Gentleman Bandit | Western Cantos I 💡✨
A solo roleplaying game exploring violence, woe, and dissociation, set in the American Old West.
Title: Gentleman Bandit | Western Cantos I
Creator: Allison Arth
Publication date: April 2019
Price: $7
System/Genre: Original, Poetry, Western
This solo TTRPG (with a multiplayer option) requires a deck of cards and an optional d6. You play as an elegant criminal, a well-spoken thief and sometimes killer who marks the site of your deadly felonies with thirteen lines of poetry. The game gives you prompts; you write a poem.
You write one line per card you draw. The suit indicates the theme (loss, love, freedom, or fear), and the card number gives you a question like "What is missing" or "Where are you going?" You have the option of an additional challenge mode, which might require rhyming, or a limited number of syllables, or using words from a specific vocabulary list, among other options, but these are not required.
The temptation is to pick a rule anyway, to write a poem in iambic pentameter or with acrostic first letters or some other restriction. The biggest problem with that approach, is that you might give up on the game because of it — stop playing because you can't find the "right" line for a prompt. Playing to finish is better than following the rules (even the ones in your head): get your 13 lines done, and then read your poem to find out what kind of history and world you've built for your aristocratic rogue.
In 2020, this was just Gentleman Bandit. "Western Cantos I" was added later, and there are now three other "Western Cantos" games to explore.