One reason solo TTRPGs are great is that they can cover the entire spectrum of moods and genres, from intense action games to quiet and emotional experiences. Lady Death falls into the latter category as the TTRPG is a muted but delightful exploration of life and death that is sure to move even the most stone-hearted players and linger with you long after you finish the game.
Lady Death casts the player as a soul who, after an eventful conversation with the Grim Reaper, has woken up in their grave. Thankfully, for this soul, death is not the end, as every so often, the ghosts in this small town graveyard can exit their tombs and socialize with the others who are also entombed there, something that allows them to make connections and make sense of their often confusing pasts.
Setting Up The Graveyard
The game uses a standard deck of playing cards. Before the game starts, the player must remove all the face cards and jokers from the deck and form them into a second deck (called the Visitor deck).
After this, the player must make the Graveyard deck. To do this, the player splits the remaining cards into three decks. One of these decks contains all of the Hearts, one has all of the Spades, and the final deck contains the Clubs and Diamonds. Once the player has shuffled all three decks, they stack them together with the Spades at the bottom, the Clubs and Diamonds in the middle, and the Hearts at the top.
Once this is done, the player builds the cemetery in which the game takes place. The player draws nine cards from the top of the deck and arranges them face down in a three-by-three grid.
After this, the player chooses one of the cards in the grid and turns it over, representing the grave they found themselves in upon awakening as a spirit.
Lady Death fascinatingly handles character creation. Rather than devising the character’s personality and backstory before the game starts, the player crafts it during play, learning about their character as they interact with other spirits. Thus, while the game does have a stat system (with the stats Nostalgia, Anger, Relief, and Revenge), these stats are fluid, being used to track the character’s emotional state as the game progresses rather than being solid numbers that represent their skills or abilities.
Once the graveyard is made and the character is prepared, the core part of the game begins. Lady Death takes place over six turns, as well as a final epilogue. Each turn starts with the player adding another row or column of cards to the graveyard, representing its expansion as time passes.
After this, the player draws a card from the Visitor deck. The player then consults the Visitor table and answers a series of multiple-choice questions to determine who the visitor was and why they came to the graveyard.
This is followed by the Dance Macabre, an event where the spirits rise from their grave to socialize. During this time, the player will get the chance to converse with three spirits who share the graveyard with them. To do this, the player chooses any face-down card from the grid and turns it over. The player then multiplies the card’s value by ten to find the spirit’s general age. After this, compare the card’s value and suit to the included tables to discover a fact about the spirit. Each prompt also has a question for the player to answer about their spirit and their life, both in and out of the graveyard.
Once this is done, the player says goodbye to the spirit and then adds or subtracts a point from the stat they believe to be most fitting. Then, they conclude their encounter by writing a simple epitaph for the spirit they socialized with.
After chatting with three spirits, the player draws a final card that gives them a few more questions to answer about their feelings in the moment and the things they’ve learned about themselves. After this, the process starts again.
Once the player has completed six turns, the game’s epilogue begins. The player checks their stats, as these will determine which ending happens. The highest stat determines the player character’s overall fate, while the second and third highest stats give the player a question to answer about their experience.
Having The Time Of Your Death
It’s hard to understate how moving Lady Death is. The game does a fantastic job of guiding the player into a headspace where they were they are encouraged to tackle big topics without it ever feeling forced. This helps make the game’s emotional moments more intense, as they seem earned (due to them occurring naturally) and because the player can work their own fears and anxieties into the story.
I’m also a big fan of how the game handles its mechanics, as it’s packed with neat small touches that help enhance the overall experience. Having the player lay out a grid of cards to represent the graveyard is a fantastic example of this because it helps ground the player and makes the graveyard feel like a real place. On top of this, knowing the graves’ locations relative to each other makes each spirit encounter feel interconnected, making the game feel like an actual journey rather than a series of vaguely connected vignettes.
On top of this, watching the grid grow as the game progresses really helps convey the passage of time in a way that is both effective and quietly moving, further boosting the impact of the game’s emotional moments.
The decision to have the player stack the deck at the start of the game is inspired and something I’m surprised I don’t see more frequently in solo games. By having the suites organized in a specific order, the game has a firm structure and a nice sense of progression as the scenes continue. However, as the suites are shuffled as usual, the game still has a great deal of randomness, meaning it has the replay value many people want from a solo TTRPG.
It should be noted that the game is currently in an alpha state (in both English and Italian), so there are a few rough edges. The main issue is that the English version of the game lacks consistency, with some mechanics being referred to by multiple different names, which can lead to confusion during the first read-through. However, this isn’t a massive problem as it can easily be rectified in future versions.
I would also like to see the game add a flow chart or cheat sheet in a future update. While the game’s flow is decently intuitive once you’ve played a few rounds, having to skim through the book to check a rule can often draw the player out of the experience, especially during emotional moments, so having something the player can quickly glance at would help more forgetful players maintain the atmosphere.
Lady Death is one of those games where, the second I finish it, I wonder where it’s been all my life. The game does a fantastic job of setting up an atmosphere and guiding players into it in a way that is firm enough to keep the player engaged while still being open enough to allow the player to bring their own thoughts and emotions into the experience. The game’s numerous mechanical flourishes only intensify this, giving the game a unique sense of connection and place that many solo games lack. Because of this, I would recommend this game to both solo TTRPG fans and newcomers looking to dip their toes into the world of single-player games, if only so you can say you got in at the ground floor when the full version of this game inevitably wins numerous awards in the coming years.
