My solution is to run with as few as 2+me (the DM), and use a play structure that doesn’t require the same players to be present at every session. We always end rhe session in a safe location (town, safehouse, etc). If someone can’t make it, they’re just in suspended animation along with their gear and hirelings/retainers until they’re back.

Just not sweating the fact that it’s a game has gotten me a very consistent game every two weeks like clockwork.

Wait, what happened to Hasbro??

The Forest?

War crimes and human leather.

It’s funny, your description of Souls games echoes how I feel about 3rd person action games that aren’t made by FromSoft. To me, Dark Souls 1 felt like the crisp combat I had been wanting but never getting from stuff like God of War or the older Monster Hunter games. Bloodborne refined it somewhat, and to this day, that style of 3rd person combat is my favorite.

Crazy how perceptions of a game’s controls are so individual. Our difference really illustrates to me how hard it is to nail a game’s “feel.”

I use my Steam Deck as a portable console too. My laptop is a super ultra light thing (XPS 13) that can’t run games very well to begin with, but that’s fine since I have it for work anyway. In the end, the two of those together still cost less than a competent (and new) gaming laptop. And I don’t even have to put up with Nvidia’s terrible Linux drivers!

I’m surprised to not see Flare RPG mentioned. It’s nothing groundbreaking on its own, but it’s actually got two nicely fleshed out campaigns, and tooling for people to make new ones. It’s a nice, fun, FOSS single-player RPG, and it’s great if you want that old fashioned Diablo feel.

Another vote for Endless Sky here as well, it’s just excellent, and surprisingly expansive.