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I have started playing but with the following tweaks and/or assumptions. Would be good to hear from others how they interpret and play with the rules as written though, but no reason for me to hold up on exploring this world!

1. I've got my dream and big why basically the same at the moment as what she's dreaming for is the very reason she's in Solitaria!

2. I've forced the weakness to be at -1, and the three positive traits get the +0, +1, +2 options

3. I've made it a rule to ALWAYS include the negative modifier (weakness) if it shows up, that way the weakness makes it more difficult to pass the fate step successfully

4. After reading the book some more and seeing that we automatically return home if we reach 0 energy, I've concluded that the intention is we return home at the end of every day, so I shall do that!

5. I'm going to have the Rize sprite NOT use any time up from the day. It feels strange to me to have what seems to be an action you're supposed to always do every day use up a TSS already. Therefore your 3TS clock is already reduced to 2TS 1TSS before you've had a chance to choose how they're spent

And have had a fun time journaling the invitation and arrival of my little dwarf into Solitaria and looking forward to exploring my home island. Would definitely enjoy hearing other people's experiences with the rules though, any tweaks or interpretations they made with them and such is always useful as there's a lack of actual plays and information about this (in my opinion) little gem!
I did notice some discrepancies and typos in the book but due to the theming being so strong and the mechanics being interesting with this one, I can just work around them :D

I just thought of a couple more as well that I had which I forgot about! 

1. The book says you start off with no abilities and will get them from doing the divine ceremony after completing all the goals for one of the why's. But then in the player character templates it says to pick 1 of the provided 3. So we start off with 1 ability but as I'm not using a template and making my own background, I'm curious as to if there's any guidelines to making a custom starter ability to balance it right so it's not too powerful? I ended up with a passive ability to spot hidden passages ways and secret trapdoors and the like. I figured it can be passive and not use any power points because it didn't do anything mechanical. But curious how powerful these starter abilities can actually be or how to put a power cost on them based on what they do.

2. I'm not sure about the "can always do"actions because it says we can do those at any time without using time, but they're all narrative things and from what I can understand, anything that's not an action and is just narrative would be free anyway, like saying things to people and complimenting, etc. But having the list of "can always do" makes it seem like they can only do those things for free but nothing else. 

Thanks again!

Hey there!

I'm interested in getting into solo journaling and found this cosy RPG system which I've picked up, it seems like just the ticket! I've made a female dwarf who came from a mountain colony and grew up basically in a society that revolves around mining, singing, drinking, etc. She's getting a bit disillusioned with having nothing but mining and that's when she gets her invitation (I've yet to journal that). They don't necessarily know why their society is mining, what they're hoping to find. Some think it's a utopia, promised land, others think untold riches, etc.

I was thinking then that my dream would be to find out someday what it is that they are mining for and eventually go back to my family, but for now she's ready for some change being out of the mountains.

I have a few questions though as I'm reading through the book, and if possible would like some input!

1. How is "The big why" and my character's Dream different? I have them both the same at the moment as my character's dream is to find out the truth of her dwarven society back home - and the big why will encompass the goals to get to that point. For me it's hard to see the difference between the dream and the reason as they seem the same. I guess there's no harm in having the same thing for both right?

2. For assigning attribute scores I see that we can assign -1,0,+1,+2 to the 4 suits and also a trait to each one (3 positive, 1 negative). And I also see that the negative trait comes with a +2 additional bonus on top. This means that you can end up with a distribution of -1,0,+1,+4 where +4 is the negative trait. I have a couple of questions around that!
                   

2a. The book says you only get the bonus if you weave the trait into your narrative for the action. Why would you choose to take the -1 bonus in that case? Or is that a miscommunication in the book and it's intended to always use the drawn trait in the narrative hence sometimes getting the negative?

2b. This gets us into a situation where the negative trait gives more positive bonus than one of the positive traits does? I assume this is because we WANT to have the player's weakness being incorporated instead of being avoided so mechanically it has a bigger bonus, but then how do we incorporate the weakness then passing the test/being a positive thing (or conversely, a positive trait giving a negative bonus)

3. Is it intended that we always return back to our home island after each day, or should we also be able to "camp out" at a different island, for example in Windwhistle Summit for the Summit Hike action it says we can accumulate 15 heads and that "the journey is ongoing as long as you remain in Windwhistle Summit, and you may pause and resume the hike at any time". Does this mean that in that particular action for example, we're able to camp out in Windwhistle Summit to get more time/energy the next day to do the various other actions to increase our coin flips?

4. The mailbox action allows for a way to mechanically send a message and get a reply in the future at some point. Are these intended to be messages only to other NPCs etc. on the islands that we meet exploring the other islands during our time on Solitaria, or is this how we might communicate with the outside world/back home. I'm thinking it's intended to communicate with back home as we can always just travel to the other islands while we're in Solitaria?

I'm sure I'll have more questions popping up in the future but these are ones that have popped up as I'm looking to get started in Solitaria and journaling RPGs in general. Thanks so much for the cozy product, makes me excited to explore!