I had to google journaling rpg and the first thought I had is that this could be a big part of a creative writing class in high school for some kids.

When I was in high school, I despised the writing assignments and I believe I'm worse off now for never developing that skill.

Yep, I used to teach creative writing and the kids loved these. They can be cooperatively social, too -- I know one of my former colleagues is using a journaling RPG as a framework for a shared worldbuilding project that his students seem to find really engaging and generative.

If you wouldn’t mind sharing any teaching resources, I would really appreciate it! Email is in profile.

You started with a goal and you took notes so the only thing different between your experience and Exploratory Testing is the debrief session. Oh, but you've started that here already, too.

If all manual testers played games like you, there would be more respect for that profession. Likewise, if more game testers did . . . anywho . . .

What, may I ask, did you play?

As if I'll look back here again! Seriously, I'll try to remember. That sounds like the kind of exercise James (not the seagull son) Bach would do. ;-)

https://www.satisfice.com

Thousand Year Old Vampire is probably the best single player RPG.

https://thousandyearoldvampire.com/

Here's a gorgeous illustrated playthrough:

https://www.timdenee.com/A-Thousand-Years-of-Vampire

Ironic that in a thread about shaming how people should be permitted by others to have fun, the first page of that web page is a long rant about the author's demand to gatekeep his purchasers political views, dripping with hatred for his opponents.

Frankly, those that "have fun" by punching down the already-downtrodden deserve everything they get, especially when one side is a lone politically powerless nerd. Suggesting an equivalence between the entire political right, with its glorious machinery designed to disenfranchise, and some guy who writes simple RPGs, is a false equivalence at best. Remember that politics is the study of who gets what, where, when, why, and how they get it -- this lone nerd isn't even preventing anyone from anything, he's just spewing helpless vitriol. The grand array of the political right is actually actively taking, right now.

"If you stand by quietly as Republicans take the power of the vote from African Americans in Alabama and compete to hurt trans people as badly as possible then you are part of this problem. You are lobbying for the death of my friends and relations, you are pushing for dangerous authoritarians to destroy the systems that let books like mine come to be. And this goes for equivalent groups outside the US–you know who you are."

Ie, don't be a fascist.

That is a generous reading of the paragraphs of rambling on that page. The author lumps half of all voters in with actual "extremists". It is just useless, divisive political vitriol.

One thing I have learned over the years is that politics is extraordinarily complex. Painting with wide strokes and making caricatures of the "others" isn't useful or accurate. Nuance is just too complex for our monkey brains, so tribalism reigns. We must demand better every time this kind of drivel appears, regardless of the level of agreement with anything being said.

Perhaps those who wish to remove rights from people and treat them as second class citizens simply because of their sexual orientation, religious belief or lack of belief, or socioeconomic status deserve to be treated the way that want others to be treated.

I see little wrong with letting people experience a bit of what they, if they could, would force others to experience.

I don't see how saying, "have fun how you'd like to" and "dont buy my thing if you have different fundamental beliefs than I do" are the same. Feels like you're stretching a bit to try to make a point.