The Long Road: A 30-Minute Solo Playing-Card RPG (Inspired By Elden Ring)

I made my own solo RPG card game — a dark fantasy soulslike you can play with a standard deck of playing cards in just 30 minutes.

I’ve been on a kick lately to spend more time on hobbies that don’t involve a screen. I see a lot of people online sharing hobbies like coloring and knitting, and those are fun but… I’m a gamer. Board games and card games are great, but they usually need other people, and I don’t always have other people handy.

I thought about playing Solitaire, but that felt a little dry. I love role-playing games. But I don’t always have a ton of time to sink into a huge tabletop RPG, even if it’s a solo one. I wanted something as quick and simple and card-gamey as Solitaire, but with an RPG twist.

So I made it myself. It’s called The Long Road, and it’s a game you can play with a standard deck of playing cards in just 30 minutes. Here’s how to play.

What is it?

The Long Road is a single-player card game where you build poker hands to fight through a dark fantasy world and take down a final boss. It’s meant to be a soulslike card game — think Dark Souls or Elden Ring as a card game. If you know poker hands, you can play this RPG with playing cards.

Want the fully themed version with all the lore? Grab the PDF rulebook here.

What you’ll need

• A standard playing card deck with 2 Jokers included
• Something to track two numbers: Vitality (your health, starts at 20) and Renown (your reputation, starts at 0). A d20 die, coins, or just a piece of paper to keep a tally works great.

Setup

First, decide how you will tally your health and renown. You will also likely need to track enemy health during each round. I like to use a whiteboard or scratch paper.

Before you shuffle, pull out two cards:

• King of Spades — set aside face-down. This is your final boss.
• Both Jokers — set aside face-up. These are traveling vendors you’ll meet on the road.

Shuffle the remaining deck. This is the road you’ll travel.

How a turn works

Flip the top card of the deck. That’s your enemy.

Enemy health = card face value + 3.

• A 4 has 7 HP, a 9 has 12 HP, a Jack has 14 HP, an Ace has 17 HP. You’ll have to hit them for that many points, over one or more poker hands, to defeat them.

Now draw 5 cards from the deck to form your hand. You can discard 2 and draw 2 replacements — but only once per hand. Make the best poker hand you can.

Poker hands deal damage:

Hand	Damage
Royal Flush	40
Straight Flush	30
Four of a Kind	22
Full House	17
Flush	13
Straight	11
Three of a Kind	9
Two Pair	6
One Pair	4
High Card	2

Here’s where the fun comes in: suit bonuses apply to every card in your hand. This means you have to balance finding the best poker hand and keeping cards that give you various role-playing bonuses:

• ♠ Spade = +1 damage per spade
• ♣ Club = -1 incoming damage per club (shields)
• ♥ Heart = +1 health per heart (healing — take it as soon as you play your hand)
• ♦ Diamond = no bonus (it represents Fate, which is gone from this world)

Lay down your hand, apply damage and bonuses. Did you defeat the enemy?

If not, they strike back:

• Cards 2–10 deal 4 damage
• Face cards and Aces deal 6 damage
• Count your clubs first — they will block damage (-1 incoming damage per club)
• After you’re hit, you can heal with any hearts in your hand (+1 health per heart)

Discard your hand, draw a new one, and go again until one of you goes down. (See the sample hand below for a breakdown.)

After the fight is over, you earn renown for your bravery and skill:

• Minor enemies (2–10): +1 renown
• Major enemies (face cards + Aces): +2 renown

How the Jokers work

The Jokers are wandering merchants in the game you can access at any point — but only once each (and — spoiler alert! — one each during the boss battle too). At any point during your journey, you can call on either Joker and spend 2 renown for one of these:

• +2 cards — Draw 2 extra cards added directly to your hand (no discard). You now pick your best 5 from 7.
• +8 health — A healing tonic.
• Block one strike — A beat-up shield that fully absorbs the next enemy attack. Single use.

Flip a Joker face-down after you’ve used them so you know you’re done with it. The merchant has moved on.

The final boss

Once you hit 10 renown, the boss finds you.

Bring the King of Spades forward. He has 40 HP.

Before the fight, your health resets to 20. And both Jokers — now your allies — flip back face-up and offer their items for free, one each.

The boss fight plays almost like a normal fight — just longer, more brutal, and with two phases (explained in the full instructions). Good luck. You’ll need it!

Quick tips

• Clubs are your best friends when enemies are hitting you repeatedly.
• The boss fight has two phases, and that Joker shield that blocks one incoming strike? It will block more damage if you can save it for Phase 2!
• If you want a shorter game, start with 5 renown already banked. You’ll fight fewer enemies before the boss shows up.
• In a tight spot, prioritize getting a pair and save other cards that add strike damage (clubs), heal you (hearts), and shield you (clubs).

How I made the game

I playtested this dozens of times before landing on the version above. A lot changed — enemy damage values, how shields worked, whether the Jokers were vendors or something else entirely. I even tried a version with factions and guild bonuses per suit, but it ended up being too much to track.

The goal was always a game that felt like a card game first and an RPG second: something you can pick up without consulting a reference sheet every few minutes.

The boss battle is my favorite part. It’s tuned so that you usually win by the skin of your teeth — or occasionally don’t.

Want the full themed rulebook?

Download the PDF here — it’s free!

If you play it, I’d genuinely love to hear how it goes. Drop a comment below or send me a message to let me know!

Bonne chance, chevalier.

💜 Ashley