Lone Adventurer

#1

Does anyone have any tips for writing a adventure for one player and one DM? Basically I’m trying to get my wife playing RPGs but I can’t always get a large group together to play. I also thought it would be good to sometimes have a casual game with just two people instead of a large group.
Thanks

#3

Dude… that’s perfect! Running multiple characters. Gotta remember that for next time I try running a game with my wife

#4

Ive never did a one on one but if I did… i would make a companion that was strictly utility like navi in zelda or ghost in destiny for the missing skills… missing fighter? Navi is now a shield… kissing rogue… navi is a lockpicking scout… and so on

Encounter would be scaled down and might even be boiled down to checks instead of combat…

I agree icrpg is easy enough to run multiple character… maybe introduce over time and wen your wife reqches three… let the real combat encounter begin!

#5

First off, you’re already ahead by using ICRPG which makes everything that much easier.

My tips based on personal experiences are:

  1. Think about your wife and the kind of character she might want to play. Create that character ahead of time and have it ready in case your wife isn’t interested in building a new character from scratch. Sometimes it’s better to skip all the character creation choices and go straight to the action.
  2. Think again about your wife and the things she enjoys most. Build your adventure around those things. It sounds cliche and all, but my wife loves buying shoes and vacationing on beaches. So my plot revolved around a small tropical island and she was on a quest to find magical shoes. They even turned out to be ruby slippers from her all time favorite childhood movie. :wink:
  3. Go easy on combat, unless she’s really into that, and make it more about solving puzzles, traps, and social encounters. ICRPG makes combat quick and simple anyway but maybe the big baddy is away doing what big baddies do and only left a handful of his weaker minions on the island to guard the magic shoes (he figured the traps would slow someone down). This would make it easier for a single character scenario (I get @Ezzerharden 's idea of running multiple characters, but that would have been too overwhelming for my wife when introducing her to the game. Maybe a different situation for you?).
  4. Companion NPCs can be helpful to a lone character. I created a few NPCs that, if the social encounters went well, would have sympathy for my wife’s character’s quest and would help her along the way.
  5. Make things very obvious and open. Don’t conceal any character life threatening information or expect your wife to ask the right questions, especially if this is new to her. Let her make fully informed decisions for her character. If you want to conceal a few things, drop lots of hints and warning signs.
  6. Most importantly…Keep things lighthearted and fun!

EDIT: Instead of using traditional ICRPG style timers, I based the idea around getting the magic shoes in order to heal a sick and close to dying loved one of my wife’s character. This created the overall sense of urgency for her and her character to find the magic shoes and heal the loved one.

#6

Wow lots of ideas already! Thanks a lot! Really like the utility companion idea to fill in the missing links, less combat more puzzles also sounds good. I like the idea of having 3 characters that she manages but that could prove too much at the start. Maybe combine the 3 characters with the companion idea :man_shrugging:

#7

I usually make a Solo Game more involved by having the Character participate in a larger NPC group up until the Adventure begins. So there may be an Adventuring Party all set up but then I sort of ‘Zoom In’ on her Character and she takes control with me handling the Mechanical aspects of the other Characters as the DM. I tell her when we begin what the Basics of each of her Companions are and I let her ‘swap’ into them as needed when she wants to do something more complex. Sort of like a ‘Phone a Friend’ Mechanic.

In combat I give general descriptions of the Parties actions, just general things like “Davyn cleaves an Orcs arm off, while Goraln places an arrow between its eyes. Elios weaves his arcane talents to freeze a second Orc in place…and now it’s your turn!” I make sure to keep it light for the NPCs so she isn’t just listening to me babble. Works for us anyway.

#8

There some old d&d adventures that were created for one on one play, I think I have the fighter, the thief and the cleric one… And I think they were simply named that… Easy to convert to icrpg

#9

You can run one-on-one; you just have to be super careful about combat. If that character drops, there’s generally no one around to revive that character. As others have suggested, a companion NPC that can heal or revive is a good idea.

#10

In my experience there is nothing you really need to know about running a one on one. It runs just fine. I think people are wary of it because it sounds awkward or something, but in practice it really isn’t.

The only thing I guess is be careful of encounter difficulty because a solo pc dies way more easily and one death equals tpk

#11

Congratulations on getting your wife to consider playing RPGs! Speaking from my own experience, you deserve at least one medal for that.

My suggestion would be to make sure the session length is relatively short and concise, with a clear objective that is attainable (without too much difficulty). Even a scenario devoid of combat, or with very little combat, might be advisable to allow a player new to RPGs to learn the ropes.

The times that I’ve GMed RPGs for newcomers to the hobby, I’ve usually played an NPC member of the party in order to showcase the various options that were available to the players and to give a hands-on example of game play.

Best of luck. ICRPG is an excellent system to use to introduce new players to the hobby – and an excellent system for grizzled old veterans!

#12

I’ve successfully run a single player with a single PC through adventures designed for 4 to 6 PCs using Sine Nomine Publishing’s Black Streams: Solo Heroes rules. With just a few tweaks to how the dice mechanics are interpreted it’s simple to scale pretty much any published adventure from multi-PC to a single PC. Free and recommended.

There are other things to consider when running a single player through an adventure but mechanically these rules work well.

#13

By the way, I was running Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG with these rules but I imagine they’d work equally well for ICRPG.

#14

Thank you for sharing that marvelous idea! :herocoin: