Exclusive measurements of the quasi-free $pn to pppi^-$ and $pp to pppi^0$ reactions have been performed by means of $pd$ collisions at $T_p$ = 1.2 GeV using the WASA detector setup at COSY. Total and differential cross sections have been obtained covering the energy region $T_p = 0.95 - 1.3$ GeV ($sqrt s$ = 2.3 - 2.46 GeV), which includes the regions of $Delta(1232)$, $N^*(1440)$ and $d^*(2380)$ resonance excitations. From these measurements the isoscalar single-pion production has been extracted, for which data existed so far only below $T_p$ = 1 GeV. We observe a substantial increase of this cross section above 1 GeV, which can be related to the Roper resonance $N^*(1440)$, the strength of which shows up isolated from the $Delta$ resonance in the isoscalar $(Npi)_{I=0}$ invariant-mass spectrum. No evidence for a decay of the dibaryon resonance $d^*(2380)$ into the isoscalar $(NNpi)_{I=0}$ channel is found. An upper limit of 90 $mu$b (90 $%$ C.L.) corresponding to a branching ratio of 5 $%$ has been deduced.