Lonelog Blog

Lonelog is now live at lonelog.org!

2025-05-16T00:00:00Z

Hey everyone,

I am incredibly proud to announce that Lonelog has officially moved to a brand new home! You can now find us over at lonelog.org.

This launch is actually the first step of a broader, general reorganization of the project. As some of you might have noticed, I have already taken our first major step by moving Lonelog under its own dedicated GitHub Organization to improve collaboration and development.

I want Lonelog to grow the right way, so here is what you can expect next:

Dedicated itch.io account: I will soon migrate Lonelog and make separate game pages for each add-on.
Governance policy: I am defining a clear framework for decision-making and contributions.

Everything I do will strictly follow open-source ethics and principles. I am fully committed to keeping this project transparent, community-driven, and open to everyone.

I will share more details and updates over the coming weeks. For now, go check out the new site and let me know what you think in the comments!

Thank you for being part of this journey.

See you there,
Roberto

Lonelog 1.5.0 - Oracle Dice Notation and Block Tag Consistency

2025-05-13T00:00:00Z

After months of community feedback and playtesting across dozens of solo campaigns, Lonelog v1.5.0 is now available as a free download on Itch.io and in the online documentation.

Clarifying Oracle Dice Notation in v1.5.0

One of the things I've watched people get confused by since the early days of this notation is the oracle roll line. When you ask the oracle a question and roll dice to answer it, how do you write that down?

The old answer was: use ->. But -> was already the symbol for any resolution outcome — mechanics and oracle alike. The result was ambiguity. When you saw -> No (d6=3), was that a standalone oracle answer, or the tail end of a d: line? Readable in isolation, but inconsistent when mixed with mechanics-heavy logs.

What changed in v1.5.0:

d: is now the preferred notation for oracle dice rolls, exactly as it is for mechanics rolls:

? Do they see Phoebe?
d: d100=60 vs 35 (Unlikely) -> No
=> Distracted, but one guard lingers. [N:Guard|watchful]

? Is anyone home?
d: d6=5 vs 4+ -> Yes
=> Lights are on inside.

The logic is simple: if you're rolling dice, write d:. Doesn't matter whether that roll is resolving an action or answering an oracle question — dice are dice. -> follows to declare the outcome, as it always did.

The old -> Yes (d6=6) format isn't gone. It's now explicitly a shorthand — for when you don't need to show the roll at all:

-> Yes, and... (d6=6)
-> No, but... (d6=3)

Use it when the dice details don't matter and you just want to capture the result. Use d: when the roll itself is part of the story.

The three oracle resolution forms, clarified:

There was also a subtler confusion about when to use d: vs tbl: vs gen: for oracle answers. v1.5.0 pins this down explicitly:

d: — direct dice roll against a probability or target (yes/no checks, likelihood rolls)
tbl: — lookup on a named oracle table (Mythic Random Event table, your own custom oracle)
gen: — compound generator producing multi-axis results

? Does the guard notice me? (Unlikely)
d: d100=60 vs 35 -> No                           (direct probability roll)

? What random event disrupts the scene?
tbl: Mythic Event d100=78 -> NPC Action           (named table oracle)

? What does the oracle reveal about my enemy?
gen: Mythic Event d100=78+d100=34 -> NPC Action / Betray  (compound generator)

Add-on updates:

All three official add-ons are updated to reference Lonelog v1.5.0 as their parent. Oracle examples in the Dungeon Crawling and Resource Tracking add-ons have been updated to use the preferred d: form. Two stray R1/R2 round markers were also corrected to Rd1/Rd2.

Your existing logs are fine. The -> result (d#=N) format still appears in the spec as valid shorthand. This is a clarification, not a breaking change.

Add-on Block Tags Now Consistent Across the Ecosystem

Small but satisfying fix.

The three official add-ons — Combat, Dungeon Crawling, and Resource Tracking — each introduced a structural block to delimit a mode of play: a combat encounter, a dungeon session status, a resource snapshot. The Combat Add-on got this right from the start: [COMBAT] / [/COMBAT], bracket tags, consistent with everything else in Lonelog. The other two didn't. Dungeon Crawling used === Dungeon Status === with no closing tag. Resource Tracking used --- RESOURCES --- / --- /RESOURCES --- with dash separators.

That inconsistency bugged me. If you're using all three add-ons together — which is the point — switching mental models for block delimiters mid-session is friction you shouldn't have to deal with.

What changed:

=== Dungeon Status === → [DUNGEON STATUS] / [/DUNGEON STATUS]
--- RESOURCES --- / --- /RESOURCES --- → [RESOURCES] / [/RESOURCES]
Analog notebook alternatives now consistently use --- BLOCK --- / --- END BLOCK --- across all three add-ons

Both updated add-ons are now at v1.1.0.

The Community Add-on Guidelines have also been updated (v1.1.0) with an explicit §3.3 on structural block syntax, so future add-ons get this right from the start. The rule is simple: bracket tags for digital, dashed separators for analog, explicit closing tag always required.

No changes to any notation logic, tag semantics, or examples beyond the block delimiters themselves. If you have session logs using the old format, they're still perfectly readable — this only affects how you write new blocks going forward.

Getting Started with Lonelog

2025-03-01T00:00:00Z

Lonelog is designed to be picked up in under five minutes. This guide walks you through the five core symbols using a short dungeon-delve example.

The Five Core Symbols

Symbol	Name	Meaning
`@`	Action	Something the character attempts
`d:`	Dice	A mechanical roll or resolution
`->`	Result	The outcome of a roll or oracle query
`=>`	Fiction	What happens in the story
`?`	Oracle	A yes/no question to the oracle

You do not need all five in every entry. Use what the moment calls for.

A Sample Scene

Here is a complete scene logged with Lonelog:

### S1  Dark alley, midnight

@ Sneak past the guard
d: Stealth 4 vs TN 5  ->  Fail
=> I kick a bottle. The guard turns.
?  Does he see me clearly?
   ->  No, but...
=> He's suspicious — starts walking toward the noise.
@ Duck behind the crates
d: Stealth 6 vs TN 4  ->  Success
=> I press flat against the wall, holding my breath.

Notice how d: captures the mechanics and => captures the fiction. They are always separate lines. This is the heart of Lonelog: mechanics and narrative live side by side but never bleed into each other.

Starting a Session

Open a plain-text file or a paper notebook and write a scene header:

### S1  The Ruined Tower, dusk

That is all the structure you need. From here, log actions as they happen. Do not worry about formatting every line perfectly — the goal is speed at the table, not beauty.

Tips for New Users

Use => liberally. The fiction lines are the most valuable part of a log to read back later. Err on the side of more prose, not less.

Keep d: lines terse. Skill, value, target number, result. No adjectives needed.

The oracle ? is optional. If your game system has a built-in yes/no oracle, use -> to record its answer. If it does not, you can use any external oracle and record the result the same way.

Next Steps

Once you are comfortable with the core five, explore the optional modules in the full specification: Clocks for progress tracking, Threads for narrative arcs, and NPC tags for recurring characters.