A good game to play with one person?

[Malkur]

Is there is any decent type of game out there that can be played with any sort of meeting with just a DM and one player.

My girlfriend wants to play, and currently we have no one else to play with(we just moved); so I was wondering, anyone know of a good game + setting style that could be played with just one person?

I was considering Call of Cthulu 6th Edition, the non-d20 kind. But I doubt I could really do that all that well. Not a huge Cthulu Mythos guy.

I was also considering a Zombie Survival game, which one, I have no idea.

 

[Crothian]

I've run a number of these games. What I found to be most important is to just find a game the player really likes or a genre style that she will do well in. My most successful solo campaigns have involved licensed games like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural. The advantage with these games is as long as you both have seen or read what the game is based on you both will have a firm understanding on what the game will be about.

I'd say most games can work with just one player. Expeditious Retreat Press has a series of modules designed for one player character written for D&D and soon(I think) to be released for Pathfinder. The only games I think would be near impossible would be Paranoia and Ars Magica since both of those emphasis the group.

 

[DragonLancer]

Best zombie game out there is All Flesh Must Be Eaten. I really recommend that game. Its a simple system but it covers a lot of ground and possibilities.

 

[Nagol]

Best zombie game out there is All Flesh Must Be Eaten. I really recommend that game. Its a simple system but it covers a lot of ground and possibilities.

AFMBE or one of its cousins like Witchcraft or Buffy would be good -- Witchcraft offers a power up compared to the default AFMBE. I haven't looked directly at Buffy to compare.

Sorceror is another quasi-horror RPG that can work with a group of one.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Changeling: The Lost or Promethean: The Created would work, if you start from the moment of "what the heck happened to me?" since most of the early play would just be reengaging with the world and be roleplay-heavy.

 

[DragonLancer]

AFMBE or one of its cousins like Witchcraft or Buffy would be good -- Witchcraft offers a power up compared to the default AFMBE. I haven't looked directly at Buffy to compare.

I played Witchcraft a long time ago and found the system very similar to AFMBE but the world setting was rather bland (not that that has nay bearing really). Buffy is again a not too dissimilar system but works better as a small player base game from my experience.

 

[Gilladian]

If you both like classic dnd fantasy, I suggest having her run two d20 gestalt characters, and then just run a town-based exploration/political type game more than a dungeon-bashing game.

Going after smugglers only to find out they're funded by someone on the city council, or trying to discover what happened to a missing nobleman, or trying to root out corruption in whatever organization strikes your fancy can all be very viable dndish storylines for one or two PCs.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

One of the key questions is to what extent characters are self reliant, or can be supported by NPCs easily. It's pretty easy to come up with self-reliant characters in D&D 3e, especially with a little multiclassing. It's harder to do so in 4e, because the system is based around parties working together--your best bet is probably a striker or a multiclass/gestalt character, but you still lose out on the dynamic of the way that different types of PCs work together. Lots of skill based systems (instead of class based systems) work really well for solo adventures, because you can build a jack of all trades character pretty easily. But the other strategy is to have supporting NPCs (or semi-NPCs--maybe the player controls them in combat); so you could run a 4e game where the PC is a striker (or a controller), but has a defender companion character (and/or a leader companion character). I'm using D&D as examples, but again, you could picture this easily in any other system--in a Traveler game, you might have the ship captain be the PC, with an engineer, a gunner, and so forth as supporting NPCs, in a Buffy game you might have the PC be the Slayer and have an NPC Watcher, etc., and so forth.

[MENTION=232]Crothian[/MENTION]: I think Ars Magica could actually work really well. The obvious approach would be to have the player playing one magus/a, supported by a bunch of grogs (which are kinda intermediate between PCs and NPCs anyway) and then maybe a companion character. It would be challenging, but I think it would work pretty well (and I've heard of other people running successful Ars Magica games 1-on-1). I agree with you on Paranoia, though--hard to imagine how that could work well.

 

[IronWolf]

Expeditious Retreat Press has a series of modules designed for one player character written for D&D and soon(I think) to be released for Pathfinder.

The Pathfinder version has been released.

If you both like classic dnd fantasy, I suggest having her run two d20 gestalt characters, and then just run a town-based exploration/political type game more than a dungeon-bashing game.

I am generally not a fan of a player running more than one character. It seems to stifle really getting into the character. Though gestalt is certainly a valid idea, perhaps gestalt with an animal companion type thing.

 

[Jimlock]

if everything else fails... you can always have a game of chess.

No but seriously, any story heavy adventure can be turned into a single-player gig. Detective style stories can be great for what you need. There's no need to go rules-heavy on that one.

On the other hand, if you want action-heavy stuff, that would require more work from your part, and perhaps the creation of NPCs that will accompany the main character... Not necessarily a better experience for the single player.