Alea Optima is a minimalist solo narrative tabletop RPG: you will narrate the adventures of a brave adventurer by yourself using dice, tables, character sheets, and maps to get inspiration for places, events, challenges, and encounters with people and creatures.

It uses randomly generated Region Booklets in a roguelike fashion to suggest what you may find in your wanderings, mixing stuff from a larger database of terms, events, and interactions. This way, you may find exotic places, have weird encounters, and discover mysterious secrets in your mind.

Requirements

To play, you need the following:

• A printer, some A4 sheets, and a pair of scissors: this game uses foldable booklets both for the game manual and the Region Booklets. These booklets are small enough to be easily carried around and play as you've some spare time.
• A pencil and an eraser: you will keep track of your character's stats and draw a map of the World regions as you explore them.
• A small token: you will keep track of your character's position on the map using a small token. You can use anything small enough, such as a button, a coin, or a small cube.
• 3 light dice and 3 dark dice: you will use 6 dice, 3 lighter and 3 darker, to get inspiration for your story and check the outcome of your character's actions.

Your First Game

Go to the Alea Optima game page, start the game, and tell the game you are a New Born. Then, input a world name and hit Let me be Born here. The world name can be any word but remember that worlds with the same name will have the same regions. Wait for the world to be generated and confirm that you're ready to be Born to download a PDF file.

The PDF file will contain 3 sheets:

1. The game manual: it explains the game rules and you need to print it just once. Cut this sheet along the page borders and fold it into a little booklet. It is a quite common papercraft, you can find a video tutorial here. It also contains a character sheet on its last page: you will use it to keep track of your character stats, friends, and foes.
2. The Region Booklet: it describes one of the 9 world regions and it's your brand new birthplace! Cut it and fold it as the game manual - you will check this booklet quite often when adventuring in this world region.
3. An empty map: you will draw and note down this hexagonal grid to keep track of the places and the people you'll meet in your wanderings, slowly becoming a detailed map of a region. You can blank this sheet every time you start a new game: you will use the same template for every region.

The game manual booklet will explain the game rules and what you need to Start a New Game. Good luck and have fun!

Pamphlet format

Do you prefer a more vertical and easier-to-assemble format for the game manual and the Region Booklets? In the Alea Optima settings, select the Pamphlet print mode. Instead of the standard booklets, it will generate simpler 4-fold pamphlets. You can also use the Pamphlet format to play the game digitally, as there is no rotated text.

Sample playthrough

Do you prefer to watch someone else play first? Here you can read step-by-step how the adventure of Pip, a mischievous boy who wants to become a hero, begins!

Extra resources

• Empty map sheet: An empty map is added to every generated PDF but you may need a stand-alone copy. It's here
• Game manual: An updated version of the manual is added to every New Born PDF but you may need a stand-alone copy. It's here.
• Character sheets booklet: It's a booklet containing 7 empty character sheets for carrying around multiple characters or playing multiple sessions. It's here.

Credits

Hello there! I'm KesieV and I love spending some of my lunch breaks and weekends designing and making games and weird experiments I want to play and I'm used to releasing them for free and open source so people with my same needs or tastes may play them or get inspired by them. Alea Optima is no exception. If you feel to share your feedback, thoughts, or ideas you can find me on Discord.

Thanks to these people for keeping my cogs running:

• Bianca
• Preuk
• Stefano "The Kusagari" Fioretto