Tradlife: A psychological horror solo TTRPG

You are a tradwife. You’ve given up your career to invest in your feminine energy. Your husband is providing for you; you’re living a beautiful, soft life; and your kids are just so photogenic. Thank goodness nothing could possibly go wrong.

This game is available for free in PDF + art format on itch.io here: 

https://swanandravenstudio.itch.io/tradlife

But if for some reason you don't want it in PDF + art format, here it is!

TRADLIFE

By Fionnuala Fisk

You start with the following characteristics:

1. Dance-in-the-Rain Vibrancy

2. Financial Independence

3. Curiosity About the World

4. Self-Confidence

5. Autonomy in Decision-Making

6. Creative Self-Expression

7. Career Ambitions

8. The Ability to Say No

You can take only one action - care. Roll a d6 to see who you’re caring for. (Each turn is a year.)

4-6 Your kids, whom you love more than anything

2-3 Your wonderful husband, who provides financially and spiritually for you

1 Yourself

If you roll a 1, flip a coin. If it’s tails, the kids interrupt your shower and insist on touching you. If it’s heads, your husband is struggling to find where the pumped milk is in the fridge (it’s on the second shelf where it always is) and needs you to help.  

You have to care for yourself every two turns to remain fully yourself. Every second turn that you are unable to care for yourself, you lose a characteristic. Roll a d8 and cross it off the list. If you roll the same characteristic again after already losing that characteristic, mark a dot on the calamity clock. Every second dot, make up a consequence for on the calamity clock. The final, black pie piece is always divorce. Divorce would be the end of the world for you.

You have several women who care about you and want to see you succeed as a whole person, not just a wife and mom. They are:

• Your rich divorced aunt, who made partner, retired early, and now travels the world. She hates you being financially dependent on a man and wants you to have a backup plan.

• Your best friend since childhood, who admires your determination and fierce joy. She wants you to feel like yourself and is always willing to sing badly with you.

• Your mother, who loves the grandbabies but loves her own baby (you) more. She’s happy to watch the kids so you can sleep or clean or cry. She sacrificed so much.

You can activate each woman once per game at any time to keep one of your characteristics, add or remove a mark from the calamity clock, or lessen the severity of the consequence you write down.

Your goal is to survive your kids’ childhood (20 years) with your personality intact, get divorced, or learn to love your life. The choice is up to you.