Koriko magically made me excited for a solo journaling RPG

I have a confession: journaling RPGs intimidate me. This might be a baffling revelation from someone who both writes for a living and, once upon a time, professionally advocated for solo roleplay as a legitimate and rich subsection of the tabletop hobby. And yet, there it is: sitting down to play a game, only to be asked to write words on a page? For fun? Nothing could kill my anticipation quicker.

It’s not the act of journaling that repels me (though a day job sitting in front of drafts all day doesn’t help) but the often unstructured nature of games that rely on written entries as the chief mode of mechanical engagement. Solo RPGs tend to focus their efforts explaining all of the systems that orbit the blank page before prompting the player to ‘jot down an entry’ or ‘record your memories of the day in a document’ before moving on to more dice rolls, tarot card pulls, etc. 

These games can feel a bit like a draw the rest of the fucking owl situation where I’m sure there’s some avenue that connects the ideas swirling in my head with a well-considered procession of paragraphs, but I’ll be damned if I know how to get there. Blank pages intimidate me, and beginning a written task normally requires any kind of structure before my ADHD-befuddled brain can latch together coherent thought. There is nothing wrong with a solo RPG leaving much of the writing process up to players’ discretion, but I’d rather someone hand me a paddle once I’m sat in the canoe.