Two Player Pen and Paper Games

[Rel]

I've run quite a few solo games over the years. I ran a couple using Rolemaster back in the day and those worked out pretty well. Some of the cumbersome things about that system feel much less cumbersome when only one character is involved.

I also had great success using Mage for some solo games because a lot of the story focus could be on a single character and the player had a very creative mindset. This was another case of a game that I think functions poorly with a bigger group was a good fit for a single player.

A couple years ago I ran a few sessions of a game vaguely similar to Supernatural/Anita Blake using Risus. This was with my wife as the only player. Extremely rules light, it again allowed for more focus on the story and the rules are easy and natural for that style of play.

Recently I've been running a very successful Savage Worlds conversion of a Dungeon Crawl Classic module from Goodman Games. This is not a solo game but I'm running it for my wife and (8 year old) daughter and it's working out pretty well. Fairly rules light but definitely crunchier than Risus. It is a bit swingy at times though so if character survivability is of utmost importance then you might want to adopt a few special rules to let the PC save their butt when things get nasty.

 

[Woas]

Should I assume this applies to Mouse Guard, too? I'm reading through the Mouse Guard RPG book now, specifically with the aim of playing it solo with my wife.

I think it could work. There are plenty of single Guard Mice in the actual comic to set a precedent for lone Guardsmouse out in the territories.

However from having played the game, one area to be cautious of with a One on One MG game, sort of like D&D, MG assumes there are a few mice on a patrol working together. This isn't a huge deal since the game doesn't play at all like D&D with Hit Points and Armor Classes but situations and obstacles in MG often ask the mice to go above and beyond their abilities alone and get the mice to work together to overcome.
So a lone Guardmouse might have trouble in some instances where he or she can't get some bonus dice from a friend or ally. But I don't think as a whole it would be a problem. A little foresight on the GM's part or just being a little more liberal with advantage dice and handing out fate points (in a One on One game, the player should be earning a lot of fate and persona since the player is getting all the attention anyway) an also bringing in the mouse's friends, allies, and relatives would cancel out any problems from being a lone Guardmouse.

 

[Crothian]

Find something the wife and you both like and fits your style. Any game can be done as a solo I've soloed a player through World's Largest Dungeon and succesffuly had great solo games in Rifts which is not the greatest gaming system for anything.

Buffy RPG and Dr Who can work great if you are both fans for instance.

 

[nedjer]

Got to reckon the Buffy and Mouse Guard suggestions would be winners. Haven't tried either solo but they've all the right hooks and ingredients.

 

[Celebrim]

I also had great success using Mage for some solo games because a lot of the story focus could be on a single character and the player had a very creative mindset. This was another case of a game that I think functions poorly with a bigger group was a good fit for a single player.

Good choice. Although its trite at this point, VtM is actually better suited in my opinion to 1 on 1 play than it is traditional RPG play.

In my opinion, you should look for RPG's which are written with an eye toward the internal mental conflict of the protagonist and which are RP driven.

Buffy RPG and Dr Who can work great if you are both fans for instance.

Also a good point. Heck, take a ruleset and adapt 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' if that is something you are both into.

 

[MortonStromgal]

Vampire and Mage are both great one on one and have a very different feel. I also think that playing a Decker in Shadowrun is a particularly awesome one on one game. You'll have to change the context of the game a bit but you can run the old skool matrix maps and have a blast without annoying the rest of the team.

 

[amerigoV]

You might look at Mythic's GM Emulator.

http://www.mythic.wordpr.com/wm002demo.pdf

 

[Gort]

You might look at Mythic's GM Emulator.

http://www.mythic.wordpr.com/wm002demo.pdf

Your link doesn't actually say anything about how the GM Emulation works.

 

[dm4hire]

Couple other games that could work well with just a GM and player that just crossed my mind. Green Ronin's Blue Rose RPG and True20. Perhaps World of Darkness Innocents. Fantasy Flight Games' Grimm RPG or even the d20 64 page version of it. FFG also put out a couple of other mini campaigns that might work such as Redline and Spellslinger.

 

[guivre]

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.