Two Player Pen and Paper Games

[Shades of Green]

Traveller. More of a long shot here, but I'm pretty certain you could play Traveller with one player running the whole crew of a free trader. Generally there's one person active at a time, and it's not as if Travelller characters are particularly complicated. You could probably create a list of 'best skills' on the ship and simply use that on most occasions.

Better yet, hand the player a Type-S Scout/Courier. A single crewmember with the right skills can run that ship alone. Just make sure that the character has the Pilot, Navigation (Astrogation in the Mongoose version) and Engineering, and probably throw in a combat skill or two as well.

Also add a sidekick NPC with several interesting skills (Medic, Mechanic, maybe Computer or Electronics, or a Science skill in the Mongoose version)

Then start exploring the universe, one jump at a time.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

Mouse Guard is balanced for multiple players, it doesn't work well at all with one. That is not to say it can't be tweaked, but it's not going to work correctly out of the box.

Could you elaborate on this point? The book claims that the game works for a range of 2-6 people including the GM, but I'm definitely concerned about whether the two players is a stretch. (We've been frustrated by some board games that claim to work for two but that must include special, sometimes awkward rules to accommodate two.)

Is it a mechanical matter of the lone guardmouse not being able to muster enough dice for typical obstacles? Or is it the social dynamic of needing to generate the narrative without a group to feed off of? What doesn't work correctly?

 

[Woas]

Mouse Guard is balanced for multiple players, it doesn't work well at all with one. That is not to say it can't be tweaked, but it's not going to work correctly out of the box.

There are several instances in the book that give reminders or specifically point out when playing with one character and one GM. Since the book seems to imply this, I think MG is perfectly fine with a one-mouse patrol so long as the GM understands and preps for it, just as a GM would prep differently knowing they had a four-mouse patrol compared to a... two-mouse patrol. I don't think any tweaks or re-balancing is needed to make it work.

If you've had any experience with a One-on-one MG game and found it required work, by all means share. But it hasn't been my experience with the game, albeit I only played a short one-on-one game with it. Most of my experience comes with a three and four-mouse patrol game.

 

[maddman75]

Another thought occured to me. You might want to get her the book "Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress" from WotC. It's presents gaming from a girls view to girls.

Both my girlfriend and I could only get halfway through it before deciding Shelly Mazzanoble was an insufferable twit and we'd kick her out of our group if she pulled half the disruptive, disrespectful crap she describes in the book.

If you want indie stuff, there's always this

IPR :: Game Books :: Breaking the Ice