiles, the system parses the output into specific template fields, such as a State's military infrastructure or a settlement's specific population counts. These fields are validated against the local database schema before writing.
• Plain Text Privacy: The text editor relies entirely on BBCode plain text rather than a rich-text WYSIWYG system. This technical tradeoff ensures that custom [secret] text tags can be parsed flawlessly without fighting a complex document object model layout. If you choose to configure a cloud API key instead of running local models via Ollama, the application strips out all content within these secret tags before network transmission.
• Relationship Graph: Visualizes database connections between world entities dynamically using a native node canvas control.

https://special-cog.itch.io/eli

https://i.redd.it/cj4l6s2inm9h1.gif

https://i.redd.it/oagw6ukinm9h1.gif

https://i.redd.it/c3zgrs5jnm9h1.gif

https://i.redd.it/dibgjtcjnm9h1.gif

https://i.redd.it/hhukmzyjnm9h1.gif

https://i.redd.it/w0ka4ztknm9h1.gif

https://i.redd.it/9awq3spmnm9h1.gif

I have a lot of moving parts and as a solo dev would love to get some feedback. The tool obviously isn't finished, but I do think it is at the point where feedback would be vital. I have a few things I would like tested even if you don't do those activities, such as just general user ability, if auto-translation is at all helpful, if my tutorial is easy to follow, etc.